June 1970 — VOL. 51, No. 6 —
Living by the Same
Code
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Canada is 103 years older than when she
drew her provinces together into one national family. She
has learned many things of which she knew nothing then, and
thinks differently on many points. But one purpose stands:
to further the welfare of her people under a code of decency,
freedom, equality and fraternity.
There were obvious reasons for the drawing together of Canadians
in confederation: it made possible co-operation designed to
protect them and to enable them to obtain the material things
necessary to their survival. The undertaking appeared at first
to be beyond their powers, but intelligence, patience, a firm
resolution, and goodwill overcame the obstacles.
The most important question a nation can ask itself at any
time is whether it has developed a permanent standard in keeping
with its early purposes.
Our code suggests that we have a certain ideal for our society
and for individuals. If we have not yet brought it to perfect
realization, we have at least progressed some way toward confirming
its virtues. These are: ethical standards, a humanistic spirit
emphasizing the dignity of man, belief in testing ideas as
the safest path to truth, the rule of law, and the democratic
faith in liberty, equality and fraternity.
Canada is not a utopian society. The ideal states invented
by philosophers and the utopias dreamed up by many writers
remained unrealized because they failed to provide practical
ways for making effective the good society they described.
The Canadian ideal is to build a democratic society in which
men govern themselves and are free to progress as far as their
ability and energy carry them.
Resources and diversity
Canada has two vital assets: natural resources and the diversity
of its people.
Sometimes when Canadians look at their vast country with
its multitude of opportunities for development they feel like
dwarfs playing on a stage designed for Titans. They have all
that is needed to build a great nation: now they must decide
upon a plan, design the structure, and establish standards
of quality.
This is not hindered, but helped, by the diversity of the
Canadian people. Diversity makes the difference between men
and robots. It is the essential nature of democracy to bring
together men and women of various opinions and skills in a
community of interest so that they can do great and new things.
Civilized people allow their neighbours to have opinions
that differ from their own. They are free from the mental
ailment whose symptom is holding a furious intolerance of
other people's beliefs. They value rightly the benefits of
variety, and thus avoid the opening of crevasses of misunderstanding
between groups and individuals. If rifts do occur, they build
bridges. When the Romans and the Sabines each wished to furnish
the king a compromise was reached by which it was agreed that
the king should be a Sabine but that the Romans should choose
him.
Sharp lines are hard to draw in judging between two opinions.
When two persons look at a rainbow one may see a series of
distinct colours side by side, while the other sees a shading
of one colour into another, with no boundaries to indicate
precisely where one colour ends and another begins.
So in building a nation. Different people construe their
welfare in different ways and there is no single recipe which
all feel compelled to follow.
Professor Archie John Bahm of the University of New Mexico
puts it in this homely way: Western culture is like a huge
pot of stew. Into it have gone vegetables, meats, grains and
oils of various kinds. It has been cooking for a long time.
Some bones refuse to dissolve. Vinegar, pepper and salt, in
various quantities, have been added from time to time. Every
cook has tried a new recipe. Every revolt has provided a new
kind of spice. If one ladles from only one part of the pot,
he may come up with only carrots. But if he samples bits from
various places, he can find enormously rich varieties of flavours.
Nevertheless, it is, as a whole, rich, sustaining, and satisfying.
A nation survives according to the ability of its members
to contribute their qualities for common ends. They not only
coexist ( and if coexistence is becoming a world need, how
much more necessary it is within a community or a nation (
but they co-operate. They know, as Gitche Manito told the
tribes of men in Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha": "All your
strength is in your union, All your danger is in discord."
Democratic freedom
There is something valuable in being Canadian. This is an
independent country, designing and shaping its own code and
planning its own course. It is a country which believes in
judging a person by what he displays of individual skill,
responsibility and personal worth. These high purposes require
mature, educated and freedom-loving people to maintain and
develop them.
"Freedom" is a precious word, but it needs to be properly
understood. It means a clear intellectual perception that
reason alone, and not passion or self-interest, has the right
to limit liberty and dictate actions.
