Conversations interesting with many voices

Iam not sure what to think about the resignation of Jonathan Kay as editor of the The Walrus. He was my editor for many years here at the National Post, and it was a most happy experience. While his resignation came in the midst of a public controversy about the resignation of another editor of another magazine over cultural appropriation, Kay himself has said that was not the key factor. It was apparently time to leave and the events of last week were perhaps only the final tweet that broke the walrus’ back.

The debate over cultural appropriation is a debate over who is welcome in the conversation on various topics. For a long time, the progressive view that dominates places like The Walrus was that the conversation had to be diverse in terms of the people participating in it. The more conservative view, which formed Kay at the National Post, was that the diversity that mattered was that of the ideas advanced, not those advancing them. The discussion about cultural appropriation is merging the two. It matters what is said, but also who is saying it, and some things can only be said by some people. It’s a bit complicated and maybe Kay just got tired of working all that out with his colleagues at The Walrus.

Given our professional history, the news prompted me to poke around online to see what more I could discover. And two items from Jon himself emphasized that the question of who gets admitted to the conversation is about much more than culture and identity.

On May 1 at thewalrus.ca, Kay argued “climate change denial set the stage for fake news.” The point was when the National Post ran pieces questioning the orthodoxy on climate change it was planting the seeds of what today is known as fake news. Kay concludes that the Post should not have run stories and columns expressing skepticism over climate change. Those voices should not be part of the conversation.

Then on May 14, Kay tweeted about a New York Times story about the visit of Pope Francis to Fatima, where three children had a vision of the Virgin Mary one hundred years ago. I wrote about that myself last week.

“I don’t get how you ‘validate’ a ‘ vision’,” Kay tweeted, commenting on the part of the story which stated that the Catholic Church had given a judgment that the apparitions were authentic.

By definition, miraculous occurrences are unusual, but they are routinely investigated and judged. The leading book on medical miracles was published in 2009 by a Canadian professor, a practising physician and distinguished historian of medicine, Jacalyn Duffin. She is also an atheist, which gives her a certain authority when she writes about how the Vatican scientifically investigates miracles, as she did in her Oxford University Press book, Medical Miracles; Doctors, Saints, and Healing, 1588-1999.

Visions and miraculous healings can be investigated rigorously by psychiatrists and other doctors. Theology also has its specific competence. But all those are voices not heard if they are excluded from the conversation.

Concern over who gets to be part of the conversation is what motivates a great many writers to write and editors to edit. It may be that you think that the conversation does rather exclude certain voices. If you do, you might start your own magazine. I did six years ago. It’s at convivium. ca and explores faith in our common life.

By definition any publication that has a sense of identity and mission will exclude various voices. Even the Internet is not infinite and, even if it were, what would be the point of something that included everything? It would be rather maddening for the readers.

So the debate over what — and who — is included in the conversation strikes me as unremarkable. I know a great many Christians who do not see themselves reflected in the places where Kay was at home — The Walrus, the CBC. So they complain. Or they start their own magazines.

What is striking about the cultural appropriation controversy is the vehemence with which that debate is engaged; a vehemence that attacks the character and good intentions of those who would otherwise seem to be progressive allies. Vehemence of that sort does not broaden or deepen the conversation.

As for Jonathan Kay, as he himself writes, a National Post formation would challenge some of the assumptions that liberal bastions like The Walrus simply do not question. It’s part of what made his editorship there interesting. Conversations are always more interesting when there is more than one point of view.

PUBLICATIONS WITH A SENSE OF IDENTITY WILL EXCLUDE VOICES.