Picking Your Favourite

I know that the U.S. presidential race is a Really Big Deal, but I’m still a little amazed at how much attention Canadians tend to pay to American politics, relative to our own political scene. Yesterday I had a lengthy conversation with an Obama supporter, a PhD student from New Brunswick. He was convinced that Obama is the great uniter, the man of hope and vision he claims to be. On the weekend, I spoke to a friend who was very excited about the prospects of a Hillary Clinton victory. Everyone is tuned in and watching anxiously.

Perhaps this is not all that surprising. The whole world is watching, after all. The problem is that I don’t recall ever seeing this kind of enthusiasm for a candidate in a Canadian election. Perhaps that’s because Canadian politics tends to revolve around parties as much as it does around personalities. Or perhaps it’s because Canadian political personalities are not very exciting. Maybe it’s just that the hype surrounding the American presidential race (and particularly this presidential race) outdoes anything that goes on in the dominion to the north.

Whatever the cause, it speaks to the degree to which politics has become a spectator sport for many people. Too often the "support" these people offer has nothing to do with the issues, or the actual positions of the candidate. It has everything to do with image and style and rhetoric, how they make us feel. Picking your favourite presidential candidate is like picking your favourite NFL team. You’ll root for them, cheering them on, following their ups and downs, hoping they’ll go all the way. The fact that we can’t vote in American elections is relevant only in the sense that the viewers don’t get to vote anyone off the island on Survivor (as is my understanding). As someone who has been following the U.S. presidential race longer than most Canucks, I find this a little disconcerting. Has politics become mere diversion?

The Divine Dignity

From Pope Benedict’s homily of August 15, 2005:

Previously, it was thought and believed that by setting God aside and being autonomous, following only our own ideas and inclinations, we would truly be free to do whatever we liked without anyone being able to give us orders. But when God disappears, men and women do not become greater; indeed, they lose the divine dignity, their faces lose God’s splendor. In the end, they turn out to be merely products of a blind evolution and, as such, can be used and abused. This is precisely what the experience of our epoch has confirmed for us. Only if God is great is humankind also great.

Back to the Future

Staying away from the blog usually results in me getting a lot more work done, as has been the case over the last few weeks. This is an indication that I should keep away from the blog. On the other hand, I’ve been unable to leave the blogosphere behind – particularly with the great Pithlord back at it.

Anyhow, here’s a sobering thought from the world’s most pessimistic philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer:

“Every good human quality is related to a bad one into which it threatens to pass over; and every bad quality is similarly related to a good one. The reason we so often misunderstand people is that when we first make their acquaintance we mistake their bad qualities for the related good ones, or vice versa: thus a prudent man will seem cowardly, a thrifty one avaricious; or a spendthrift will seem liberal, a boor frank and straightforward, an impudent fellow full of noble self-confidence, and so on.” (On Ethics, 4).