Oh, Canada - Chapter Two
A thoughtful correspondent in his early 20's had some interesting comments on my chapter on tolerance. First he observed the Canada depicted in the Ipsos-Reid poll bore no resemblance to the Canada he knows. He is right to the extent the Canada he knows is dominated by those of his age, and the demographic breakdown of the Ipsos-Reid poll shows that Canadians in his cohort are less likely to answer in the affirmative the various questions I reported on.
He remarked that he was amazed at the extent to which I believed faith in God and religious beliefs should play such a role in how I think and view certain issues.
"What people believed before Darwin's studies, electricity and the internet is all outdated don't you think? People and ideas change and grow", he added.
In a politely gentle way he was admonishing me to get with it old man, the world is evolving around you and you are standing still.
It caused me to reflect on the perspectives I had when I was in my early 20's, (after Darwin and electricity, but before the internet), and they weren't that much different from my young friend. As I told him, he should not think I stopped evolving when I turned 40. I was a liberal as recently as then so I have hardly stood still.
Youth seems naturally more attracted to the secular than the religious. We presently live in the era of the ascendancy of liberal secularism, where secular society can be proud of its different cultures and religions, but it makes it clear there must be a separation between the spiritual and the material, as between the private and the public.
What this liberal secularism is most interested in is the cultivation of tolerance, where everyone is free to pursue whatever he or she happens to believe. It results in a form of liberal neutrality where there is little real meaning to anything - what underlies the concept of justice or peace or liberty if there is no historic content, no definite end and no particular measure except tolerance?
Douglas Farrow, an Associate Professor at McGill has a thoughtul essay on this topic which I recommend to you and to which I am indebted for helping me put a face to the secularism confronting us in Canada and the West (the worldwide West not just Alberta and BC). http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0305/opinion/farrow.html
Farrow concludes that liberal secularism has taken on a religious nature of its own. "Its pluralism is a cover for hegemony. It has taken to heart that intolerance is the one thing which must not be tolerated--and learned to deploy this article against those with firm convictions about the good that differ from its own. This helps explain the fervour and ease with which liberal secularists attack those with strong religious convictions.
As for youth, it struggles more with its passion for individualism and its natural attitude of irreverence that sees little value in old ways. To the young 1982 is indeed a lifetime away, so what does it matter that our legislators made reference to the supremacy of God in the preamble to the Charter of Rights. We know better now.
I am less troubled by the attitudes of our youth, some of which will naturally change with time. Of greater concern is the powerful grip which this liberal secularism has put hold on Canada as a nation, and particularly upon the Liberals and the NDP. Paul Martin is 65 years old and ought to know better!
I close with this quote from John Derbyshire, a plain speaking British born and educated, naturalized American who has this to say on the issue of reverence:
"Reverence for the Flag, the Country, the Church, the School, the Family? But these are just human institutions staffed by ordinary fallible human beings, who frequently behave in ridiculous ways. What's to reverence? We seem to have actually lost some conceptual power, the power to see past individual persons to the institutions they represent. Perhaps this is the final triumph of individualism. There is of course, a case to be made for this great transformation. Those old folkways were not all benign. To an intelligent and imaginative young person-the weight of custom and tradition can be intolerably suffocating, the urge to kick against it, or escape from it, irresistible.
Still, when we escaped from all that, we at least understood that we had lost something, and this is a thing that the following generations do not know. "Why should I have to....? No reason, really, none that stands up to vigorous logical scrutiny. So don't if you don't feel like it. Those who know and care about nothing at all that is old, traditional or customary are adrift and aimless in a blank, nihilistic, hedonistic world, in which nothing matters much because everything is permitted."
He remarked that he was amazed at the extent to which I believed faith in God and religious beliefs should play such a role in how I think and view certain issues.
"What people believed before Darwin's studies, electricity and the internet is all outdated don't you think? People and ideas change and grow", he added.
In a politely gentle way he was admonishing me to get with it old man, the world is evolving around you and you are standing still.
It caused me to reflect on the perspectives I had when I was in my early 20's, (after Darwin and electricity, but before the internet), and they weren't that much different from my young friend. As I told him, he should not think I stopped evolving when I turned 40. I was a liberal as recently as then so I have hardly stood still.
Youth seems naturally more attracted to the secular than the religious. We presently live in the era of the ascendancy of liberal secularism, where secular society can be proud of its different cultures and religions, but it makes it clear there must be a separation between the spiritual and the material, as between the private and the public.
What this liberal secularism is most interested in is the cultivation of tolerance, where everyone is free to pursue whatever he or she happens to believe. It results in a form of liberal neutrality where there is little real meaning to anything - what underlies the concept of justice or peace or liberty if there is no historic content, no definite end and no particular measure except tolerance?
Douglas Farrow, an Associate Professor at McGill has a thoughtul essay on this topic which I recommend to you and to which I am indebted for helping me put a face to the secularism confronting us in Canada and the West (the worldwide West not just Alberta and BC). http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0305/opinion/farrow.html
Farrow concludes that liberal secularism has taken on a religious nature of its own. "Its pluralism is a cover for hegemony. It has taken to heart that intolerance is the one thing which must not be tolerated--and learned to deploy this article against those with firm convictions about the good that differ from its own. This helps explain the fervour and ease with which liberal secularists attack those with strong religious convictions.
As for youth, it struggles more with its passion for individualism and its natural attitude of irreverence that sees little value in old ways. To the young 1982 is indeed a lifetime away, so what does it matter that our legislators made reference to the supremacy of God in the preamble to the Charter of Rights. We know better now.
I am less troubled by the attitudes of our youth, some of which will naturally change with time. Of greater concern is the powerful grip which this liberal secularism has put hold on Canada as a nation, and particularly upon the Liberals and the NDP. Paul Martin is 65 years old and ought to know better!
I close with this quote from John Derbyshire, a plain speaking British born and educated, naturalized American who has this to say on the issue of reverence:
"Reverence for the Flag, the Country, the Church, the School, the Family? But these are just human institutions staffed by ordinary fallible human beings, who frequently behave in ridiculous ways. What's to reverence? We seem to have actually lost some conceptual power, the power to see past individual persons to the institutions they represent. Perhaps this is the final triumph of individualism. There is of course, a case to be made for this great transformation. Those old folkways were not all benign. To an intelligent and imaginative young person-the weight of custom and tradition can be intolerably suffocating, the urge to kick against it, or escape from it, irresistible.
Still, when we escaped from all that, we at least understood that we had lost something, and this is a thing that the following generations do not know. "Why should I have to....? No reason, really, none that stands up to vigorous logical scrutiny. So don't if you don't feel like it. Those who know and care about nothing at all that is old, traditional or customary are adrift and aimless in a blank, nihilistic, hedonistic world, in which nothing matters much because everything is permitted."
posted by Ben Buan | 2:59 p.m.
<< Home