Last Refuge of Scoundrels

In some countries it's patriotism. In this country it's an off-brand substitute called anti-Americanism:

We’re being conquered. If Stephen Harper wins a majority, the United States of Canada is what we’ll be. Maybe you’re fine with that. I am not.

The Harperites’ attitude is Republican with a layer of Tea Party, a “current of bitterness, an anger born of a sense of exclusion,” as Lawrence Martin wrote in his fine book Harperland, Conservatives “viscerally hating their political opposition” in a way that was new and startling in Canada but old poisoned hat for the Americans. We will become more American in word and deed, in thought and feeling.

I know. I know. I've been warned about critiquing anything Heather Mallick writes. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. It also drives up my blood pressure. Which is impressive considering that I'm about twenty years younger that her. My anger doesn't come from her opinions being different than my own. Nor that she's a hack writer. It's that she's a bad hack writer.

John Moore's opinions are different from my own. Thomas Walkom's beliefs are an anathema. Yet these men can actually string words together. I recognize that they are writers. The Toronto Star has many writers of varying quality. Still, I can say honestly that most of them are professional writers. After all these years I have no damn idea how Heather Mallick continues to draw a paycheque as a writer.

Again, it is not that she's a shrill leftist feminist. It's that she's an incompetent shrill leftist feminist. Her decades long career in Canadian opinion writing can only be explained by one of two things 1) She's a quota fill, which is unlikely since straight white women aren't really an identifiable victim group anymore 2) There is a significant audience for incompetent shrill leftist feminist writing.

The second option is puzzling at first, then terrifying when you come to think about it. Who would want to read the rantings of an incompetent shrill leftist feminist writer? The answer: Other incompetent shrill leftist feminists. To sustain Ms Mallick's literary output would require that, in the Greater Toronto Area alone, there be thousands upon thousands of shrill leftist feminists. A type begins to emerge: The Mallick.

A woman of a certain age, who matured when feminism was still fresh from its victories (real and imagined) against the patriarchy. She is scarred from the battles fought by the previous generation of feminist activists. Perhaps she endured actual sexist behaviour, perhaps she merely heard about such behaviour second-hand. Either way she is outraged. Action is always required and state action is usually preferable. There are few problems that cannot be solved by bigger government. It's employees are angels of compassion and arbiters possessed of Solomonic wisdom. Whatever the date on the calendar, the mind of The Mallicks is set permanently in 1978.

It should be noted that the mind-date of The Mallicks is set not in the actual 1978, in which real human beings drew breath, spoke words and gazed upon the dawn in wonder. No, it is the 1978 of stereotype and cliche. One of the enduring Myths of Canada is that of the peaceable kingdom. It's a plausible myth because our history is far less bloody than that of any other major country in the world. The myth hides, or downplays, actual bloodshed in the Canadian history and gives an exaggerated sense of Canadians as innocents, located by hard chance next to the dark satanic mills of America. From this myth of peace and innocence emerges such patent nonsense as:

Conservatives “viscerally hating their political opposition” in a way that was new and startling in Canada but old poisoned hat for the Americans.

Heather Mallick and Lawrence Martin (who is quoted above) were both around and generally sentient in the 1980s. Perhaps the 1988 General Election slipped their mind. Let me remind them. The sheer vitriol directed against the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and Brian Mulroney, makes the back and forth of the Harper-era look very tame.

You may also recall that The Mallicks of the 1980s were predicting the speedy assimilation of Canada into the Reagan-led behemoth to the South. Unless, of course, the old trigger happy cowboy did not blow up the world before then. I do not recall a moment of repentance or regret from The Mallicks when the Soviet Union collapsed - perhaps they were not socialist enough - or when nearly a quarter of a century later we remain a sovereign state, no more inclined to Americanize now than at any other time in our history. The end was not nigh then. It is not now.

These and other facts do not prevent the issuing forth of this gem:

The march of evangelical Christians on Washington was one of the greatest upheavals in modern American political history, and it was very bad for science and technology, not to mention abortion rights, women generally, non-evangelicals and the national sense of humour.

Has Roe v Wade been overturned? Does the typical American woman have any significant difficulties in finding an abortionist? Except perhaps in the most remote of rural areas? Did overnight America cease to be world's leading scientific and technological power? Was it a Chinese or an Indian who launched the iPad 2 last month? There sits now in the White House a black man. Jim Crow is not readying a comeback.

The Tea Party has only the vaguest whiff of religion about it. The 2012 election cycle is not focusing on social issues. Like the 2008 cycle the focus is on the economy and the growth of government. The America of which Heather Mallick speaks - and which The Mallicks loath and fear as medievals loathed and feared the Devil - does not exist. It is the real America viewed through the distortions of a carnival side-show mirror.

Stephen Harper is not plotting to Americanize the Dominion. In his five years in power he has distanced himself as far as possible from charges of a hidden agenda - i.e. actual conservative principles. Yet nothing prevents this ludicrous accusation:

Social acceptance of American-style racism will increase, Maclean’s magazine’s awful “Too Asian?” school issue having opened the gates. Now Chris Spence, the Americanized head of the Toronto School Board, is setting up special schools solely for black kids. Segregation was, and is, an American disease, now entering from a new social fissure.

It is NOT the Canadian Right that is pushing for racial segregation in schools, it is the Canadian Left. You will not find a conservative or libertarian worthy of the name supporting such a scheme. The Afrocentric school - in which most of the students are likely to be of Caribbean and not African descent - has come near fruition because of that great enabler of modern bigotry: white liberal guilt. This is your crowd sister, not ours.

I point out The Mallicks - and Ms Mallick herself as archetype - because they represent an important group in modern Canada. They are found not simply in editorial boards across the country, but in schoolrooms, government offices and upon the bench. Their power is wide and subtle. Their Canada is a strange and left-wing place, riven with paranoia at the imminent takeover of this country by the United States, a thought which does not cross the mind of one American in a million. It is a little Canada afraid of the world beyond, clinging to the myths of yesteryear and the big paternalistic government that will protect them from the modern globalized world. 

Comments

[Glenn]

well said...

[Ddot]

Mallick is the better sort of hack. At least the kind of hack that gets to write for the sections more people read. On the other hand there is Zerbisias, who is cut from the same cloth but seems to be a less important thread.

There is a hack hierarchy it seems.