XXIV.  Summary

XXIV.1 To do all that is proposed by Making Space, Giving Voice can only be done at the expense of core curriculum subjects, since there is not sufficient time to meet core learning outcomes and also deal adequately with social justice topics and related issues.

XXIV.2 The notion of social justice advocated by Making Space, Giving Voice is based upon an ideology that identifies autonomy as the essential characteristic of the human person, teaches that human relationships and social justice depend primarily upon a balance of power, and denies the distinction between authority and power. These concepts of the nature of man, human relationships and social justice are consistent with the goal of the document, which is directed by the private agreement between the government and the Correns.

XXIV.3 The goal of Making Space, Giving Voice is not to teach tolerance, which is no longer considered an adequate response to homosexuality and other “orientations.” Instead, it is expected that students will “accept” (ie, affirm the moral and social acceptability of) any and all sexual lifestyles presented to them, excepting only those that are illegal. “Acceptance” is to be presented to students as a moral, social and legal obligation imposed by the requirements of social justice.

XXIV.4 Since Making Space, Giving Voice is not part of the official curriculum, it is possible for school authorities to pretend that its publication changes nothing. On the other hand, as one of a series of policy documents that establish norms for state schools, it authorizes the introduction of “non-heterosexual realities” into every subject in the curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12, entirely at the behest of the teacher, without consultation with parents, and even over their objections.

XXIV.5 “Non-heterosexual realities” include not just homosexuality and bisexuality, but “transgenderism” and a kaleidoscopic mix of purported “identities” and “orientations.” Ministry of Education policy requires that all be portrayed in a positive light.

XXIV.6 In support of this, Making Space, Giving Voice advocates notions of “diversity,” “identity” and “culture” that do not withstand critical analysis. It draws false analogies between sexual inclinations and race and fails to distinguish between person, inclinations and conduct. At one point it is seriously mistaken about publicly available and well-established facts, while at another it directs teachers to ensure a polemical interpretation of much more complex and controversial information. Information about health risks relevant to informed decision-making is omitted, and some sample lesson plans are ideologically driven, tendentious, and, occasionally, seem less than honest.

XXIV.7 The approach taken by Making Space, Giving Voice is openly authoritarian. It proposes a learning environment structured to assume the normality and acceptability of all purported “identities” and “orientations.” On the grounds that students must be kept “safe,” it advocates the suppression of contrary views by controlling student expression, and the silencing of critics with accusations of bigotry. Parents are to be denied the opportunity to prevent morally objectionable materials or ideological instruction from being forced upon their children, or to prevent them from being coerced by oppressive instructional or classroom management practices.

XXV.  Why does it matter?

XXV.1 Why does it matter that Making Space, Giving Voice recommends incoherent views, withholds relevant information, draws false analogies, fails to make critical distinctions, and offers lesson plans that are ideologically driven, tendentious, and untrustworthy?

XXV.2 A child, judging from appearances, might answer simply that people shouldn’t tell lies, a reaction that might offend the Ministry of Education. One could suggest something more: that true education has no need of such machinations, which reflect an understanding of man and society that is at least inadequate, if not erroneous. The direction imparted to educational policy by Making Space, Giving Voice is not one that leads to freedom.

XXV.3 Still, many would be satisfied with the child’s answer.

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XXV.4 Why does it matter if students are taught to accept any and all sexual inclinations, conduct and lifestyles, save those declared illegal?

XXV.5 This is not a question a child can answer, nor is it one that children are even inclined to ask, at least until after they have been introduced by some interested party to the diverse world of “sexual minorities.” And this is likely the first answer that parents would give: that what is being proposed requires an exploration of sub-cultures and activities beyond the experience of most children and even most adults.

XXV.6 Even if such an exploration could be accomplished without the risk (to teachers and school authorities) of complaints of sexual harassment, and without adverse effects (for children), the decision to approve or disapprove of any particular form of sexual relationship requires either moral analysis beyond the capacity of most children, or the application of a moral standard that they have learned from others. The Ministry of Education has not demonstrated that children will be better off if they are weaned from the moral standards learned from their parents and, instead, adopt those of the Correns and the Ministry.

