At Home, Landed, in Canada
When Barak Obama was sworn in, I shared the tears of millions of Americans realizing that finally, we have a leader we can be proud of. As he has managed his first bumpy weeks in office, I was particularly impressed that he was able to gracefully utter the magic words that seem to elude most politicians of lesser stature and confidence. “I’m sorry. I screwed up.” Well, halleluiah! It was almost as moving a moment as him taking the oath of office. With all its problems, the U.S. needs and deserves a sane and smart leader with his ego securely in check.
At the same time, the recent approval of our permanent residency means that we are deepening our roots here in Canada. We are officially landed immigrants here, and will soon apply for citizenship. Canada allows for dual citizenship, so we will have two passports.
When I think about the word “immigrant” and what it means to be an immigrant, I reflect upon the experience of my grandparents coming here from Italy. In a time when airplane trips were a rare luxury, they left friends, family and a familiar language and lifestyle behind forever. My paternal grandfather’s strategy for coping with all of this was a “never look back” attitude. He forbade any family members to speak Italian in his presence. They threw themselves into their new world with intensity. Their passionate love for their country was strikingly at odds with the tight-lipped and entitled descendents of the original New England settlers we lived among. My family didn’t take the privileges and opportunities of being American for granted. They were (and remain) almost religiously patriotic.
By comparison, moving to Canada requires much less adjustment. Our countries speak the same language; eat the same basic diet; and share a long undefended border. I can leave here at a civilized time of morning and be in a meeting in San Francisco by mid-day. Moving here is a less dramatic culture shift than moving from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast – I can tell you that from experience!
But there’s something special about becoming Canadian. Not being a superpower allows Canada more freedom of thought about what’s going on in the world. The national conversation (and there is a national conversation thanks to the excellent, publicly supported CBC) has a more modest and nuanced tone. There are no real equivalents of Rush Limbaugh (well, maybe in Alberta). The CBC runs serious documentaries with adult language if it’s called for. Canadians are largely secular, which contributes greatly to the national I.Q. There is no identified “moral majority.” There would never be a national outcry over a “wardrobe malfunction.” Most Canadians have seen naked breasts on the public airways and seem unscathed by the experience.
The Canadians I have met, at whatever level of formal education, participate thoughtfully and intelligently in their communities. More than anything, what’s possible to experience here is a sense of belonging – something maybe my grandparents felt when they moved to a younger and more naïve America.
Comments
I would love to experience it for myself one day. I'm glad you are feeling at home there!
Who creates I.Q. tests? The secular. Does the observed increase reflect a genuine upward trend in intelligence? No. It doesn't. And it certainly doesn't reflect an upward trend in wisdom. Which isn't to say the average Canadian isn't more intelligent than the average American. Maybe they are more intelligent. But a higher I.Q. score isn't proof. Just check the recent scientific data.
(Sorry - I know that wasn't at all the thrust of your post which was actually quite lovely. But just couldn't let it go...)
I looked up the some of the research on IQ scores and religion. In 2002, the U.S. on average scored one point higher than the Canadian I.Q. I.Q. score, despite being far more religious. The U.S. doesn't fit the rest of the data in terms of I.Q. scores and religion. The reason I think that's true is because religion is the U.S. is essentially secular. It's totally based on materialism and material gain. God blesses the rich and condemns the poor. Those who work hard gain God's favor, those who don't are condemned. As my friend has often argued to her equally wealthy friends, how can you say your housekeeper doesn't work as hard as you do? They have lots of answers for why their housekeepers don't work as hard as they do. (They don't have Blackberries!!)
It's not secular vs. the religion when it comes to the U.S. The U.S. is essentially secular. Religion here is all about materialism and has almost nothing to do with spirituality at all.
We (the U.S.) lacks wisdom which has nothing whatsoever to do with I.Q. scores and material wealth or well-being.
Canada is more European. I think that maybe U.S. is something altogether different.
Different dominant cultures, but I do know that in Vancouver the largest native tongue is Chinese. And they manage their diversity quite visibly and well, I think. The only people that seem to have a very hard time here are the First Nations, and that is an ongoing and serious national tragedy of epic proportions.
That having been said, a couple of years ago I gave a talk at a cultural literacy (for healthcare) meeting. I introduced myself as new to Canada. Someone came up after the meeting and said, " To understand the heart of Canada, think of it as an island that moves between Europe and the U.S. Sometimes closer to Europe, and sometimes closer to the U.S. So you may be on to something.
I used to think religion was the problem. I don't anymore. I think the problem is rooted in secular modernism. It says that those who are religious are backward, simple-minded and bad while science is forward looking and good. It's that attitude that has created the current religious culture here in the U.S. Fundamentalism becomes a sort of last ditch effort and frantic fight against what is seen as the ravages of secularism. (If the U.S. would quit enforcing our materialistic values on the Middle East, we'd have far less Fundamentalism there, too.)
It's all just a bunch of mirrors but we don't want to think we're looking in the mirror. We want to say the problem is "out there". It's those guys. But it's not. People are very afraid - scared to death. Our arrogance and anger is only going to make them push back more. Eventually we are going to have to start listening to one another rather than condemning one another because condemnation has never worked! It just dumbs people down on both sides.
I don't think it's entirely accurate to claim that all religious people want to enforce their moral values on society. Some do, certainly. But Mormons don't want to have public prayer in schools any more than do the Jews because nobody wants to be forced to pray in a specific way. If you enforce your morality, you know that someone else's morality could be enforced upon you. But there are certain hot buttons and religion has unfortunately become extremely dumbed down over the years because it has become secular.
