You will only make it worse

 

A curious counterintuitive thought: is it possible that reforms -- legislation, laws, things that liberal people believe -- have ended up worsening rather than improving society? Did progressive legislation end up worsening more than it helped? To paraphrase John Cage, don’t try to improve society, you’ll only make it worse. 

———

Is what we have now, a divided society, with homeless encampments in every major city as well as in smaller cities, towns, and rural Canada, an increase in drug addiction and mental illness, the absence of rental units so that rents have increased and renters live in fear of both rent increases and losing where they live, the inflated cost of food a constant worry to average people, hospitals collapsing, is this what reforms have ended up producing; we plug holes in the dike and bigger new holes appear a few feet away.

———

Consider our present dysfunctional, divided society, and the future dystopia, did anyone envisage this future for Canada? Things seem worse; "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; /Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world". The government and well-meaning people find the answer to social ills in more government intervention in people's lives, they want to keep us "safe", a favourite word of Justin Trudeau; Justin always wants to keep us safe, but for one group to be "safe" another group is oppressed. 

———

Surely the 1950s must have been much worse than today. But were they? Remember the film The Hours in which Julianne Moore played Laura Brown, a 1950s housewife; she hated her life, she was a prisoner of that life, but reflecting on the character Julianne Moore played, we see her as a very unpleasant and selfish person, not someone to feel sorry for. We sympathized with her feeling entrapped by her life, conformity weighed heavily on society; she must have been oppressed by an angry and abusive husband as feminists have portrayed men. It was the 1950s so it must have been the way Hollywood portrayed it; Hollywood doesn't lie. But we also see that the cause of Julianne Moore`s character's anxiety was herself, she placed herself first, not her husband, not her son; nobody came first but her. What about Laura Brown's life was so bad? She had a house in suburbia, only one child, a young son who loved her, a husband who loved her and who wanted to please her, a next door neighbour who was supportive of her. And what did she do? She ran away one day, she deserted her son and husband, to the applause of many people watching the film; Laura Brown claims she chose life over death. Too bad for her son who was traumatized by her abandonment of him. (Did one or both of your parents abandon you or said they were leaving you when you were a child? Consider the depth of trauma abandonment, or death of a parent, causes in a child.) Then she lead a life of her own, maybe in a room of her own, probably reading Virginia Woolf's novels, maybe she read Mrs. Dalloway, and her son, who became a poet, committed suicide, he jumped from his loft window. His mother showed up for his memorial service. The perceived judgement, promoted by Hollywood films, is that the 1950s were deadly to the soul, to the spirit; the homogeneous society, the suburbs full of boring white people, the houses like little boxes "all in a row", were soul destroying, as Pete Seeger sang. 

———

And then we turn to today's society. Christianity is laughed at, rejected, or hated; the Bible is said to be hate literature and the progressives want parts of it censored; values are laughed at; marriage as an institution is being abandoned; our prime minister and others want school boards to have more authority over children than the parents of these children; medically assisted suicide has become another part of our health care system, the Hippocratic oath and the moral authority of our physicians is of little importance; freedom of speech has been compromised or limited; we live in a cancel culture society; meanwhile, there are encampments of homeless people in every city and town, in every state and province; an increasing number of these homeless people are dying of overdoses of fentanyl, mental illness is common; legalized gambling is a source of income for a money hungry government; we can’t house our own citizens and we let in millions of immigrants, does the government do any research before acting, do they ever think anything out? Is this what we wanted when we tried to improve society, piecemeal, with endless legislation? We forgot that what you change may not necessarily improve society, it may make society worse. We forgot that when the old is discarded it will never return. It is our collective hubris writ large. 

———

After eight years of Justin Trudeau's time in office Canada is in worse shape than it has ever been; this is what happens when someone is elected based on appearance and not on substance, when someone's progressive and woke values trump common sense legislation and frugal management of taxpayers' money; whatever Justin has done will eventually be discredited, it has already begun. Justin Trudeau's legacy will be that he was a wrecking ball, he is the Miley Cyrus of Canadian politics, he wrecked the country; we are now a society of debtors, a society without common values, a society where our politicians are always expedient and rarely insightful (look at them in the House of Commons, it is embarrassing, they are like braying accusatory children who have been spoiled rotten by their parents). 

