Harper's Anti-Communism Memorial

In his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) Victor Hugo suggests that monumental architecture faded from European importance following Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press around 1440.[1]  The Gothic Cathedrals of the Middle Ages served a didactic purpose that was later supplanted by an endless supply of books: “the human intellect gave up architecture for printing.”[2]

We can take Hugo’s insight further: there is an inverse relationship between the availability of printed works and the rise of monumentalism.  Look to Hitler’s Germany where there was a lot of book burning – and a great number of monumental structures, designed by architect Albert Speer.  Look to today’s China, where there is a surfeit of architectural splendours along with considerable censorship.

In other words, it is a contradiction in cultural terms for Canadians to have a “monument” built to commemorate the victims of communism; the idea itself reveals the very ideological nature of the former Harper regime.  Rather than construct a monument (adjacent to the Supreme Court of Canada, making it a probable eyesore, as well) the money would be better spent to support Canadian political literacy, the CBC to name just one example.

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[1] The classic 1939 film “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” with Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara begins with this very premise on the significance of the printing press.

[2] Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, tr. A.L.Alger (Mineola, New York: Dover), p.150.