Secular people stood up against Abu Ghraib, are hugely concerned about our moral investment in the environment, make stands for and against the death penalty. The only real difference is that there is more agreement on such things in secular countries. In that sense, you have less diversity to deal with. We have more. When a secular person takes a stand against the moral imperatives of the religious, we are most definitely taking a moral stand. We want the state to legislate the law according to our moral sensibilities, too.
It's all just a bunch of mirrors and we've got to quit condemning and figure out a common language or I think we are going to have some huge, serious problems because unfortunately, most of the religious here in the U.S. aren't simple-minded, uneducated, individuals.
What I find most persuasive in your argument is the whole idea that we need to take the world as it really is, not as we wish it were, before we can deal with it properly. That means in this case, acknowledging the power and influence of the churches and understanding the motivations that cause people to identify with and support them. I also agree that they are more fear-driven than stupidity driven, (although fear certainly can make you stupid). How do you wrestle with fear on a mass level? More soothing lies from politicians are clearly not the answer. I'm not sure why some cultures are more fearful than others. New Zealand, for example, seems to have a pronounced and noticeable lack of fearfulness among its people. This may be a consequence of its lack of diversity or it's lack of predatory wild animals and life threatening weather. But I digress.
I still think organized religion has set civilization in US back more than any other force (leaving aside the point that it was organized religion that helped it get started in the first place.) Mr. Salamander had his own reasons for wanting to leave -- more focused on the leadership at the time. But I'm more focused on wanting to live in a secular and open minded society. These are overlapping considerations, of course. And all the world (Canada most of all) is equally at the effect of the fearful, mighty, wounded empire, so really, you can never leave.
I've read your posts for quite some time, now. I can't claim to know what's in your heart. But for someone who can believe six different things before breakfast, do you fully identify with being secular?
If you were to ask me whether I am secular or religious, I have to say I don't know. I don't believe in the God the religious believe in and I haven't been part of organized religion for over 8 years. But I could easily rejoin the Reconciling Methodist Community which remains a part of the UMC. What I most love about it is that it makes people who had otherwise fully grown up believing they were unloved by "God", loved. Two lesbians can baptize their child in the United Methodist Church even though their parents will have nothing to do with it and two individuals of the same sex can proclaim their union in front of a congregation of Methodist church members and have that union fully affirmed in Quaker style, even if the minister can't affirm for legal reason and the state won't recognize it.
The civil rights movement in the U.S. couldn't have been won without the support of organized religion. Perhaps it would have eventually been won, but organized religion definitely spearheaded it. And, it seems, we are ahead of Europe in this regard. That is most definitely thanks to organized religion (especially the AME).
And anyway, you can't possbily convince me that secular societies are more opened minded than religious societies. Secularism has its own religion and has its own brand of fundamentalism that is as closed minded as anything else even though it claims to be open-minded. It's only open-minded in regards to itself.
I really did enjoy the book "The Religious Case Against Belief" where he argues the cultural and community aspects of religion are their primary contribution. In fact he believes that belief/fundamentalism has fractured Christianity perhaps fatally.
But I do think (and you seem to agree) that the dark side of religion can be (is almost always) a narrowing of perspective -- a closely held us vs. them. And church power to influence politics in the US scares me. I have a favorite joke that I have told for years: The devil and the junior devil in training are walking down the street, heading home after a long day of trouble making for humans. They pass a man in the throes of spiritual ecstasy -- tears running down his face. The senior devil keeps walking, while the young one looks on with curiosity. Eventually the kid catches up to the old guy and says "Aren't you going to do something about that?" He nods and keeps walking. "Yep, I'm going to come back in a month and help him organize it."
But yeah. I agree.
I live in Texas where our governor has said he will not accept Obama's stimulus package. I'm not living in a bipartisan area. People don't like Obama here and it makes me very uneasy. I start thinking MadMax scenarios because people are so angry and we're allowed to carry guns in our purses and glove compartments. I'm interested to see if there is any change in the mood around here after Obama's speech tonight.
Thing about organized religion here, however, is that most people are leaving the organized religions for the "non-denominational" churches and Bible Churches which aren't organized. I think the decline of organized religion is extremely problematic given the rise of non-denominational media churches. There's no real committment. If you get upset with the people in your church and what they stand for, you find a new one that doesn't upset you or challenge you. There's no hierarchy and no self-regulation among the non-denominational churches like there is in the larger denominations. At least the Methodist and Episcopalian denominations are engaged in a sincere battle over homesexual rights. That doesn't happen in the non-denominations groups because there is no need for loyalty. It's shallow, dumbed-down religion. And I'm not even sure it can legitimately be called organized. It's just grand, feel-good entertainment that politics has become increasingly organized around.
I agree there might be a dark side to scientism/ materialism -- i.e., the very activist polar opposite of religion. Secularism, in my mind, looks more like pragmatism, not even particularly progressive. It votes, but it doesn't demonstrate; it reasons, discusses, can see both sides, and can compromise. It's fairly relaxed and porous. I feel accepted, even when I talk about things that are odd to many, like doing Reike with hospice. I think they dismiss it as harmless. Which is fine with me. But I don't feel I need to hide anything. Political discussions wander through charged topics fearlessly. Sometimes minds are changed, sometimes not. I guess Canadians tend to be pleasant.
I guess I'm probably a secularist according to your definition. And I'm not holding it together here all that great! I constantly dream of getting out, but all of our family is here. Even so, I felt much more at home in California. It was still extremely conservative, but people weren't so religious so weren't so easily threatened like they are here. It's extremely uncomfortable to feel like you are a threat to people. It's like constantly walking on eggshells.
The bright side is that my son's friends enjoy sharing their philosophical ideas with me and I enjoy listening. They say its difficult to find adults who take their ideas seriously. Most of these kids are just kids from the neighborhood so maybe that's a sign that a more open-minded generation is on its way in. I hope so. Both of my kids are dead set on moving to Europe, however. :)