Critical Perspectives and Reflections

A person is a person through other people . - Michael Schur I don’t know if up till the last little while I’ve been inattentive to the developments in the zeitgeist, but recently I seem to be coming upon more and more chatter, radio interviews, articles in the culture section of the various magazines and newspapers I read, extolling the importance for the nurturing of our individual selves. You know the topics, “self” sufficiency, regard for “oneself”, love of “self”, depending on “oneself”, paying no attention to anyone who is not four-square 100% on “our” side, “self” care etc., etc. Of course, anyone who engages with Face Book knows what I’m taking about, the messages are everywhere. The individual or the ego, in these messages is seen as supreme. There is nary a word regarding notions of social wellbeing, the public good or the necessity of forging and maintaining social relationships. Perhaps this is not so surprising given the number of YouTube videos available on social media an...

Our very new family member, Kleio, a rescue dog (ft note, a Jindo from Korea) got loose this evening (a worker had left our gate open. But it was essentially my fault for not telling them all to make sure they closed it on leaving.) Kleio has had a very rough life (though seemingly a pure bread she was probably abandoned on the streets of a Korean city, nabbed by someone who planned to sell her for dog meat, and finally rescued by an agency with headquarters in Toronto, ending up here in Canada). She had been with us only about six or seven weeks, too short a period to bond with my wife and I. I’m sure when she found herself alone, she probably became disorganized and then freaked out and just started running. A neighbour across from us heard me calling for her and offered to help. Wendy (the neighbour) just jumped in her car and started driving around and asking anyone she saw about Kleio. Other neighbours also went looking on foot as did our son-in-law Darryl JG Newbury who biked all...

Let’s be crystal clear on this matter: I support Ukraine, and Ukrainians, in this war 100% and unapologetically. Yes, Ukraine has an Alt right political element of extremism, just as does Canada, the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Poland… The list is endless. So let’s stop treating it like we’re “shocked and appalled”. At the same time, let’s not deny it. Folks, we can call fake, BS etc. all we wish and it may very well be. However, Russia, will exploit this to their own benefit, to deflect attention from their vile war crimes. I think some of you are missing the point here. This war is very much an info ops campaign with both sides vying to influence the hearts, minds, support, be it financially or with arms, what have you. In the event Ukraine fails to address this video, by way of an independent body investigating its validity, Ukraine would be handing Putin ammunition in his campaign of deception and deceit, both domestically and internationally. Cooler heads are r...

Well, the delegations have gone to Rome and have now left. In the various meetings with Pope Francis the Indigenous “delegates”, who travelled to the Vatican, have spoken to the Pope and by all reports he has listened to them. Behind the scenes there have been meetings between Indigenous spokespersons and Vatican officials. Hopefully those Vatican diplomats also listened carefully to what the Indigenous people had to say, what their experiences with colonialism, historical and contemporary, have been and what they desired to come out of the whole process. As Friday ended, some of the Indigenous people present were interviewed. All, of course, suffered due to their own experiences, or those of their parents or grandparents or uncles or aunties, in one of those residential hell holes. Many of these people were heard to state that it was a good apology and was helping them to heal. They said that hearing the Pope actually use the words sorrow and apology reached their hearts in a way tha...

Starting with Discontents Ideology is one of the more misunderstood terms we have commonly heard enunciated and/or thrown around in common daily discourse. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. It has been, and is, described by many as a “straight jacket’ on our thinking, or some set of beliefs that work so that people misunderstand the world, as in, “Well, that’s just his/her ideology talking”, or “s/he is so ideological”. This is a charge that I hear particularly about those of us who use a left wing, socially progressive framework in attempting to make sense of the world.1 We also see the same charge levelled at those who consider themselves conservatives or liberals. The assumption is that the person has been tricked or browbeaten into believing some irrational or harmful notion, by elites or charismatic leaders or by reading some unfortunate literature that was found lying around. Of course, this can be true. It happens. A Definition My colleague Mirna Carranza and I h...

