The Needs of Strangers
Today was different. This morning, I walked to the subway, along a street torn apart to make way for a new streetcar right-of-way that has been hotly contested over the past few years. Amidst the smashed concrete slabs, coffee-slurping orange-vested dusty throngs of city workers and whining machinery, I had one of those recurring movie-like vignettes.
In a historically vibrant moment, a lone, scarred streetpost popped out of the secenery and commanded my attention. The post had one leaflet left on it- they are regularly removed by city workers. The leaflet stood out as a bold, lone survivor amidst the skeletal staple graveyard of wasted efforts. The headline on the small piece of paper said "BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW" and beckoned people to attend a "Pan-Canadian Day of Action" on Oct., 28 to call for Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan. I know I've written about this subject a hell of a lot in recent months, but it was at that moment that it truly hit me: We are at war. Granted, that statement means nothing unless measured by the yardstick of one's experience in life.
I'm 38 years old. In the 80s, my youth was intellectually tormented by angst about the coming nuclear holocaust that we would all surely be experiencing. Mine was a generation that was acutely aware of the concepts of M.A.D. and the circles I travelled in read social philosophy and pondered regularly questions of global security relating to the Soviet and US spheres of influence over some modern jazz and hash.
But we, as Canada was, were always bystanders to the cynical, destructive games that the evil superpowers played around the world. The comfort of our armchair position and the warmth and wisdom with which we regarded all cultures and civilizations was a badge we wore with pride. How naive we were - or maybe just too high?
One of the guys I was impressed with back then was this incredibly erudite and sensitive son of an exiled Russian noble named Michael Ignatieff. I don't know- maybe it was my fondness for Solzhenitzyn or my own Slavic descent that made me identify with Ignatieff. I remember a treatise that he wrote called "The Needs of Strangers". In others' words , that book talked about "a wide-spread failure on the part of humanity to provide the passionate sense of community "in which our need for belonging can be met." The implications of this kind of compassionate thinking were not lost on us. Russians could love Americans and the world could be safe from extinction one day. Hey, if Woodrow Wilson- an American- had thought so at some point, then why shouldn't we be optimistic?
Looking at that anti-war pamphlet now and the black marker scrawling on the plastic cover of the Toronto Star box below it, which read "Fuck Ignatieff", really hammered home two things that I had not consciously connected before this morning. One is that the country I love has lost its way and found itself in the middle of a game of spheres of influence being perpetrated by higher powers. Second, is that possibly - just possibly- Michael Ignatieff, that sensitive philosopher who believed in compassion, could be the only man able to pull us back on track.
In a historically vibrant moment, a lone, scarred streetpost popped out of the secenery and commanded my attention. The post had one leaflet left on it- they are regularly removed by city workers. The leaflet stood out as a bold, lone survivor amidst the skeletal staple graveyard of wasted efforts. The headline on the small piece of paper said "BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW" and beckoned people to attend a "Pan-Canadian Day of Action" on Oct., 28 to call for Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan. I know I've written about this subject a hell of a lot in recent months, but it was at that moment that it truly hit me: We are at war. Granted, that statement means nothing unless measured by the yardstick of one's experience in life.
I'm 38 years old. In the 80s, my youth was intellectually tormented by angst about the coming nuclear holocaust that we would all surely be experiencing. Mine was a generation that was acutely aware of the concepts of M.A.D. and the circles I travelled in read social philosophy and pondered regularly questions of global security relating to the Soviet and US spheres of influence over some modern jazz and hash.
But we, as Canada was, were always bystanders to the cynical, destructive games that the evil superpowers played around the world. The comfort of our armchair position and the warmth and wisdom with which we regarded all cultures and civilizations was a badge we wore with pride. How naive we were - or maybe just too high?
One of the guys I was impressed with back then was this incredibly erudite and sensitive son of an exiled Russian noble named Michael Ignatieff. I don't know- maybe it was my fondness for Solzhenitzyn or my own Slavic descent that made me identify with Ignatieff. I remember a treatise that he wrote called "The Needs of Strangers". In others' words , that book talked about "a wide-spread failure on the part of humanity to provide the passionate sense of community "in which our need for belonging can be met." The implications of this kind of compassionate thinking were not lost on us. Russians could love Americans and the world could be safe from extinction one day. Hey, if Woodrow Wilson- an American- had thought so at some point, then why shouldn't we be optimistic?
Looking at that anti-war pamphlet now and the black marker scrawling on the plastic cover of the Toronto Star box below it, which read "Fuck Ignatieff", really hammered home two things that I had not consciously connected before this morning. One is that the country I love has lost its way and found itself in the middle of a game of spheres of influence being perpetrated by higher powers. Second, is that possibly - just possibly- Michael Ignatieff, that sensitive philosopher who believed in compassion, could be the only man able to pull us back on track.
