And Another Thing...

Continuing on yesterday's theme (because I guess I didn't get it all out of my system yesterday)... What message are our children deriving from our society's preoccupation with "regulating" safety?

Now, before I ruffle too many feathers, let me reiterate: I believe in taking sensible safety precautions. I do believe a certain level of regulation makes sense. Seat belts save lives, and all that. Wonderful. What I'm railing against is the sorry notion that rules, regulations, and little pieces of paper can (or should!) protect us from every possible ill that might befall us. And I'm railing for a few reasons:

1. Human beings can not, even with their very best efforts, control the universe. Society's micro-management of "risk" is a symptom of humanity's misplaced faith in itself, in its ability to bend the rest of the world to its will, to control, dictate, and order events. This mindset is currently getting us into all sorts of trouble. As a species, we have major control issues, I reckon! Perhaps we obsess about the minutiae because - at heart - we know we can't control the big things. You know, Death, Destiny...

2. The Law of Diminishing Returns applies to safety, as well. We're now paying a battallion of experts to micro-manage risk. The inspectors from our school board, for example, get paid in the vicinity of $30 per hour to attend seminars (bringing them up to date on the latest safety standards), and drive all over the district making picky little changes to perfectly sound equipment. Parents, Home and School Associations, and school staff waste time, money, and energy "fixing" the "problems" the inspectors identify. And nobody is appreciably safer.
(Hey, in fact, aren't we putting all those inspectors at increased risk? The more driving around they do, the greater their risk of dying on the highway... And isn't all that driving contributing to climate change? Now THERE'S a risk we're not doing much to mitigate...)

3. The micro-management of risk is preventing us from experiencing things. We're safer, all right. We're also less active, more overweight, more fearful, and less alive. Think I'm overstating, here? Let me tell you about the Girl Guides of Canada and its new response to managing risk. "Safe Guide" is a phone book sized risk management tool that all leaders must read and pass a course on in order to be certified Guiders. It was written (presumably by a team of lawyers) in response to the tragic deaths of some Girl Guides at a camp a couple of years ago. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. It was written in response to the lawsuits arising out of the tragedy.

Now, the accident itself was terrible. The adults in charge behaved irresponsibly, and girls drowned. The whole scenario was unequivocally unacceptable.

But the response, in the form of Safe Guide, has been extreme. A leader who is following Safe Guide to the letter must now perform a written risk assessment in advance of every activity. And by activity, I do not simply mean boating, rock climbing, camping, or other potentially risky endeavors. I mean activities like allowing the girls to operate a glue gun. If we want to take our girls swimming, according to Safe Guide, we must now send a leader to the pool (the nearest of which is an hour away) three weeks in advance, to perform an on-site inspection and photocopy the lifeguards' certificates. We must then fax an application to the Girl Guides' head office, and obtain a go-ahead.

Now, really. Can't we assume that a publicly operated swimming pool will have checked the credentials of its own lifeguards? Can you think of any cases in which swimming facilities accidentally hired, say, a circus clown instead of a certified life guard? Is the leader's investement of driving time, gasoline, and energy, truly reducing a risk? Is this making anyone safer?

The result of Safe Guide, for our group, has been that we don't even attempt to do dangerous stunts like boating, rock climbing, or camping. We do an awful lot of crafts. Without a glue gun.

4. We're shifting responsibility away from the individual. This is the message I'm most concerned about, when it comes to what our children are getting out of all of this. Rather than taking the time to teach our children to be aware of their own environment, their own abilities, their own limitations, we are telling them that safety is somebody else's responsibility. Safety is supposed to be a shared responsibility. The manufacturer of a baby "Exersaucer" has a responsibility to use a baby-safe design and materials, and to inform consumers about standard operating procedures. The parents of the baby have a responsibility NOT to use the Exersaucer as a sled or a flotation device.

A society that focuses all its attention on regulations, without taking the time to educate and empower individuals, is a society that gives rise to phenomena like consumers suing McDonalds' for making them fat. (I am NO fan of McDonald's. I won't darken their golden-arched doorway, and I hope that fast food in general will eventually become as reviled as public nose-picking. But really, even McDonalds' most evil corporate stooge did not forcibly invade private homes and shove Big Macs down people's throats.)

5. We're focusing on the wrong issue. The obsession with micro-managing risk in the interest of "public safety" is diverting our attention from the truly risky behaviours our society is engaged in. It is ironic to me that, a mere couple of miles from our recently-dismantled (and perfectly safe) school playground, there is an overflowing septage lagoon that was quietly ignored by the provincial Department of the Environment, until local residents began noticing how bizarre their water looked. The lagoon's operators broke every regulation in the book. They even broke holes in the side of the holding tank when they realized it was too full, so that they could drain off some gunk and continue filling from the top. Where were the safety regulations that were supposed to protect those downstream? Where were the dilligent safety inspectors then?

Sigh. You know, I think I'll take a break from ranting in my next blog installment. The whole thing is tiring, and I need to remember to balance the challenges and the triumphs. But at some point, I will return to this last point - "focusing on the wrong issue" - and look at how it relates to farming, food, and public health.

But tomorrow, a happier topic: Growing a garden at school!