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Chapter 21 | Guy Mercier (continued) We try in fact to be neutral on the political question, in order to concentrate only on the good of our children. It is possible that, in so doing, we may seem naïve, and that we’ve succumbed to an illusion. However articificial this exercise may look, we feel it is essential. Without that fiction, how could we make full use of this new way of handing down culture where the French and English languages are on an equal footing? This approach is so important to us that we do not want to jeopardize it through unnecessary exposure to the ups and downs of the Canada-Québec political debate. 4. the genealogical reason Why do we insist on educating our children in both languages? Our decision is based on a very practical consideration. Different from what is unhappily going on in some communities in Canada — as indicated by Frits Pannekoek — we wish our children to be able to communicate as much as possible with all the members of their family, that is, of course, their father and mother, but also their grandparents, their uncles and aunts, their cousins. It seems essential to us that our children be proficient in both languages, to really be part of their genealogy, which is the source and foundation of human existence. As Léon Bernier has said, there is there something both obvious and not commonplace involved: the family, whatever its form and its culture, is the main site for the handing down of conscience and the desire to be a human being. This genealogical handing down of humanity necessitates, or so it seems to me, that the receiver learns that he is part of a generational succession, where he can find a place for himself that is absolutely his own. This is the fundamental condition that will make him conscious of having a human identity in which he will recognize himself. How can a child take his place among other humans if he cannot fully feel the pleasure or the astonishment he gives to those who welcome him or take pains for him? Is it not through that pleasure and those pains that the child experiences the desire that brought him into existence and that, in his turn, he will reproduce? Perhaps we are here at the very core of transmitting. Before handing down a given culture as a heritage, the purpose of transmittal is reproduction, from one generation to the next, of conscience and the desire of becoming human. If disconnected from the genealogical reason, the handing down of culture is in danger of becoming a technical gimmick the State and industry can easily lay their hands on. 5. the registers of culture Genealogical transmission and the handing down of culture are two different things, but it seems difficult to separate them. That is why I am surprised to see how discreet our colloquium has been on the subject of genealogy, particularly at a time when the traditional family model is being questioned, and “intercultural” families continue to multiply. The speakers have concentrated on the question of cultural institutions and the shocks they withstand in smaller societies, under the threat of globalization and industrialization of culture. Those matters are, of course, crucial, but in my opinion, they have to be considered in the larger perspective of a broader notion of culture, a definition which establishes a distinction and a hierarchy among the authorities where culture takes shape. The distinction Fernand Harvey makes about the registries of culture can be highly useful. When distinguishing between identitary culture, institutionalized culture and mass culture, Harvey helps us structure our reflections, taking into account not only the manifestations of culture, but their foundations. This leads me to two observations. 6. cultural authenticity The first is about the debate on the roles of globalization, politics and industry in the homogenization or diversity of cultures. We see a sort of world culture now emerging. In infancy since the Enlightment, this culture asserts itself in a way that resembles a real revolution. That is so because the sociological material would no longer comprise the community, but rather the individuals who, when added together, become a mass. |
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