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Canada Day 2021 – Reflections

canada day 2021

 

On Canada Day 2021, our country is 154 years old. At age 70, I have been around for nearly half of Canada’s life as an independent nation. For me, Canada Day is always a day for reflection.

I think we can all agree it’s been a strange year, what with COVID-19 and everything else. Fortunately, my family and I are fully vaccinated and hopefully, ready to move on. Even our Calgary Stampede is returning, although attendance will likely be down.

Over the past year, I have strayed from posting strictly about radio and making hobbies. All too often, I have opined about the state of western society, particularly in the US. Well, I am only human, just trying to make sense of things. I started wondering about wisdom and its context.

Is the world really changing, or is it just me that is changing differently from the world? Is society really breaking down in new ways, or am I just stuck in the past?

So, I went back fifty years and read the news headlines. You know, things were pretty crazy back in the 1970’s, as well. Here in Canada, we had the October Crisis with the FLQ terrorists. In the United States, the behavior of President Richard Nixon and his crew (including Spiro Agnew and Attorney General John Mitchell) were somewhat on par with Trump and his gang.

So, what’s really changed as of Canada Day 2021? I think the answer is our shift to a post-truth world.

Canada Day 2021 in a Post Truth World

Post-truth is a natural development of post-modernism and accompanying cultural relativism. It arose from mainly leftist academia, who argued there are no facts and truth is culturally defined.

Fifty years ago, with the Watergate Scandal, Pentagon Papers and so on, we all believed in single unifying truth as uniformly reported by the media. Sure, we had spin doctors arguing about interpretation. But not facts.

Those days are mostly gone. My wisdom reaches this conclusion. Can you imagine New York Times, CNN and FOX News reporting the same “facts” about Watergate in 2021?

Fortunately, on Canada Day 2021, most of my fellow Canadian citizens are still able to mainly hang on to common truths. I hope it lasts.

One comment

  1. Mike Lanoway says:

    Hello and Happy Canada Day!

    Another day marked on the calendar and my mind is heavy as I reflect on its meaning to me. For me it is still Canada , not the Canada I grew up in for it has many fractures, mostly created by a globalist political elite who have divided us by region, religion, culture and race and a leader who has called his own country to be ashamed of who you are. I have spent a lot of time thinking that maybe it’s me, a dinosaur stuck in the past where truth and common sense prevailed, people had back bones, not with wishbones.  As you said today John   this is a world of post truths, leftist academia where facts and truth are culturally defined and four major news sites can not report the same facts.

    My Canada is a place where I grew up with friends in our neighbourhood, walked to the same school, came home for lunch to a waiting mom, played away long summers and winters exploring, creating our fun, Crayfishing in a local creek, or catching catfish in the Assiniboine River or exploring Assiniboine park, walking or riding a second hand  bike, summer holidays on an uncle’s farm , or a crazy day getting on a bus and visiting  a museum, downtown stores  or the legislature, or watching aircraft of the world nearby. Lucky days when you saw a squadron of Mustang fighters, or the Golden Hawks. landing or taking off. If someone in the neighbourhood got a new car the whole neighborhood felt pride and hope.

    The values of your family, friends and neighborhood went a long way to making you who you are today. Parents, teachers, police were held in respect, Safety was never far away, whether it was a bandage from a neighbour, or peanut butter and jam sandwiches with Kool Aid for the gang.

    As we passed the  through the senior school system, to university, college or right into a career that became your new neighborhood.  That was the first 20 years. I could go on ha ha.
    As most of us were second generation immigrants. All had faced diversity, bullying, shaming, mixed cultures, and languages. Some had elders that broke the land, lived in sod houses, raised larger families,paid their taxes, had crops ravaged by grasshoppers or prairie fires,  sent sons and daughters to two major wars, left behind loved ones who were  discriminated against because of their heritage.Regardless all were focused on family, making a better life , a place to live and  being very proud of this Canada with it boundless beauty and resources.

    So this stuck in the mud dinosaur sincerely wishes you a Happy Canada Day.

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