Labels: Foreign Affairs, Philosophy, Politics, Red Scared, Urban Anecdotes, War
posted by K-Dough at 8:30 PM
12 Comments:
J-Dog- At the risk of disappointing or being overly cryptic, what I am endorsing today is compassion and a broader view of how the world works, rather than mediocre provincial or political bullshit.
And as a colleague mentioned after reading today's post, I am endorsing "complexity" as an acceptable means of determining our country's future direction.
My flashback reminded me that I once revered what this guy had to say. Why not now?
RE "Nation within Canada" I say, if you love something let it go...
Call a spade a spade and let history move as it will. That's what it does anyway.
Compassion?? What compassion????
How much compassion did he offer the 655,000 Iraqis that lost not only their liberty but their life as a result of the illegal invasion of Iraq? ZERO. Surely you know that Ignatieff was one of Bush's key propoganda meisters.
How much compassion did Ignatieff show after the Qana killings? ZERO - he didn't "lose sleep over it" remember.
Why does a former colleague from his "human rights" days, call him "a virus in the human rights movement" ?
Compassion? P-L-E-A-S-E...Surely you jest.
Cut me some slack dude- I'm all misty today- I think I'm getting my period.
by the by -- that was an excellent ignatieff book -- in fact it's still a staple on my shelves.
and good comment. i did vote on progressive bloggers...and i concur. he's been derided for taking a stance...but he's the least political and has vision...though i do have a soft spot for Rae (then again, i didn't live in ontario when there were rae-days). i don't agree with all that ignatieff says or does...but he is an intelligent philosopher...and lord knows we need more than economic savvy at this point.
i guess i could forgive iggie's arrogance if it meant leading with vision.
i don't see iggy pulling the country together...not at all. th e ONLY person i see capable of this job is b.c.'s ndp leader, carole james - compassion with action. philosophy is fine to a point, but where it becomes over rided by the persons own personal confusions doesn't cut it, and i'm afraid long confines of the ivory tower make people a tad more then oblivious of the real world.
yes, i have many doctorate friends and i love 'em, but they are specialized....which is fine when i need their advise in their field. only two out of the twenty or so i know have any inkling o fliving life in the reality zone, but those two made their own way through u.....the others were from priviledged families (nothing wrong with that but from home to school to grad school to work with uber support doesn't instill a variety of experience).
rae may not be the best choice, and a recession in ontario under his regime may not have had anything to do with his government....(let's remember we love to blame the government) but it is a lasting memory in people's minds. rae's in it as a career, which doesn't make him top notch either.
so we are once again, looking at a choice of lesser evils, which seems to be the mainstay of politics these days. voter hell. put your ballot in the box and have some aloe nearby for th eflames that may bite you.
all i want is for the libs to get their bloody leadership race out of the way, the non-confidence vote called and a minority lib govt. in power . then we can bumble along (the libs making their deal with the bloc), and hang in there until someone, somewhere , comes forth who truly has what it takes.
as for quebec, ya, they can go their own way but with none of the deals brokered in the past.....so, no, you will not still get money from canada and yes, you will give aboriginals their rights. and the seperatists had the nerve to call themselves the niggers of the north. harumph!
Compassion? Iggy? Sorry K-Dough, all I've seen from him is arrogance that has grown from his jet-set academic lifestyle. In fact, I didn't know such a lifestyle existed until I learned of this ex-pat. Oh wait, he's not an ex-pat, he's our future prime minister and the saviour of Canada's compassionate existence. Sorry, the few times this pompous johnny-come-lately has pulled himself from the intellectual ivory tower it's been to either: (a) put his foot in his mouth politically; or (b) talk condescendingly to the "common people." (If I wanted a queen, I'd go to England. Or perhaps Church Street.)
If Iggy is the most compassionate leader the Libs have to offer, then *I* fear for the country's future.
Sorry if that was a little over the top. I'm feeling a little hung over this morning.
Diku- I'd rather we have a little more condescension toward the common people because they are idiots who need babysitting.
Truth be told, I'd rather they be babysat by someone intelligent from an ivory tower than one of their own.
Wow K-dough, that comment smells of Ann Coulter!
That ain't all I've got that smells of Coulter....oops - I wasn't supposed to tell....I gotta go make a call.
another iggy waning.....he's a former prof at harvard....you know, the 'kennedy school of though'. you don't attend harvard then reach tenure there by not being a crony of that, and that my friends, is the harvard equivelent of yale's skull and cross bones. face it, he's just another one of the pack.
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