Can Words Really Be a
Form of Violence?
In arguments over “free speech” being constrained or
restricted on campuses and elsewhere, these days, the claim by opponents of
certain speakers is that their speeches promote hate or their words are a form
of violence against others (usually people who are different from the
mainstream, white, male, “holders of privilege”). A word commonly used to refer
to words that insult, offend, “put down”, or otherwise leave some form of
negative perception by the receiver, is “microaggression”.
I worked on “Information Management” policies for a human
service organization back in the early 2000’s in which we began to address the
way in which knowledge and information could be used in a detrimental way to
harm others, including the reputation of the organization itself. As a
charitable organization, we were charged with supporting and assisting homeless
men, women, families and youth; people with developmental and other
disabilities, including mental illness; seniors attempting to remain in their
housing for as long as possible; people with physical disabilities trying to
obtain and maintain housing in a small-town/rural community; and providing
affordable housing to families, seniors and people with developmental
disabilities. We had other charitable purposes as well, but the common concern
was in ensuring that both those being served by the organization, and the organization
itself, could trust that information available to other “townsfolk”, members of
service clubs, other charities, and even private citizens standing in the role
of benefactors, who also helped with support and assistance, would be guided by
certain ethical principles to safeguard the reputations of “receivers” of
service, and also “providers” of service. This far exceeded the principle most
people understand as “confidentiality”.
We set about doing this by forming a task group representing
all levels of the organization and included, of course, service recipients as
well as providers. (It is not unusual, for example, in small-town/rural
environments, that people providing services to others may also be recipients
of other services, sometimes from the same organization. Thus, staff members
supporting people with developmental disabilities might live in affordable
housing supplied by the same organization).
The task group created a great policy statement with a detailed
description of terms, and principles upon which it might be possible to break
down whether a breach of the policy was likely intentional or merely
accidental, and set out terms and conditions by which an alleged “offender” of
the policy could be allowed due process, guided in the positive use of
information, and if necessary due to extreme culpability or repeated offending,
disciplined in order to ensure the policy was enforceable as well as having the
desired effect of fostering highly ethical uses of information and knowledge in
the service of others.
Knowledge and information can be passed along verbally as
well as in some documentary form, i.e. written form, on social media, via video
clip or other media such as podcast. Of course, the importance of transmitting
knowledge cannot be underestimated. As the saying goes, “Knowledge is power”.
As an educator and counselor, I have made the transmission of knowledge my
life’s work. I have also learned, sometimes the hard way, that what you put out
there may not always be received as intended. I have also learned that people
utilize information, and its presentation, for a variety of nefarious purposes
as well as for good. Information is used to manipulate in ways both good and
evil. So, how do we judge information and its presentation to be one or the
other? Without censoring, which most people seem to acknowledge, is in itself a
“dangerous” practice.
Here is a list of ways in which information can be used for
nefarious purposes:
- To deceive
- To mislead
- To incite violence, hatred, and/or crimes against others
- To denigrate
- To disrespect
- To perpetrate various forms of psychological and emotional abuse
The policy words we arrived at, about fifteen years ago,
were: it is a “grievous infraction of proper and ethical conduct of staff or
volunteers when information is obtained in a manner that is unethical or
improper, or, however obtained, used against the interests of the corporation,
staff or individuals who are served by the corporation”.
At about the same time, the organization was contracted to
do a Group Home Study by the Town of Mississippi Mills, an amalgamated
municipality composed of a small town (Almonte), a number of even smaller
villages (Appleton, Pakenham, Clayton) and farmland governed previously as
Ramsay Township. All told the municipality consisted of about 11,000 people,
about 1/6 of the population of the County of Lanark at that time. This study
suggested a great deal of information mismanagement had occurred surrounding
the establishment of a group home for adolescent women in one of Almonte’s
neighbourhoods. Much of the misleading and exaggerated information reported by
neighbours of the group home was observed to be fueled primarily by emotional
reactions and judgments to the myths, stereotypes and fallacies surrounding the
establishment of group homes. Factual data was ignored, and people filtered
what information there was available according to whether they wanted, or did
not want, a group home in their neighbourhood.
The Group Home Study is available here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxtdGVycnlraXJrcGF0cmlja3xneDo1ZDdiOGFlZjkyYzA5Yzhm
Raised in a culture where I was repeatedly told that “sticks
and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me” (which, by the way,
after working with children and adults, many with disabilities, who have been
abused, is demonstrably false), I have studied the ways in which hurt people
can hurt people, but also “typical” people can hurt others both consciously and
unconsciously.
Thus, I write this blog about “information management” and
how to evaluate whether a person is harming others by their use or misuse of
words (information).
Thinking about it again, the effect of words and whether or
not they are improper, depends on whether they violate the ethical principles
as follows:
- Do No Harm
- Do Good for others
- Strive to continuously improve one’s practice
These principles are hierarchical and no lower level
principle can be argued to excuse transgressing against a higher principle.
Thus, one cannot fail to do good for others by claiming that one is “learning”
(in the act of striving to continuously improve – “lead, follow or get out of
the way”), and one cannot do harm to others by claiming to be attempting to “do
good”. Thus the primary principle is “Do No Harm”; the secondary principle is
“Do Good”; and the tertiary principle is “Continuously Improve”.
