Matt Hern—who runs The Purple Thistle Centre, an alternative youth center in East Vancouver—has a new book titled Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better (to be released in March by New Star Books).
Here’s the blurb from New Star:
From warnings on coffee cups to colour-coded terrorist gauges to ubiquitous security cameras, our culture is obsessed with safety.
Some of this is driven by lawyers and insurance, and some by over-zealous public officials, but much is indicative of a cultural conversation that has lost its bearings. The result is not just a neurotically restrictive society, but one which actively undermines individual and community self-reliance. More importantly, we are creating a world of officious administration, management by statistics, absurd regulations, rampaging lawsuits, and hygenically cleansed public spaces. We are trying to render the human and natural worlds predictable and calculated. In doing so, we are trampling common discourse about politics and ethics.
Hern asserts that safer just isn’t always better. Throughout Watch Yourself, he emphasizes the need to rethink our approach to risk, reconsider our fixation with safety, and reassert individual decision-making.
Check out Matt’s other books too:
Field Day: Getting Society Out of School and Deschooling Our Lives
The Purple Thistle does fantastic work and until recently has relied solely on grant support for their operations. The Thistle is now trying to develop a base of individual supporters. I urge you to check out what they’re doing and support the great work the center is doing on Vancouver’s eastside.
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