Institute of Practical Philosophy

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Signs and Significances

With examples from Thomas Carlyle, Lewis Carroll, and Arthur Conan Doyle, the paper sketched an assessment of their world-as-text viewpoint and the significance each read in their chose `signs of the times'. Carlyle saw the world-text as an allegory, of which he was the religio-political decoder. Carroll's Humpty Dumpty saw the text as coercive: its meaning depending entirely on the definitions allowed currency by the Ruling Junta: modern examples would be: appropriate/inappropriate; acceptable/unacceptable. And in Sherlock Holmes we saw an 1890s reader of the world-text functioning in a double mode: the professionalisation of decoding ("You know my methods, Watson. Apply them.") in such a way that Watson and the clients repose trust in Holmes's uncanny skills, and at the same time are implicitly assured that such professional abilities guarantee a successful outcome linked with civic reordering. It was this privilege concerning the world-text that the Early Moderns might have disavowed; but they did not. Only James Joyce treated it with multilingual disdain, in Finnegan's Wake; where, for example, the comic and the tragic, as Socrates was arguing in Symposium, can both be written by the same genius: that is, a world where an insurrection is no more than a failed erection.

-Kenneth Gibson

Above are the words used by Professor Gibson to describe the paper he delivered at the February 21st symposium on Signs and Significances which was held in the conference room at Katerina's Restaurant in Nanaimo. An interesting group of people from education, business, and trades joined together for an interesting evening of good Greek food and good discussion of ideas.

Bob Lane talked briefly about the work of the Institute: its outreach program with philosophy courses and workshops available in the Nanaimo and Regional General Hospital, its work in research for the Ministry of the Attorney General, and its workshops in Human Rights and Academic Freedom. Dr. VanAntwerp then introduced Dr. Gibson who read his paper.

Illicit Drugs - to many, the words evoke images of alien, seedy, and antisocial elements of society. But the ideas presented at Malaspina University-College on Saturday, April 5 were of a different nature. Organised by the Institute of Practical Philosophy, a non-profit group dedicated to bringing together fact and theory in examining social problems, the symposium "Illicit Drug Use and the Young Offender," took a humanistic approach to the drug issue.

In his opening remarks, conference chair and philosopher Bob Lane set an open-minded tone, defining "symposium" as a discussion or a social gathering.

"We will, I hope, be hungry to determine the facts, and there will be time for a free interchange of ideas," he said.

The presentation of facts began with the CBC TV production "Dealing with Drugs: New Options." The video suggested that America's "War on Drugs" arises from a misdiagnosis of the drug problem. Advocates of seeking out and jailing drug users assume that drugs are the cause of social breakdown, not symptoms of an inadequate society. A better to way to deal with addiction is through "harm reduction," a strategy advocated by East Vancouver's Portland Hotel, a rooming house for people with addictions. Harm reduction requires that addicts be recognised as real people who need acknowledgment, assistance, and understanding. Drug addicts suffer from an illness, which should be treated just like any other disease. The CBC backed its thesis with statistics; the Netherlands, which takes a liberal approach to drugs, has lower per capita drug use than France, a country tough on users. And the United States, with its much-touted War, has the highest consumption of any country recorded. The War on Drugs, it would seem, is a losing battle, and the onus is on us as a society to take a different approach.

The presentation of facts continued with the symposium's three speakers - representatives of the RCMP, the John Howard Society, and Malaspina's Criminology department . All three confirmed the CBC's prognosis, though each speaker brought a distinct perspective to the problem.

First up was Dave Deimling, an officer with the RCMP's Criminal Intelligence department. Deimling spoke earnestly about the growing problem of drug use in Nanaimo's schools. Drugs, including "hard" drugs like cocaine, are readily available and affordable to anyone now, and rising rates of divorce and dysfunctional families make young people more susceptible to them, he implied. But while he feels law enforcement is necessary for dealing with people at the top of the drug trade, rehabilitation, not legal punishment, is the solution to drug addiction.

Deimling also expressed great frustration with the government and justice systems. Government spending cuts are removing rehab facilities when they're most necessary, he claimed, and "it won't do us any damn good to have money in the bank" if society caves in around us. He believes the justice system is "on the verge of a major meltdown," with so much time spent on policy and procedures that cases are irrelevant by the time they come up in court. He is frightened by youth apathy, by corrupt elected officials, and by the loss of community authority to appointed-for-life Supreme Court judges. And, he said, through concern for political correctness, we've lost the will to get the truth.

"We've got a nation of people saying 'We want the truth,' but when you give the truth, there's always a group that stands up and says 'That's racist,' or 'That's biased,' or 'That's that.' And in that situation, how so you tell the truth to people who don't want to hear certain words?"

