Cultural Elections

How many times have I told my friends who lamented throughout eight years of Bush: stop your crying, the other America will come back. Over 47% of Americans (48 or 46 anyway) voted for Kerry in 2004, even more had voted for Gore in 2002, one American out of two. Each time it’s a little bit closer.

That’s also what I tell them now: don’t get too excited, the other America will come back. At 48% (or 47 or 46, anyway), it’s one American out of two. A little bit closer. Last Tuesday, America elected a black man. One of those rare moments in a man’s life where he can see history unfold. Rarely in history where one didn’t burst, didn’t materialize, didn’t come about in a specific moment where they can see them rise and sink (like lava of a volcano to stay in the idea of irruption-eruption).

One must keep a perspective, though. Remember that this was an election like any other, happy in that it ends a dark time, but isn’t it in the laws of nature as much as politics: after having touched the bottom, you bounce back, no?

So this victory tells us what we want to hear. For some they mustn’t despair, for others it shows that crap (Bush) is as ephemeral as ideas, justice and other good things.

I’ve even heard this morning on the radio (Canada’s) that this election marked a decline of anti-intellectualism. Holà. Anti-intellectualism will decline if the intellectual (or perceived as such) Obama succeeds in putting America back on track. If he fails, anti-intellectualism will usher back in the good days of a new Bush.

I have also heard and that one hundred times rather than one, that the victory of Mr. Obama last Tuesday was one for the left. Even if they advocate a certain social solidarity, free choice for women, health insurance for the destitute, etc., I believe that Mr. Obama transcends the traditional notions of right and left. A new man. Especially a young man, in which young people see themselves.

But one must keep perspective on this. The popular vote on Tuesday shows us that one out of two Americans voted against Obama.

A historic election ? Absolutely. By his color. A new man to lead America and the world a little? Completely. By his youth, his freshness, his intelligence.

What this election still tells us, like the two preceding ones, is the harshness of the confrontation between two possible Americas. Here, in the best of all cases this time, ours took him. Next time we will see.

Just to tell you as with History, the past doesn’t go by so quickly.

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I said two Americas are possible. Do you want me to expound on that and fool around a little?

Two possible Candas, two Frances, two possible Italys, two possible Europes, two possible South Americas. Two possible universes.

The extreme Catholic right announced (hoping) that this century would be marked by a major conflict between Christianity and Islam. I move that instead of a war will be between Christians, America vs. America, France vs. France, the Pô valley vs. the Mezzgiorno, Montréal-Toronto vs. the Prairies.

Two ideologies that start with the same premise-to produce, to enrich, to prosper-will oppose each other on everything else, on the art of living, on the flavor of things, briefly, on the culture, ah, there’s the word: culture.

Culture elections, there you go. It will sometimes happen that an Obama or a Stéphane Dion will come to buckle perspectives for contrary reasons; an Obama rising passion, a Dion extinguishing them, but essentially all of our elections will end up becoming cultural. It will not be written as such in the voting booth, where the word “culture” will be nothing: just putting it between choices, we will choose nature even from our connection to the world, to others and to ourselves.

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Mister journalist, what are these ramblings encircling the current provincial elections? On December 8th, are we going to choose our connection to the world, to others and to ourselves by voting for Mario, Pauline or Charest?

Hold on there. Are you screwing with me?

Mario, Pauline or Charest, that will not change much. No matter who you choose, it’s still the State that governs. And no, innocents, the State isn’t you, not even those that you have elected. The State and this apparatus of external governance to ourselves and to whom you have elected, this machine that gets its legitimacy on expertise-expertise: competent experts-I say this machine-that settles, adjusts the current business of of the country, but also decides, we know little of its larger directions.

Example, education reform. Example, the hysterical settlement of the listerosiss crisis. It’s the State, the machine that is at the heart of the education reform and who leads it since. The next minister of Education, like the others, will make itself without bargaining to the experts’ analysis who will get to earn what would all be wasted in to reform the reform.

You elect people to represent you, the day following their election they are at the machine’s service.

As for the culture, since you’ve asked, it will not only be a question as to when the nomination from one ministry or that of something else, recall that Sarah Palin was the vice-presidential nominee in the last election. So, it’s all the same.