Potter’s resignation doesn’t quell debate over article
Andrew Potter has stepped down as head of McGill’s Institute for the Study of Canada, days after his controversial article about ‘social malaise’ in Quebec went viral. But Potter’s resignation hasn’t stopped the furor. Critics are decrying the digital lyn
I take no comfort in the news that Andrew Potter has resigned as director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. In fact, I find it unfortunate.
I was among those who called out Potter this week for an eyebrow-raising article he wrote for Maclean’s in which he clumsily tried to link the stranding of 300 motorists on Highway 13 during our recent blizzard to “a mass breakdown of the social order.”
It was a lame column that insulted Quebecers, relied on stereotypes and was laced with hyperbolic anecdotes about restaurant owners taking cash under the table and bank machines spewing out $50 bills. It deserved to be questioned and denounced.
But Potter apologized for his sloppy analysis. He took his lumps from Premier Philippe Couillard and his employer. He learned the hard way how quickly Quebecers will circle the wagons when unfairly maligned. But the retraction should have been the end of it.
Instead, Potter has fallen on his sword “in light of the ongoing negative reaction” to his piece, he said in a statement announcing his resignation Thursday.
While “heartbroken” over losing his dream gig as director of the institute, Potter said he will stay on as a professor at McGill University. This nevertheless seems like a steep price to pay for what one Quebec columnist aptly described as a “brain fart.”
We live in the age of the digital lynch mob, where our slightest missteps get magnified, stupid remarks snowball and ill-considered words live on in infamy. Potter is not the first to be scorched by the blowback from this vicious cycle.
Plenty of unsuspecting souls have inflicted grave harm to their careers and reputations by expressing boneheaded views in 140 characters or less. The youthful and immature seem especially prone. A New York Times magazine feature from 2015 reflected on this phenomenon by examining the fallout for a woman who made one tasteless joke on Twitter as she boarded a plane, only to find her life in tatters by the time she landed. She had been branded a racist, deluged with hateful messages and unceremoniously fired from her job.
Her flippant tweet might have been offensive, but the consequences were devastating, disproportionate and unfair. Do any of us really deserve to be defined by a single statement?
Potter’s Maclean’s article is certainly more than a slip of an errant thumb, so to speak. It was a full-length column that involved research and reflection. If there was anything accurate in his analysis, it was lost in the exaggeration about Quebecers’ purported indifference toward each other.
Potter is also an academic and a former newspaper editor who ought to have known better than most the power of his own words. He is certainly the author of his own misery.
But are apologies no good anymore? Is there no way to make amends for a mistake? Was Potter’s sin so unforgivable that bygones can’t be bygones?
Saying sorry takes courage. Embarrassment and regret are characteristics of decent human beings capable of learning from their mistakes. It’s the shameless narcissists, so convinced of their own righteousness to ever back down, whom we should truly fear.
In cases like this one, the pileon that occurs in reaction to a slip-up can be crushing. Everybody with a Facebook account voices their fury. Columnists like me weigh in. And this in turn demands a response from the premier.
In this charged atmosphere, McGill moved to distance itself from Potter’s article in a tweet. This has breathed new life into the controversy, with academics and pundits defending Potter and lamenting his demise as an attack on academic freedom.
We don’t know whether he was pushed or whether he jumped, but McGill should have had the patience to allow Potter to ride out the storm. His public shaming ought to have been punishment enough.
The modern tools that are supposed to foster societal discussion have a tendency to drown out dissenting views and become echo chambers of outrage. It is regrettable there can no longer be criticism without consequences, that ideas can no longer be challenged without resulting in a chill effect.
After Potter’s mea culpa must come mine. As a journalist, I always hope I am speaking truth to power and holding authority to account. This is an important mission that I take seriously. But to the extent this ends up perpetuating the scorched-earth nature of online debate, I take my share of responsibility. Take this not as a retraction, but as a sign of compunction.
Hell hath no fury like Quebecers scorned — or a social media maelstrom.
Is there no way to make amends for a mistake? Was Potter’s sin so unforgivable that bygones can’t be bygones?