I have, in the past, summed up Stephen Harper’s Conservative government as the political equivalent to the cartoon “Calvin and Hobbes” writ large. What about Justin Trudeau’s Liberals? I suggest we look into the murky recesses of Romanticism which emphasizes two central features: 1) the liberation of both feeling and personality - in other words, ‘identity’ and ‘diversity’; and, 2) the spectre of a violent past.[1] I wish to argue here that Trudeau’s Romanticism is especially haunted by the latter, and this, of course, is central to the discourse on Canada’s Reconciliation with our First Nations. But in order to understand why Romanticism is characteristic of the Liberal Party today, and Canada more widely, one must first look to how it came about historically.
Romanticism
emerged, in part, in the wake of the French Revolution which terminated a thousand
year old monarchy. When Louis XVI lost
his head, a sense of hierarchy instilled since Homer was upended and followed
by often violent transformation, socially, politically, and militarily, as
represented by Robespierre, the Reign of Terror, civil war, the levée en masse, and of course Napoleon with his
many campaigns. But Romanticism could
also be found across the Rhine, in the form of both German Idealism beginning
before the Revolution and a nationalism following the Napoleonic invasions
(Goethe and Fichte, respectively), and it could be found in England, with the poetic
and artistic retreat into nature away from the early Industrial Revolution
(Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Blake, and Byron). It also represented
a conscious turning away from the Enlightenment as an “Age of Reason” with its
far away roots in the geometric thinking of Descartes, Hobbes, and the
Scientific Revolution. But it was
Rousseau (discussed separately elsewhere in this blog) who clearly anticipated
the wave of Romanticism which introduced an epistemic break with the
Enlightenment, often criticized for its lack of poetic sense.
There was a
conservative – or “organic” – aspect to Romanticism which lamented something of
the ancien régime and
sought continuity with the Gothic ruins of the past prompting a sense of
historical consciousness. In France this was best represented by the aristocrat
Chateaubriand, who writes in his Memoirs
from Beyond the Grave: “On leaving my mother’s womb I underwent my first
exile.”[2]
And there was a liberal element to it, as well, represented by Madame de Staёl and Benjamin Constant, who tried to emancipate themselves - and their
countrymen - from the authoritarian grip of Napoleon (who was sometimes both an
admired ‘hero’ and loathed ‘oppressor’ – mostly Chateaubriand’s predicament),
so to a certain degree liberalism, in its original form, was considered politically
subversive. Romantic rebelliousness was
also expressed in literary terms, for example in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, where the focus is on outsiders
such the criminal Jean Valjean and the street urchin Gavroche, among other poor,
who have a certain heroic quality to them.
In other
words, liberal Romanticism wedded justice with freedom which worked towards
the advancement of unrepresented voices celebrated as unique and individual. But it is worth pointing out that the first known
mention of “Identity and Diversity” appears as the title of a chapter in Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), published
immediately following the Glorious Revolution, which lends credence to the idea
that Locke can be described as a ‘liberal’.
However, Locke’s rejection of original sin found in his concept of the
mind as a ‘blank slate’ (in said work) also underwrites the Enlightenment.[3]
Nonetheless it is his notion of individuality (logically deduced) that the Romantics
– namely Keats - found somewhat helpful, not that he was indebted to Locke’s scientific
rigour, which was regarded as too abstract in scope and tone, and thus
rejected. Locke, for example, explains
identity as follows: “For we never finding, nor conceiving it possible, that
two things of the same kind should exist in the same place at the same time, we
rightly conclude that whatever exists anywhere at the same time excluded all of
the same kind, and is there itself alone.” [4]
Contrast
Locke’s principles above with the early nineteenth century elegance of Keats,
whose poem “Endymion” is also appreciated for its treatment of identity, here
considered intrinsic to every individual:
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.[5]
With respect to the idea of diversity, perhaps best represented by the image of
the colourful rainbow, Keats’ poem “Lamia” is notable for its repeated
references to this glorious phenomenon, along with its aesthetic distaste for
the Enlightenment: ideas:
… Do not charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of given things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine -
Unweave a rainbow … [6]
While the
French Revolution may have boasted of astronomers, such as Jean Bailly who
determined aspects of the metric system (in addition to leading the nation-building Oath of the Tennis Court -
before he was eventually guillotined), the Romantics peered at the sky itself,
aided not by scientific rationalism but the naked eye.