Deimling concluded by urging the youngish audience - "the future leaders of the nation" - not to be apathetic and to take a good, impartial look at legalising drugs, suggesting that the statistics around people's opinions on drug use are contradictory, and that the ramifications of unregulated drug use could be devastating. Unfortunately, he failed to provide any real-life stories or experiences to vitalise his presentation, which seemed heavy on opinion and light on fact, and he was unable to come up with any concrete solutions.

While Deimling scored low on the good journalism credo of "showing, not telling," the second speaker, Gordon Rider of the John Howard Society peppered his talk with flavourful bits of life. Rider, a recovering drug addict, informed the audience that all drug users like Oreo™ cookies. He also explained that his addiction problems partly resulted from having no one to tell his troubles to when he was a kid, so that he carried resentment about how his kindergarten teacher didn't let him play the triangle into his middle age.

Rider encapsulated his views on an ideal society with a quote from Hillary Clinton: "It takes a whole village to raise a child." But our communities aren't such ideally inclusive places. Not all children have people caring for them and listening to their troubles, and neglected children often grow into people who don't know how to be responsible for their own feelings: people who need drugs to feel good. Ten percent of our population is going to have addiction problems, he claimed.

And, he said, addicts are unwanted in our society. If they go to hospitals for help, they're arrested. Jails are being used as de-tox centres, but de-tox is a medical issue.

However, he undermined his credibility by saying that "in any other country, these people (jailed addicts) would be patients," an unsubstantiated and dubious claim.

Rider believes that we have to make help available to people who need help, but that help should come from a person's home community. As it stands, the only way the addict can get help is to be sent "out of the community, away from his family, away from his friends, away from the healthy part of his life that may still be intact, that could be supportive of him."

He also feels that we need to invest in our youth, to help kids to feel good so that they won't get involved with drugs.

"Helping kids is cheaper than paying for convicts," Rider said.

And he urged the symposium to be careful not to follow the US example of filling half our jail spaces with drug addicts; echoing the sentiment of the CBC documentary, he recommended following the example of some European countries, which take a humane, caring, useful, productive, inexpensive approach to addiction, keeping in mind that addiction is our responsibility.

John Anderson continued in a harm-reduction vein, but he took a much more academic approach, using sociological models and citing statistics from reports, not - unlike the preceding speakers - from the air.

The Malaspina Criminology instructor suggested that excluding people and punishing people for drug use is counter-productive. Legal controls of illicit drugs should exist, but the emphasis should be on tolerance, understanding, and prevention. This sort of strategy causes the least amount of harm to addicts, and it's also cheaper. For every dollar spent on prevention, another eleven dollars are saved in treating problems associated with illicit drugs.

To prevent drug addiction, we have to determine its causes, and drug addiction results partly from defective characters, partly from a lack of integration into society. Work and family are the main integrative bonds in society, but families are changing and prospects for work are declining.

Anderson didn't point fingers at individuals, however; "job creation strategies begin at the highest level of decision-making in government and the corporate sector, and trans-national corporations should be bound by global covenants to promote healthy work environments and social conditions."

Instead of bemoaning or justifying cutbacks, he used examples from successful welfare states to demonstrate that caring, liberal societies can exist. The Netherlands, for instance, operates on the principle that most people prefer employment to unemployment. There is no welfare available to young, healthy men; instead, there are opportunities to work in daycare centres for slightly-higher-than-welfare wages. And the unemployment rate is less than six percent.

Our society also needs to provide concrete family services instead of rhetoric about family values so that children are properly integrated into society, he said. Premature kids, kids from single-parent families, kids with poor quality care - all are less likely to integrate, and thus run a higher risk of addiction. We need improved family planning so that teenaged parents don't give birth to children they can't care for. We need work that recognizes families, allowing parents enough time to spend with their kids.

Should we focus more on creating a better atmosphere for our children, or should we build more penitentiaries? The choice, said Anderson, is ours.

By the time the speakers had finished setting forth their facts, there was relatively little time left for the free and open exchange of ideas. Dr. Anne Leavitt chaired the panel of experts, adding a smoker's perspective, and Susan Mansbridge, coordinator of a Nanaimo drop-in centre for young people, managed a few words, despite having neglected to bring her notes. Ideally, the participants would have broken into smaller groups for more in-depth discussions. But despite the truncated question period, the symposium was a success; it had provided both a forum for advocates of a humanised approach to drug use and a challenging and informative final exam for students of Philosophy 103, "How to Do Things with Words."

thanks to:

Serauxmen Club of Nanaimo

Vancouver Island Society for Practical Philosophy

David Strang - RBC

Malaspina University-College