The Dialogues: One • Two • Three • Four • Five • Six • Seven |
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Who
Cares? Monograph
2 There
is a village in Nunavut with a community freezer.
There are two employees for the freezer. They are butchers. When a member of the community hunts more
caribou than their family needs they give it to the community
freezer. Sometimes there are community hunts to gather meat for the
freezer. No one marks
down who hunts or who donates meat to the freezer.
Donors are not rewarded for putting meat in the freezer.
When a member of the community needs meat they go to the
freezer. No record is
kept of what they take or how often they go to the freezer.
They are not expected to thank anyone for the meat they take. Although there are no records accounting for the giving and
taking of meat that ensures everyone in the village has enough to
eat, the community freezer is full. Story told by John Ralston Saul Introduction This
monograph summarizes the second event in the ‘Who Cares?’
dialogue series. John
Ralston Saul was the speaker. His
comments to the group provoked a wide-ranging, stimulating
discussion. The report of the discussion has been shaped around
three emergent themes. To
create some continuity and cohesion, individual remarks are often
combined and reflections are condensed.
Hopefully the spirit of this very open and provocative
dialogue remains. Quotations
from Mr. Saul’s written work are included in italics. They have
been added to expand the themes and the discussion that follows
them. Reference materials that were noted by participants in the
dialogue as being useful resources are cited at the end of the
monograph. Mr.
Saul began the dialogue by commenting that the underlying point of a
series like ‘Who Cares?’ is to work through confusion.
From his perspective the group needs to be looking for
meaningful answers that reflect shared memory and understanding.
Spending time in dialogue will create the sharing and
reflection necessary to engage in the daunting task of moving from
the theoretical to the practical.
To begin the discussion he offered four observations:
As discussion emerged between Mr. Saul and the group members, three themes or strands evolved: caring and charity, structure and content, corporatism and capitalism. The first two of these themes directly inform the group’s search for creative responses to social obligations. The third, corporatism and capitalism, speaks to a larger context that influences individual, collective and systemic caring responses. Charity
and Caring ‘The
targeting of need – which is what it comes down to – takes us
back to the old top down, judgment and eventually moralizing
approach towards those citizens who have problems.
In fact this is false efficiency because it removes the
simplicity of inclusion and replaces it with an outdated, highly
charged, labour intensive managerial approach.’ From
the Inaugural Lafontaine-Baldwin Lecture The
link between caring, charity and capitalism was explored when a
group member noted that caring is a question of incentives.
In other words we need to figure out why people care and why
they do the things they do. What do people get out of caring? Mr.
Saul responded to these comments saying it is inaccurate to suggest
people are only driven by self-interest.
Citizenship is about obligation, not about choosing to be
generous. Using
universal, economic theories to inform social reform will undermine
what our society is built upon. In countries where there is no pad
or mattress of institutions based on the common good there are
devastating boom and bust cycles.
It is dangerous to suggest that because something has evolved
a certain way that that is the way it should be. Some
group members noted that caring is an investment in civil society.
Charity is the opposite of caring.
People do act at times with a motive, seeking a reward or
return, but most often the reason for caring is simply because “it
could not be any other way.” It is a part of being human.
Corporatism and scale dislocate us from our caring natures.
The way capitalism is evolving is not providing the answers. A
group member observed that our Victorian, Protestant world-view
dominates our systems of rewards and punishments. Overcoming it will be a major spiritual challenge.
Our systems of care often dehumanize and demoralize
participants. Structure
and Content ‘What
I am describing is a curiosity of democratic societies. We start out with a long view and a desire to create
inclusive programs. Democracy
rightfully requires that we create them in an ad hoc manner.
Over the short term this is fine.
But if we leave them in an ad hoc form, they gradually become
the opposite of what we originally intended.’ From
the Inaugural Lafontaine-Baldwin Lecture Mr.
Saul noted the caring sector is as corporatist as any other sector.
Our professionalized system of caring is a highly
sophisticated way of ‘doing charity.’
With its increasing professionalization it needs more and
more structural bolstering or justification.
Modern management theory has crept into our systems of care
ennobling the administrative process in structure and law.
Our biggest problem is that we end up defending the
structures of caring we have created versus the original ideas that
were the impetus for their formation. Mr. Saul is most impressed by
people finding ways to live their own lives, in their own way. Participants
wondered what structures exist in First Nations communities that we
could use. There was
mention that there is good and bad in all structures.