Similarly, Wordsworth admires the sky, rainbows, and the aliveness of nature, along
with its majestic beauty, which is immortalized by man himself:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So it was when my life began;
So is it now I am a man … [7]
Here I
suggest that the ubiquity of today’s symbolic rainbow is rooted in Romanticism,
its imagery and appreciation for diversity, which pervades much of
political and social culture today, certainly in Canada. Identity politics is pervasive, born of a
Romantic desire to liberate apparent difference. Justin Trudeau’s penchant for wanting to ‘emote’
with his cabinet colleagues and other Canadians – touting EQ instead of IQ – is
rooted in the same phenomenon: empathy over intellect I dare say even the CBC which dwells on
telling people’s stories and their passionate ‘feelings’ along with musical ‘expression’
is conceivably within the realm of a Romantic predisposition. This is not necessarily to castigate the
national broadcaster, but to point out how much Romanticism is already a part of our daily lives depending on one’s exposure to public media.
Much of
this Romanticism revolves around the need for Reconciliation with Indigenous
peoples, where the colonized are turned into potential heroes who might be able
to herald an alternative to Western man’s exploitative relationship with Nature
itself. Even the Canadian public’s alarm
at the number of unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools suggests a
kind of Romantic sensibility, one born of a historical consciousness which may
- or may not – want to seek out continuity with the colonial past. In the
Western mind graveyards might evoke a sense of the gothic, while Indigenous
concern for potential hidden native remains invites a flurry of thoughts over
identity, culture, family ancestry – and evident mistreatment, both in the past
and the present.
So I return
to my original point: while Romanticism presupposed the social and
political violence bound up with the French Revolution and its conflicted consequences,
Canadians (led by the Trudeau Liberals) turned to Romanticism in order to
account for the injustices of colonialism.
The desire to liberate the Indigenous, or at least their emotions, is
now underway – likely to be cemented by an expected Papal apology - thus further challenging once accepted
assumptions and the norm of colonialism, which finds its roots even before the Crusades.
Parenthetically-speaking, Romantic dramas of early nineteenth century France - with their unwieldy barricades and such - were better read than they were ever viewed, as no stage was large enough for an audience sometimes perplexed by the plot. So the focus was on local colour and French history as opposed to the typical Classical play steeped a Graeco-Roman inheritance.[8] Overall, however, Romanticism tended to be less ‘bookish’ than the Enlightenment (which was tinged with neo-Classicism), and in the Canadian context it opens up new avenues for communication, along with its emphasis on what is ‘indigenous’ to our nation. It can even be seen as more ‘democratic’, because, well, everyone has ‘feelings’ of their own, which are now legitimately on the table. The demand for justice also speaks to its corollary, Truth, derived in part from living ‘memories’. Moreover, almost everyone has eyes and ears, useful in attuning to Nature – vital to an understanding of both Romanticism and Indigenous Peoples - which becomes helpful in bridging the imaginative gap in the worldviews of the ‘colonizers’ and the Indigenous Peoples.
If one looks at the Harper Conservatives and their relationship with the Indigenous, it was less preoccupied with the violence of the past, even though the government officially apologized in 2008 for the abuse at Residential Schools, precisely because the Conservative Party does not espouse Romanticism. Its assumptions are clearly anti-Romantic, and more rooted at the time in a puritanical economic liberalism, so Harper was quick to criticize what he called ‘judicial activism’ by Beverly McLaughlin, formerly Chief Justice of Canada’s Supreme Court, when she spoke if “cultural genocide” in 2015. To put it another way: Romanticism, in the hands of Justin Trudeau, has become an organizing principle not only to clarify the public mind but also to persuade it, which renders matters problematic. For Trudeau, in addition to ‘identity’ and ‘diversity’, there has been talk of “sunny ways” along with a proverbial ‘pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’ during the pandemic. When a philosophy is fleshed out by a political party there is always distortion, issues of exaggerated tendencies and degrees of browbeating, in other words: it becomes dogma. Can the violence of the French Revolution somehow be compared to Canada’s treatment of the Indigenous? The very culture of the Romantic spirit makes this possible.
