Editor:
In this day of concern about refugees and how to best include people in our post-modern world, the following account may be pertinent.
When my wife first emigrated from Australia to the Sunshine Coast, we were invited to a dinner party at the home of a professor I knew. The evening was a disaster, particularly from my wife’s standpoint. Discussion among those at the dinner table was a duel to see who could top the other in terms of quotations, books read, and verbosity. It wasn’t really conversation, rather a series of petty debates where clever language and elitist talk was the norm. In all this, my wife and I were never asked a question or for an opinion. We were the invisible couple. It was a replication of the worst of old English society where worth is directly related to the schools one has attended.
Proper manners mean, first and foremost, a group would want to find out about their guests, particularly those from elsewhere. What Paulo Freire terms “authentic dialogue,” rather than debate, would have been the order of the evening. Ivan Illich spoke about “tools of conviviality” – they are what we need to welcome new neighbours and to create a more open, caring society. The kind of universal language practised by our greatest orators, such as Lincoln, Churchill and Thoreau, is what is needed rather than the practice of sophistry.
This is a simple plea for inclusion, language that all can understand, and a ready welcome to all new to our communities. When we take part in real discourse with our fellows based upon understanding and appreciation rather than privilege and pretension, we will be a long way on the path to real inclusion.
Gary Pennington, Professor Emeritus, UBC, Roberts Creek
