Celebration of anything or anyone requires one of two mindsets.
The first mindset is make-believe. We pretend something is what it is not. We sing, dance, and light fireworks in false celebration.
Eulogies about abusive drunks being great family men call us to false celebration. We pretend the bad did not exist, and we focus on the good … or make it up.
The second mindset requires gratitude and humility. Gratitude directs our mind to the good, humility to the bad.
We take a principled stance of thankfulness — principled because it requires more than emotion. Principled thankfulness chooses to remember the good, even when the bad creates emotions which make thankfulness almost impossible.
True humility comes in knowing the full extent of our failure and that it could have been worse. We know our current failure is not anywhere close to demonstrating how badly we could screw things up if we try.
Enthusiasm
Healthy, mature minds hold two or more things in tension, all the time. Children and certain personality disorders hold only one thing in mind at any time. They are having The Best Day Ever! or the worst day of their lives. Everything splits into all good or all bad, and at full emotional intensity.
When an immature mind adopts a mindset of make-believe celebration, it abandons reality. It uses a vision of false purity to create unfounded enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is like starter fluid. It makes everything light up. Enthusiasm works equally well for celebration and penance.
Celebration becomes ecstatic and intolerant of any balance. Getting together is not good enough—it must be wild!
Enthusiastic penance makes us wail, scrape ourselves with potsherds, and toss dust on our heads. Penitence is not good enough.
Emotion in the Service of Power
Organized religion traditionally worked to curb enthusiasm toward useful pursuits. Religion has gone, at least in the old sense.
Now people pour their enthusiasm into politics. But politics has no way to curb enthusiastic excess.
So, society adopts a childlike (or borderline) personality. It becomes obsessed with purity — True Belief. Bad things always follow. Heretics are burned. Queens beheaded. And society lights itself on fire.
Enthusiasm and crisis go together; one leads to the other.
Saint-Simon, an early 19th century political theorist who influenced JS Mill, Proudhon, Marx, and Engels, described society as going through organic periods and periods of crisis (also organic vs critical). Society enters a critical phase of disorganization after rejecting organizing principles.
When people realize they no longer believe things that used to limit their behaviour, they act out.
Why should I tell the truth, pay taxes, be polite, or stand in line? Says who?
Crisis creates political opportunity. Vocal bands of voters will force politicians to use crisis to advance their cause. They will harness the emotion behind a crisis and turn it into a wedge issue — liberalism uses emotion in the service of power.
Celebration Without Politics
Canada, like every country, is a mess of good and bad things. Being young, Canada has far less to feel embarrassed about than older nations. But give us time. Failures will pile up. “Men are worse than animals,” my father often says.
We do not dismiss failures—unmarked graves, internments, refusal of asylum, and so on.
Failure demands investigation and correction, if possible. We listen and ask.
If we truly care, we refuse to let anyone turn failure into political opportunity. Emotion must never be used as a means to power.
An open-eyed celebration of Canada requires gratitude for the good, humility for the bad, and thankfulness that failures were not worse.
I hope you can really celebrate Canada, without worshiping it — or denouncing it as evil. Happy Canada Day!
Well said Shawn.
“Balanced, as all things should be.”
-Thanos
Infinity War — Love it! I see we come from the same point in the space-time continuum. 😀
Thanks for reading and sharing a quote!
A rare departure from your usual topics, Shawn. But as clearheaded and thoughtful as you usually are. Thanks for these perspectives about our humanity in holding contradictory thoughts without being paralyzed. Empathy is another characteristic to add to our celebrations.
Grazie mille.
Empathy — indispensable. Thanks so much for mentioning this.
Sure appreciate you taking time to read and comment. I worry about stepping much outside medicine, but not doing so also tends to give the impression that medicine is more important than warranted.
Thanks again!
Cheers
Nicely said Shawn!
Thanks Jon!
Hope you are well. Great to hear from you!
