On identity and tolerance

I've been listening over the course of the last few days to the 2007 Massey Lecture The City of Words this week and every time I listen to the podcast I get something out of it.

I've been thinking lately about the fact lately about the inability of some people to put themselves in someone else's shoes. The inability to empathize or recognize "the other". This is something that has recently crystallized for me, in understanding the way some people see the word. Some people have difficulty imagining the plight of the other, the see everyone else as a poor reflection of themselves and fail to understand how or why others think differently. In political language this kind of rhetoric is disguised by the language of "rationality". I have recognize that there are certain things about myself and experiences that I have had that allow me to better understand and empathize with the other.

First, I am a visible minority. As someone who has one white parent however this puts you in a somewhat awkward position, particularly in a country that for many reasons refuses to engage in conversations about race. This fact in some ways put you automatically in a position of being forced to recognize that there is a sense in which you will always be on the 'outside'. This is simple something that white Canadians, particularly those of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc generations often have trouble understanding. I would imagine that this would be even more true in parts of Canada where there are few visible minorities. I think that being a visible minority in Canada (which I believe is a Canadian invention, It is defined as "persons, other than Aboriginal people, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." See here.

The other experience I have had that also leads me in the same direction is the fact that I as in the French immersion program. I've heard annecdotaly that many of the participants in the program come from immigrant families, more than you would expect given their numbers anyways. One of the things that it teaches me, and I've seen whenever I've seen people struggle to learn a new language is how "things can be different" in language, how language structures thought. No one who has really learned another language well can pretend that language is just a vessel for ideas. It affects what we can communicate and in what way.

The example given by Alberto Manguel in the 2007 Massey lecture is a good one. He explains how Don Quixote opens with a line that would be literally (roughly ) translated as "In a certain place of La Mancha whose name I don't want to remember..." this construction is required because of the construction of the language,whereas Melville in Mobdy dick uses the same literary device saying "Call me Ishmael". In Spanish this is an impossibility because Melville can embrace all of humanity in those three words, whereas in Spanish you have to define your relationship to your reader. Listen to the lecture for a much much better description, I tried to simplify it here, but used the basic point from the comments in his lecture.

I owe my participation in the French immersion program to my father's strong belief in this country and how important understanding French was. I inherited from him a love of Canada. I think is something that those who simply are Canadian because they were born here, often fail to recognize. Immigrants choose Canada, and this choice has an impact on their perception of the country. Some make this choice without information, or with little thought, but many who choose this country do so because of what it stands for, what opportunities exist, because of what the country "is". I was often amazed at how deep my fathers attachment to this country became. One of my earliest memories and I'm sure one of his best moments was the day of my father's citizenship ceremony. He was surely among the proudest Canadians I have ever met, and it is in large measure because he chose this country.

World Cup fever

I thought I'd post about soccer since it's right before the world cup of soccer, which starts next week in South Africa.

I've been thinking about soccer quite a bit lately, as I have been playing soccer video games, playing soccer myself (well rec 6 on 6 soccer..) and reading about soccer.

I recently bought John Doyle's new book The world is a ball , after hearing him interviewed on CBC about it. So far it's a pretty good tale of his experience in following the game of soccer worldwide. He's not a sports columnist so it definitely has a different flavour to it. He's the regular TV columnist and I actually quite enjoyed his previous book on how TV changed things in Ireland when it arrived.

I'm looking forward to watching the world cup games. For whatever reason (maybe because they wear my favorite colour orange), I cheer for the Dutch soccer team. I've cheered for them since the mid 1990s. Don't really know how I ended up being a fan of theirs. But I've been loyal to them.

I've been lucky also since the last world cup to have enjoyed watching games with two of my Canadian-born Dutch friends.

I'm hoping they can win it all this year. I think that because it`s the first time the competition is being held in Africa, like the first time it was in Asia it`ll be chock full of surprises.

I just hope it is well organized and everything runs smoothly. The soccer will be beautiful regardless.

Enviromental Cancer risk

I've been thinking about this recently, as I discovered (courtesy of Mindful Merchant) that the shampoo I use is potentially toxic and has negative environmental impacts.

Being a new home owner as well, has meant looking at ways of boosting the look and feel of our lawn (our backyard is pretty pathetic and weed covered at the moment). The province has a ban on pesticides, but that doesn't mean that it's being respected necessarily (I remember seeing a CBC report about how pesticides were still available).

In the United States the President's panel on cancer (It's well-established body, not specific to any president) mentioned that there needs to be more research into environmental cancer risk, and that not a lot is known about some of these risks.

The fact that there are so many chemicals that are essentially unregulated, simply because there are no resources and way too many of them is quite scary. There of course is also the fact that the chemicals of course interact with each other and so may be benign in one situation but not when mixed with other chemicals or a different situation.

I read silent spring last year as part of an environmental book club and it was really interesting to see how little thought was given to the consequences or just spraying new chemicals every which way. Of course it was easier to do back then, with no environmental movement, no environmental agencies in government and the whole thing feels as if it couldn't happen again, because it was such a different time.

However the chemical industry has both expanded and learned some lessons in terms of its approach to dealing with these issues. I'm most concerned about the U.S. as their regulatory system seems to succumb more easily to pressure and they are a lot more media savvy so it ma be more difficult to oversee and understand what they are really up to.


I'll close this this:

One of the things I remember from the movie I am Legend even though I didn't really like the movie was the fact that they cured cancer but caused something much worse as an unintended consequence of it, and killed lots of people.

Kind of a scary thought.