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Chapter 2 | John Meisel (continued) Cultural nationalists vigorously applaud this state of affairs; their opponents — continentalists, marketeers, and some provincial rightists — deplore it. Many of the latter group’s arguments are flawed and need to be confronted. It is asserted, for instance, that in the era of cultural globalization we do not have much to lose, since most of Canadian culture is to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from that of the USA. In other words, is there anything worth defending, or is pan-Canadian culture merely a second rate replica of American culture? A prodigious number of studies and essays, kick started with reference to literature, by Margaret Atwood’s path breaking Survival (1972) and Northrop Frye’s The Bush Garden (1971), and pursued in comparable works dealing with other fields, attest to the unique characteristics of the Canadian creative imagination, giving it its unmistakable “made in Canada” stamp. This massive critical literature provides academic backing to what every sensitive witness knows: although the differences are not huge, they exist and profoundly differentiate Canadian and American values, styles, and artistic expression. One manifestation of the difference is Canada’s desire whenever possible to contain American influences and prevent them from overwhelming us. Apart from extensive government initiatives, here are some grass roots examples: most of our principal cultural landmarks — the Stratford and Shaw festivals, or the Banff Centre are inspired either by British or indigenous models, not American ones. Among the imported conductors of our principal orchestras Swiss, British, Czech, Finnish persons are much more numerous than American ones. Our major film and television festivals in Montréal, Toronto and Banff differ substantially from similar happenings south of the US border. There is nothing comparable in America to our CBC/SRC and the NFB/ONF. These pairs of acronyms also attest to characteristically Canadian practice of relying in all our major pan Canadian cultural and other institutions on the coexistence of French and English-speaking personnel and of programs and practices encompassing the genius of the two founding linguistic families. These observations bring us to the crunch — the idea I indirectly hinted at earlier: is it reasonable and useful to extend to North America the insight of Milan Kundera, that “the known European culture harbours within it another unknown culture made up of little nations”? Is there a North American culture which harbours within it the cultures of smaller folk — Quebeckers, other Canadians, pan-Canadians, Mexicans, Afro-Americans and now arrivals from the four corners of the world, settling down to become North Americans? And if so, what influence do these mini-cultures have on globalization? The parallel between Europe and North America is clearly not perfect but it is nevertheless suggestive. Kundera notes that the Europe of smaller countries, precisely because they are small, has managed to escape or reject some of the follies to which the Europe of big guys had fallen heir. The Kafkas, Haeks, and Capeks, although not often heeded, injected a humane dimension into European discourse which, though not triumphant, nevertheless provided a needed corrective. Is it reasonable to reject the possibility that the Atwoods, Robertson Davies, Ondaatjes and, yes, Fernand Dumonts — whether still alive or not — might, unnoticed, perform a similar function to-day? You may think that I have strayed dangerously far from our subject. Not so. Small countries can only retain their integrity and persona — their voice counterbalancing that of the giants —if they develop and maintain their defining identity. This requires that they fashion a lively and vigorous cultural life growing out of their particular condition and circumstance. As I noted earlier, echoing Northrop Frye, much of the needed impetus and encouragement arises in response to local and regional inspiration. Thus, underpinning the potential contribution of the smaller communities in North America, modifying the engulfing globalization of the American imperium, is a cultural life, and hence values, at some remove from it (Meisel, 1974). references
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