The Culture of Difference, The Canadian Way

Differences are all around us. Whether we are completely conscious of it or not, we encounter differences in nearly every aspect of our daily lives. We can differ by ethnicity or language, by economic status, by political views, or even in opinion on any given topic. In many ways, it is by these differences that we define ourselves as individuals and as groups of individuals who share a common bond. In the article, “The Civilization of Difference,” by The Right Honourable Beverly McLachlin, differences are examined under a political microscope in an attempt to see where we, as Canadians, are going based on where we have been. The author suggests that Canadians in particular have a unique relationship with difference. It is not only present in our daily lives lived in this culturally diverse nation, but it is also the foundation on which this country was built. Though it has not always been a tolerant and welcoming country, today Canada strives to be a leader in good will and human rights. The defence and protection of all people, regardless of who they are, is at the heart of what it means to be Canadian.


It is true that we humans have a need to identify with a group, to belong to a community. In her article, McLachlin suggests that it is often by process of exclusion that we find where we are included. By process of deduction and elimination I can learn who I am from who I am not. The African proverb that is used in the article rings true on many levels. “A person only becomes a person through other people” can on one hand mean that in comparison to others we can find who we are, but it can also mean that we find ourselves when we find belonging with others.


Finding an identity, a group to belong in can be both rewarding and destructive. Once we identify ourselves as being a part of one group, we are also saying that we are not a part of a different group and from that point it is a logical next step to look down on the other group as being not as good as our group. The other group appears less worthy than our group, making ‘different’ become synonymous with ‘bad’. It is also true that treating others badly has the effect of making us feel more powerful; the oppressive effects of this dynamic have been felt throughout history. McLachlin’s article focuses in a few of these examples, most notably Hitler’s regime where the ultimate goal was to completely eradicate everyone who was different. It is easy to see that this concept of identification through difference permeates not only just our history but also through our present. Virtually all conflicts are started over differences of one kind or another; it is the very nature of war.


So what do we do about this culture of difference which inevitably leads us to fight with each other? The text offers two possible solutions to this problem, each with their own set of virtues and drawbacks. Firstly, the idea of separating groups within autonomous nation states. Though it would give the members of the group security and the authority to self-rule, it is no way a guarantee of prevention of war. In fact, it may serve to deepen resentments because there would also be a territorial boundary to dispute, on top of the ethnic differences already in question. As well, this division along physical borders does nothing to account for immigration as you can’t ensure that all people from one ethnic background will stay living within the boundaries of their assigned territory. Furthermore, and in my opinion, segregation leads to ignorance and ignorance leads to hate.


Alternatively, the text suggests that promoting respect and accommodation within the nation state is what will ultimately lead us to tolerance and peace. This idea is contingent on a basic philosophical principle that all humans are created equal and that the core of one human is exactly equal to the core of another. It is a great concept in theory, but it may be far more difficult in practice. As well, it is always debatable that when two things are different, can they really truly also be equal?


In Canada, we have tried to embrace this notion of accommodation and respect within our borders. It has given us the legal language of protection as written in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms to use in defending our differences against attack. As a nation, we have accepted this way of life making it implicit in what makes us Canadian.


Unfortunately, we have not always been so free to welcome those who differ. Though it is true that Canada was founded on the coming together of two cultures with different languages, and our Constitution was written to protect those very differences, we must also look at the dark side of Canadian history and the many cultures that faced terrible discrimination within our “tolerant” borders. For the purposes of this paper, the atrocities are too many to list with appropriate detail but McLachlin does a good job in her article of paying due attention to many, from the deportation of thousands of Acadians to the eugenics practice of sterilizing the intellectually handicapped. Even women, who make up 52% of the population have had to struggle to attain an equal status, only becoming legal “persons” in 1929. It is arguable that this inequitable treatment of women persists today, as evident in a 2oo6 study by catalystwomen.org (www.catalystwomen.org) which shows that only 15.1% of corporate officer positions are held by women. Employment and pay equity for women are far from being a reality.


On this point of discrimination in Canadian history, arguably the worst offense is that of the First Nations People, or Aboriginals. As the text points out, this was a clear case of “institutionalized discrimination” (300), whereby laws were created to give legal backing to practices that amounted to nothing less than theft. The treaty system was just a legal way to steal vast amounts of land from a culture that not only had no real concept of “ownership,” but for the most part also lacked the literacy skills needed to fully understand the documents they were signing. If that wasn’t bad enough, further laws were enacted that attempted to take away their culture and identity, the very spirit of the Aboriginal people. In 1857, the Act to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes in the Province was created with the sole intention of converting the “savages” into “civilized” people, giving them new Christian names, and turning them into “non-Indians” under the law. The Indian Act of 1876 took this one step further when it outlawed traditional Native ceremonies, turning the Sundance and Potlatch traditions into illegal acts.


