Atlas Missed

Ever since conservative pundits started ranting about how the apocalypse in Atlas Shrugged was being brought to fruition by Democratic bailouts and other spending programs, I have mentally slotted it on my ever increasing “to read” list. I finally got around to it this January after receiving a copy of the text as a Christmas gift (shout out to Dad), just in time for the upcoming movie (see trailer below). Like every young liberal-minded person of my age I am aware of the farce that is Fox News, and through beloved media outlets such as The Onion and The Daily Show, am aware that the boundary between what passes as “news” in the US and inane political banter is at best paper thin. With that in mind I didn’t take the media’s love of Atlas Shrugged as a parable for our times at face value.

Yet despite this, I was still shocked by how off the mark Fox & Co. were. There certainly are aspects of Atlas Shrugged that lend support to their Tea Party extremism, but on the whole I felt that Rand was arguing more against their political and economic policies than those of the American Left. One of the first criticisms Rand slaps down is Jim Taggert’s decision to continue to buy his steel from Orren Boyle despite the fact that he can never deliver the product on time; Taggert’s response? “he’s my friend.” Perhaps before they endorsed Atlasism, Tea Baggers need a refresher on the Bush/Cheney administration’s choice to ink huge contracts with Lockheed Martin or the re-working of laws regulating natural gas production that paved the way for Halliburton’s vast expansion. One of the other arguments frequently cited by neo-Cons is Rand’s demonstration that bailouts and government meddling in industry stifle the economy to the point of ruin. Perhaps they too need a refresher, this time on the original $7 billion financial bailout approved by Bush. Rand is also critical of those who inherit wealth—either in the form of hard currency or socio-economic power—as opposed to creating it themselves. Yet you never hear wealthy Republican heirs and heiresses suggesting that perhaps they should have to actually earn their trust funds. 

On a more philosophical note, although I found that Rand really bashed me over the head with Objectivism, it is not an ideology without its merits. Her beliefs in happiness, productivity, and reason are certainly tenets I can ascribe too. Her absolute belief in them, and her application of them only to the individual are, however, something that I disagree with strongly. Countless times throughout the book we are told that each of the "hero" characters are only working for their own personal gain, be it fortune, innovation, or ideological domination. The idea behind this is akin to utilitarianism---but applied solely to one person. The inherent flaw in this philosophy is of course that no man is an island; we both affect and are affected by those around us and thus our success and happiness cannot be judged without consideration to the greater society in which we live.

One needs to look no further to the recent natural disasters in Japan to recognize the global nature of modern society. An earthquake and a tsunami hitting one country on an island has had profound effects on stock markets around the world, to name only one global repercussion. The trickle down of this negative aftermath to an individual living in a small town half-way around the world from Japan is by no means a stretch of the imagination. While the characters of Atlas Shrugged might chagrin those who wanted to help their neighboring countries to succeed, our modern global economy suggests that at least some measure of world wide cooperation is necessary. On the flip side, the success of the post-WWII Marshall Plan (to such an extent that a similar initiative is being considered in the post-revolution Arab world), demonstrates the positive outcome that cooperative financial measures--or in Rand-speak "looting"--can have on global society.


Rand does allow her Objectivist characters to act for the benefit of others, and sometimes does justify it in the perspective of self-interest I have identified above. But it is too little in comparison to the constant badgering of the need to look out solely for oneself whenever a broader self-interest is applied. This, coupled with her decision to not explore this theme when Dagny and Hank discover the abandoned industrial town of Starnesville, Wisconsin, (once the home of the Twentieth Century Motor Company) make it even clearer that Rand's Objectivism was only applicable in the narrowest of senses. Which, when you think about it, suits the ideology of Tea Partyers just fine.

The Lake Effect

Ever since I discovered Paris 1919 –and with it my love of non-fiction—I have eagerly anticipated reading the winner of the Governor General’s Literary Awards each year. This year’s winner, Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada by Allan Casey was no exception. Although it was different from the type of non-fiction I normally read (being a bit of a history/politics/society type) it was no less enjoyable. My first surprise came when I tried to order a copy online through Chapters. They were completely out of stock, and didn’t expect to get any new orders in for weeks; Sentimentalists all over again it seemed, but without the excuse of the book being hand printed and bound. As it turns out, my initial disappointment merely paved the way for my surprised excitement when the book came in just over a week, perfectly on time for me to delve in after finishing Clio in the Clinic. Sometimes I guess the universe does get things right.

The next surprise came from the content of the book itself. I’ll admit that it wasn’t even on my radar before the GGs were announced. I like lakes as much as the next Canuck, but I never really thought about reading about them; the whole point of lakes was always to swim in, camp next to, and go “yuck” at the thought of even putting a toe into Lake Ontario. It didn’t help that the book description was vague. So I was again pleasantly surprised to crack open the book and find the memoir/environmental slant/travelogue style a joy to read. Following the author through his journeys into Canada’s wilderness, via its iconic lakes, seemed like the perfect form of armchair travel in the dead of winter. I learned about swimming races in small town Quebec, the scourge of development on Lakes Emma and Okanagan, the abysmal level of government funding for non-Great Lake freshwater research, and the role of European immigrants in Nova Scotian lake towns. My only complaint was that a lack of a map resulted in my reliance upon Google Maps to locate the specific location of the less-known lakes portrayed in each chapter. I unavoidably felt more Canadian by the time I closed the cover for the last time.

