On October 5, 2017, The New York Times published shocking allegations about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation. Four months later I hosted a RamsayTalk with the co-author of that piece, Jodi Kantor. She noted that the pendulum had already swung from silence to zero tolerance.
She told a story of a notional office party where the CFO drank too much and made an unwelcome advance to a female colleague. She complained to HR. He was immediately fired, couldn’t get a job, lost his accountant’s license and left his family and life in ruins.
Some would say he deserved all that and more.
Jodi Kantor said, before #MeToo became a movement, and long before she co-wrote She Said, and won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the Weinstein story: “Likely all the woman really wanted was an apology.”
Since then, zero tolerance has metastasized into cancel culture, a place where the price for not only acting badly, but merely asking a question about something that someone somewhere finds uncomfortable, is obliteration.
Zero tolerance is intolerance.
This is not a happy place. One of its sorriest neighbourhoods is the idea of excellence, which used to stand for quality and peak performance. Now, excellence is code for anti-diversity, white privilege and colonization.
Somewhere along the arc of history, it got entangled in the weeds of DEI, where diversity, equity and inclusion are no longer goals to be pursued alongside excellence. They’re on a moral podium greater than excellence, and much like the progress of zero tolerance into intolerance, they are cancelling excellence and calling it names.
In my client briefing for a course in business writing I was teaching this spring, the senior executive told me I shouldn’t expect their younger executives to believe that writing well is a worthwhile skill, and one worth learning, because they don’t believe words really matter, just so long as the reader understands the general gist of what they’re saying.
And yet, excellence and diversity can co-exist, as Canada’s record medal haul at the Paris Olympics shows. Indeed, Canada’s place as one of the most diverse nations on the planet was a factor in our peak performance.
As Harvard’s former president Larry Summers said to the faculty after one of his more acrimonious sessions with them: “At least I understand now where you and I differ. I believe achievement is the route to self-esteem. You believe self-esteem is the route to achievement.”
So please, the next time you’re tempted to hijack the Pride Parade or take over a university campus, or even fire a CFO, spare a tolerant thought for what we all lose in that zero-sum intolerance game.
Meanwhile…
1. A teensy-weensy bit faster. Compare the Olympic 100 metres this year to 100 years ago. Shocking! Maybe we need more unconventional thinking.
2. Useful questions…like, am I worried or just lonely? How good is AI getting? What does an autocratic state look like? What made the oldest map in the world readable? Why does Ozempic cure all diseases?
3. Yuval Harari is coming to Toronto. The Toronto Festival of Authors runs from Sept.19 to 29 and this year’s edition is the deepest and most diverse ever. You can see everyone from Liane Moriarty, John Vaillant and Ben Macintyre, to Anne Michaels, Michael Ondaatje, Efua Traoré and Murray Sinclair. Passes and tickets here.
4. Who are the olympian Olympians? Summer McIntosh may have won 4 medals in Paris, and Penny Oleksiak and Andre De Grasse may be the most decorated Canadian athletes ever, each winning 7 medals. But they’re Little Leaguers compared to the top medal winners of all time.
Speaking of Canadians in the Olympics, Celine Dion got tired of Donald Trump’s campaign stealing the song she sang for Titanic. As she ended her ‘stop the steal’ tweet, she asked: “And really, THAT song?”
Speaking of…here is the wrongful death lawsuit launched by the family of French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a member of the crew who died when the Titan submersible imploded on its dive to the Titanic last summer.
Finally, from 10 years ago, here’s how athletes get great.
5. Test your diagnostic skills. We live in the age of self-diagnosis. “I know best what’s wrong with me.” So here’s a chance to diagnose someone else, a teenage boy who’s acting oddly.
Part 2 – On Wednesday, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab released a report on sophisticated cyberattacks by Russia’s security services on the country’s enemies. This can include you and me. So if you get an email from an unknown source referencing an attached document which isn’t attached, don’t email them back saying, “no document attached.” They’re just phishing.
6. Reigning cats and dogs. First, perfume for dogs is now a thing. Next, the gentlemen’s version of cat ladies and of dogs’ revenge. Next, on going to a movie theatre to watch 73 minutes of cat videos. Finally, enroll your dog in the dog-aging project.
7. Trump Watch. Because the US election campaign is a self-igniting dumpster fire, each week until November 5thwe’ll update Trump Watch, which may not always be about the presidential candidate with the weird daily diet.
To begin, Project 2025’s secret training videos. Plus the Coles’ Notes version, Agenda 47. Plus, it seems Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas took even more undocumented luxury trips on Republican billionaire Harlan Crow’s private jet and yacht. Finally, Tim Walz’s personal financial statement.
8. The great Steve Paikin on the late Bill Davis. TVO’s host writes about Ontario’s 18th Premier on the third anniversary of Davis’ death.
9. Our all-electric, all-robotic future. First, an electric plane. Next, robots will soon beat humans at table tennis. Indeed, a three-armed robot will conduct the Dresden Symphony Orchestra in October because the music is too complex for a two-armed robot to do it well.
10. Directors’ cuts. It’s rare that a film’s director gets the final word on her film. Here’s what they are and how to find them…and, finally, when it comes to ants, it’s not the madness of the crowd, but the wisdom of the crowd that makes them so successful.
11. What I’m liking. That sleeper of a streaming series that landed in the pandemic, survived the world’s worst title, and is now the darling of the media in Season 3 now on Crave.
I’ve written about Industry before, but after one episode of the new season about young investment bankers behaving badly in London, I’m hooked and you’ll want to be too. It seems “everyone is collateral.”
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HEAR MSNBC’S ALI VELSHI ON WHAT THE U.S. ELECTION MEANS FOR US ALL.
Every day from his anchor desk in New York, Ali Velshi analyses not just the race, but the consequences of whether Harris or Trump will win on November 5.
So please join us on October 15 as MSNBC’s Chief Correspondent offers his take on the most important election for Canada in decades – and discusses his new book, Small Acts of Courage, his own Indian-Kenyan-Canadian-American family’s story.
Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.) ET
Place: Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. West, Toronto, just west of the ROM.
Tickets: $55, $65, $75, or $90 (Premium*) and includes your copy of Small Acts of Courage. * Limited quantities of Premium tickets include an exclusive pre-event reception with the author and a signed copy of Small Acts of Courage, along with a complimentary drink.
TICKETS HERE
Please pass this invitation on to like-minded friends and family.
Cheers,
Bob Ramsay
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