Some quotations from Lament for a Nation (1965), by George Grant

 

In Lament for a Nation (1965), George Grant writes as though Canada has already ceased to exist. While some of these quotations are satirical and ironic, they are all serious and even prescient. George Grant holds up Quebec as a model for an independent nation, French Canadians place national concerns over individual rights while the rest of Canada has the opposite approach; in other words, in Quebec there is a uniformity of national vision and resolve to attain it (the preservation of the French language and the possibility of independence); a vision of national purpose is lacking in the rest of Canada which seems to be following an American model for nationhood. Is Canada a "real" country? (Lucien Bourchard said it wasn't), or is English-Canada just a multi-cultural hodgepodge without any Canadian culture or belief in ourselves as a nation? 

 

On the disappearance of Canada:

... Canada's disappearance is not only necessary but good. As part of the great North American civilization, we enter wider horizons; Liberal policies are leading to a richer contentalism [sic]. (37)

 

In no society is it possible for many men to live outside the dominant assumptions of their world for very long. Where can people learn independent views, when newspapers and television throw at them only processed opinions? In a society of large bureaucracies, power is legitimized by conscious and unconscious processes. (42)

 

On the universal and homogeneous state:

The confused strivings of politicians, businessmen, and civil servants cannot alone account for Canada's collapse. This stems from the character of the modern era. The aspirations of progress have made Canada redundant. The universal and homogeneous state is the pinnacle of political striving. "Universal" implies a world-wide state, which would eliminate the curse of war among nations; "homogeneous" means all men would be equal, and war among classes would be eliminated. (53)

 

Modern civilization makes all local cultures anachronistic. Where modern science has achieved its mastery, there is no place for local cultures. It has often been argued that geography and language caused Canada’s defeat. But behind these there is a necessity that is incomparably more powerful. Our culture floundered on the aspirations of the age of progress. The argument that Canada, a local culture, must disappear can, therefore, be stated in three steps. First, men everywhere move ineluctably toward membership in the universal and homogenous state. Second, Canadians live next door to a society that is the heart of modernity. Third, nearly all Canadians think that modernity is good, so nothing   essential distinguishes Canadians from Americans. (54)

 

This world-wide society will be one in which all human beings can at last realize their happiness in the world without the necessity of lessening that of others. (56)

 

The belief in Canada's continued existence has always appealed against universalism. It appealed to particularity against the wider loyalty to the continent. If universalism is the most "valid modern trend," then is it not right for Canadians to welcome our integration into the empire? (85)

 

Liberalism was, in origin, criticism of the old established order. Today it is the voice of the establishment. (93)

 

... facts about our age must also be remembered: the increasing outbreaks of impersonal ferocity, the banality of existence in technological societies, the pursuit of expansion as an end in itself. Will it be good for men to control their genes? The possibility of nuclear destruction and mass starvation may be no more terrible that that of man tampering with the roots of his humanity. .. The powers of manipulations now available may portend the most complete tyranny imaginable. (94)

 

The classical philosophers asserted that a universal and homogenous state would be a tyranny. (96)

 

If the best social order is the universal and homogeneous state, then the disappearance of Canada can be understood as a step toward that order. If the universal and homogeneous state would be a tyranny, then the disappearance of even this indigenous culture can be seen as the removal of a minor barrier to that tyranny. (96)

 

On American Conservatives:

To return to the general argument. There is some truth in the claim of American conservatives. Their society does preserve constitutional government and respect for the legal rights of individuals in a way that the eastern tyrannies do not. (63)

 

Their concentration on freedom from governmental interference has more to do with nineteenth-century liberalism than with traditional conservatism, which asserts the right of the community to restrain freedom in the name of the common good. (64)

 

They are not conservatives in the sense of being the custodians of something that is not subject to change. They are conservatives, generally, in the sense of advocating a sufficient amount of order so the demands of technology will not carry the society into chaos. (67)

 

On the CBC:

The jaded public wants to be amused; journalists have to eat well. Reducing issues to personalities is useful to the ruling class. The "news" now functions to legitimize power, not to convey information. The politics of personalities helps the legitimizers to divert attention from issues that might upset the status quo. (7)

 

The Conservatives also justifiably felt that the CBC, then as today, gave too great prominence to the Liberal view of Canada. (19)

  

On the Quebec Nation:

The French Canadians had entered Confederation not to protect the rights of the individual but the rights of the nation. They did not want to be swallowed up by that sea which Henri Bourassa had called "l'américanisme saxonisant." (21)

 

In Canada outside of Quebec, there is no deeply rooted culture, and the new changes come in the form of ideology (capitalist and liberal) which seems to many a splendid vision of human existence. (43)

 

