1. Guiding principle

The guiding principle at the EGG is mutual respect — respect for the human dignity of all participants, including respect for the potential uniqueness and diversity of all the participants. It is the principle by which all organizers, teachers, and students are expected to abide.

We believe that a strong and clear statement to the effect that our values are subsumed to the principle  of respect for human dignity is enough in order to promote an ethical environment at the EGG and that a formal code of conduct is unnecessary.

Any list of behaviours that contravene the overarching principle of mutual respect is bound to be incomplete, rigid, and superfluous. A guiding principle can be violated in countless scenarios that could never be predicted or listed exhaustively. Moreover, the determination of whether a violation has occurred often depends heavily on specific facts and context of a situation. This makes a universal, all-encompassing list of possible violations infeasible. Last, but not least, as new technologies, social situations and legal challenges emerge, new ways to violate a given principle may also arise. A fixed list is bound to quickly become outdated. We therefore believe that a guiding principle of mutual respect and tolerance is preferable, since it can be applied to a wide range of unique and evolving contexts.

2. Setting the record straight

There have been unfounded and ridiculous claims circulating through the OVA site about inappropriate sexual behaviour being condoned at EGG.

Inappropriate sexual behaviour can take place anywhere, and indeed it can also happen at the EGG, or at OVA, for that matter. We are clearly and firmly against such behaviour.

But having a code of conduct that addresses the possibility of inappropriate sexual behaviour in terms of banning `unwanted sexual and romantic attention’, as OVA proposed, will sanction not only inappropriate behaviour, but also perfectly acceptable behaviour. If an individual displays behaviour that has been explicitly rejected or identified as `unwanted’ by another individual, then clearly such behaviour is inappropriate, and should be sanctioned, because it violates the principle of mutual respect.

But it should also be recognized that spontaneous gestures of any kind during a social interaction are always `unwanted’ in the strict sense of the word, because the person at the other end did not ask for it. To determine what counts as unwanted, in the sense of `potentially upsetting’, one needs to make assumptions about the state of mind of the other person. Depending on whether these assumptions converge with the state of mind of the recipient or not, the same gesture could be considered `unwanted’ by some individuals, but acceptable, and even desirable, by others. The attention giver can make assumptions about what the recipient of that attention would find desirable or not, but they can never know for sure. Once assumptions come into play, there is potential for error. This cannot be regulated by a code of conduct.

We think it would be wrong, and frankly impossible, to incriminate a first meaningful romantic gesture or glance that an individual might send in the direction of another individual, on account that it could be deemed unwanted by the recipient. Some of these gestures led to people having a fulfilling, long lasting romantic relationship (some of the participants who met at former EGG schools have been together for more than 25 years and are now about to become grandparents). We certainly do not want people to feel guilty for developing feelings for each other, or for having consensual relations of any kind. All that matters is that these interactions take place by observing the general principle of mutual respect.