Friends are Electric

An idealist is someone who follows a set of beliefs blindly, with no regard to the real world, and hopes to have the world adopt their ideas.  There is usually negativity in the word, as someone who is an idealist lacks meaningful contact with the real world where they actually dwell.

I think that this is moderately backwards.  Certainly there are some traces of idealism in those who, often correctly, point out how we as humans could be better.  These people, however, are not the truest idealists.  Nor are they the ones deserving of the condescending undertone of the term.

The true idealists in the world today are those who seriously think that we, as individuals, as a city, province, country or world can continue to live the way we live without consequence.  Without change.  Without taking active part in this change.  The idealists are those who preach the preeminence of the market’s god-hand in deciding fate.  They fail to grasp the true interconnectedness of things, the fallacy of universals and the way the world really works.

It is up to those who understand, or at least understand better, to call these people out on their idealism.

A revisit to my dislike of Toronto

To feel belonging to a place is necessary in order to like it.  Perhaps not a personal, direct belonging, but at least some form of it.  Not necessarily the feeling of `home’, but something like it.  A place here can be a physical place, such as a city, town or any other point on a map.  It can be a metaphorical place, such as the concept of home.  It can be part of society as a whole.  In order to belong you must be able to imagine yourself, your place, in it.  Without being able to do so you will not be enjoy a place.

Clearly by the above statement and past writings, I cannot imagine a place for myself within Toronto.  I am not alone.  I have a place elsewhere for myself.  The problem comes when both groups, and both groups are guilty, fail to recognize that not all of us can imagine ourselves in the same way as everyone else, and thus, as we all really know, there is no universal place.  No clear ideal which everyone must achieve, where everyone must be.  The pleasures of life are not the same for everyone, and we all must respect that.

To anyone who lives within Canada, resentment of Toronto is a known but potentially strange phenomenon.  If you are not aware of it then you are probably from Toronto.  You may also live near another major Canadian city, and resent it for much the same reason which I theorise.  I personally hail from Northern Ontario, which is important as we probably have the greatest resentment for Toronto in the entire country.

As the title suggests, I believe that colonialism is to blame for these feelings.  Toronto is the economic capital of Canada.  Any reasonable person would admit this fact.  It follows that many international companies have their Canadian head offices in Toronto, as well as many Canadian companies.  This means that a large percentage of the decision making power in the Canadian economy is located in Toronto.  When a factory, mine or mill is closed by the head office of a company, likely located in the city, it is other parts of the country which suffer.  So, by virtue of housing these companies, the city is seen as responsible.

Beyond this, companies tend to place all of the management positions in the city.  This makes sense from their perspective as it keeps their corperate headquarters localised.  But this has the effect of keeping many of the high paying, non-directly productive jobs in Toronto.  From the perspective of the rest of the country, however, it seems as though the city itself is parasitising the country, feeding off the success of others while contributing only to its own well being.

Both of these factors, the disconnect between control structures within the city and the front line elsewhere and the parasitic relationship the city has with the rest of the country feel very much like colonialism without the violent  physical oppression.  If you add the media control and the fact that the rest of the country routinely hears local news from Toronto as relevant to their own location, you start to get more of the cultural aspects of colonialism as well as the economic which have already been described.

People within Toronto are unlikely to have an idea about the goings on in the province outside their city.  This is akin to the way many Canadians feel when watching “Talking to Americans” or other such programs.  The cause is the same: the colonial power has no need to know of the goings on in the colonies.

Within Ontario itself, Toronto also plays the roll as political capital.   Again, the reasons why the city is so dominant is clear to anyone who pauses to examine the situation, especially with regard to population and distribution of population.  But, again, to those who exist elsewhere in the province, there is still a dictatorship from the city.  Unless Toronto splits party support quite evenly, the votes of Northern Ontario, for example, are mostly irrelevant.  Once again, the structure is logical but leads to issues.

Considering the above arguments, it is easy to see why the rest of Ontario has an antagonistic relationship with the city of Toronto.  It is a political, economic and cultural oppressor and colonial power.  Within confederation, the same problems can be extrapolated to how the rest of the provinces feel towards Ontario.  The same considerations apply.  As well, anyone living near a major Canadian city, especially a provincial capital, can feel themselves sweeped away by the domination of the city.

The situation, by pure reason, makes perfect sense.  However, this pure reason is not considering the effects this has on people who live in the country, both inside and outside these cities.  The people within are largely oblivious to the way the rest of the country views them, which is largely part of the problem.   This is ignorance, pure and simple, and ignorance is an attribute to be combated.  People living elsewhere have the problem of feeling less important or slighted by this ignorance.  The end result is further dysfunction within Canadian confederation.

