Mader Blog

Comments: The Threat of American Amnesia

Mader:

I think I have more questions than comments about this post, but here's what I thought.

First you write, "Canada continues to experience a schizophrenia regarding national identity that results at least in part to the almost-total abandonment of the traditional humanities in the elementary curriculum"

I disagree. I disagree that Canada experiences a "schizophrenia" of national identity. Canadian identity is complex and not easily pinned down but this is part of what makes it so dynamic and I think that most Canadians, while many may not be able to articulate it very well, have an intuitive sense of what it means.

On the condition of our elementary education system I disagree but not quite as strongly. I think the system has lost some of its focus on core disciplines though moves away from things like standardized testing I still support. However, I think the reading and writing ability of students coming out of highschool is inadequate.

Further on you write, "But without the traditional narrative, students have no compass, and no measure by which to evaluate - and understand - the new interests."

But what is this traditional narrative? What does it look like? How would we teach it? With regards to history alone, have not the new perspectives that have been uncovered in the last forty years shown that any past presumptions to their being a meta-narrative have only been the result of failure to fully consider all the aspect of our history?

I was told by Prof. Morton here that several years ago all the McGill history profs. tried to decide on 10 books that all undergraduates should have read upon completing a history degree at McGill. They couldn't agree on any ten. They couldn't get the list cut down below fifty. Do you take A Making of the English Working Class but leave out An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution? Are you willing to compromise on Gender and the Politics of History to get The Transformation of Virginia? As I said, what is this narrative?

In the Canadian literature, Jack Granatstien has written a polemic with the subtle title of Who Killed Canadian History? He makes a point much like yours and, obviously, elaborates on it. But he points to the fragmentation of the traditional narrative and blames the public school curriculum and university professors for the fragmentation and loss of our identity.

The assumption behind all of this though is that we need a meta-narrative to provide us with a cohesive identity. But do we? And again which identity? Is the narrative to be national? What if a working class Montrealer has more in common with his counterpart in Lyon? What if a Chinese immigrant in Toronto relates in many ways to a croatian immigrant in New York? A farmer in Alberta to a farmer in North Dakota? Is our sense of identity so weak that we need to be handed a set of founding myths that we can all look to and rely on? Or do we have a great enough sense of ourselves and how we have related to those around us that we can incorporate an infinite number of perspectives into our world view? And do not those new perspectives in fact provide us with the basis of strength for our identity?

Obviously, there's lots to say on this topic, I'll leave it there for now.

Posted by Matt F. at November 24, 2003 05:40 PM

Matt -

Your remarks on the cosmopolitan nature of Canadian identity are, I think, typical of the post-Trudeauvian 'new Canada' identity championed by many latter day Liberals. Though the catchphrase of this identity is 'multiculturalism', the term suggests far more cohesion than I believe the idea allows. If, as you say, 'a working class Montrealer has more in common with his counterpart in Lyon' and so on - if, in other words, regional identities have more in common with foreign identities than with each other - then can the set of uncommon regional identities still be considered a Canadian identity?

Take for comparison - as so many latter day Liberals are loathe to do - the United States. Virginia, Texas and California have fully developed are significantly distinctive regional identities. Yet each find more in common with one another than with any other region beyond the borders of the United States. The US has a 'meta' narrative that is accessible to all, even if it does not describe the ancestry of all. An immigrant who swears his oath of allegiance can claim the same inheritance of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln as any natural born citizen. The meta-narrative of the US - though mythologized, and though ever developing - provides a common denominator which binds the nation.

I see nothing similar in Canada. I must confess that, identifying with no varient of Canadian nationalism, I have difficulty outlining an alternative - and, I concede, I must have difficulty understanding the identity supposedly contained in cosmopolitan multiculturalism. It simply seems to me that a national identity based on internal difference can not be either cohesive or sustainable.

You write: "have not the new perspectives that have been uncovered in the last forty years shown that any past presumptions to their being a meta-narrative have only been the result of failure to fully consider all the aspect of our history?"

