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Kenneth Roy (11 October) notes the aim of the Blue Triangle Housing Association ‘to prepare service users for sustainable levels of independent living’, and remarks, ‘What this means is far from clear, but it is striking how often Blue Triangle refers to people as service users. The effect is inevitably dehumanising’.
Mr Roy thinks it ‘inevitably dehumanising’ to refer to those whom it houses as service users. Yes, the phrase is drab and reeks of jargon, but it is not clear what phrase would do a better job here. I don’t think it is ‘inevitably dehumanising’: on the contrary, it perhaps presents the people in question with greater dignity than some other phrases one could imagine. I expect the people in this accommodation have sometimes been characterised as ‘feckless’ and ‘self-destructive’ and ‘down-and-outs’ and ‘alkies’ and ‘no-hopers’ and ‘losers’ and so forth. Compared to such phrases, ‘service users’ shows them more respect. In any case, it is the sort of phrase that councils use and I imagine that Blue Triangle has to adapt its language to the jargon that prevails in councils.
I should declare a connection. Someone close to me works as a volunteer for Blue Triangle. I write without his knowledge, or the knowledge of anyone else working for Blue Triangle, and what I have written is based only on what I have picked up about Blue Triangle at second hand. In no way should this be read as some kind of indirect statement made by or on behalf of Blue Triangle.
Paul Brownsey
Kenneth Roy replies: What’s wrong with describing the young
men and women in the care of the charity as ‘people’ or ‘the people we help’?
It’s surprising to see that the Scottish Review feels that the idea of 100 artists is a mere media stunt; concerns have been mounting for some time behind the scenes, and it is about time that a certain amount of momentum is seen in the disquiet.
The same ideology which brought us rail franchising, education reform and health markets has now arrived in the arts. Peter Arnott’s deeply considered comments in the Herald on the disastrous legacy of free-market games theory for all aspects of the public realm do not need repeating by me; I am not quite succinct enough for that.
The mysterious fog in which senior Creative Scotland management moves and speaks is in itself emblematic of the disconnect, as is the marginalisation and silencing of officers with expertise. Artists and cultural workers might not necessarily be averse to ‘working as if they lived in the early days of a better nation’ but they are not so keen on being recruited to working in the early days of an unimaginative regional development agency. The comical disconnect between the pomp and the outcomes, such as the branding exercise that is ‘Year of CS’ creates the impression of an ideas void.
Momentum for change needs a public face. A hundred signatories have since been supplemented. Kenneth Roy’s suggestion that artists and creative workers sit back and wait for their representative organisations to speak up for them makes no sense in a climate of cuts and ‘divide and rule’.
Gair Dunlop
No wonder so many young people feel worthless. The whole Jimmy Savile story sends out a chilling and profoundly depressing message. Girls don’t matter. It seems that this apology for a human being forced himself on the daughters – and maybe the sons, too – of the poor and the powerless and those physically and mentally unable to resist over many decades.
Judging by the unedifying spectacle over the weekend of people within the BBC trying to cover their backs, lots of them knew what was going on but did not speak out against it. Why notoriously vocal and powerful women like Janet Street Porter and Esther Rantzen did not go public is incomprehensible.
It’s difficult too to understand the skewed morality of a society rushing to condemn Savile but which has read in its millions a series of books which feature in graphic sexual detail female submission to the male. Is gender equality and respect for girls and women no more than a sham?
Maggie Craig
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