For now, I present no solutions or recommendations to this issue.  Personal education would go a long way to mitigating these issues, but I refuse to hold my breath.  Just as Torontonians are blissfully unaware, the rest of Ontario takes joy from its resentment. It is a truly dysfunctional relationship, but it helps to define the cultural landscape in this province and country, and perhaps that is worthwhile.

Westernism, for the sake of this discussion, is thinking like a Westerner.  This may include a belief in spreading civilisation, ethnic superiority, looking down on those who are not western in lifestyle or thinking, the pursuit of the `American Dream,’ strong belief in democracy and liberalism, personal certainty of the necessity of capitalism, love of globalisation, consumerism and, most importantly, belief that we in the West have the most ideal lifestyle imaginable.

The important question I wish to address is the source of Westernism, more specifically: is Westernism something you are born with, or is it something you learn.  Thus, can someone not born in the west truly become western, and can someone born in the west ever really escape it.

This stems from a discussion I had with a friend who’s family are not from the western world.  My parents, and their parents, and some of their parents, etc., were born in Canada.  Clearly, if Westernism is to any extent inherited then I am fully in line with this ideology.  And clearly my friend is entirely separate from this way of thinking.  Both of which are entirely false.

To hold with Westernism is a stereotype of what a person from the West might be like.  True, there are those who follow all of the stereotypes to perfection, and there are those who do not.  For instance,  I know a great many people who believe in democracy and liberalism but who reject many aspects of capitalism in its pure from: these people are generally called social democrats.  Are social democrats therefore not western?  I also know people who would consider social democrats to be antiwestern or antiAmerican.

I also know environmentalists who hold with few of the traits I described as being part of Westernism.  To them, Westernism is a tool of those who push for globalisation and further pure capitalism.  Some even go so far as to reject governments, although this is a very small minority.  Are these people Western?  Not by the above imperfect definition.  Could this ideology exist outside the west?  No.  Then they are Western and my definition is imperfect.  Let us craft a new one.

Westernism: any thought of belief that can only come into being in the west.  That is, conditions only exist for the development of this ideology in the land area we consider to be `The West.’

Included in this new definition are still all of the original definition, but it now includes any other ideology unique to the west.  Environmentalism, general equality, human rights.  Not that these are currently unique to the west, but that they were developed through the liberalism which defined the west.

Now all the example people I have talked about are thoroughly western.  My friend is as well, since they wish to use the capitalist system and Westerners’ love of luxury to her advantage.  By their own definition, they were not of the west.  But they are now, by the very structure of the argument they used to prove the converse.

Now, can someone born in the west ever become something else.  Well, I know that we can reject many aspects of Westernism, as I personally have done.  For example, consumerism and the `American Dream’ are not desirable for me, neither is capitalism to a large degree owing to my Social Democratic roots.  But can I reject liberalism, democracy and all other aspects of Westernism?  No.  If all Westernism is defined by the controversial, Globalisation, Environmentalism, cultural imperialism, etc., then yes.  We can reject Westernism.  However, westernism is much more defined by several core beliefs, mainly democracy, liberalism and capitalism.  Can anyone in the west truly reject all of these beliefs?  Not if they wish to live here.

The rejection of any of these aspects of our life would change the West in tremendous ways.  But change is not always good.  Removing any of these aspects to our lives would ruin life in the west, even capitalism, an ideology which I have never been comfortable with.

Here is the crime of westernism, then.  It is like a virus.  Yes, Westernism is imperialistic and relentless in its goals.  Its goals are to make everyone else like us.  Not in every way, of course.  We, however, are so sure of liberal democracy that we demand others use it, regardless of cultural tradition.  I am as guilty as anyone of this.  But I know that I am guilty of it, and I do not feel in the least bit mournful of this knowledge.

Then perhaps the most important aspect of Westernism is not  liberal democracy, but instead that we have the best systems and that failure to adopt these systems might mean forced adoption against your will, since it is for your own benefit.  I can think no of no other alternative ideologies which do not share this fundamental belief, even if they will not admit it to themselves.  We are all convinced of our moral superiority.

The sad fact is that by this final, and perhaps most accurate description of the motivations of Westernism, we are all westerners.  Even those who do not hold with the central tenants of Westernism.  Therefore, westernism, a more pleasant way of saying moral superiority, is something we are born with.  And the liberal democracy we are born within demands being spread everywhere, except where it is we who have the power.  And therefore it is inescapable for those who are born with it, and since I cannot escape from it, I cannot say how those from outside will behave.