Last Sunday, provincial MLA Norm Letnick and I were cooking pancakes together for the Canada Day celebrations in Lake Country organized by the Lake Country Rotary Club.

            “What does Canada mean to you,” Norm asked, flipping a pancake. 

            “That I don’t have to be an American,” I replied flippantly.

            “I can’t say that,” he laughed.

            So I tried again: “I like what Joe Clark said, years ago. That Canada is a community of communities.”

            Norm nodded. Then he used that line in his speech at the opening ceremonies. 

            Good for him. Because it really is a good description of how Canada differs from the much larger nation south of us.

The qualities of community

            Community is important. Sociologists now say that people who live in an active community — with lots of face to face interaction — can expect to live about five years longer than people who live in a lonely or isolated environment. 

            Communities learn to get along with each other. They don’t always agree. But like families, they learn to compromise. Partly because of fear; they can’t afford to split up into smaller factions. Also  because they want to get along together; they value community itself. 

            They know intuitively that cooperation and compromise is good for everyone. And that polarization is not.

            I say “intuitively,” because they probably haven’t absorbed intellectually that community is the logical extension of the process of evolution. Evolution used to be characterized as “survival of the fittest.” In fact, as biologists are now discovering, it’s “survival of the cooperative.” The legendary lone wolf is a less efficient predator than the pack; a mixed forest resists disease better than a monoculture. Even our human bodies are the result of cooperation between millions of our own cells and billions of bacteria.

Th cult of individualism

            The alternative to community is individualism. Which is  what I see, from my viewpoint looking south out of the Great White North, as rampant in the United States. 

            On a CBC radio Ideasprogram, Robert Reich attempted to define the difference between left and right in politics. The right, Reich argued, distrusts government. The left distrusts corporations. 

            I guess that proves I’m middle-of-the-road — I distrust both of them. 

            But I think Reich missed an important distinction — how left and right act out their distrust. 

            The right tends to takes a vigilante response. If you don’t like something, you take individual action against it -- the lone gunman who shoots up a newspaper, a night club, a concert, a school. 

            The actual ideology of the shooter is irrelevant. So is his religion or mental health. The key is that he chooses to act individually. Or, possibly, with a small posse of similarly disaffected people, as in the World Trade Center attacks.

            By contrast, the so-called left knows that it needs government to control the corporations it doesn’t trust. So it has to take collective action. Because corporations are not entities that can be shot. They are, themselves, collective juggernauts that will keep rolling along doing damage regardless of what happens to a few individuals. 

            Only a similarly powerful collective entity can counter them. Usually, therefore, a government.

            So the characteristic of the left is that it organizes. Whether it’s protests or sit-ins or elections, the left depends on organizing numbers of people around an issue. 

Isolation and separation

            But almost always, a single issue.  

            Which does not yield to compromise or cooperation. 

            And is therefore just as polarizing as the vigilante mentality of the right. 

            Both, it seems to me, are symbolic of the dominant religion of America — individualism. 

            Forty years ago, author Robert Bellah wrote (in a book called Habits of the Heart) that individualism has become so ingrained in the American psyche that even when people think about breaking the pattern, the only solution they can imagine is to be even more individualistic. 

            In such a climate, it seems to me, the concept of community offers an alternative. Community has room for individual differences. But those individuals recognize that they are all better off together than standing alone. 

            We build community in churches. Or try to, not always successfully. We build community in service clubs and volunteer organizations. We build community in working teams and professional associations. 

            I concede that Canada is not an ideal community. We are increasingly governed by three corporate entities – Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. The principle of polarization has slithered into our political processes.

            But community remains a goal worth holding high. 

            That’s why I like Joe Clark’s notion of Canada as a community of communities. 

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Copyright © 2018 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                       To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Last week’s column on rising ocean levels wasn’t really about Kitibati and the Maldives, I guess. Bob Rollwagen picked up on the larger implications: “Ontario has joined the USA in reversing actions taken by previous governments to encourage environmental stewardship. Ontario seems to withdrawing from international agreements in favour of making the local rich richer. Nations will be sinking while the rich nations argue internally about how to make the poor pay for issues the rich have created. I am starting to wonder if the current reality will change.

