Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Two rallies were held today in Toronto concerning the continuing provincial college strike. Professors marched on the Ministry of Colleges with signs and placards proclaiming their demands for smaller classrooms, fewer hours, and more money (both for themselves and for the colleges). Meanwhile, outside the provincial government buildings at Queen’s Park, students held their own demonstration during which they dramatised their anger at being treated like pawns in the ongoing dispute by wearing large chess pieces on their heads. While the issues being raised by the teachers are undoubtedly important and cannot be dismissed, I think it was the students’ rally which raised the more pertinent question: “Where the heck does one buy giant chess-hats?”

As it turns out, the biggest source of giant chess-hats is MegaChess, which claims to provide the largest collection of big chess sets, chessboards and chess-hats in the world.

Their prices are a bit steep — king and queen hats cost $49 apiece and even a lowly pawn will put you out $13 (US) — but you really can’t put a price on the pleasure of seeing people wearing giant horse heads, can you?

Of course MegaChess, as its name implies, is not merely about gigantic chess fashion; its mandate concerns chess in any of its gargantuan forms including fiberglass, plastic, plaster, foam and even balloons (not recommended for windy days).

The real issue, however, is not the chess-hats themselves, but rather the use to which the Toronto college students put them, and whether or not other unusual fashion accessories could be similarly employed in political protest.

Naturally your first thought, like my own, is probably: “Clown shoes!” Their very nature makes them tailor-made for expressing certain kinds of civic discontent. Jolly Walkers, for instance, offers several styles of Jester shoes which couldn’t help but send the right message at any rally decrying political buffoonery, while for protests against increased taxes or decreased budgets, the Fancy Dress Costume Shop has a pair of raggedy oversized clown shoes complete with oversized toes sticking out through the front.

Meanwhile, with mad cow disease and the bird flu making the rounds, what better way to protest government action or inaction than by wearing hats made of meat? Unlike chess-hats or clown shoes, these can be made at home using little more than a pound of ground beef. Instructions are available from Hats of Meat.

Ultimately, of course, the most versatile, and relevant accessory is a white bandana. The purity of the protest is represented by its colour, the simplicity of the protest is represented by its plainness, and the futility of the protest is represented by tying it on a stick and waving it.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was a bit naive in my expectations of what goes on at a strike — although I didn’t really believe Pete Seger would show up to sing interminable songs about worker oppression, or that we would be set upon by management goons wielding lead pipes.

But I neither did I expect it to be a football game.

We have the Defensive Tackle¹, a very large man whose self-important mission in life presently consists of blocking cars from driving into the campus parking lot. Then there’s the Equipment Manager, a short, stocky union rep with a clipboard who checks our names off his list and hands out signs and bottles of water. We even have the Cheerleader, a woman who gleefully walks with her dog from group to group keeping up our spirits by smiling and shouting “Solidarity!”to everyone.

And let’s not forget the all-important Merchandising Franchise. For $65 you can buy a black, microfibre clubhouse jacket. A handpainted mug goes for $20. And an attractive blue polycarbonate water bottle can be yours for only $10. (All prices in Canadian dollars.)

The atmosphere itself is jovial and upbeat as they all reassure each other that we are bound to defeat the opposition. Victory is guaranteed. The field will be ours. Go-o-o-o Team!

Several years ago my wife and I saw the Super Dogs show at the Canadian National Exhibition.

It was held in a long stadium-like room with bleachers on either side and a dirt floor in the middle. Two dogs, one wearing a blue bandana, the other red, would enter the field and race each other through an obstacle course. When the race was over two more dogs would be introduced and the whole shebang would start again. On its own, it was quite entertaining, especially since the Super Dogs are really just normal dogs whose owners have spent some time training them.

But in order to make it more entertaining, the MC informed us that those of us on the east were to root for the “blue team” while those on the west were to root for the “red team.” By the end of the third race I was witnessing a phenomenon the importance of which has stayed with me ever since.

What began as good-natured cheering soon became serious involvement. Those on the losing side banged their fists on their legs while those on the winning side jumped out of their seats with their hands above their heads. A young girl sitting a couple of rows down from us began crying when several of “her” dogs lost their races.

I’ll admit I’ve never fully understood sports fandom. When the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series back in 1994 the entire city erupted into a giant party (during which a young pregnant woman sitting in her car was blinded in one eye when an exuberant fan smashed her windshield with a baseball bat). And yet, when I checked the roster of the two opposing teams I discovered that the “Toronto” Blue Jays didn’t have a single player from Toronto. In fact, they only had player who was even Canadian.

So what was the excitement? Why did an entire city take to the streets to celebrate the victory of one team of Americans and Dominican Republicans over another team of Americans and Dominican Republicans?

Watching the Super Dogs competition offered a valuable clue.

It isn’t a matter of real involvement: it’s an inborn instinct: a genetic predisposition to align ourselves with something. This isn’t necessarily bad. When Neil Armstrong took the first step on the moon it made sense that the whole world celebrated: it was a true victory for the human race. Einstein’s application of Poincare’s formula (E-MC²) was posted in store windows all across the nation where people who couldn’t pronounce “quadratic equation,” much less solve one, stared at it in awe and pride.

In its best form, this instinct reminds us of our underlying connections. In its worst — when it is applied more or less randomly, when the connections are imposed by accident of birth, occupation, or seating arrangement at a dog competition — it divides us into warring tribes. Our identification with our “team” becomes so strong we lose all sight of our connections with those not on our team: we lose sight of the fact that in many cases there are no “teams” in the first place.

Abraham Maslow once famously said: “To the man who only has a hammer, every problem is a nail.” Likewise, when your only tool is a “team,” every problem is a competition.

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1 Being virtually knowledge-free concerning the positions, rules, or even point of football I rely on About.com’s Football 101. Should there be any errors in my post on this regard, I take full blame.

It had to happen of course. Last September the college decided I’d been around long enough to deserve a raise and regular hours. This meant, according to the wonderful woman who has guided me through the maddening administrative details of my job, that I would now be under the union. “Great,” I said. “Just watch, in six months time they’ll have me on strike.”

That was six months ago and in about ten minutes I have to leave so I can go to the campus, pick up my sign, and start my third day on the picket line.

I always choose the same sign: “Faculty care about quality education.” I like it because as an English teacher I enjoy the irony. First is the irony of caring so much about education that we are willing to strip it away from the students at the very end of their academic year, and second is the irony of the grammatical mistake in a sign proclaiming concern over quality education. Each evening I correct my own sign to read: “Faculty cares about quality education.”

When dealing with mass idiocy it is important to amuse yourself in little ways.

Gotta go. I’m due on the line.