XXV.7 To say that acceptance of “sexual minority lifestyles” can be dealt with in “age-appropriate” ways under the rubric of “love” is a subterfuge. It is disingenuous to frame the issue exclusively in terms of “love ”(defined, moreover, as a form of emotional attraction), without any reference to genital sexual activity. There is more involved in non-heterosexual lifestyles than biology and conduct, to be sure, but there is not less; activists are not seeking public approval of celibate loving relationships. When they convince Grade One children that it is good for two men to love one another the way a man and woman love one another, they mean to trade on this idea later to convince them that buggery is morally acceptable. The strategy is not new. C.S. Lewis described how this technique works, explaining that its power depends upon the fact that teachers are dealing, not with adults, but with children and adolescents, “a boy who thinks that he is “doing” his “English prep” and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake.”

It is not a theory they put into his mind, but an assumption, which, ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all. . . [The boy] cannot know what is being done to him.¹

XXV.8 Leaving aside further discussion of pedagogical methods, the well-being of children and the good of society depends upon the stability of the family, rooted in the marriage of man and woman.  The importance of natural marriage and the family is demonstrated by the fact that same-sex ‘marriage’ has never been accepted as a norm in any society in human history,² something that was admitted by the Canadian judges who decided that should change.³ To portray the acceptance of same-sex ‘marriage’ as a requirement of social justice⁴ is a direct attack on a fundamental human institution.⁵

XXV.9 In addition, teaching that homosexual conduct is morally acceptable offers radical confirmation of a presumption that sexual relations can be pursued for purely recreational reasons, even if the possibility of procreation is deliberately excluded. With that presumption confirmed, it becomes extremely difficult in practice - if not impossible - to see why sexual relations should be confined to marriage, why it should involve only two people (rather than one or three or more), or even why this form of recreation could not be morally pursued with another species.⁶ Such attitudes encourage sexual promiscuity (“friends with benefits”) and are inimical to natural marriage and stable family life.

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XXV.10 Why does it matter that the core curriculum is sacrificed in the interests of social justice?

XXV.11 The question presumes that the concept of social justice offered in Making Space, Giving Voice is adequate, that it will be adequately presented, and that the core curriculum offers little of value in comparison. The first presumption will be addressed presently. The second is quite unrealistic (See Section III).

XXV.12 With respect to the transformation of the curriculum, George Cardinal Pell has commented upon changes in the school curriculum in Australia that appear to reflect the intentions of Making Space, Giving Voice and the method it follows in its handling of The Lady of Shalott, The Scream and Paul’s Case.

XXV.13 Cardinal Pell notes that students are to be taught “to ‘deconstruct the structures and features of texts,’ to overcome the assumption that ‘texts [are] timeless, universal or unbiased,’ to understand the ‘unequal positions of power’ that texts often present, and in this way to ‘work for social equity and change.’”

Examining how relativism in the form of school-based postmodernism proposes to make students into "agents of social change" makes it apparent very quickly that there is another agenda at work underneath it all. Generally accepted understandings of family, sexuality, maleness, femaleness, parenthood, and culture are treated as "dominant discourses" that impose and legitimize injustice and intolerance. These dominant discourses are then undermined by a disproportionate focus on "texts" which normalize moral and social disorder.⁷

Too much time is given to narratives about sad and dysfunctional individuals and shattered families. While no one is arguing that children, especially senior secondary school students, should be brought up only on fairy tales with happy endings, this narrow focus and the rejection of those principles which build and maintain society's social capital mean that students are not forced to confront and learn from the great English-language classics but are allowed to sink towards the sordid and the dismal rather than strive towards the good and the beautiful.⁸

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XXV.14 Why does it matter that Making Space, Giving Voice advocates an ideology of power as a response to social injustice?

XXV.15 It matters because ideas have consequences, and there are fundamental flaws in this ideology. It matters because this ideology is not the only or even the most plausible view of the world, yet one would never know this from reading Making Space, Giving Voice. It matters because an ideology of power, while it may account for some human failings, cannot comprehend man’s highest aspirations. And it matters because ideological indoctrination is a most unsatisfactory preparation for life in a liberal democracy.

Ideas have consequences
XXV.16 The most immediate and practical response to the claims of an ideology of power and the cult of personal autonomy is the fact that we are not autonomous. We are not autonomous persons, but interpersonal and interdependent persons. We depend upon others to bring us into existence, to provide our clothing and food, to teach us to walk and talk and play and work, to entertain and comfort us and to share our joys and our sorrows. We give, we receive and we flourish in relationship, not in isolation. Hence, an ideology of power, particularly with its implications for marriage and family life, is a threat to the kind of social and moral environment that is most conducive to human happiness.