Our work group stated the main value that things like
“Gossip, rumour, innuendo, unfounded criticism or complaining, or excessively
or inappropriately negative discussion of corporation, personnel, or client
information is considered unprofessional and may result in serious consequences
for those who breach the ethics code, these guidelines, or the oath of
confidentiality”.
We tried to take pains to “set out examples of distinctions
between unintentional, accidental, or well-meaning errors of information
management from deliberate, non-accidental, malicious, or otherwise
unprofessional breaches of this information management guideline”.
So, we considered “intent”,
recognizing that this might be difficult to objectively discern, or judge; we
considered there to be errors of “omission” as well as errors of “commission” –
one could passively fail to do the right thing, and by so doing, allow wrong to
be done, as well as actively acting wrongly; and we recognized the importance
of both context and outcome (some measure of “harm”, mostly) in deciding about
the seriousness of an infraction.
Thus, we attempted to define
“Major Infractions” and “Minor Infractions” and we attempted to define that a
NUMBER of “Minor Infractions” might constitute some form of equivalent to one “Major
Infraction”.
A major infraction was
considered to be when a person, subject to the policy statement (staff and
volunteers who had official standing with the organization and had signed the
“Information Management” agreement) had “received without taking appropriate
action (error of omission), conveyed or acted upon
(error of commission) information that:
1. Is confidential to client
privilege, the disclosure of which has been judged [by a tribunal comprised of
a member of staff/volunteers, a manager, and a member of the board of
directors] a breach of the oath of confidentiality and without extenuating
circumstances (an outright Major Infraction); or
2. If not confidential to client
privilege, the information is judged by the tribunal to be:
a. False, incomplete, misleading, or
otherwise in error; AND which
b. Has, or in the judgement of the
tribunal, is highly likely to have, or ought to have been understood by the
employee to have, a negative impact on individuals or the Corporation; AND
c. Where the tribunal discerns the
employee to have shown motive or intent to transmit the information (error of
commission) or to have shown disregard for the requirement of checking
information for accuracy before acting on it (error of omission).
d. Where repeated infractions of a
more minor nature have occurred over time, and there have been all reasonable
efforts made to inform, educate about the policy and correct a person’s
information mismanagement.
Minor infractions were considered to be similar to the second
condition described above, but where all four conditions have not been met,
i.e. there might be absent or unclear malicious or malevolent intent; a
reasonable misjudgment of accuracy of information; a reasonable failure to
comprehend how any harm may result; a reasonable belief that the information
might be correct; a first offence or an offence by a new employee who might not
yet be properly oriented to the policy, etc.
We also defined what kinds of “information management” offences
there might be covered by this policy:
“Information” Subject to this Information Management Policy
is Information that is:
- false or misleading, negligently incomplete or demonstrably factually incorrect.
- conveyed with more confidence than it deserves based on readily available facts and other information.
- conveyed to people who have no discernable professional interest in the information.
- obtained, conveyed or held to be accurate or judged to be correct, without a reasonable attempt to verify its accuracy or correctness before a judgement has been made upon it or actions taken based on it.
- confidential, sensitive or potentially harmful to an individual or corporate interest if disclosed to others.
- personal, and obtained or conveyed without consent of the parties directly implicated.
- obtained in a manner that is unethical, deceitful, or improper.
- discussed in public where there is no professional or reasonable rationale for doing so.
- utilized with an apparent goal to advance a personal interest contrary to, or with the apparent potential to harm, the interest of the corporation or a person being served.
- acted upon, when there is a discernible reason to believe the information is not accurate or reliable.
- seen, or should reasonably be seen to bring harm to the public image of the corporation, directly or indirectly, without reasonable cause.
- seen to breach a prior agreement to treat the information as sensitive or confidential.
- seen to show a callous lack of respect to clients or personnel.
- observed, received or conveyed as an infraction of the policy as a “repeat offence” despite counseling or instruction on the information management policies of the Corporation.
The
task group, by way of trying to clarify further, also attempted to provide
positive guidance and direction to the proper use of information in the service
of others, protection of vulnerable clients, the corporation’s charitable good
name and purposes, and so on:
When
and How Information Should be Conveyed to Others
If
in doubt about whether it is appropriate to convey any information about
personnel, corporation or client issues, a staff person or volunteer should be
able to answer the following questions in the affirmative:
- Does the person I am speaking to need to have this information in the conduct of their responsibilities for the corporation, or are they entitled to the information by their position or responsibilities within the corporation?
- Am I professionally required to give this information to this person? Is this the proper time and place to be conveying this information?
- Can the information be overheard by someone who does not have a legitimate need to know or who does not have an abiding interest in the information for the good of the person or the corporation?
- Do I have any or all required permission(s) or authority to speak about this, to this person?
- By giving this information, am I helping the corporation or the person involved without doing harm to them, or anyone else, including the corporation?
- By giving this information in this way, am I acting according to the law and the organization’s Ethics Code?
- Before conveying this information to another, have I taken all appropriate steps to ensure its accuracy?
- If I am unable to ascertain the information’s accuracy, am I properly conveying its level of accuracy?
- Do I need to clarify and correct the information that I have, or that I am hearing, before acting on it?
- What is the good purpose of giving or receiving this information?
- Should I report this information to someone else?
The
policy closes with the statement: “Without restricting the generality of the
foregoing, a person should manage information pertaining to personnel, clients
or the business of the organization with the same degree of care and attention
that one would use in assisting a vulnerable and dependent client”.
Recommendations
and feedback very welcome!
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