Margaret Somerville on the Order of Canada & Morgentaler
...
So do citizen honours interfere with egalitarianism? Is putting letters after one's name obsolete - or even harmful to society as a whole - a relic of the age of monarchy and its various trappings? Is it an example of the "all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" principle, that is, an unjustified power grab? Does awarding OCs endorse a philosophy that some of us are superior to others of us?
...
The rest.
Barbara Kay refers to the OOC in her column as being "A proxy caste", a bit cynical maybe but accurate nonetheless.
Morgentalers award was an example of poor judgement, but ultimately only in the sense that it displayed the shallow nature of both the award and the award process. Aside from a handful of high profile recipients, themselves mildly controversial choices, I really can't name anyone who has received an Order of Canada.
To be frank, prior to the Morgentaler award, I really hadn't given the Order of Canada much thought and I see my lack of concern was well merited. The true value of any "good work" is its enduring benefit, not some capriciously awarded medallion. Will anyone remember Randy Bachman 50 years from now? 20 even? The end result for me is that the Order of Canada has proven to be of very little significance, it's just another shiny bauble.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Some wags are already calling the OoC the "order of death".
I like it!
There is someone on this year's long list of lessor OoC awards who I actually grew up with. So there. I do know someone.
Is that Randy Bachman of BTO and The Guess Who? I'm sure we'll still remember down here south of the border. Even if only as the original source for songs ripped off by semitalented hacks.
One and the same Anon, I was speaking rhetorically more than anything.
the markets tend to weed out the deadwood regarding who sticks in the memory of folks through the ages (from Aristotle to Bach to Churchill to Rand to Zwingli).
there are people who don't require state imposed recognition... and there are people who do. the latter are products of bureaucrats with agendas.
the state represents the people, right? shouldn't a criterion of one's acceptability for this pedestal be based on some kind of egalitarian principle? Morgentaler is one of the most polarizing characters in Canadian history!
the idea of a state honor is dubious anyway. there's no way to tell who will be considered great in a century. who gets to choose, and who speaks for whom? who gets honoured in Canada's short-sighted and quickly dated zeitgeists?
best to scrap the whole thing.
Yup who remembers Rudy Vallee?
Post a Comment