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BACKWATER

1 May

From Margaret Wente’s interview with Camille Paglia, in yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

Do you have any impression of the landscape in Canada right now?
I’m not that familiar with Canada. But when I was at York University a few years ago, I thought, “Oh my god, they are so shallow. Such a backwater.”

Thanks, Camille! Way to make me sorry that I assigned Break, Blow, Burn to my first-year writing students last year.

See, I’m on board with a lot of Paglia’s arguments — if not, precisely, with the ideology that underlies them. Take for example her ideas about education: she says in this article, as she has elsewhere, that teachers need to take a long view of history, and that we need to be pass on basic factual knowledge. That’s absolutely true. This is, in fact, why I assigned Break, Blow, Burn: most of its essays are real gems that show careful attention to poetic form, poetic content, and cultural-historical context. That’s exactly the kind of analysis that I wanted my students to see, and exactly the kind of analysis of which I hope they’ll be capable.

But when she says derisively that “teachers have no sense that they are supposed to inculcate a sense of appreciation and respect and awe at the greatness of what these artists have done in the past” — that’s where she loses me.

I’ve taught a lot of Beethoven this year. I fucking love Beethoven. I have two Beethoven busts, people; I frequently hop around a little when I listen to the Eroica; and seriously, I think an awesome first date would involve hand-holding at a performance of the seventh symphony. And, as you’d hope, I have a solid understanding of his works — of their form, their musical rhetoric, all of that. But it is not my job to make people feel “awe at [his] greatness”. I will demand that they can track key changes and motivic development, I will demand that they can find the secondary theme, and I will ask them about the dramatic function of the coda. I will wear my awe on my sleeve, but I will not demand that my students feel what I do. Neither do I want my scholarship to be about “greatness”.

In her interview with Wente, Paglia says, 

“Critical thinking” sounds great. But it’s a Marxist approach to culture. It’s just slapping a liberal leftist ideology on everything you do. You just find all the ways that power has defrauded or defamed or destroyed. It’s a pat formula that’s very thin.

The question I pose back to her is this: what’s the ideology involved in lamenting the lost prestige of the humanities, and in declaring that teachers need to teach “awe and respect”? That’s a line of thinking that reifies cultural hierarchies, and that leaves us unable to consider the ways in which these hierarchies reinforce particular forms of power.

And it’s the kind of thinking that leads people to declare Canada to be a “backwater”. Always has been. I know that, with very few exceptions, we fail on those kinds of hierarchical terms — the terms of progress, innovation, ‘universal expression’. But — that’s a problem with the hierarchy, not with the nation.

Of course, I could be wrong. I may have spent the last ten years working up to a “long view” of Canadian culture, but I suppose that a weekend in Toronto and a lifetime immersed in High Art might have saved me the trouble of thinking all of this through. Dr. Paglia, is that the kind of informed assessment you want to make? I hope you see that when you argue on the one hand for close reading and historical knowledge and thick criticism, and on the other are willing to denigrate a national culture you haven’t studied at all, it’s doubly insulting.

Harper, Carbon, and the G8

9 Jul

The CBC site is reporting the following:

As the Group of Eight summit wrapped up in northern Japan on Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it’s a “mathematical certainty” that developing countries will bear the brunt of the work in lowering global greenhouse gas emissions.

His comments to reporters in the resort town of Toyako came as several developing countries reportedly balked at climate change targets proposed by the G8 countries the previous day.

The major industrial countries represented by the G8 set a goal Tuesday to halve emissions that contribute to global warming by 2050, though no international baseline year was set and the plan lacked midterm goals.

Harper said that by 2050, developed nations will likely account for no more than 20 per cent of global carbon emissions.

“So, when we say we need participation by developing countries, this is not a philosophical position. This is a mathematical certainty,” he told Canadian reporters at a news conference Wednesday.

“You can’t get a 50 per cent cut from 20 per cent of emissions.”

1) Developed countries have spent a couple of centuries “developing” while emitting massive amounts of carbon. It’s why we have the technology and industry we do today.

As the developing world catches up in terms of technology and industry, how is it that we now get to blame them for the state of the environment?