To turn to the more formidable tradition, the French Canadians are determined to remain a nation. During the nineteenth century, they accepted almost unanimously the leadership of their particular Catholicism--a religion with an ancient doctrine of virtue. After 1789, they maintained their connection with the roots of their civilization through their church and its city, which more than any other in the West held high a vision of the eternal. To Catholics who remain Catholics, whatever their level of sophistication, virtue must be prior to freedom. They will therefore build a society in which the right of the common good restrains the freedom of the individual. Quebec was not a society that would come to terms with the political philosophy of Jefferson or the New England capitalists. (75-76)

 

Yet to modernize their education is to renounce their particularity. At the heart of modern liberal education lies the desire to homogenize the world. Today's natural and social sciences were consciously produced as instruments to this end. (79)

 

On Tradition:

My lament is not based on philosophy but on tradition. If one cannot be sure about the answer to the most important questions, then tradition is the best basis for the practical. (96)

 

On the Future:

In political terms, liberalism is now an appeal for the "end of ideology." This means that we must experiment in shaping society unhindered by any preconceived notions of good. "The end of ideology" is the perfect slogan for men who want to do what they want. (57-58)

 

Implied in the progressive idea of freedom is the belief that men should emancipate their passions. When men are free to do what they want, all will be well because the liberated desires will be socially creative. (58)

 

The next wave of American "conservatism" is not likely to base its appeal on such unsuccessful slogans as the Constitution and free enterprise. Its leader will not be a gentleman who truly cares about his country's past. It will concentrate directly on such questions as "order in the streets" which are likely to become crucial in the years ahead. The battle will be between democratic tyrants and the authoritarianism of the right. If the past is a teacher to the present, it surely says that democratic Caesarism is likely to be successful. (This is a footnote, on page 67)

 

The kindest of all God's dispensations is that individuals cannot predict the future in detail. (87)

 

But if history is the final court of appeal, force is the final argument. (89)

 

 

The Brave New World is Here to Stay

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

It's off to work we go,

 A few months ago I heard our former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney say that Canada needs a larger population, he suggested 100 million people as a population projection. When the interviewer expressed surprise at so many people inhabiting our country, most of which average people would find uninhabitable, Mulroney barked back, "Tough luck!" Yes, tough luck to anyone who disagrees with the former Grand PooBah!  

Increasingly, it seems to me, the world's single largest problem is overpopulation. People are everywhere, working, eating, defecating, screwing, drinking, smoking, fighting, arguing, being born, dying, and starting over again; we've become an existential threat to ourselves. Forget about climate change, there are just too many people wanting increasingly limited resources. According to Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World Revisited, overpopulation is the world's greatest crisis. Fewer people = less demand for consumer goods and less destruction of the natural world. 

I recall reading Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It is a typical dystopian setting, it is 2021 and the world has been destroyed by wars and ecological disaster and most of the former inhabitants of Earth have moved to another planet. Meanwhile, there are people still living in our now impoverished and decaying society, in the ruins of apartment buildings, crumbling cities, and other remains of what once was. Think of present-day Detroit. The movie version of the book, Blade-Runner, embellishes Dick's novel, the visual depiction tends to exaggerate the future, it makes it worse than in the novel, but perhaps the movie makes it more realistic to our present-day; think of what we see on the news of some other American cities, encampments of homeless people everywhere, crazy and violent people, drug addicts shooting up on the streets, middle class people carrying concealed weapons for their own protection, and worse. However, there are other characters in Dick's novel, they are androids who have a perfect human appearance but aren't human. Androids are a product of technology and have a furtive and underground existence as they try to survive and blend in with human beings. The protagonist of Dick's book hunts and destroys androids, they fear him, and they will even betray each other for their own survival. In Dick's dystopian vision most of the human population has left the Earth; what is left of Earth is a place of devastation, of poverty, social isolation, and existential ennui. This is the wreck of a world mankind is working on creating.

 

Burying the St. Pierre River

This is the view of the St. Pierre River from Toe Blake Park, looking through or over the chain link fence between the park and Meadowbrook Golf Course. As can be seen, the work of burying the river hasn't been completed. Just a big mess left for the spring. 

Burying the St. Pierre River Has Begun

 

Yesterday morning I walked to Meadowbrook Golf Course; it was a beautiful sunny day, not a single cloud in the sky. Court ordered work to bury the last section of the St. Pierre River has begun. On the far right of the above satellite image you can the St. Pierre River, it's just below Toe Blake Park; the river runs in a fairly straight line until it meanders and then, finally, empties into a culvert at the train tracks. I learned a few things in high school Geography and one of them is that a meandering river is very old, that it was once a more powerful river but is not as powerful as it once was, when meeting obstacles it meanders around them rather than over them. However, this river may have never been anything but a creek; it begins as a stream on Mount Royal and then runs across the city to empty out at the St. Lawrence River. Of course, even Mount Royal was once a much larger mountain but has been worn down by erosion and time.

