Nationhood, as a concept, is fraught with complication. It’s all about the “other”, about Us versus Them, but it’s more complex than that. Canadians define themselves through what they are not (American), but neglect to recognize that the line between us and them is blurry, and also don’t see that the notion of “Us” comprises many identities, as does “Them”. The idea of the stereotypical Canadian doesn’t include indigeneity, which is actually a source of satisfaction for some Aboriginal people. As western nations become more politically correct and examine their past, a “post colonial nationalism” emerges, according to O”brien and Szeman (244). This situation has been ironically addressed by Sykes, who asked “What? Post colonialism? Have they left?” (Smith 24)
Our own version of being Canadian doesn’t lend itself to racial difference. Black Canadians are generally “Afro-Canadians” (in case we couldn’t work out their racial background by visual cues). It seems to be important to give someone a niche, to slot them into a non-threatening identity. “Where are you from?” we might ask a person of a different skin colour, “when did you get here?”, we ask people with an accent. We want to avoid danger and we have to assign outsiders an identity so that we know our turf is safe. Then we can decide if they are “us” or “them”. This identity isn’t static either, it changes depending upon how secure we are in our assessment of whether or not we’re threatened. Having watched race riots on tv as a child, I am amazed now to see the relaxation of this insecurity in the election of a Black president.
Nationalism is about protecting our own; our own land, our own identity. The riots in Vancouver this week weren’t so much about anger and disappointment in our inability to win a game; they were also about the attack on our national identity as a hockey nation. Canadians feel threatened all the time by Americans; by their superior military strength, by their power, and by their disdain for us as a nation, as we frequently see in popular American television programs. It is interesting to speculate on what people would be like without the need for comparative identities.
2.6.11
Harper, Horkheimer and Swedish Hiphop
I am trying, this week, to come to terms with the reality of the ‘culture industry’ in my day to day life. It is still a distressing thought that my cultural indulgences are based almost entirely on the profit of someone else. Something that I find baffling, moreover, given the fact that Culture is no longer just the artistic personal expression of an individual or group, but a means for creating surplus value, is that Stephen Harper does not support the Arts wholeheartedly. One would think that the economic value of popular culture would occur to him on some level.
One of the criticisms of the theorists Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s notions about the culture industry is their cynicism regarding our ability to resist it. I think that the Internet, the impact of which these theorists and their contemporaries could not have foreseen, is providing us with means to create our own cultural reality, quite apart from that which is offered up by a few conglomerates.
My children, who regularly introduce me to independent musical artists, visit a website called Last.fm, which offers subscribers (I am aware of the irony) the opportunity to create their own radio station. Last.fm relies upon the same licensing laws that govern mainstream stations; they may not play the same artist more than five times in an hour, and they may not play one song over and over. The website also recommends artists similar to those the subscriber likes to listen to, both familiar and independent.
Through this alternative station, they have discovered artists like Movits, a hiphop/swing group who were obscure until they were featured on the Colbert report, and Zacke, both from Sweden. My boys’ cultural landscape is so far from the mainstream that they are unfamiliar with many currently popular artists. Maybe the issue of resistance isn’t about the fact that we are spending money to support culture, but that we choose where our money will go.
One of the criticisms of the theorists Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s notions about the culture industry is their cynicism regarding our ability to resist it. I think that the Internet, the impact of which these theorists and their contemporaries could not have foreseen, is providing us with means to create our own cultural reality, quite apart from that which is offered up by a few conglomerates.
My children, who regularly introduce me to independent musical artists, visit a website called Last.fm, which offers subscribers (I am aware of the irony) the opportunity to create their own radio station. Last.fm relies upon the same licensing laws that govern mainstream stations; they may not play the same artist more than five times in an hour, and they may not play one song over and over. The website also recommends artists similar to those the subscriber likes to listen to, both familiar and independent.
Through this alternative station, they have discovered artists like Movits, a hiphop/swing group who were obscure until they were featured on the Colbert report, and Zacke, both from Sweden. My boys’ cultural landscape is so far from the mainstream that they are unfamiliar with many currently popular artists. Maybe the issue of resistance isn’t about the fact that we are spending money to support culture, but that we choose where our money will go.
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