But how do
we write the Canadian story in light of “genocide”? In a worrying move, the Canadian
Historical Association, on the occasion of its Canada Day Statement for its
hundredth anniversary in 2021, declared it was “abundantly clear” that the
Indigenous experience in Canada was the result of “genocidal intent”. This is
an attempt by historians to close the door on a debatable issue. Have they formed their own club? Are they in a class of their own? Have they
forgotten that history - in the words of Pieter Geyl - is “argument without
end” precisely because varying interpretations implicit in political and historical change
are never finished?[9] The future is fecund with different
perspectives and often fresh evidence, or new methodologies (which we witnessed
with ground penetrating radar), so there is always room for further
consideration – and a diversity of ideas, as long as free expression is
encouraged. A no-nuance, “unanimous” and
undisputable conclusion as such is suggestive of post-scholarism, to coin a
phrase.
In order to
work towards a conclusion of my own, I offer the following questions rather
than a definitive statement: Will this attempt
at official revisionism spark an anti-Romantic nationalist reaction, or has it
already done so? Will there be a continued to-and-froing of counter discourses?
Will the contest over Canada survive our own obsession with post-colonialism? Does the CHA’s doctrinal approach help explain
why history as an academic discipline is in decline? Considered in terms of the
broad span of time (and developing geo-political forces) will the future work
to decentre, surpass - or even diminish - current revisionism? Is Romanticism still
even useful as an interpretive guide for understanding Canadian identity and
its competing complexities? In other
words, is Romanticism (an early nineteenth century manifestation) an apt
characterization of a mentality fixed on “genocide” (a twentieth century
concept)? Is Romanticism now not more
political ideology than poetic predisposition? Is this ‘official’ Romanticism now
counter intuitive? And finally, in a nod to possible critics, will our era of political
Romanticism result in enlightened changes to the rule of law rooted in European
inheritance? The answers will inevitably turn on one’s assessment – and
mindfulness - of “violence”, which itself haunts the Romantic imagination and has been key in suppressing identity.
[1]
See S.B. John “Violence and Identity in Romantic Drama” in French Literature and its Background: The Early Nineteenth Century,
Vol. 4, ed. John Cruickshank (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 136.
[2]
François-René
de Chateaubriand, Memoirs From Beyond the
Grave, tr. Alex Andriesse (New York: New York Review of Books, 2018), p.
23.
[3]
Tim Blanning, The Romantic Revolution
(London: Wiedenfelld & Nicholson, 2010), p. 26.
[4]
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, ed. A.D. Woozley (Glasgow: Collins, 1981), p. 206.
[5]
John Keats, The Complete Poems, ed.
John Barnard, 3rd ed. (London: Penguin, 1988), p. 107 (“Endymion”,
Book I)
[6]
Ibid., p. 431 (“Lamia”, Part II, 229-237).
[7] William Wordsworth, The Poems, Volume I, ed. John O. Hayden
(London: Penguin, 1990), p. 552 (My
heart leaps up when I behold”). Even
Lord Byron adds to this inspired sky gazing in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:
Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?
cf. Lord Byron, Selected Poems
(London: Penguin, 1996), p. 440 (Canto 3, stanza 75)
[8]
M.G. Hutt and Christophe Campos “Romanticism and History” in French Literature and Its Background,
Vol. 4, pp. 105-110.
[9] Pieter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against, tr. Olive Rentier (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1965), p. 15.
No comments:
Post a Comment