Rollo May wrote in Man's Search for Himself: "Rebellion
is often confused with freedom itself. It becomes a false
port in the storm because it gives the rebel a delusive sense
of being really independent." Those who tear down socially-approved
institutions are not the intellectual pioneers they think
themselves to be, but only rebellious boys who have forgotten
to grow up. They look upon every wall as something to climb
over. They reject the ancient and still valid doctrine that
nations have boundary lines and farms have fences so that
every person shall know where his individual freedom ends
and the equal freedom of his neighbour begins. It is a wise
saying that "good fences make good neighbours."
Within its boundary a nation has the responsibility to enforce
rules of safety and communal behaviour. John Ruskin gives
us a homespun parable to illustrate this. A mother sees one
of her careless children fall into a ditch. She pulls him
out, boxes his ears, and leads him a little way carefully
by the hand. The child usually cries, and very often would
clearly prefer to remain in the ditch. If he knew the language
of politics so commonplace today he would express resentment
at this interference with his individual liberty.
Grown-up people who do not feel free should define for themselves
the ways in which they are restricted. What are they compelled
to do that is not for their own good in conformity with the
sense and will of the society to which they belong? What are
they hindered from doing that is in keeping with what the
combined wisdom of society considers to be good?
Shared ideals
Democracy is founded upon the belief that every person has
the right to enjoy, according to his aptitudes of character
and mentality, the material and spiritual opportunities that
nature, science and good government have placed at the disposition
of mankind.
To provide this opportunity requires us to advance from
the instinctive life of savagery to the rational state of
civilization in which men learn the art of self-government
and skill in working together.
The qualities which bind together citizens in a democratic
state are shared ideals, hopes and aspirations: as Henry Clay
writes in his exceedingly practical and down-to-earth textbook
on economics: "Democracy is a spirit, not a piece of governmental
or economic machinery."
Democracy does not exist and cannot develop among people
who do not understand one another, who make no effort to understand
one another, who do not care deeply about shared purposes
and co-operative endeavour. The code by which democratic people
live includes a large measure of altruism. Men have a strong
natural tendency to seek what will satisfy their own immediate
interest. The democratic code emphasizes our duty to others.
Lip service is ineffective. Democracy is a "do-it-yourself"
project that must be worked at. If a citizen does not do it
himself ( read, study, participate, vote and act ( someone
else does it for him and he is no longer using his democratic
freedom.
If a person feels that life is simple, totalitarianism is
for him; if he is weary of thinking for himself, totalitarianism
is for him. The democratic way of life is for the tough-minded.
It does not relieve one from the effort of thought or from
the obligation to face the facts of human relationships. It
does accept the difficulties as a necessary part of its progress
toward a higher level of human achievement.
Democracy does not guarantee equality of accomplishment
for all citizens. The notion that those who are equal in one
respect ( under the law, for example ( are equal in all other
respects is not part of the democratic code. There are, obviously,
innumerable inequalities of the most important type. People
differ in capability, in diligence, in health, in intelligence,
and in aspirations.
A man who became known as the "weeping philosopher" five
centuries B.C. because of his unhappiness over the state of
the world, said that the citizens of Ephesus ought to be hanged
because of their doctrine "There shall be none first among
us."
Canada's ideal is to provide a country which is independent,
a state which is democratic, a society where the laws are
just and restrictions at a minimum, and an economy in which
individuals have the latitude to progress by merit toward
security and comfort.
Successive Canadian governments have taken steps to free
the individual from avoidable handicaps so that he can run
the race on fair terms with others. They have not tried to
produce a nation of well-tended sheep, but to release the
powers of individuals and encourage individual initiative.
In the words of the Grand Master of the knightly tournaments
of old they seek to provide: "A fair field, and equal partition
of sun and wind, and whatever else appertains to a fair combat."
Good government
Good government arises out of what Louis XIV called the
application of common sense to a sufficient number of facts.
It is carried out by men and women who look upon political
service as a matter of obligation and not as a matter of personal
ambition and power, people selected as having qualities of
leadership and responsibility.
