David Warren: Canadian consensus
[...]
Regardless of his political persuasions, I doubt any reader is himself in doubt about the views of McCain and Palin on, say, abortion, or same-sex marriage, or the ramifications of the U.S. First Amendment. Messrs Obama and Biden have more “nuanced” views -- i.e. more likely to say one thing and do another -- and yet their own positions are clear enough, when the lights are trained on them.
[...]
The idea that, for instance, a man could own a gun for any other purpose than to commit violent crimes, is not easily communicated to a person who has no ability whatever to visualize life outside the confines of an urban neighbourhood.
More subtly, the dweller in an urban apartment complex cannot imagine a life in which everything he does is not bound by fussy rules and regulations, and in which any act of non-conformity (lighting a cigarette, for instance) must be greeted with hysterical alarm. In this sense, our vast modern cities, not only in Canada but everywhere, breed Pavlovian conformity to their own physical requirements, and systematically replace moral imperatives with bureaucratic ones.
The reason Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention in Minneapolis this last week was so very explosive -- not only to Americans with the chance to vote for or against her party, but to Canadians, with no chance at all -- had only indirectly to do with the fact that she is a remarkable woman. It was the sudden raw exposure to a well-articulated worldview completely opposed to our “Canadian consensus” that we found so horrifying -- or exhilarating.
Millions of Canadians long to hear something like that from a politician up here. But millions more remain convinced that they must never, ever, be given the chance.
Regardless of his political persuasions, I doubt any reader is himself in doubt about the views of McCain and Palin on, say, abortion, or same-sex marriage, or the ramifications of the U.S. First Amendment. Messrs Obama and Biden have more “nuanced” views -- i.e. more likely to say one thing and do another -- and yet their own positions are clear enough, when the lights are trained on them.
[...]
The idea that, for instance, a man could own a gun for any other purpose than to commit violent crimes, is not easily communicated to a person who has no ability whatever to visualize life outside the confines of an urban neighbourhood.
More subtly, the dweller in an urban apartment complex cannot imagine a life in which everything he does is not bound by fussy rules and regulations, and in which any act of non-conformity (lighting a cigarette, for instance) must be greeted with hysterical alarm. In this sense, our vast modern cities, not only in Canada but everywhere, breed Pavlovian conformity to their own physical requirements, and systematically replace moral imperatives with bureaucratic ones.
The reason Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention in Minneapolis this last week was so very explosive -- not only to Americans with the chance to vote for or against her party, but to Canadians, with no chance at all -- had only indirectly to do with the fact that she is a remarkable woman. It was the sudden raw exposure to a well-articulated worldview completely opposed to our “Canadian consensus” that we found so horrifying -- or exhilarating.
Millions of Canadians long to hear something like that from a politician up here. But millions more remain convinced that they must never, ever, be given the chance.
posted by Stephen | 9/07/2008 03:49:00 PM
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