Cheers
With the controversy swirling today around Canada Day, which I still think of as Dominion Day (That is what Canada was when I was a kid), I was just driving up to the cottage and thought of the Canadian kids who gave up their youth and lives in WWI at Passchendaele, Ypres and Vimy Ridge. I had the privilege to meet a few of them as a medical student, intern and resident at Sunnybrook Hospital. Their bravery won Canada and other nations in the British Empire the respect that soon culminated in the formation of the British Commonwealth as equal in status with and no longer subordinate to Britain.
Very interesting to have met those vets, Gerry. I imagine those meetings stick with you.
So many layers to discuss when we mention history … it is messy — wonderful, tragic, and messy. It requires a nuanced response for sure.
Thanks so much for sharing a comment!
Cheers
The healthy mature mind …..
Few and far between,I fear.
This pandemic seems to have exaggerated many previously held beliefs that lurked in the recesses of people’s minds.
I have become more concerned with leftist/socialist/Marxist thought and it’s link to social issues of the day.
The next election will be interesting and telling,as to The direction of Canadian society.
I have been worrying about the same thing, Ram.
Wealth always increases the idle classes at both ends of the income spectrum. When a society scrambles just to survive, they do not have time to think about revolution. But wealth offers time for people to dwell on their angst and ennui. They suffering in meaningless lives and become desperate to find some meaning.
It also stems from a lack of interest in political theory … but that might just be my own hobby horse.
Great to hear from you!
“Being young, Canada has far less to feel embarrassed about than older nations. But give us time.”
Shawn Whatley
Lovely writing …. never cynical …. just the realist with real experience ….
Very kind of you, Mike!
Sure appreciate you sharing this. I hope you are well … I miss our long visits over minutiae of medical politics.
Cheers
I cannot help wondering how the thousands of men buried at the Canadian War site just outside of Normandy would be thinking about this turn of events surrounding Canada Day. I walked the beaches and site a few years ago and cannot describe the overwhelming somewhat disturbing feeling that i felt.
These men gave their lives for this country. Its as simple as that. Cancelling a single day in a the year commemorating this nation seems far to extreme. I am sure there are better ways to express rightful concern. The past is just that.. perhaps focus on what actions to pursue to improve and better the situation rather than cancel a day that marks the Canadian birthday which also in the past these soldiers gave the ultimate sacrifice
Well put, Derek. That must have been powerful. My grandfather served but did not get shot at, as far as I know. I guess all the folks who hate Canada would never go and fight to protect it.
Hey, really great to hear from you. Sure hope you are doing well.
Talk soon,
Very well put!! I still celebrated Dominion Day the best I could given our current state in Canada. I also said prayers for all the tiny lost souls and the remaining survivors. I am not sure where I read the following but it somehow stuck with me.
History is not yours to erase, it belongs to everyone , we need to accept it as our own and if it offends you than you are less apt to repeat it.
I love that line, Angela. Thanks so much for sharing it “History is not yours to erase, it belongs to everyone , we need to accept it as our own and if it offends you then you are less apt to repeat it.”
You put celebration and prayers side by side. Brilliant. That seems like a wise approach all around. People who hate something usually won’t work to improve it. They’d rather see it disappear.
Thanks so much for posting!
Cheers
“Stepping much outside medicine” is long past due, and helps to explain our apparent meek acceptance of the drastically harmful invasion of common sense, science and medicine by politics in this socially engineered Pan(dem)ic of the last eighteen months. They are desperately trying to find reasons for maintaining their grip ongoing into an indefinite future. ‘Variants’ with politically correct Greek names are “of concern”. The CPSO took to Twitter, apparently the new official vehicle for formal communications that all busy doctors check daily, to say that anyone advancing evidence-based opinions contrary to the bureaucratic “consensus” would be liable to disciplinary action ( which indeed has occurred ). Dr. Semmelweiss must be spinning in his untimely grave. Oh Canada ! Let us stand on guard for thee.
Well said, Roger. As nonsense piles up, individual bits of excrement go unnoticed in the heap.
Thanks for posting!