Category: Canada

Anything related to Canada or Canadians

The Rebel Angels

Robertson Davies’ The Rebel Angels is a novel about a beautiful young gypsy graduate student who has two middle aged professors fall in love with her, but decides to marry a rich young banker. There is also a somewhat perverse ex-monk who kills a third middle-aged professor, also somewhat perverse.

Intermixed is a lot of philosophy and speculation which is convincing and compelling to varying degrees. The much-elaborated theory that personality is closely linked to digestive function doesn’t reek of plausibility, and I am in no position to judge theological speculations. Still, the overall feeling of the book was that the factual claims within cannot be fully trusted – that they are meant to provide a plausible framework for the action, rather than withstand scrutiny on their own. As someone who prefers to read non-fiction (and generally reads fiction for the benefit of the factual elements) this was frustrating.

I also have a dislike of novels in which the narrator varies from chapter to chapter, particularly when they are not identified at the outset. To me, this seems like the sign of an author who is trying to be a bit too clever. Usually, it produces mild frustration and muddles together the various characters, who often do not end up seeming terribly different. For the most part, the characters are easy to become frustrated with – they take themselves much too seriously, and see all their mundane dealings as reflections of essential matters of philosophy.

The book certainly contains some interesting arguments and convincing observations, however. There are some nice little phrases about the common quirks of academics and universities: “Whatever people outside universities may think, professors are busy people, made even more busy by the fact that they are often unbusinesslike by nature and thus complicate small matters” (p.246 paperback). There are also some acute observations about people who are especially prideful about their own capabilities and intellects.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who I am hoping to understand better, so part of the process of reading it was trying to experience it from her perspective. Not only her perspective, but the perspective she had when she first read it. I don’t think I have especially succeeded in that, and I feel a bit embarrassed about responding to the book critically. Still, it seems better to write something honest than falsely claim to have understood the appeal and genius of the book.

There are plenty of books that have affected me in significant ways, but which I think others would be hard placed to trace in me as I am now. Particularly for the young, books that seem really special are often those that serve some acute current need. Even once the need has been filled, there is an enduring gratitude to the book and the author for having filled the gap during the time when it was present. As such, the books that have been important in a person’s life are a bit like the scaffolding used to construct a building. They aren’t visibly present in the final form of the structure, but they affected the way in which it emerged in important ways.

Iggy pot

As shown in a video from the Canadian Press, Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff was asked whether he had ever smoked marijuana. Here is what I think he said in response:

I have smoked pot as a young man, yes. I did not. And it’s one of the reasons. And I urge young people not to repeat the experience. It did not ruin my life. I just think there are a lot more important and interesting things to do with your life, including a glass of wine after dinner. I mean, let’s all relax here.

The Globe and Mail captioned the video: “Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff admits he smoked marijuana when he was younger, but he says, he prefers a nice glass of wine.”

If that’s what it comes down to – a matter of preference – I feel obligated to ask about the severe double standard that exists in the law now. Ignatieff’s drug of choice is available in all of Canada’s finest restaurants. They will bring it to you for free in first class on Air Canada. And yet if you prefer the other drug he has tried, you risk being branded as a criminal, fined, and potentially imprisoned.

It doesn’t make sense to apply a harsh legal regime to drugs that are less harmful than alcohol. If we grant adults the sovereign right to poison themselves with alcohol or nicotine or caffeine, we should acknowledge the same right with regard to marijuana, MDMA, and other comparatively benign substances.

Options for the civically minded

For people who feel a sense of civic duty – a determination to do what they can to improve the laws and policies of their society – it seems to me that there are multiple valid avenues through which to apply your efforts.

The most overt may be entering politics, but it is an option that carries many costs. You might have to spend a lot of time at small-town barbecues wearing a silly apron, to try to convince voters that you’re an ordinary guy like them and not some fancy-school elitist. You might also have to lie about or conceal beliefs that go beyond what the mainstream is willing to accept (better not be an atheist, for instance). Still, if you do take the political route and find yourself in a position of influence, at least you have a pretty defensible mandate to try to implement the ideas you campaigned on.

The civil service is another option. The influence and the constraints of the civil service are both tied to the same role: providing advice. Being someone who provides advice gives you the freedom to use your judgment and the best available evidence to suggest a course of action. The trouble is, you can always be over-ruled by your superiors or by the people who ultimately make the decisions. Civil servants therefore have a moderate level of freedom for expressing their honestly-held and well-justified views, but little certainty that their advice will ever make a difference.

Journalists and academics have the most freedom to speak and defend their arguments in public, but they have even less certainty that their efforts will ever produce concrete changes. Judges, by contrast, know their judgments will have concrete effects, but they don’t know whether that influence will be confined entirely to the case at hand, or whether it will become a more influential precedent.