Canada adopted the principle of majority rule. This is not
a complete answer to the demand of people for democratic living,
but majority rule which provides, as the Canadian system does,
the minority with the possibility of becoming a majority through
the education of citizens comes close to what is desired.
Ours is a society which requires that decisions shall be
arrived at by a free choice after rational debate. It requires
that every citizen co-operate wholeheartedly with those elected
to direct the country's affairs, while at the same time scanning
closely their exercise of the powers delegated to them. Opposition
is taken as a matter of course, but it needs to be opposition
that has a viable alternative to offer.
The individual
We need not only to believe passionately in democracy but
to practise it earnestly. Ours is a society in which the individual,
through participation in government and education, can acquire
an ever-increasing sense of being important as a citizen.
Graduates from school and university pass out of their institutions
as a block ( the class of '70 ( but they enter society as
individuals. Every one of them will contribute something of
his own to the character of Canada. If they say "yes" to the
many opportunities this country offers for their self-expansion
they can enjoy all that can be desired in the way of broad
personal development.
Living by the same code does not mean that people think
alike, desire the same things, or live their lives in ruts.
There are certain questions that every person must answer
for himself, because democracy does not provide a universal
guide book. Democracy believes in the significance of personal
thought and effort, so that every man can be himself. He may
like what he likes because he likes it, and not because some
poll says that it is popular.
The contributions made by individuals need not be great
and impressive in order to be worth while. There was a Greek
actor in olden times who said that he liked to think, when
he hung up his mask after a performance, that perhaps someone
in the audience had gone home less ready to beat his children.
In addition to the belief in equality of opportunity and
self-governance, there is a certain sentiment attaching to
democracy, a feeling of brotherhood, of fraternity, of respect
and protection. Man expresses his freedom by entering into
association with other people to accomplish something they
all desire.
Personal freedom and social responsibility go hand in hand.
People cannot live happily or fruitfully in isolation. This
is why the Jewish language of prayer concentrates upon the
plural, rather than the singular, the group rather than the
individual. Indeed, the Rabbis of the Talmud ordained that
on the Sabbath and festivals it was improper to offer petitions
which centred on private wants or needs.
There is another reason for fellowship. When we look around
us we see people who have become dried up and shrunken, by
withdrawing within themselves. To participate in society is
not to subtract from our individual happiness, but to add
to it. We need the incentive and encouragement and approval
given by other people.
The feeling of community is essential if we are to realize
the fullness of human dignity and worth. It is ironical that
community, formerly a natural state contributing to existence
and to the wholeness of life, is now something that has to
be planned for, and sometimes urged upon people. The purposeful
re-planning of our cities to provide neighbourhoods that will
encourage people to meet and work together is an example of
what is found to be necessary. George Bernard Shaw said: "The
worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them
but to be indifferent to them."
The influence of change
Beholden to the past for so much that is good in Canadian
society, we must contribute something to Canada's future.
We should not think that we must leave the dust of antique
times unswept, but rather look at what has been bequeathed
to us with the thought: "How can we adapt it and burnish it
so as to use it in the modern world?"
There are things that can be improved, such as education,
law enforcement, the relationship of capital and labour, the
propagation of health. This can be done within the framework
of democracy, which is the only system that provides deliberately
the opportunity for correction and betterment within the bounds
of reason and decency. The art of a free society is to maintain
principles and revise customs so as to serve progressively
enlightened reason.
This requires that we have some idea of where we are going,
what we are going to do when we get there, and why we wish
to go, instead of milling around aimlessly. We know the bewildered
feeling expressed by Charles Lindbergh when he landed amid
the welcoming crowd near Paris after his solo flight across
the Atlantic: "Everyone had the best of intentions but no
one seemed to know just what they were."
To plan constructively is not the easiest thing in the world.
In discussing Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" a critic remarked:
"The theme is one of regeneration, and a play about destruction
is much easier to write than a play about regeneration."