An alternative view
XXV.18 An ideology of power is not the only or even the most plausible view of the world, yet one would never know this from reading Making Space, Giving Voice.

XXV.19 Especially in a public school, the expansiveness of a philosophy is preferable to the narrowness of an ideology, even if philosophical thought involves what Arendt called a “necessary insecurity.” A plausible alternative to the ideology of power might be found in a philosophy that begins something like this:

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.⁹

XXV.20 That is only a beginning, but there are many who would argue that such a beginning holds more promise for our children and our children’s children than anything that can be found in Making Space, Giving Voice.

Our highest aspirations
XXV.21 The claim that social justice can be achieved by seizing and controlling the levers of power might be met superficially with Lord Acton’s observation that power tends to corrupt. Such a response would be altogether inadequate, and even suspect, especially coming from those perceived to be in positions of power. But it is certainly true that simply giving power to people does not make them either just or wise, and that social justice is unlikely to be achieved by giving power to people who are without those and other virtues.

XXV.22 The more telling point, however, lies in the fact that the highest aspirations of man - including the pursuit of social justice - are spiritual quests.¹⁰ To the extent that power is relevant at all, the power involved is a spiritual power, the power of being, not the power of doing - or of making, or destroying, or manipulating social and political institutions. And this can be expressed most poignantly by those who lack the power that can be bought for a euro or a dollar or a yen, or seized at the point of a gun. The ideology of power offered by Making Space, Giving Voice is weak and insipid in the face of Antigone’s answer to Creon, the Apology of Socrates, the Sermon on the Mount, or the last words of Rabbi Daniel of Kelme to his congregation in 1941.¹¹

XXV.23 It might be argued that the preceding examples are simply ancient forms of oppression dressed up in the kind of sentiment savaged by Wilfred Owen in Dulce et Decorum Est. Very well: take Owen’s poem, or Handel’s Messiah, the Ballad of Reading Gaol, St. Peter’s Basilica or the life and work of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. All express, in different ways and forms, the primacy of the human spirit,¹² compared to which what is offered in Making Space, Giving Voice is dust and ashes.

From authoritarianism to totalitarianism
XXV.24 Democracy is, in principle, a form of government that seems likely to provide an especially favourable environment for the flourishing of the human spirit. But ideological education, especially an ideology of power and autonomy, conforms to the demands of a totalitarian regime, not to the needs and aspirations of a liberal democracy. If this seems paradoxical, it should be noted that Arendt argues that every ideology contains “totalitarian elements,” and that ideology plays an important role “in the apparatus of totalitarian domination.” It happens that the ideology of power associated with CAPP and Making Space, Giving Voice contributes three specific elements that Arendt identifies as important in the development of a totalitarian state.

XXV.25 The first is political isolation. Citizens isolated from one another “are powerless by definition,” so that the nearer one approaches the supposed ideal of personal autonomy, the closer one is to domination by the state. This is most obvious when children, “liberated” from their parents, families and cultural or religious communities by documents like the Corren Agreement, stand alone before the state and powerful interests.

XXV.26 The second element is the destruction of private life, rooted in marriage and the family, in which, much more than political isolation, Arendt found the source of loneliness. In this respect, Mother Teresa’s comment that the world’s developed countries suffer from “a poverty of intimacy, a poverty of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love” is worthy of notice.¹³

XXV.27 The third element is the collapse of belief in universal moral standards and loss of confidence in the capacity of human reason.¹⁴ This Arendt deemed even more important than indoctrination. “The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions,” she wrote, “but to destroy the capacity to form any.”

XXV.28 To make these observations is not to assert that the collapse of democracy is imminent, nor does it imply that Arendt’s regime of “total terror” is about to fall upon us. But democracy may not, in the long run, be incompatible with all forms of totalitarianism.¹⁵ The social control effected by Nazi or Communist terror can be achieved by means more compatible with Canadian sensitivities: by developing a culture of comfort, for example. Or through a state school system following guidelines like Making Space, Giving Voice.

XXVI.  A new separation?

Law enforcement and liberty
XXVI.1 Until the 19th century, a state attempting to exert control over its citizens could do so either through arbitrary measures or by law, or some combination of the two.¹⁶ As democracy developed and spread, adherence to the rule of law became the hallmark of democratic states. Discarding authoritarian practices, they came to rely exclusively upon law to maintain public order and regulate social affairs.

