On September 24, 1918, the Canadian government made membership in the Industrial Workers of the World illegal. The maximum sentence for membership in the IWW was five years to be served in one of 24 internment camps.
War brings out the worst in people and part of the propaganda of government in war time is to play on fear; fear of the “other”, fear of the “unknown”. During the First World War it was radical groups and publications, many whose membership came from Eastern Europe, that were targeted.
Within weeks of the start of the war in August 1914, Canada’s parliament passed the War Measures Act. In 1916, the press censorship was introduced by an Order-In-Council. In total of the 253 publications banned during the war, 164 were in a language other than French or English. But it was the 1917 Russian Revolution, and its withdrawal from the war, that caused the Canadian government to crack down harder on any social dissent.
By Order-in-Council PC2384, the federal government outlawed political and labour groups, focusing on German, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish speakers. It banned freedom of association, assembly, and speech for many Canadians.
One of the labour groups banned was the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or as they were known “Wobblies”. This industrial union organization had been founded in 1905 in Chicago and quickly spread across North America. By 1906, the first Canadian chapters had been formed in B.C.
The IWW espoused the idea that workers should all be in one union as opposed to the tradition of Trades. It organized all workers including women and workers of colour. It organized unskilled laborers, the poor, and recent immigrants, all who were often on the margins of society. The IWW believed in “revolutionary syndicalism” where, once organized, workers would initiate a general strike and replace capitalism with a society run by workers. The Wobblies also opposed the First World War and the price paid by working people and, as a result, became an enemy of Prime Minister Robert Borden and the Canadian government.
On September 24, 1918, Borden’s government made membership in the Industrial Workers of the World and thirteen other (primarily ethnic radical political organizations) illegal. The maximum sentence for membership in the IWW, or affiliation with the banned organizations, was five years to be served in one of 24 internment camps.
The ideas of the Wobblies were harder to stop, however. When western Canadian workers formed an organization called the One Big Union (OBU) in 1919, its ideas were closely aligned with those of the IWW. Today every time “Solidarity Forever” is sung on a picket line or at a union convention the IWW spirit lives on because that was their song!
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My mid-30s regret in life is not being academically trained in the humanities and instead working in tech.
I’m wondering if I go back to school as a vanity project.
Has anyone done this? Is it too cringe to be the mature age student asking questions when the rest of the class wants to leave?
Should I instead just work out mindlessly and develop an art practice?
God damn I want purpose.
Go back to school if you want, screw what a bunch of teenagers will think
A friend and I both (mid 20s) have the exact same sentiments as you (communist sympathizers, coders, think we did our brains a disservice by studing CS and consequentially entrenching ourselves within the tech world). We're also planning on ditching our careers in the near future and going back to school. Either humanities or social sciences
Nah, go for it. Fuck the rest of the class. Many of them are only there to fill a requirement. You're there to learn. Ask your questions. Most professors will be thrilled if you go to office hours to discuss things you're unclear on. Go to all the talks and symposiums you can.
I think you are on to something here. They should just skip class and just go to office hours to bug the professors
I don't know if they have something like a community college where you live, but they are more open to older students. I went to a community college in my late 30's and I loved it. There was a couple times where people seemed annoyed at the old guy try-harding, but it was overall a positive experience.
If you already have a degree you can skip all the intro classes where you'll run into the annoying business degree kids who ruin humanities classes.
I'm in my 30s and in school for humanities (philosophy); though I don't already have another degree. I feel a little weird sometimes, but nobody else cares. Or even notices; until I tell someone my age, they assume that I'm a decade younger than I am.
I love my classes and love studying philosophy, but also I have no idea what I'm going to do after graduating and no idea what I even want to do. So I wouldn't assume that you're going to find purpose.
Oh yeah I don’t think it would be a new life path. I’m more thinking a very serious hobby
Yeah, I'd say go for it then!
I'd put a little nuance in my answer.
I hope you feel confident enough to go learn no matter what age you get to. You can literally do anything you want to on this pale blue dot.
maybe don't ask questions right before the class is over, ask if a little before or 1 on 1 with the teacher after or during office hours
Something I've come around to disliking is how students won't spend a joule of unnecessary energy if it doesn't help them obtain a degree. I think you should still be researching and looking at extracurricular content. Ask your professor about film making in the USSR because you know that shit isn't going to be in your curriculum.
You should join c/fitness and workout let's fuckin get jacked comrade
Vanity project seems like an ungenerous way to frame the project. The world can absolutely use more effort being put into humanities. If the 100 million narrative, vote bloo, capitalism, cardboard houses, enshittification, VC funding gambling, and shit define society then there's work to be done and it would be a noble effort
Thank you comrade this actually helps a lot.
you can learn at home.
Idk if I'm a great example of anything but having done this on some level at least a couple times (two bachelor's degrees in three majors, master's, and ongoing PhD that I started in mid 30s), on one hand it's doable and go for it, on the other hand no one is going to pay you to do the most creative things you really want to do and your ambitions for that might end up flattened in any case. But also my humanities background was towards the beginning not the end and the rest has been at least partly (not completely) a fruitless struggle to not be poor (still poor but the scientific things I study do interest me on a good day, or so I like to tell myself).
If what you're doing now leaves the time and energy to do the thing you want on the side, maybe that is a good idea.
If not, or if the thing you want is the knowledge and/or degree itself, uh go for it but also don't be surprised when no matter how much you do everything "right" according to whatever framing you like, you still can't win? Ah that sounds terrible. Go for it! Yes
If you want you cna just go to lecture and listen. It's free if you don't want a certificate.
Can I ask why? You just want to hear an underpaid graduate student tell bord hungover children how despite being completely disproved we still need to learn about Sigmund Freud? I get you have a romantic notion of going in and learning a bunch of stuff you missed, but given thr situation you'd be presented with I dunno if college would do you that much good in terms of rounding out your education.
that sounds nice. my local university doesn't have lectures that anyone can just sit in and listen on. you have to be enrolled in the course.
I mean yeah. You are supposed to. But at my university they have big lectures halls for some classes and for those you can just sit in. My friends used to day drink and little and sit in on random lectures sometimes.