It is not practicable to predict the future. World events,
national developments and local changes make forecasting untrustworthy,
but we must prepare young people to meet the challenges of
that unknown future. The way to start is by providing education
in the democratic code lest our children grow up with an intimate
knowledge of calculus and in ignorance of the great principles
that should guide human beings. The future depends, as the
welfare of humanity has always depended, upon wisdom, faith
and virtue.
Modern Canada is the product of piecemeal and laborious
building. It is not the mark of either wisdom or statesmanship
to think that needed improvements can be made at once or with
improvised plans, or with expediency as the guiding force.
We need to avoid the mistakes which men have made in the past:
failing to see alternatives, limiting alternatives to an oversimplified
either-or, and neglecting to seize opportunities for betterment
immediately they present themselves.
About keeping up
Canada is committed to shaping a good society through intelligent
and informed public opinion, and therefore to the making of
realistic choices in the light of adequate information about
needs and trends. The complications of the age should not
push us into believing that life is becoming incomprehensible.
They merely create the need for an extra effort to understand
what is going on.
Knowledge of this sort is advanced by listening to criticism
as well as by bending our shoulders in study. To have no acquaintance
with contrary opinions is to remain partially blind.
We need to learn to disagree with other people's opinions
after consideration without deriding them, and to accept the
notion that sometimes our opinions may be wrong. This approach
lessens the danger of misunderstanding and leads healthy and
open minds to the solution of difficult problems in mutual
respect and trust.
Effort must be added to understanding. In seeking to build
a better Canada in its second century as a nation we should
not expect that things will be easy. It is going to take well-directed
work and courageous enterprise. We may with benefit read a
signal made by Villeneuve, Admiral of France, when he was
briefing his captains before the battle of Trafalgar: "Let
there be no ignominious manoeuvring. Any captain who is not
under fire is not at his post."
This leaves no room for waiting around to see what will
happen next, forgetting that we could ourselves make happenings.
In planning and bringing about these happenings we need
an instinct for propriety. Our society is built up of people
from many races, of many faiths, with many differing customs.
Under such conditions considerations of manner and courtesy
are by no means to be overlooked or treated as frivolous or
unimportant. They are, in fact, an important element in enabling
people to live together and to develop their lives in harmony
with their shared ideals. The structure of good manners that
is part of the Canadian way of life holds out promise of the
development of a state of chivalry which will do credit to
both our hearts and our intelligence.
Values and principles
In the fundamental things most Canadians share the same
values. They believe in a social order in which persons are
more important than things, ideas more precious than gadgets,
in which individuals are judged on the basis of personal worth,
and in which people express themselves without oppression
and under a rule of law.
The nation is the guardian of certain very positive values:
culture, traditions, community awareness, historical continuity,
and a code of behaviour.
Behind these values are principles. People have to care
greatly about the principles that lie behind democratic government
or their nation will end up by being pallid, disunited, decadent.
Our appraisal and application of whatever principles we
adopt will develop into our philosophy, which is our quest
for wisdom in thought and action coupled with a firm and dignified
determination to do the best we can.
There is no blue-print
The future of Canada is something for calm consideration
by thoughtful persons, untrammelled by foregone conclusions,
unpledged to shore up tottering dogmas, and anxious only to
know what is for the true betterment of their country.
There is no blue-print to follow, but only guiding ideas.
This country did not grow up by slavishly following a rule
book, but by the process of sensible people trying to do the
best they could under the conditions in which they lived,
and experimenting with new ideas and making adaptations of
old ones. But from the beginning they realized that true union
is not people marching in lock-step. It is more like the harmonious
performance by an orchestra, in which individuality in the
instruments contributes to the melody of the music.
There is no system of government yet devised that will guarantee
that perfection in the social order will be established.
The Canadian way of life provides a system for putting the
intelligence and good will and effort of individual citizens
to work on the solution of problems. Success depends on this:
that the average citizen can be relied upon to measure up
to his best knowledge; to do his duty, and to use good sense
in doing it. Then, as they say along our ocean coasts, the
rising tide will lift all the boats.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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