Ted Archibald also takes a pessimistic view: “What will the rest of the world do when the levels cause millions to lose their land? Also when global warming causes massive storms, floods and drought. The projections, if I read them correctly state:
-- all major [coastal] cities will be inundated forcing people to higher ground
-- drought will cause major famine
-- climate refugees from all impacted areas will seek safety
The question is, what will Canada do?
-- allow a limited number of refugees to come to Canada? [selecting only the wealthiest and best-educated: JT]
-- prevent millions of others from coming, left to their fate?
-- prevent migrant ships from landing -- Komagata Maru incident springs to mind?
-- work with the US to build ‘fortress north America’ with or without Mexico or central America?
My view of the future 
-- major chaos
-- major mass death – world population down to less than one billion.”

Doreen Beaton accepts that ocean levels are rising: “My husband Alan recently bought three books re the water crisis, from different angles, by three ‘experts’. They are REPLENISH, by Sandra Postel, a hopeful book, as she is Director of the Global Water Policy Project. Then there is The SOURCE by Martin Doyle, about the roles rivers have played in American history, & how vital they are to its future. He is a professor & director of another water policy program. Third is THE WATER WILL COME, by, Jeff Goodell, who has written several books about environmental issues. I am just starting that & find it scary. Of course I will not be here when what he says will happen, but I fear for my grandchildren, maybe even sons. it sounds selfish, but I am so glad I have lived when I did!”

Steve Roney questioned the factual basis for my column: “Yes, sea levels seem to be rising over time, but not by a great deal, and they have been rising since the last Ice Age. You can find web sites sounding the alarm, but at the same time, others that say it is not significant.

            “You yourself pinpoint one reason for skepticism. The richest of the rich are the ones who buy and develop oceanfront properties, and the value of those properties is going up, not down. Obviously they, who can afford the best advice on the matter, and have the most to lose, are putting their money behind the proposition that the oceans are not rising to a significant extent—otherwise their investment is lost.”

Tom Watson countered, “Doesn't this offer further proof of Marx's observation that economics is the archechtonic science? If you're going down, go down making money. Don't use your tap water, folks; buy water in plastic bottles, even if it comes from the same aquifer that your tap water comes from, and in spite of the fact that oceans are slowly filling up with those handy-dandy plastic bottles...all that really counts is that the people who sell the bottled water are making money.”

Helen Arnott wrote, “Wonderful column about Kiribati. The threat of imminent inundation has been a concern of many, including myself. Would that more people would read your words and do their individual best to reduce, recycle, and reuse, and that our governments would devise creative incentives to do so. Remember the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference when the plea from Kiribati fell on deaf ears?”

Cliff Boldt: “Trump would have condos being built in North Korea.”

George Brigham had a comment about the King Canute legend: “I was pleased to see that you didn’t fall into the common error of supposing that King Canute imagined he had the power to turn the tide. No one now knows where the incident took place, but to my possibly biased mind, having spent some time ministering locally, Gainsborough in Lincolnshire has the best claim. The River Trent has a tidal bore known as the Aegir and it is against this force that Canute performed his non-miracle. Afterwards, local legend has it, he entered a nearby church and hung his golden crown on the arm of a cross declaring that ‘the king of kings is more worthy of it than I.’ 

            “The story is about Canute’s humility, not his arrogance.  Politicians and journalists, misunderstanding the story, can dismiss people as Canute-like. Would that they more were Canute-like and realised the limits of their remit.”

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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                       My webpage is running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca

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                       And for those of you who like poetry, I’ve started a webpage http://quixotic.ca/My-Poetrywhere I post (occasionally, when I feel inspired) poems that I have written. If you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca,  or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blankemail (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca(If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think too many links constitute spam.)

                       Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca

                       Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

                       Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>

                       I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom

                       Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.

                       Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet