Two good pieces from Warren on the state of Canada

David Warren continues to dismay me somewhat with the quality of his writing. Here are two recent pieces on the state of Canada. I am unable to disagree with the overall assessment, though by temperament I am more hopeful. Which is to say that I disagree with his gloominess, though unable to reason why.

Tutti in coda (I)

Canadians thus find themselves in the vanguard of something happening throughout the West, and indeed, around the world. We don’t go out because it’s cold outside. The average Canadian, more than, say, the average Italian, is trapped in a centrally-heated interior. More and more, we live inside our computers. In a larger, cosmic sense we go stir-crazy.

But no revolutionary impulse follows from this. We’ve all come a long way, since 1968. Instead there is a growing disconnexion, from reality in all its known human forms. Canada may be a little more disconnected, but the direction we are travelling from our former orbit is much the same. We have the illusion of being at the front of a social revolution, when really we’re at the back of beyond, merely witnessing our own social dissolution.

Now, add in the evaporation of Christianity, and a further difficulty appears. We are without the moral or spiritual means to make a recovery.

Is it that bad? Sometimes I think so.