To demonize another person, we first have to self-canonize.
SHERMAN ALEXIE
Envy and hatred try to pierce our neighbor with a sword, when the blade cannot reach him unless it first passes through our own body.
THOMAS MERTON
In recent news of culture-war-as-trade-war, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney inflicted retaliatory 50% tariffs on many goods traversing the Canada-US border. This will obviously have the effect of scalding his own nation, but both Carney and his countrymen appear to gleefully accept this masochistic act in the hope that the US might also get singed a little bit (75% of Canadians supported a withdrawal from negotiations - negotiations which solely existed in the first place to try and lessen the cost on Canada’s economy). Indeed, the issue appears to be so universally mandated up north that Carney’s nemesis, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, has primarily attacked Carney for… not being antagonistic enough towards the US, particularly in regard to said tariffs. Obviously Poilievre is falling into a classic bear trap tendency of conservatives: fearing the social isolation of a strongly differentiated viewpoint and therefore gradually moulding himself into “Liberals but sensible”. We saw how this played out for the Republican Party from 2008-2016; I wonder if Canada is capable of producing a brash enough figure to fill the crucial life ring role played by Trump, which we now recognize as having been the only solution for the prolonged political life of conservatives in the US.
There is another angle here which is even more fascinating. It is often observed that citizens who despise their own country while at home will become surprisingly patriotic and defensive of their nation when traveling abroad and facing criticisms from foreigners. But there is a stronger, deeper version of this phenomenon: that of a nation which either failed to establish territory in the modern world or which ceased to exist as wars were lost and maps were redrawn. The zealous identity of these “invisible nations” can be seen everywhere from Eastern Europe to Kurdistan to American Indian reservations to the Pacific islands. No flag is raised with more patriotism than those flags which have been erased from the map.
With Canada facing a crisis of existence in its ethnic makeup and self-belief, with its only guiding light being burning resentment toward its big brother, what can save the nation? What can transform a postmodern, puritanical nowhere place into a beloved homeland to be fought for, to be boasted about, to be made great again?
In their recent actions and polling numbers, it appears Canadians already know the answer to these questions. So, in their own mind, they might as well go down swinging.
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Self-Immolation as Civic Nation-Building
To demonize another person, we first have to self-canonize.
Envy and hatred try to pierce our neighbor with a sword, when the blade cannot reach him unless it first passes through our own body.
In recent news of culture-war-as-trade-war, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney inflicted retaliatory 50% tariffs on many goods traversing the Canada-US border. This will obviously have the effect of scalding his own nation, but both Carney and his countrymen appear to gleefully accept this masochistic act in the hope that the US might also get singed a little bit (75% of Canadians supported a withdrawal from negotiations - negotiations which solely existed in the first place to try and lessen the cost on Canada’s economy). Indeed, the issue appears to be so universally mandated up north that Carney’s nemesis, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, has primarily attacked Carney for… not being antagonistic enough towards the US, particularly in regard to said tariffs. Obviously Poilievre is falling into a classic bear trap tendency of conservatives: fearing the social isolation of a strongly differentiated viewpoint and therefore gradually moulding himself into “Liberals but sensible”. We saw how this played out for the Republican Party from 2008-2016; I wonder if Canada is capable of producing a brash enough figure to fill the crucial life ring role played by Trump, which we now recognize as having been the only solution for the prolonged political life of conservatives in the US.
There is another angle here which is even more fascinating. It is often observed that citizens who despise their own country while at home will become surprisingly patriotic and defensive of their nation when traveling abroad and facing criticisms from foreigners. But there is a stronger, deeper version of this phenomenon: that of a nation which either failed to establish territory in the modern world or which ceased to exist as wars were lost and maps were redrawn. The zealous identity of these “invisible nations” can be seen everywhere from Eastern Europe to Kurdistan to American Indian reservations to the Pacific islands. No flag is raised with more patriotism than those flags which have been erased from the map.
With Canada facing a crisis of existence in its ethnic makeup and self-belief, with its only guiding light being burning resentment toward its big brother, what can save the nation? What can transform a postmodern, puritanical nowhere place into a beloved homeland to be fought for, to be boasted about, to be made great again?
In their recent actions and polling numbers, it appears Canadians already know the answer to these questions. So, in their own mind, they might as well go down swinging.
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