RECENTLY, I read an interesting critique of Canadian lit-

erature. I think it applies to 2 certain degree to Canadian

journalism as well.

Critic John Metcalf poses the
question: Is any Canadian writing
worth reading? .

Like, any?

Metcalf writes:

“‘We must stop viewing Hugh
MacLennan, say, as an icon and
instead we must start asking
ourselves if his novels are good
novels. And if we decided that they
are not, we must have the courage
to stop inflicting them on hapless
students.””

In a nutshell, his argument goes
like this:

Canadian writers are expected to
“explain’’ the ‘“Canadian experi-
ence.” Their socially-approved
task is to give the ‘Canadian reali-

~ ty” meaning.

They get paid to do this. We, I
should say, get paid to do it.

If you write a book, for in-
stance, which describes your par-
ticular Canadian life experience
aad sense of community in
Canada, you are rewarded.

If you, just happening to be a
“‘Canadian,’’ write the greatest
novel ever written about Egypt,
forget it. What you are doing has
nothing to do with Canada; it is
therefore not “Canadian.”

If Tom Thomson had painted
Mexico, he wouldn't be hanging in
the National Gallery.

When you think about that, it’s
a peculiarly neo-colonial attitude,
isn’t it? It’s also embarrassingly
and conveniently grant-friendly.

Yet what has creativity got to do
with the nation-state, anyway?

Nationalism and art don’t mix
except as propaganda. And, as
everyone knows, propaganda just
isn’t art, because it's not the truth.

This is where a cultural czarism
system, such as we have in

etal &

tax information and take

mailing.

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Canaua, ultimately lets you down.
When the state becomes involv-
ed in doling out the grants and
payments and advances to
publishers, painters, poets, pro-
ducers, directors, scriptwriters,
novelists and historians, you have
a built-in imperative to keep the
client — in this case the nation-
state — happy.

PV tee te

ing money from a bureaucracy.
How many artists or journalists
can truly resist the impulse to do
what they know is wanted of
them?

And what is wanted, above all,
is a ‘Canadian indentity.’’ That’s
why guys like Pierre Berton are in
such favor. They provide this
weird simulated nationality called
Canadianism.

It isn’t a race. It isn’t a religion.
It isn’t a tribe. It isn’t all that
noticeably a coherent philosophy.

Rather, it’s a fudge of all the
above.

Except in CanLit. In CanLit, the
images are drawn boldly.

*Nearly ail the visions of our
literature are nationalistic,
chauvinistic, smug, and amazingly
white,’’ John Metcalf writes.

There is no doubt ‘‘government
gold has sapped and trivialized us
... vision and passion are being
tamed and bureaucratized.’’ The
long-term effect of subsidies, while

feeding writers, a good thing, is

enero toe tad

Let's face it. Even scientists can have their
result skewered by taking money from a
bureaucracy. How many artists or journalists
can truly resist the impulse to do what they
know is wanted of them?’’

The difference between cor-
porate and governmental sponsor-
ship isn’t as great as it might be.
The donor exercises considerable
— one could say absolute — con-
trol. The artist becomes the slave
to whatever orthodoxy his masters
hold.

This is particularly truce in the
movie industry. The reason for
that is simply the huge amounts of
money involved. Government tries
to prime the pump to bring the
megabucks in. In the priming,
however, an entire industry of its
own grows up: the cultural hand-
out industry.

it comes complete with a Byzan-
tine bureaucracy, hundreds of Lit-
tle Caesars, and a subservient,
even parasitic ‘‘artistic class.’"

Let's face it. Even scientists can
have their result skewered by tak-

it away for computer

CAPILANO MALL §

mediocrity, a bad thing.

Part of what has happened, I
might add, is that cultural nation-
alism has become self-conscious in
our time, and so there is a thera-
peutic job available to artists.

My parent’s generation were
Canadians. In fact, being French
on my mother’s side, and les
anglais on my father’s, my family
was quintessentially Canuck. They
took that identity for granted.

In the era of television, a broad
education in cultural relativism has
been brought to us masses. We all
know now there are different
strokes, and, perhaps more impor-
tantly, everyone acts idiotically in
front of each other's, even Cana-
dians.

This weakening of one’s
ethnocentricity has generated a
counter-foice, which is the pro-

Pais

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nationalism biz, where literacy
icons like Hugh MacLennan are
indeed waved aloft and group
mantras against free trade are
chanted.

All this strikes me as rather sad.
By the late 1980s, I had assumed
that heavy thinkers would have
long since abandoned their
primitive notions of tribal identity
and moved on to a higher level of
discussion.

But no.

Nurturing the national psyche
along has grown into a full-time
assignment for a substantial little
mercenary army of wordsmiths,
camerapersons, producers and
publishers.

Canada, I am beginning to
think, is more than anything a
metaphor. That’s all. If we say
what a Canadian is often enough,
people will bezin to act like that.
It’s a job, as Metcalf says, for
propagandists, not artists.

I still say that as an intellectual
achievement, patriotism ranks
right up there with Athlete’s Foote

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