While not in great numbers, there are Canadians going to Ukraine to fight Russians. I certainly understand folks with Ukrainian heritage wishing to go, and to a lesser extent, veterans of military age wishing to join the fight. But beyond concerns about what will happen if they get captured…, simply put, the Russians will shoot them on the spot, bet on it…my thoughts on totally untrained civilians wishing to go to war are certainly a horse of a different colour. I’m here to tell you war isn’t a game. War is miserable, vile and shows mankind at our worst. War is best left to professional warriors or folks with skin in the game who have no choice. Ukraine is openly recruiting foreign nationals with experience, rightly so, in the profession of arms. While totally untrained folks, with high ideals or a sense of adventure wish to join, the Embassy of Ukraine is doing the wise and responsible thing; turning these well-meaning civilians away, with a thanks but no thanks. Indeed ex-military pe...

This nation just went through a Hillbilly Insurrection and yes, folks paid attention. We got to see with our own eyes what this “Freedumb” Fighter, deliberate anti vaxxer cult really is. Basically, an episode of Beavis and Butthead only the white supremacist version, with trucks and a hot tub. Have we not expended enough energy on this cult of fools?! Yes, I know we have to deal with their temper tantrums. Lord knows the Chinese makers of their flags thought it was the 4th of July in Canada. For all the flag waving over the past three weeks, as a nation, I am ashamed to say… We have yet again all but forgotten about the first Canadians, the First Nations. Perhaps going forward we need to spare some of that pent up energy in righting the wrongs of all Canadian governments, including the current versions. Off hand can anyone tell me the number of First Nations children’s graves that have been located thus far? Even a guess, say within 20? No? At what point can we start thinking seriously...

THOUGHT ONE: THE YEARNING FOR NEUTRALITY Every so often I run into someone, see a letter to the editor in a newspaper, or a post on Facebook suggesting that the person thinks it is important to stay neutral in terms of the various convoy/blockade actions. They may not trust the media, at least unreservedly; or they may see “faults on both sides” (How many sides are without fault in any political issue?); they may be concerned that they will only “add fuel to the feelings of anger and polarization in society”; finally, others want to stay neutral because they don’t believe in talking about politics. Frankly, while I can have some minor sympathy with the concern about the media, but not a whole lot in this case, the others seem naïve and self-serving at best, cowardly at worst. And the idea of avoiding political discussion, even when it is contentious, seems to me to be a raw dereliction of civic duty. Fortunately, I am in good company. Many thoughtful, social-political philosophers have...

So, the so-called “freedom convoy” descended on the nation’s capital on the weekend. Though not as many as Fox, so-called, News would like to pretend, there were many, many, participants of the truck convoy assault on Ottawa, protesting vaccine mandates and generally swanking around like a gang of bikers invading a small town (See the film, The Wild One). Some, though a minority, were even truckers. Here is a list of the major actions for which they will be duly remembered. The production of one of the most undemocratic and dumbest manifestoes ever written, the misnamed, “Memorandum of Understanding” in which they demanded that our unelected Governor General and the unelected Senate join forces, “fire” the duly elected government and roll back all mandates that the authors didn’t like. In practical terms they: * Defiled the Terry Fox statue. * Defiled the National War Memorial. * Flew Confederate flags. * Displayed Nazi swastikas. * Intimidated and hurled insults at fellow Canadians. ...

  I suspect I am not alone in remembering that I was taught in high school English class that Shakespeare’s great tragedy, Hamlet, was about a man who simply could not make up his mind to take action and get vengeance for the murder of his father. The lesson that Shakespeare was laying down for us, we were told, was that Hamlet dithered, was indecisive, and that his failure to act decisively led to his own downfall and the death of others. But that was, and is, a superficial reading of the play. I had the opportunity while at university in Houston, of studying under, and knowing, a very perceptive English professor and my mentor, who helped his students understand the real tragedy. It is one that has never left me and a teaching that I urge all of us to think about. What we learned in that English class was that the real tragedy of Hamlet was more social and political than personal. It was not simply that he was indecisive but that, more importantly, he refused to acknowledge and u...