XXVI.2 Law enforcement being the primary and most prominent method of social regulation used by states, legal authorities concerned with liberty issues have been chiefly interested in limiting the law enforcement powers of the state and supervising the police and other state enforcement agencies. Extensive jurisprudence has been developed to protect fundamental freedoms against repressive law enforcement, particularly with respect to intrusions on the person and personal privacy.
Extensive jurisprudence has been developed to protect fundamental freedoms against repressive law enforcement, particularly with respect to intrusions on the person and personal privacy.

Development of state education
XXVI.3 Even as democratic ideas were spreading, interest in public education began percolating in some influential circles. Education was originally a private matter, undertaken by parents and clergy within the family or in schools operated directly by parents or religious denominations. Proponents of public education believed that public schools could play an important role in contributing to social stability and good citizenship. Public education became widespread in wealthier nations toward the end of the 19th century, when compulsory attendance laws were enacted. During the 20th century, legal school leaving ages were raised, and, by the end of the century, most students were attending state schools continuously for 12 to 13 years.

XXV.4 Until the last decades of the 20th century, the teacher’s role was understood to focus primarily on providing specialized instruction in academic or technical subjects, or guidance relevant to the pursuit of educational goals. Teachers necessarily exerted a social influence on students and helped to form their character, two points which motivated early advocates of public schooling. But this influence, while important in varying degrees, was seen as secondary and informal, complementing the primary formation of the child in the family.

XXVI.5 In recent decades, educational authorities, motivated by a number of factors, have assumed increasing responsibility for the emotional, moral and social development of students. A good example of this can be found in CAPP’s formal learning outcomes and requirements for evaluation and assessment.¹⁷ In this type of education, the school and teacher have been increasingly inclined to displace parents and the family in their primary role in directing the child’s personal development. It is probably no accident that this development coincided with a dramatic increase in the number of families shattered by divorce and children born into and the broken families.

State education and liberty issues
XXVI.6 These developments in public education have been driven by a variety of factors that have nothing to do with any scheme for increasing state control over its citizens. It would be absurd to suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, the development of state schools over the past century and the growing trend towards psycho-social education have, incidentally, provided the state or other powerful interests the means to bring their power to bear on fundamental freedoms.

XXVI.7 Unlike law, education is intended to get directly at the interior dispositions, opinions and beliefs of citizens. Unlike law, which can control only by punishing overt acts injurious to society, education brings much more subtle forms of pressure to bear, and brings that pressure to bear on impressionable children and adolescents. In that respect, as well, the impact of education differs considerably from the impact of law enforcement, which has restricted application to adolescents and employs its full powers only against adults.

XXVI.8 Limiting the power of state educational officials to interfere with fundamental freedoms would thus seem to be at least as important a public policy goal as limiting the power of law enforcement. However, development of legal safeguards against the abuse of law enforcement powers has not been matched by similar progress in controlling state educational officials. Coercive measures no longer available to law enforcement officers - perhaps never available to them - remain possible through education.¹⁸ Given the late development of state directed education, this is not surprising. Nonetheless, this cannot be allowed to continue. The imposition of compulsory ideological instruction in state schools over the objections of parents through measures like the Corren Agreement and Ministry of Education policy is offensive to the traditions of this country and to people who value their freedom.

XXVI.10 The existing state educational framework includes an elected Minister of Education, elected school boards, district and school parent advisory councils and a college of teachers responsible for professional standards and discipline. It is also true that parents and others concerned can take some practical steps to protect their authority and their freedoms and those of their children, and that they can become politically active at the local and provincial levels. It may be argued that this system offers adequate safeguards against policies that endanger fundamental freedoms, and that nothing more is required.

XXVI.11 However, the insufficiency of this argument is demonstrated by the secret signing of the private agreement with the Correns, its imposition by the Ministry of Education, and the fact that, in light of the Agreement, a number of school districts have been unwilling to openly and unequivocally affirm their support parental authority in education or for freedom of conscience and religion. Moreover, it is unfair to expect parents to spend the twelve to fifteen years their children attend school in continual, if not continuous confrontation with unsympathetic or even hostile state educational authorities bent on policies of cultural and religious assimilation.

XXVI.12 It appears that serious efforts must now be made to protect fundamental freedoms against interference or suppression by state educational officials. This may include a substantial change of the scope of the powers and responsibilities of the Ministry of Education and reform of the management of the state school system. Ultimately, the preservation of democratic freedoms may require the separation of school and state.