So then, why has Lakeland remained off the radar of most readers? A quick check reveals that it never made it to a bestsellers list, and only has one and two online reviews on the Indigo and Amazon.ca websites, respectively. All this in contrast to the hype and selling-frenzy that emerges following a Giller award, or even short-listing. Perhaps this says something about Canadian reading habits, poor marketing by the GGs, or a failure on the part of Greystone Books to capitalize on GG fame. Not to mention that the cover could easily sell the book on its own if it was given some prime book store real estate. Either way, for those who are missing out on this slice of Canadian literary heaven, the paperback comes out February 11^th.

In Clio I Trust

What first attracted me to history was the ability to trace humanity’s path throughout the ages, and thus get a greater appreciation of how we ended up in our current situation. As much as the study of history is often chided by numerophiles the world over, it lies at the essence of human existence and attempts to answer our deepest questions. Perhaps the greatest question of all time, “what is the origin or life and how did we get here,” is at its core a historical question. In order to accurately answer it we might require science, but it a science of the past. Suffice it to say I have always thought that history has a great deal to teach us, and is a worthy component of the study of any subject.

Before reading Clio in the Clinic by Jaqueline Duffin, my interpretation of adding historical study to all disciplines was along the lines of approaching the study of that discipline from a historical perspective. It was not, as the contributors of Clio in the Clinic chose, the application of a historian’s techniques and practices to the practice of medicine. Having become aware of this alternate interdisciplinary approach as it applied to medical practice, I realized that I had been a proponent of it for years, only in a slightly different context. One of my favourite professors—who grew up in Communist Poland and frequently related his misadventures (perhaps why I enjoyed his lectures so much)—told us one day that students who graduated with history degrees were often recruited by the KGB and the secret police. Turns out the wily commies appreciated the transferable skills of a historian: research, attention to detail, and above all,  the innate practice to always account for the source of the information.

Each article in Duffin’s book points to a different attribute that history had taught him or her, and illustrates how the application of this attribute to the medical practice resulted in better patient care. Often this came from the practitioner's belief in the past as a valuable source of information, both with regard to patient histories, but also through the examination of diseases that has long ago ceased to make the faintest of blips on a physician's radar. As I was reading through the various case stories I realized that these were the types of doctors I would want to be my health care providers; then I realized that it was their thoroughness, attention to detail, analytical skills--in short those qualities they shared with historians--that so appealed to me with respect to their clinical ability. And thus I realized that I trust historians: I trust their ability to dig to the bottom of a pile of evidence for the truth, I trust their inherent objectivity, and I trust their unique ability to admit error when they are wrong. Part of this is probably a sense of pride for my former discipline, but at least some of it comes from the knowledge that history is a good teacher, whether we listen to her or not, and that the lessons she has to teach us are as never ending as time itself.

Middlesex Lite: An Identity Crisis of Smaller Proportions

Normally when I've really enjoy reading a book it turns out that I was able to really relate to one of the main characters, an element of the plot, or the setting. Although I delighted in reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, I was hard pressed to pin-point exactly what part of a story about the coming-of-age of an American hermaphrodite I connected with. It was a few days later when I realized that even though I wasn't forced to come to terms with being a hermaphrodite as a teen and young adult, like everyone else I know there were still physical and psychological aspects of my personality that were at times difficult to digest. So while my personal story was definitely less novel-worth than Callie/Cal Stephanides, I certainly underwent an identity challenge of my own.

In adolescence I struggled with the usual angst that has been overdone by Hollywood since the dawn of film: identity, relationships, popularity, clothes, skin, etc. But it is only with the clarity that comes from hindsight that I've been able to place the deeper source of my uneasiness as a teen and early 20-something: my health. Almost like Callie was oblivious to the fact that her hermaphroditism was the source of her relationship difficulties, I was unaware of the psychological impact my problems were having on me. Unable to properly accept my condition, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, a problem that I now attribute to the fact that no counseling was given to me to help adjust to what was a remarkable burden initially handed to me as a 10-year old.

Even today I struggle to accept that this is the way I am. While I uphold very few pretenses about my personality, looks, or general outlook on issues (as anyone who has spent much time with me will know) I am yet to come to terms with my physical condition and stop trying to "fake it." In an almost asinine effort to pretend that my problems don't exist, I regularly challenge my body to accomplish what it literally cannot in an effort to not succumb to my own limitations. Despite the logical reasoning of my brain, it seems I can't fight off the baser instincts to do what I want and be limited by no man except my own imagination.

So what did Middlesex mean to me? Well, for one, it was a killer read, and I thoroughly enjoyed being immersed not only into the life of a character struggling through such an interesting biology, but the sweeping depictions of World War I-era Anatolia and middle-twentieth century Detroit pandered to the historian in me. But on the more serious note I have been talking about in this post, Middlesex showed me that whatever our struggle is, and we all have one, everything is a lifelong journey, and it is naive of me to think I should be over it by now. As the various present-day segments of the book show, Cal is still struggling to figure out his own sexuality and sexual interactions. Perhaps this whole notion of teenage angst is not so "teenage" after all: while there are certainly extra pressures during that time of our lives, I don't think that it is something we can ever grow out of. Life will always have problems, and those problems will always gnaw away at us in one way or another. Perhaps like the fictional Cal we should write a memoir about it. Or perhaps we should just keep on keepin' on, comforted by the knowledge that figuring all this out is the stuff life is made of.