The ruling class will always try to maintain its status. That’s part of what this is about: plain and simple, economic imbalance works for the developed world, and we collectively want to maintain it.

2) Way to shirk your responsibility, Harper. Regardless of what’s going on in other nations, it’s still incumbent upon Canada to do better. We’ve made commitments to reducing carbon emissions. If you’re short-sighted, you might be focused on the economic undesirability of making such a change.

But, hell, I don’t really know about economics. That’s not what I do. Sometimes, though, you just have to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do — not because you see a concrete long-term benefit for yourself, and people like you. I’d like to see a national leader who understands that.

Gas and Cable

30 Jun

It looks like gas prices have finally started having an impact on cute little white girls in Utah. Thank goodness; I thought we’d have to wait a long, long time before this issue started getting sufficient media coverage.

Okay, seriously now. Two little girls from Utah, who cannot spell “money” or indeed “cable”, are upset because their parents have cut off their cable TV to pay for gas. I’m thinking, long term, these kids are going to be better off. Perhaps they can spend their Hannah Montana time taking the bus to the library.

In fact, part of me feels that a lot of good things are going to come from rising gas prices. Anything that makes people take public transit or bike rather than driving — well, that’s a good result. And, if we’re going to be honest, rising gas prices are the only thing that’s going to make the average North American consumer make those changes.

Good effects aside, though, I’m more than a bit concerned about this situation. Here, two cases in point:

1) My airfare to get home for Christmas this year will be approximately $200 more than it was last year.
2) A pound of tofu at Trader Joe’s is $0.50 more expensive than it was a year ago. Or, I’m pretty sure it is. And I’m guessing that much of this increase is the result of increasing transport costs.

As a graduate student, I feel these economic pinches pretty acutely — or, at least, cumulatively. I can, however, bear them pretty easily. For me, a few extra dollars each week at the grocery store is something I notice, but — since I’m shopping for one — can absorb pretty easily, and still buy fresh produce and tasty Greek yogurts. $200 extra a couple of times a year to visit my family hurts a bit more, but for now, I can handle it.

The thing is: I’m in a pretty good position. I have a low income, but my future earning potential is reasonable, and I certainly come from a comparatively advantaged background. I have no dependents, so I’m typically cooking for one — and because of my Newfie heritage, I’m well-schooled in running a good and frugal kitchen. Thanks, Grandma!

I’ll also add that I’m already making, as a matter of course, most of the ‘sacrifices’ that people are talking about as a result of rising fuel prices. First, I don’t have a car. I also split my heating costs three ways with my roommates, keep the thermostat at 60º as much as I can stand it, and refuse to run the air conditioner. (I actually took it out of my house.) When I do laundry, not kidding, I use a hand-crank machine and spin dryer. So — effectively, there’s not much on which I can cut back.

If, with all of these advantages, I’m still noticing meaningful economic changes, the story to be told is not mine, and not the story of privileged white girls from Utah giving up something they (probably) shouldn’t have anyway because of gas prices. The story is about food and energy costs hitting people who can’t be hit any more. That’s been getting some coverage, I know, but it’s where the real crisis is coming, and it’s time we took heed.

On the whole: enough, ENOUGH whining about having to make negligible lifestyle changes. You shouldn’t be driving everywhere anyway. You shouldn’t be so invested in cable TV that you take to the streets in protest. You shouldn’t be beside yourself about the cost of leisure travel.

Be indignant for the people who need it.

And perhaps, be indignant about the state of the market. Be indignant that people in positions of power have realized that people will buy very nearly as much fuel at $140 a barrel as they did at $90 a barrel — and that they’ve simply decided to charge $140. Be indignant that these same people have wielded their money and power for decades to ensure that we would have few viable options to fossil fuel, when this time came.

A reductio ad absurdum, yes, but not an unsubstantial part of the question. The end result will be predictable: the very rich will get richer; the moderate privilege of us in the middle will shrink; the really poor will suffer abonimably.

How do we live with this? If the poor are still with us, it’s because we need them, some more than others. It’s an ugly admission, but as I type it, I realize that it doesn’t weigh on my conscience nearly enough.

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