It must seem a big issue is being made of something fairly insignificant. What the river represents is the last vestige of a historical river, it represents the presence of nature in the built city environment that can be relentlessly soulless. All people need the presence of nature as a place to enjoy the outdoors and we know that the outdoors--a forest, a river, a field--gives meaning to life, it restores one spiritually, it recharges one's batteries. This is what the river and the golf course represent, even though most people will never walk here or see the river. That it exists and its possible future use as a nature reserve, a park, or still a golf course is what is important. It is important not to lose this land to more condo construction.

Here are some photographs of the burying of the river. I see that the plan is to dig a straight trench between where the river enters the golf course below Toe Blake Park and where it leaves at the culvert. This water will be diverted into culvert pipes.

This part of the river, that meanders, is cut off 

Egoût collecteur Rivière Saint-Pierre,1933

Here are historical photographs taken on 31 October 1933 showing the burying of the St. Pierre River. The only section of the St. Pierre River still above ground is in Meadowbrook Golf Course and it is slated to be buried. The question is, why? Because it is polluted with fecal matter from incorrectly connected sewer pipes near the golf course? Isn't the common sense thing to do is to stop the pollution, not bury the river? I suppose the cheaper thing to do is to bury the remaining exposed section of the river. But government has a lot of our money they can spend any way they want and common sense isn't something government is known to have. 

This is a section of the St. Pierre River before it was covered but not necessarily the same section as in
the photographs below ...

Walking to the St. Pierre River, Snow

 On a cold day after the first snow has fallen...

Old Photos of the St. Pierre River

 These photographs are saved from a Facebook page, Historical Montreal Photographs. 

Photograph of the St. Pierre River, from the McCord Museum looking south towards a bridge at Western Avenue, at The Glen in Westmount, in 1889.

This, and the following photo, are from 1 June 1938, of a concrete bridge over the St. Pierre
River. I think this might be at Westminster Avenue near the future Westover Avenue. 

See above.

Aerial photograph from the late 1940s, showing the course of the St. Pierre River, 
notably Cote St. Luc Road and Westminster. It's mostly farmland and (I think) it shows
the St. Pierre River intersecting present-day Westminster Avenue and the future Westover Avenue.
You can also see the farm buildings in the photo of the cement culvert above, 
which suggests that the two other photographs were taken looking west. 

A 1903 map showing where the St. Pierre River emptied into the St. Lawrence River. 

Historical Maps of the St. Pierre River

Historical maps to locate the St. Pierre River. 

This map, showing the St. Pierre River (in 1696?), is found in a history of Loyola College; you can see
the river on the top right and how it forms the Petit Lac St. Pierre in the bottom foreground. 

Map from 1739; you can see the St. Pierre River beginning on Mount Royal, 
going through present-day Cote St. Luc and Montreal West, then forming a lake
in what were the Turcot train yards before emptying out at the St. Laurent River.

Another old map, from 1744, showing the Island of Montreal, surrounding areas, and St. Pierre River.

Here is a contemporary map showing the St. Pierre River highlighted in purple.

 

St. Pierre River on a Cold Day

Photos taken on 28 November 2021 after the first snowfall. 

It was a cold day but there were dog walkers and their dogs, and always a friendly "Good Morning". Why is this creek so important to people? Why not build more condos? Someone told me that the golf course is protected from future development. I hope they are correct. But why are people so adamant that the golf course should be protected and, by extension, that the river-creek not buried? All I can say is that, personally, I think we've had enough progress and development at the expense of our environment. We need to preserve some nature (not just parks) in the city for future generations, including land and a place for urban wildlife. This isn't a park, it's a golf course, and one day I hope it is allowed to revert to its natural state, let the grass grow and wild flowers thrive. Call it Parc St. Pierre and keep it undeveloped; it could be similar to Parc Angrignon. 

What is covered can be uncovered and, I suspect, some future generation will see the St. Pierre River restored, above ground, in at least a few places. That is my hope. 

BTW, in this area, there have already been several new condo developments, several new residences for the elderly, and both Vincelli's Garden Centre and the Village Plaza on Robert Burns are slated for being demolished and apartments or condos built on these sites. Enough is enough. 

Train tracks on the left that you pass to enter the golf course.