It is hard to imagine how alienating and emotionally devastating this theft of identity could be on an individual. To make matters worse, it must have been extremely confusing that the society that was trying to convert them to join its ranks, was at the same time excluding them from becoming full members with equal rights. In the text, McLachlin refers to this as the assimilation-exclusion model. Of this she says, “the simultaneous pursuit of exclusion and assimilation produced cultural displacement, marginalization, and tragic loss of identity and self-esteem.” (301). The effects of this treatment are still being felt and the resentment that it has left is far from over, despite the Federal governments attempts to make amends. In 1995, the Liberal government issued a Federal policy on Aboriginal Self-Government which essentially states that section 35 of the Canadian Constitution recognizes the inherent right of self-rule, giving back to the Aboriginal people the ability to govern themselves within the greater framework of this country. As well, some financial restitution has been paid to certain bands that have successfully sued the Canadian government for discrimination, theft of property, and abuse of power. Gains are being made in reparation of this relationship, but the pain and anger runs deep and likely will for many years to come.


In writing her article, Beverly McLachlin maintains an optimistic view of Canada as the defender of differences, the ambassador for diversity on the world stage—and I cannot agree more. We have an impressive array of distinctive cultures and ethnicities within our borders and are constantly welcoming, with open arms, immigrants from around the world. We are also a nation with two official languages, and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms that was adopted in 1982 is more than a legal document, it is practically an instruction book on what it means to be Canadian.
Whether you were born here or just recently arrived, the culture of acceptance that exists in Canada is tangible and can be felt as both warm and welcoming. Though our country has experienced many internal challenges and our freedoms have been hard won, we have grown to embrace the differences that make us unique and doing so makes us proud. It is possible to suggest that the true Canadian identity is in its refusal to conform to just one. The Canadian way is as diverse as its occupants, as vast as its terrain, and that is just the way we like it.

Defending the Self

Returning to school after a twelve year hiatus has been nothing short of incredible. I feel sometimes as if I have jumped through a time warp, setting down my pen and paper at one end, and picking up my laptop at the other. As I look around the classroom at my peers, I am stunned by their technological abilities. The seamless way in which they toggle between screens, chatting online with their friends while still managing to take notes from the lecture that is unfolding before us. The one time that I personally attempted this feat, I was so distracted by trying to do everything that I’m pretty sure I actually accomplished nothing. It’s true, I am in awe of the multitasking abilities of this generation, but it also makes me wonder: am I missing something here? Or are they?

The possibilities of this digital age are endless, and the speed of progression is exponential. No other single technological advancement has propelled us forward as quickly as the personal computer. Though Marshall McLuhan did not live to see the day that his students used laptops instead of pencils, his reference to the “electronic age of instantaneous communication,” (1995, p. 237) was eerily prophetic. Of this he says, “...unlike previous environmental changes, the electronic media constitute a total and near-instantaneous transformation of culture, values and attitudes” (p. 237). If digital advancements have the power to transform a society instantaneously, it raises the question: Are we, the people in that society, mentally prepared for it? With such a sudden emphasis on the external stimuli of the digital age, we are at risk of allowing the internal complexities of introspective awareness die out completely, but only if we let it. Succumbing to the superficial distractions that surround us at every moment is a personal choice of our own free will and is not inevitable.

In The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts (1994) suggests that we are entering into a period of “social collectivization that will over time all but vanquish the ideal of the isolated individual” (p. 130). This is both completely true and utterly false, depending on how it is read. On the one hand, of course we are collectivizing. What is the World Wide Web if not a collection of ideas and information from many different sources and added by many different people. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia built entirely by its users, is a testament to this collaborative process. But this does not mean that we are all thinking with the same brain. Yes, we may have a similar pool of information to draw from on television or the internet, but is exactly the “isolated individual” who interprets that information, and every interpretation will be different, based on the experiences of that individual and the context in which it is taken. Unless we all share the same upbringing, emotions, memories, and life lessons, we will all continue to approach things from a unique vantage point—a vantage point occupied solely by an individual person.

It would be impossible to engage in this dialogue of technological supremacy versus individual free will without mentioning the massive popularity of social networking websites like facebook and MySpace. On these sites, we are able to build up a digital vignette of ourselves—complete with photos, interests, and hobbies. My facebook profile is a two-dimensional, electronic extension of my three-dimensional self, and makes me immediately accessible to anyone who goes looking for me. In fact, anyone who looks at my profile may even get the impression that they know me, the intrinsic me, the me that can answer questions and participate in a discussion. But it is not me. As Socrates described the limitations of paintings and the written word in his dialogue with Phaedrus, so too are the limits of a web page:
"The productions of painting look like living beings, but if you ask them a question they maintain a solemn silence. The same holds true of written words; you might suppose that they understand what they are saying, but if you ask them what they mean by anything they simply return the same answer over and over again." (Plato, n.d., trans. Hamilton, 1973, p. 97).