Co-operatives, businesses, and non-profits need to understand
each other and work together. We need pluralistic solutions.
We should be able to cooperate and compete. We need to re-think structures and organizations in
government and bring the community in. Other
group members commented that many of our structures and solutions in
our systems of caring prevent action.
There has been a narrowing of perspectives that has limited
people’s ability to imagine alternatives.
People do not know how to articulate their caring within the
frameworks they are handed.
We donate to charity but don’t know or even ask where the
money goes. This
led to the observation that we need to find new ways of measuring
our well-being beyond the GNP.
This information will help us know how to act and where to
direct our time and resources.
The Oregon Benchmarks is an interesting, statewide
measurement and planning tool with cross-sectoral indicators.
Their findings have informed a cohesive vision and plan for a
diverse society to move in a unified direction. Corporatism
and Capitalism ‘Capitalism
no longer spins around the ownership of the means of production, but
around the acts of trading and producing.
Those who produce and trade win.
Ownership is just a series of accidents in the ever-changing
market place.’ From “Reflections of a Siamese Twin” Mr.
Saul defines corporatism as each group having its own purpose,
organization, and financial strength.
These group interests negate democracy, which depends on the
contribution of individual citizens. A
group member observed that capitalism is a system that evolved to
get people to cooperate. The
institutions we see are a result of people making choices.
While some members agreed that it is true everyone can
participate in capitalism they questioned whether there is really a
choice to
participate or not. In
addition while we may direct how we participate in a capitalist
system it is often difficult to make investment choices out of the
ordinary. Participants
noted it is very difficult to understand how corporations and money
actually work. There is
a mythology of the corporation.
People speculate and invest but they don’t actually control
or direct the operations. Mr.
Saul declared himself a capitalist but made a plea for what he
called ‘real capitalism’ with organizations run by people who
own them. Pension funds
could be examples of this but still can be overrun by managers who
are trained to run things as opposed to doing things. Concluding
Observations/Remarks Mr.
Saul’s reflections and observations stimulated a deeper
exploration of caring and the contexts in which it occurs.
He is very positive about the possibility of creating change
and believes in macro solutions.
From his perspective the last ten years of de-regulation has
resulted in micro-management. Specialization
is segmenting thought in universities.
In
the exploration of caring he advised the group to continually bring
foundational ideas to the fore.
What is happening to our good ideas, (the raison d’ętre of
our actions), is that they are often obscured by the structures
designed to implement them. For
example, the public education system was formed with the original
idea or intent of creating a strong citizenry.
However, students in the Maritimes are graduating with a
thirty to fifty thousand dollar debt.
How can they become active, contributing citizens with this
kind of debt load? To
some extent the initial discussions of the ‘Who Cares?’
dialogues have been about identifying the foundational ideas about
our social obligations and systems of care.
Many examples have been shared that illustrate how the
‘good intentions’ of social welfare have been mutated as it was
systematized. Spending
more time identifying the foundational ideas could be useful in the
analysis of the models of care that have been created.
In which contexts are the intentions or foundational ideas
realized? In which are
they lost? The
theme of scale has arisen frequently in the dialogues, with the
general observation that the greater the scale the harder it is to
keep the foundational ideas in the forefront.
Are there exceptions to this?
When is scale an advantage in responding to social
obligations? Mr.
Saul believes the rural/urban split is one of the most pressing
issues in Canada. Ninety
to ninety-five per cent of our country is north of the cities where
95 per cent of the population lives.
Canada could lose this land if it is not included in the
dominant view. Without its inclusion in the imaginations and actions of the
dominant Canadian population base the land lays like a vast, empty
vacuum ready to be filled. Clearly
this observation has implications for the group members.
How can the rural view of caring be incorporated in its
explorations? In
speaking to the group’s examination of caring, Mr. Saul made a
concluding point similar to one made by Dr. Mahoney in the first
dialogue. They both
believe we are fortunate to have the Downtown Eastside as a presence
in our midst. Otherwise we might be able to ignore it.
Its presence forces the dialogue group to stretch in its
examination of caring and social obligations.
It is a paradox that in the task of building a society in
which every citizen is assumed worthy, the most oppressed people
have the most power to shape what is built. This is because it is
only when they are exercising their capacity to act as citizens that
we will have achieved the society we want. Reference Materials/Resources References
and resources noted by Who Cares? participants:
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