My point was precisely to address this notion, or rather the often-consequent notion that we should therefore disregard previous meta-narratives. New perspectives have shown the old narrative to be incomplete, not erroneous - and yet even if it were erroneous, the fact that it stood as the authority for so long, and stood as the foundation of later critiques, makes it a necessary component of any course of study. Reading post-modern critiques of traditional texts is absurd without a knowledge of those texts on a level with that of the critics. If we do not continue to read those traditional texts, we lose the ability to understand criticism as criticism, and we begin to take for granted ideas that are dependent upon previously-exisiting arguments.

With regard to which texts a new meta-narrative would be based on, I mentioned in my post that there was considerable controversy. The point, though, is not to establish one definitive list of texts which every aspiring Canadian (or whomever) must read. As you can imagine, the idea offends my libertarian-minded sensibilities. Rather, the point is to recognize that those texts which have held sway in the past did so for a reason, and it's necessary to look towards them to understand where we are today. In the context of your McGill example, perhaps it would be best to allow students to choose from a list of the 50 - or 75 - works identified by the faculty. My only suggestion would be to put a premium on those books which a) were of greatest influence when they were written, and b) have enjoyed the highest degree of influence since their publication. Democracy in America may be myopic, but it was one of the most influential studies of American society in the nineteenth century - and that influence alone makes it worthy of contemporary study. Beard's Economic Analysis may be poorly constructed and misdirected, but it informed a generation - and more - of American historiography, and for that alone it remains a necessary work. And so on. Yes, this elevates the works of dead white men over even the primary works of the newly-discovered perspectives. I don't say that the new perspectives should be replaced - only that the old perspectives remain necessary to better appreciate the new.

Posted by David Mader at November 24, 2003 07:59 PM

Fifty books for a degree in history doesn't sound excessive to me. That is twelve books a year for four years. Perhaps pare that down to thirty - twenty mandatory and 10 more in topics of interest. With extra credit for doing more.

Posted by M. Simon at November 25, 2003 01:38 AM

My book anecdote was more meant to support my point that a cohesive meta-narrative does not seem possible. I wasn't involved in the actual process but my understanding was that it was more of an informal excersice, perhaps it should be reconsidered more seriously.

To speak to it practically, note that they could not get the list below fifty. Paring down to thirty would have been quite difficult. Certainly reading 50 books over four years is not the main problem. Certainly any good history student has read far more than that by the time he or she graduates. I think further problems would have arisen in deciding not just on which books but which classes to teach them in. One would assume that the ballance of 'influential' books would be skewed towards the European/American political history, not entirely but largely. If the professor this year teaching 19th century Britain did not want E.P Thompson on the sylibus, what could you do?

I'll have more substantial comments to contribute later, I was really just stopping by before I went to bed and got sucked in.

Posted by Matt F. at November 25, 2003 03:02 AM

Mader,

I agree with you in that,

If we do not continue to read those traditional texts, we lose the ability to understand criticism as criticism, and we begin to take for granted ideas that are dependent upon previously-exisiting arguments.

This, I would hope, is obvious at least to any student of history. There are texts that have had such an influence on our society and even continue to have an influence that it is necessary to read them in order to understand where we are today.

The question for me, however, is still how we are to re-read these texts in light of new interpretations and what an alternate meta-narrative would look like, if one is even necessary.

You seem to suggest that your new narrative would still be a national one. My example of the regional and class similarities and differences was meant to suggest that it need not be so. In other posts you have, rightly, pointed out that the state is not permanent. It would follow that our national meta-narratives are not either.

Our discussion seems to centre around how to reconcile new historical interpretations with past narratives. I think we agree that past narratives must continue to be studied because of their importance to history. However, your above post seems to suggest that new interpretations need only be incorporated into the past narrative, whereas I am more of the opinion that new interpretations disrupt and replace past narratives. It doesn't mean those past narratives are no longer relavant but it may mean that they are no longer current. Correct me if I have misinterpreted your view.

As for your comments to Canadian meta-narratives or the lack there of I have to respond.

After outlining the American mythologized narrative you say,

I see nothing similar in Canada....I must have difficulty understanding the identity supposedly contained in cosmopolitan multiculturalism. It simply seems to me that a national identity based on internal difference can not be either cohesive or sustainable.

