Read a good book recently? Want to share a particularly interesting excerpt with the CN community? Here's the thread for you!

I'll get things going. Michael Ignatieff recently announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. This prompted me to dig out a couple of his books that I've purchased over the years. One of them is The Rights Revolution. Ignatieff's thesis in this book is as follows:

Rights have a double-sided relationship to democracy. Rights enacted into law by democractically elected representatives represent the will of the people. But there are also rights whose purpose is to protect people from that will, to set limits on what majorities can do. Human rights and constitutionally guaranteed rights are supposed to have a special immunity from restriction by the majority. This allows them to act as a bulwark for the freedom of the vulnerable. So the rights revolution has a double aspect: it has been about both enhancing our right to be equal and protecting our right to be different. Trying to do both -- that is, enhancing equality while safeguarding difference -- is the essential challenge of the rights revolution.

In the book Ignatieff discusses these challenges and how they might best be met. Here is a lengthy exerpt from Chapter 3:

How can we create a society where everyone has rights without flattening out the differences that give us our identity as individuals and as peoples? How do we recognize group differences without jeopardizing the unity of our country?

Reconciling these objectives is difficult because creating equality and recognizing difference both imply a distinctive kind of political space. ...

The dilemma we have is that we can't actually choose one to the exclusion of the other. Nations have the characteristics of both. It is basic to the idea of the nation-state that all citizens should have the same basic rights, and that these rights should apply across the board. There may be different levels of government, but the constitution works out a division of powers so that there is as little overlap and conflict as possible. ... Nations are also historical creations, layered with the sediments of time, with old political systems still present just beneath the surface of functioning ones. ...

[A brief interlude discussing Native Canadian issues in this context, in particular in the way that it was believed in Canada, historically, that a policy of assimilation would best provide equal rights for all, a policy that was, in retrospect, disastrous]

This is more than a story of the damage done by racist contempt and imperialist arrogance. It is also a terrible demonstration of why rights matter. For any people...the right to be the member of a nation, to be respected as such, is a vital condition for personal respect, honour, and dignity. When such group rights to nationhood are stripped from a people, the individuals within the group often disintegrate. The lesson that follows is true for aboriginals and non-aboriginals alike: you can't act effectively in the world and take responsibility for yourself unless you respect yourself. And you can't do that unless your identity as member of a people is honoured by the political system in which you live.

The larger lesson is that now matter how they are tried, forced assimilation policies are always a mistake. They either awaken national resistance or succeed at the cost of destroying the morale of the people they tried to assimilate. The message should be clear: you cannot create citizens by force -- you must have their consent. ...

[A long interlude with respect to Quebec and nationhood, its attempts to secede from Canada, and related issues]

The issue of whether group rights should prevail over individual ones, and the larger issue of whether Canada is a single political space or a multiplicity of national spaces, has proved irresolvable. In this situation of total impasse, a 1995 proposal by the Quebec government that the nation be dissolved altogether lost a referendum in the province by fewer than 60,000 votes. Since that "near death" experience," the only consensus to emerge is that we should postpone everything -- whether it be separation or a renewed union -- until we have all thought further. The fervent desire to find either a common ground or the terms of divorce has been replaced by a tacit contract of mutual indifference.

The whole story may be taken as a parable about the futility of rights talk itself. The minute groups start claiming rights, self-righteousness begins and conflicts become inevitable. Nations can't survive too much self-righteousness. Indeed, if a nation were only a community of rights-bearers, it would not survive at all. ...

Yet we need to find a better way to resolve our rights conflicts. We need to find a way to reconcile [the vision of a country as a community of right-bearing equals] with the patchwork-quilt vision of our land as a network of overlapping forms of self-government.

Though these are competing visions, they are not impossible to reconcile in practice. Group rights that do respect individual rights of exit and the rights of minorities within the group never pose a problem. ...

Each of these types of self-government [as in Quebec and amongst Native Canadian nations] is different, each overlaps with other jurisdictions, and each of these overlaps must be harmonized in a spirit of sharing. The units seeking these rights to self-government are often small, divided within themselves and against each other. ... Some of these negotiations have been in formal process for more than a quarter of a century. But there is simply no alternative. Assimilation, forced or otherwise, has been tried and rejected. ... Either we must share power, land, resources, and sovereignty among the nations of this country, or we will founder in civil strife.

But sharing has to go both ways. The majority's recognition of [the minority's claims to power and land] must be followed by [the minority's] recognition of our equal claim to the land. We will not survive if a resentful majority, harassed by guilt-mongering, is simply forced from one concession to another by threats. What is required is a process that builds a mutual and equal recognition. ... At the moment, might lies with the majority and right with the minority. Mutual recognition must rebalance the relationship, with both power and legitimacy finding a new equilibrium.

Interesting stuff. Ignatieff gets to the heart of some of the more pressing concerns in today's societies. I find it encouraging that he is a candidate for the leadership of one of our major political parties.

I am reading Fired Up by Harvey Mackay.

Actually, I've read a lot of bad books recently: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn could have been a great novella. Instead it's at best a middling novel. Twain could have easily cut the last 100 pages without losing anything. Not as fun as advertized. Yzerman: The Making of a Champion is a must read for Yzerman nuts such as myself, but it reads like the author's prose has some debilitating spinal disorder: it can move from A to B, but does so through a series of sluggish, clumsy jerks and erratic lurches. The whole experience was more hilarious from a critical perspective than enjoyable from a reader's perspective. Then I read Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. At first I was thinking, "Hmm, this is like Jane Austen, if she were good." Before long I simply thought, "Hmm, this is like Jane Austen." So many words to say nothing.

The last good text I read was Gogol's hilarious The Nose. Here's an excerpt:

"...excuse me ... if you look at the matter in accordance witht the principles of duty and honor ... you can understand of yourself ..."

"I don't understand a word," said the nose. "Explain it more satisfactorily."

"Sir," said Kovaliov, with a sense of his own dignity, "I don't know how to understand your words. The matter appears to me perfectly obvious ... either you wish ... Why, you are my own nose!"

The nose looked at the major and his eyebrows slightly quivered.

"You are mistaken, sir. I am an independent individual." [...] Saying this, the nose turned away.

Thanks for the Gogol excerpt, Cube. Terrific!

I must disagree about Henry James, however, especially as regards Portrait of a Lady. James can say so much with a single detail--a man is sitting while a woman stands. It tells Isabel everything.

Most recently I've enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Great point of view from the perspective of an autistic boy.

Yeah I read Curious last year, mh. Let me add my support to your recommendation. Interesting read.

Of course, I am not at all familiar with Michael Ignatieff.

Does Ignatieff support the right of free speech for ALL groups of people in Canada??


Chess Fan

Ummm...I dunno. I presume so.

Posted by Chess Fan
Does Ignatieff support the right of free speech for ALL groups of people in Canada??
______________________________________________

That's pretty much a given, CF. He wouldn't make it too far in politics if there was even a hint that he didn't support free speech. However, you have now raised the question so that means his political enemies will locate your question and then say "people worried Ignatieff against free speech for all", just you wait and see.

Good books I've read recently: I started reading the oft recommended book Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. One reviewer said the first chapter alone is worth the price of the book. The first chapter bored me half to death. I found it overly long and tedious to read through. Strange monetary systems from the French Revolution period are not exactly strong interests of mine. I haven't picked it up since I finished the first chapter. I'm glad I found it for about 5 dollars in a used bookstore...I'd have not been happy if I'd paid a greater price.

I rather enjoyed Huck Finn myself.

Does my daily reading of THE "Good Book" qualify for mentioning in this thread?


Chess Fan