The constraints that the computer operates under are even further limited by the very nature of what comprises the language of computer data—the binary. This is what McLuhan refers to as the “two-bit wit” (Marchand, 1989, p. 253). A computer is designed to answer either “yes or no.” Even at its most advanced level of communication, it lacks the ability to see something as “yes and no,” a concept which the human brain has little or no trouble with at all (Marchand, 1989, p. 253). So where is the self in all of this? The self is sitting at the computer, manipulating the page, choosing what information to share, and what picture to post. The third-dimension that has been missing from this equation is still in control and has been all along. The private self has chosen to display a public version, and can at any time chose to retract it—there has been no loss of intrinsic awareness.

A common misconception when thinking about the on-line matrix of the World Wide Web is that we are all anonymous out there in cyber-space. It would seem so much easier to post a nasty comment in a chat room, create a racist blog, or even stalk an unsuspecting victim when we feel that our identity is hidden. Most notably, pedophiles have used this cloak of anonymity to lure children out of the virtual realm and into the real world, sometimes by posing as children themselves. It is true that we can create an on-line persona to reflect ourselves in any light that we wish, but we can only hide to a certain extent. Our ability to take cover in cyber-space is limited by the unique fingerprint that our personal computers leave on everything they touch. It is called an IP address, and it is specific to only one computer in the world and is therefore specific to that one person who is guiding its actions—the registered user. By itself, the PC is an innately inanimate object, completely dependent on the key strokes of the human who directs it. Once the computer has been personalized to a specific user by the addition of passwords and IP address, it has become as unique as the individual who is operating it.

Now, getting back to my problem with multi-tasking in the classroom, I’d like to point out that the day that I brought my laptop was the day that I learned the least. I was engaging myself outwardly on so many levels that I was completely neglecting what was happening on the inside. In these moments of over-stimulation, my consciousness existed totally outside of myself and at the expense of my internal awareness. I completely lacked the mental capacity to internalize, digest, and comprehend the lecture that was being spoken. The words could enter my ears and exit my fingers onto the keyboard, but something was getting lost in the translation. It was here that I fully understood what Socrates meant in his instructions on the difference between recollection and memory. The notes that I was taking while distracted were merely “receipts for recollection” (Plato, n.d., trans. Hamilton, 1973, p. 96). That is, I had not yet learned the true knowledge of the thing in order to have a memory of it. All I had were words on a page that I would one day read in hopes of learning the truth of what was spoken in that lecture. It seems to me that this is a rather long way around, and if I had been truly engaged in the discourse at that time, I would have cut out the middle man and already have a memory of the subject. Though I do take some notes in class, those that are taken by pen to paper have a much shorter distance to travel, and therefore seem so much closer in proximity to my internal thoughts.

There is something very puzzling in the way that my peers will flippantly tell me “we’re just products of our culture,” when I press them about their laptop use. It’s true that we are all products of the culture from whence we sprang, but more so I believe that we are products of our nature. Half a million years of human evolution has brought us to now, and there is no way that the naked ape has made an evolutionary jump in only one generation that would allow us to devote pure attention to many stimuli, instead of just one. Scientific experiments such as dichotic listening tests have proved that conscious thought only has the capacity to pay attention to one source of input at a time (Lindsay, Paulhus, & Nairne, 2006, p. 179), yet erroneously, my peers seem to assume that this limitation of the human brain does not apply to them. The truth is that the “multi-taskers” in the classroom are both distracted by everything, and conscious of everything simultaneously which can only result in a superficial awareness of anything. Recognition of our natural born limitations are key to maintaining the inner self, even in this sped-up culture of over stimulation.

As human animals, we have been given the unique gift of self-awareness and the ability to self-determination. We are not now, nor have we ever been, hurtling uncontrollably towards an inevitable collective consciousness. The individual will survive this hyper-culture of the digital age even if it means adapting to exist within it. Certainly the technology of this age will play an enormous role in shaping and evolving our society. Sven Birkerts (1994) assertion that “the idea of what it means to be a person living a life will be much changed” (p. 130) is categorically correct, but is in no way a condition that is unique to this period in history. Human existence is always shifting to incorporate new facets of our constantly evolving reality, and human animals have always proven themselves to be adaptable. We are in no danger of that changing now.



References
Birkerts, S. (1994). Into the electronic millennium. The Gutenberg elegies. New York: Ballantine.
Lindsay, D. S., Paulhus, D. L., & Nairne, J. S. (2006). Psychology: The adaptive mind (3rd ed.). Toronto: Thomson Nelson.
Marchand, P. (1989). Marshall McLuhan: The medium and the messenger. Toronto: Random House.
McLuhan, M. (1995). Playboy Interview. Essential McLuhan. (E. McLuhan & F. Zingrone, Eds.). Toronto: House of Anansi
Plato. (n.d./1973). The inferiority of the written to the spoken word. Phaedrus and the seventh and eighth letters: Phaedrus. (W. Hamilton, Trans.). New York: Penguin.