First, there are mythologized Canadian meta-narratives that are part of the Canadian identity. I try not to subscribe to them, because too often they simply become a means of self-isolation, exclusion and an easy way to ignore the progress of history. Some of these mythologized narrative in Canada include those of the CPR, the RCMP, the north/wilderness and hockey among many others.

Seconldly, the core of Canadian identity is not "based on internal difference," as you say. Rather it is based on the acceptance of internal difference, the reconcilliation between internal differences.

You say you do not see how this can be, " either cohesive or sustainable." I would argue it has been relatively cohesive and sustainable since 1763. At the very least it has been so since 1791 or 1842.

From the very beginning Canada has been based on a duality of cultures, languages, religions and ethnicities. Within the monolithic nationalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries there were few nations in the world that were founded on the basis of reconcilliation, and an attempt at equal partnership between two opposing cultures.

Canada was the first place in the British empire that allowed Catholics to take part in public life. Further, in 1842 when the reformers won election in United Canada they refused to take office unless the British governor accepted their French members into cabinet. Throughout the 20th century this duality was built upon with immigration from around the world.

Sustainable? The English-French duality has been sustained, as I said, since 1763. Since 1776 there has been a near constant stream or rhetoric that has assumed Canada would one day be incorporated into the United States. You still can't open the pages of the Globe and Mail or the National Post today without seeing this argument being made. Of late several sites in the blogosphere have continued this argument.
I admit that Canada defies logic. This country never really should have come into existence and when you analyze it rationally it does not seem like it should continue to go on existing, yet it does.

If there is a Canadian meta-narrative this is the one I subscribe to.

Posted by Matt F at November 25, 2003 07:33 PM

Matt -

Regarding Canada, I'm afraid I'm not the right guy to be holding up my end of the argument. I have neither the knowledge nor, truth be told, the interest. But I think it's an important discussion to be had, and I hope other, more knowledgeable and passionate folks can take up my argument and run with it.

I'll only say this, in response to your suggestion that Canada "has been relatively cohesive and sustainable since 1763." It seems to me that the duality you mention has never found a satisfactory 'reconciliation' beyond common confederal government. As recently as 1995, and perhaps still, the national identity of many French Canadians - was directly related to the amount of graft their riding received. There are regional exceptions, of course - the Outaouais is one - but I think the persistence of Quebecois nationalism (which, though in recession, has not nearly been defeated) belies the notion of an overarching identity. The duality of Canada has always been an artificial construct, a result of government decree and oversight, not of common self-conception and camraderie.

In terms of the history, or historiography, of identity, I think we're entering an area of broad agreement. I think 'world history' - the study of trends, movements, transfers and other phenomena across national and regional boundaries which have long defined historical analysis - is a tremendously positive trend. But even it relies on a foreknowledge of the component regional or national narratives. I'm not sure we're going to reach an agreement on the validity of 'old' narratives, which I hold to have a legitimacy beyond that derived from their contemporary and continued importance. Still, whether the new perspectives augment the old narrative or fundamentally alter it, as long as they affect it - and are not taken as autonomous and complete discourses - I'll be satisfied.

But I think we've moved well beyond the scope of my original post into our own world of history at the academy. The idea of a national narrative remains important, I think, at the elementary and high school levels, even if it is being challenged at the university. Though I wouldn't want to put words in your mouth, I think you'd concede that history is an integral part of a civics class. Should civics be tought, or is it also too dependent on the archaic national conceptions of identity? If it is to be taught, it will have to present some sort of narrative. I find myself going in circles, though, because my next sentence was going to suggest that a narrative based on internal division could not serve a civics class. So, rather than going round and round and round, I'll stop.

Posted by David Mader at November 25, 2003 09:23 PM

Mader,

Good points. I too am satisfied with where the discussion is. I still disagree with your take on Canada but I think we figured out several years ago that that was an irreconcillable difference.

As for civics class I largely agree with you. I think that it should be taught and that some kind of narrative is necessary. The thing that I am continually ambivalent about is the type of narrative that gets presented. I think that some kind of national narrative is necessary but I don't want it to become overly mythologized to the point that it limits what students are going to consider in the future.

Posted by Matt F. at November 25, 2003 09:37 PM

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