Setting aside the advantages and disadvantages of different roles, I think it is important to acknowledge that people in all of these roles can be doing their civic duty, in the sense of trying to serve the best interests of their country and the world more broadly. It is possible to serve those interests through obedience – for instance, those who put themselves in physical danger for the good of others – but it is also possible to serve them through honest and open criticism. All governments have made serious mistakes in the past and face major challenges today. If we are to navigate successfully to a safe and comfortable future, there needs to be energetic and open debate based on the best evidence available.

Helping kids pay for college

These days, it seems like having a university degree is the equivalent of having a high school diploma in previous generations – it is simply the requirement in order to even be considered for most professional jobs.

At the same time, university is expensive and comes at a time when people do not have savings or earnings of their own. For many people, the late teens and twenties will be the poorest time in their life, as they are no longer fully provided for by parents but cannot yet get jobs good enough to let them live in comfort. In most cases, they definitely cannot get jobs that pay the cost of living and university tuition, while not requiring so much time and commitment that it undermines their ability to study and benefit from school.

A case can be made that people who choose to have children have some level of moral obligation to help pay for university, in the event that their kids can get in and want to go. Providing such a transfer of wealth to one’s children could help set them on a good path for their entire life. It provides a useful qualification, as well as a key venue to meet future friends, allies, and potential spouses. It is enormously more useful than a lump-sum inheritance received much later in life, when their personal trajectory will already have been basically established. You will also be contributing to the development of an educated and productive populace.

People who themselves went to college probably have a bit more of an obligation to provide a similar opportunity, especially if they received financial help from their own parents. Even for those who didn’t, it is worth bearing in mind that school used to cost a lot less, so people going today have more need for help.

An obligation to help pay for university adds significantly to the total cost of having children, but nobody should be under the illusion that doing so will be cheap. If you don’t feel inclined to invest significantly in your children, my recommendation would be getting a couple of friendly dogs instead.

On a semi-related note, university education is also a smart thing to consider when choosing a spouse. There seems to be a lot of evidence that the more educated a person’s mother is, the better they are likely to do in school, work, and life generally.

Ottawa advance voting

For anyone out enjoying the sunshine near Elgin Street, there is an advanced polling station open for the federal election at Bank and Lisgar.

They are open until 8pm tonight.

[Update: 1:10pm] The station cannot be used by everyone in the riding. There are different ones for different sub-regions and you can only vote at the correct one. That seems like a needless nuisance.

Georgia’s drug courts

Ira Glass recently produced an especially interesting episode of This American Life, talking about a particular drug court in the United States: Very Tough Love.

One potential advantage of the fiscal mess states like Canada and the United States have gotten themselves into is that it might help drive the advancement of more sensible drug policies. Our current approach is excessively punitive, fails to respect the sovereignty of the individual over their body, and is needlessly costly and destructive.

Will my vote matter?

Previously, I created a flowchart for use in voting in Canadian elections. It occurred to me today that it could be interesting to elaborate the concept into a website.

The site would allow people to enter their riding and rank their preferences for either local candidates or parties. It could then estimate the odds that their vote will make a difference they care about. For instance, if someone strongly prefers Party X to Party Y, and both candidates have a shot at winning in that person’s riding, then their vote is relatively likely to matter. By contrast, if someone hates both Party A and Party B equally, and one of their candidates is basically certain to win, then that person’s vote is relatively unlikely to matter.

There are different possible methodologies for the site. For instance, it could be based entirely on past election results, entirely on polling data, or on some combination of the two.

In circumstances where a person is told that their vote is unlikely to matter – for instance, if they prefer a party with minority support in every riding – the website could direct the person to more information on electoral reform and alternative electoral systems like the various kinds of proportional representation.

Unsurprisingly, this is one of those ideas that falls into the “things that may be interesting to discuss, but which I do not have the time to actually do” category.

Warning labels for booze

According to a study in the British Medical Journal, alcohol could be responsible for 10% of cancer in men and 3% in women. The scientists performing the study examined data from eight European countries. Reporting on the study, the CBC raised the question of whether there should be warning labels on alcoholic beverages.

I think there should be. They should warn about the risk of addiction, about damage to unborn children, and about other well-documented risks. These days, there are warning labels on everything from plastic bags (choking hazard!) to coffee cups (this beverage is extremely hot!). When governments put warning labels on some things with long-term health consequences, it implies that anything without such a label is considered safe by the government, or at least substantially safer than the things that do bear warnings. Given that alcohol is one of the most lethal drugs consumed by human beings, along with tobacco, it just makes sense that there be warning labels there too.

I think it’s absurd that Canada is considering putting warning labels on beer to alert people of the presence of wheat, but not considering putting on labels advising that if you drink enough of the stuff, it could kill you in a matter of hours.

P.S. Non-alcoholic beer can be a good option for those who enjoy beer, but want to avoid alcohol for whatever reason.