Mary Kenny
A very sad story emerged this past week about an Oxford student who killed himself: a story which revealed much about our times and values.
Alexander Rogers was 20 years old and a third-year student at Corpus Christi college, studying science, and predicted to get a First. He was described at an inquest as “kind, funny and an incredible friend to many”; it was said that he “spread joy and held the brightest smile in the room”.
But he took his own life by jumping into the Thames after he was boycotted – or “cancelled” – in the current parlance, after a “sexual encounter” that elicited a complaint.
Cancelled
The young woman involved did not accuse Alexander of rape or of non-consensual relations, but she told friends she felt “discomfort” about this “sexual encounter” they had shared. Word got around, and Alexander was cancelled, ostracised and excluded by his peers and friends. Overcome with shame and remorse, the student killed himself, leaving a note of “love and regret” for his family.
The Coroner, Nicholas Graham, found that the college was dogged “with a form of cancel culture, involving the exclusion of students from social circles based on allegations…often without a fair hearing.” Issues relating to sex or race often prompted these “cancellations”. The sociologist, Frank Furedi, an academic himself, says that he knows of many cases where students are punished by their peers for alleged offences on everything from “cultural appropriation” to vegetarianism.
But the story of Alexander Rogers touches on a wider scenario too. Young people have not been sufficiently acquainted with the fact – as Camilla Paglia has so often pointed out – that “sexual encounters” can involve risk, danger and hurt. Feeling “discomfort” after an unwise fumble is precisely what you should feel.
Yet if a person makes a mistake, that can be an occasion of apology, and forgiveness – not of social ostracism or vindicative revenge by peers.
Not only are some of these students highly judgemental, according to Professor Furedi, but they are thin-skinned to an extraordinary degree: wearing a Japanese kimono can lead to an allegation of “cultural appropriation”; a student who identified as a witch wanted her whole college cancelled because a summer solstice party “offended her religion.”
Perhaps the young woman who prompted the boycott of Alexander Rogers now feels wretched about it: so she should. But college authorities should also take a firmer line with “cancel culture”. University is supposed to be about learning to be tolerant.
It is such a sad story, and once again, an illustration that suicide is always a tragedy.
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Kathleen Watkins, as has been widely noted, was a lovely person, and her marriage to Gay Byrne must have been designed in heaven, for he couldn’t have met a woman in the whole world who was better suited to him (and surely vice-versa).
Kathleen was a talented musician, a fine presenter and performer, and in her latter years, a gifted and successful children’s author. Yet she was never the kind of woman who might be seen as competing with her husband. Gay, for all his reputation for modernising Ireland (and indeed advocating the introduction of legal divorce) was quite an old-fashioned guy on the domestic front. He’d never have married a full-on feminist. He liked “the mammy” to be in the home, not breaking glass ceilings in the corporate world.
Kathleen always remained her own person: she was secure in herself, and confidently developed her own gifts. But she was also a dedicated mother – and grandmother – as well as a well-night perfect wife. And a woman of faith.
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The new movie, mainly for kids, “Paddington in Peru” is another installment – the third – in the beguiling narrative of the eponymous bear who has captured so many hearts. (My forty-something son thought “Paddington 2” one of the most moving films he’d ever seen, and he’s no pushover for sentimental tales.)
The new Paddington, in which the bear returns to Peru, is evidently a parable about emigration and adaptation. Paddington hails from Peru originally, but proudly acquires a British passport with his adoptive London family. Now he is journeying back to Peru to find his Aunt Lucy and re-connect with his roots, and his bear tribe. Lots of adventures and stunning South American scenery ensue: but at the end of the story, Paddington decides that though he likes discovering his roots, he has now integrated into the host society in London. And it’s all right to have mixed feelings about this.
This third sequel also features some dancing nuns (in full habit, as nuns are always portrayed), although it turns out that Olivia Colman, as the Reverend Mother, has a somewhat gangster side. But the jolly sisters at least make a change from the regulation “evil nuns” now such stock figures on our screens.