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Hello Victoria,
Thank you for a great introduction – it is a real pleasure to meet you and learn a bit about your perspectives and interests. The link to the Residential School timeline by CBC is a great resource, thank you. I have shared it on our Facebook page. Thank you for starting the dialogues on our pages – great initiative muchly appreciated. And some excellent discussion and questions. I hope you enjoy the challenges and rewards that 372 offers and I very much look forward to working together.
Hi Professor Paterson, thank you so much for the warm welcome to the course! I am greatly looking forward to thinking about and discussing the course’s rich content, and am excited to see where my thinking takes me.
I just wanted to start by telling you that I really like how you described the pursuits of this course: “we will seek to unearth the stories of both settlers and Indigenous groups alike, with the aim of considering why the stories that survive are the ones that do, and why those that have fallen to the wayside have been so neglected.” As intended, I feel like this problem of who’s stories survive really captures the nature of oppression and the white supremacy that coats Canada’s history.
It feels sometimes like the narrative is stuck in this Mythic portrayal of Canadian history where the character of Canada is represented as simple, straightforward, and heroic, if at times comical. TV shows like Corner Gas and Kim’s Convenience and other CBC treasures, while entertaining, seem to benefit from this portrayal of Canada as a simple, kind, happy-go-lucky, loveable fool, when this portrayal is not the experience of so many currently and historically living on the land that Canada occupies. And you’re right, this narrative provides the purpose feeding our sense Canadian Superiority. After all, with the political atmosphere in the states being as theatrical and damning as it is, it’s hard not to feel superior with our comparatively modest representation in the media. But if we continue to frame the issue as being as though our image as a country isn’t loud enough to call attention to the dark history and present of ongoing affects of residential schools, unjustly cold cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous women, and raided Mi’kmaq fisheries, how can we meaningfully claim that we are not complacent, if not superior?
I apologize for rambling, but your post has me wondering about how we think of the past and the present as distinct cultures. In some ways we have good reason to, like we have different ideals and wear different clothes, and often speak in different accents and cadence to those in the past. But also in some ways it feels like the comparison of “look how much better we are doing now that we no longer have residential schools,” feels the same as “at least we don’t have Trump.” The present isn’t loud, and theatrical, and ostentatious, because we are still living. We don’t get to view it in the same ways we get to view the past.
I feel like this has been a lot of agreeing with you as I sort out my thoughts. Thank you for your thought-provoking post!
Hi Zac,
Thank you so much for your comment! I am so glad that my post was thought-provoking for you! Always a pleasure to meet a fellow philosopher! I think we really have similar ideas about the fallacy of Canadian superiority. I was really interested in the way that you brought in the CBC shows; I think you’re totally right in pointing out how these shows serve to perpetuate these stereotypes in almost undetectable ways, which is arguably even more dangerous than outright propaganda. The image of ourselves we project to the rest of the world does not really reflect realities. As you mention, we seem to want to completely divorce ourselves from our past instead of owning up to it.
Thank you again for your comment, and I look forward to continuing to interact with you!
Hi, this is a comment.
To get started with moderating, editing, and deleting comments, please visit the Comments screen in the dashboard.
Commenter avatars come from Gravatar.
Hello Victoria,
Thank you for a great introduction – it is a real pleasure to meet you and learn a bit about your perspectives and interests. The link to the Residential School timeline by CBC is a great resource, thank you. I have shared it on our Facebook page. Thank you for starting the dialogues on our pages – great initiative muchly appreciated. And some excellent discussion and questions. I hope you enjoy the challenges and rewards that 372 offers and I very much look forward to working together.
Hi Professor Paterson, thank you so much for the warm welcome to the course! I am greatly looking forward to thinking about and discussing the course’s rich content, and am excited to see where my thinking takes me.
Hi Victoria!
Fellow philosopher, here! ????
I just wanted to start by telling you that I really like how you described the pursuits of this course: “we will seek to unearth the stories of both settlers and Indigenous groups alike, with the aim of considering why the stories that survive are the ones that do, and why those that have fallen to the wayside have been so neglected.” As intended, I feel like this problem of who’s stories survive really captures the nature of oppression and the white supremacy that coats Canada’s history.
It feels sometimes like the narrative is stuck in this Mythic portrayal of Canadian history where the character of Canada is represented as simple, straightforward, and heroic, if at times comical. TV shows like Corner Gas and Kim’s Convenience and other CBC treasures, while entertaining, seem to benefit from this portrayal of Canada as a simple, kind, happy-go-lucky, loveable fool, when this portrayal is not the experience of so many currently and historically living on the land that Canada occupies. And you’re right, this narrative provides the purpose feeding our sense Canadian Superiority. After all, with the political atmosphere in the states being as theatrical and damning as it is, it’s hard not to feel superior with our comparatively modest representation in the media. But if we continue to frame the issue as being as though our image as a country isn’t loud enough to call attention to the dark history and present of ongoing affects of residential schools, unjustly cold cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous women, and raided Mi’kmaq fisheries, how can we meaningfully claim that we are not complacent, if not superior?
I apologize for rambling, but your post has me wondering about how we think of the past and the present as distinct cultures. In some ways we have good reason to, like we have different ideals and wear different clothes, and often speak in different accents and cadence to those in the past. But also in some ways it feels like the comparison of “look how much better we are doing now that we no longer have residential schools,” feels the same as “at least we don’t have Trump.” The present isn’t loud, and theatrical, and ostentatious, because we are still living. We don’t get to view it in the same ways we get to view the past.
I feel like this has been a lot of agreeing with you as I sort out my thoughts. Thank you for your thought-provoking post!
Hi Zac,
Thank you so much for your comment! I am so glad that my post was thought-provoking for you! Always a pleasure to meet a fellow philosopher! I think we really have similar ideas about the fallacy of Canadian superiority. I was really interested in the way that you brought in the CBC shows; I think you’re totally right in pointing out how these shows serve to perpetuate these stereotypes in almost undetectable ways, which is arguably even more dangerous than outright propaganda. The image of ourselves we project to the rest of the world does not really reflect realities. As you mention, we seem to want to completely divorce ourselves from our past instead of owning up to it.
Thank you again for your comment, and I look forward to continuing to interact with you!