Just a quick note

[msagara]

For those of you in need of a chuckle, and aren't already reading the sporadic LJ posts of pnh, take a quick look at this one: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pnh/5026.html. Big snerk at the comment about being hated, which, in GEnie terminology was an unfortunate snarf on my part, as I was drinking water at the time.

yhlee, I haven't forgotten the question you asked about category romance and the attempt to market certain lines towards a more mainstream audience -- I'll get right on that tomorrow. I'd answer off the top of my head, but my head is flat about now, and while I've been doing some research into the whole history of romance as a genre, I really don't know enough about it to answer any question authoritatively; I can give my take, but it's not on as firm a ground as the usual SF/F takes would be.

I'm coming out of paralysis at the moment. The one thing that the internet offers in this regard is speed; the speed of information, the gathering of it, the discussion about it -- things happen more quickly here than they do in real life. Not that this isn't real life, but you know what I mean. Someone posted an excellent comment about, for instance, the concept of abortion as a social justice issue -- and I've been thinking about it, mulling it over. forodwaith asked why Canada is more liberal, socially, than the US, and I'm also mulling that over. I think we're secretly in love with lawyers, since 99% of our politicians seem to have been practicing lawyers at one point in their career. Yes, I know -- how strange is that?

But I also think, at heart, that we'd rather have someone really, intimidatingly smart at the helm. Our cult of personality PM was Pierre Elliot Trudeau, a man know for his razor wit and his intellect. Oh, and his arrogance, and his ability to condescend you into an early death. We know, by default -- and yes, gross generalization here, but it's 2:30 in the morning, and I've been line-editing all night -- that we're not up to the task of governance because we don't know enough, or are not inherently smart enough to do a good job, but gosh, it would be nice to have someone at the helm who is, so smart isn't a threat in the same way it sometimes seems to be for more of the US electorate than the Canadian electorate.

Also -- and I'm not terribly representative in this regard (although it could be said that no single individual is representative of an entire plurality, regardless of whether or not they've been elected to represent that plurality) -- many Canadians really don't like fuss, bother, and change. Change, when it comes via lawyers, comes slowly and with a lot of documentation and words; change, when it comes through people outside of those venues? It's often too fast. I've never woken up after a depressing election to wonder what country I'm actually in. Otoh, if I were living in Alberta, I might <wry g>.

And last? If it's greedy bastards, you at least know what kind of trouble you're in for. If it's someone outside of that -- if it's a theocrat masquerading as a lawyer or an actor masquerading as a lawyer (lawyers being, as I mentioned, most of our politicians), well... you don't know quite what they'll do. People understand a certain type of power-mongering, and a certain type of political patronage -- they may despise it, but it has some logical struts beneath it (see: greed). But people who do things for reasons of faith, who do things that don't have a logical or sensible trail behind it -- they're harder to predict and harder to watch out for.

I have been line-editing, and realizing that, in fact, contemporary and anecdotal though my voice for this book is, it still requires one to read all of the words.

Comments

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

It's been fascinating reading the Canadians' take on the whole thing.

Also, on the romance question--no hurry. We were just idly curious. :-)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I think I'm a spiritual Canadian.

On history of romance: Must consider the way books are released in lines and series, and buyers can subscribe to lines/imprints and collect the whole set. There's nothing exactly analogous in sf/f.

Canada vs US on liberalism

[drenilop.livejournal.com]

forodwaith asked why Canada is more liberal, socially, than the US, and I'm also mulling that over. I think we're secretly in love with lawyers, since 99% of our politicians seem to have been practicing lawyers at one point in their career.

Can the comparative/international political scientist chime in? I'm not sure I'd agree with the lawyers argument - that would suggest, since your rate of lawyers-in-politics is higher than the US (only about 2/3 here), that change in Canada should be SLOWER than in the United States.

On the other hand, Canadian social policy is more liberal than American all the way back through the interwar years. I'm going to attribute at least part of the difference to the nature of the federal units in the two countries. US units are generally quite similar - they don't often differ too markedly on most social, economic, cultural etc. criteria. Canada, on the other hand, is QUITE different. The presence of Quebec, whose industrial/economic and cultural profile is a lot different than the others, and the federal/parliamentary nature of the political system (which encourages compromise/collaboration across multiple province-based parties to form governments), creates an environment where social benefits can be used as goodies to buy cooperation. It keeps rather wealth Quebec in the federation, and satisfies the needs of other groups. [I'm having serious recollections of the health care system being largely the result of a compromise between a Quebec-based party and another major party. NO CLUE what source I'm pulling from though - Huber and Stephens 2001?]

There's also the prominent fact that in the post-war period, most of the issues that divide US conservatives and liberals (particularly the highly salient foreign policy/'role in the world' ones that define the conservatives) are largely absent from Canadian politics. One of the advantages of not being the neighborhood gorilla, I suppose. Without the extensive defense policy commitments, more funds are available for social policy. Once these policies are in place, they create a constituency in favor of their continuation. With basic bread and butter issues securely removed from the political field because of this (while they're still major issues in the US), Canadians were able to shift their interests to additional questions which tend to flow logically from the policies provided. (i.e., is abortion a 'health care service'?) The general result of moving the bread-and-butter, basic-subsistence-level questions out of political discourse is that the elements which define conservative and liberal - role of the state in the economy, public (vs private) provision of social services, etc. - are no longer as prominent and discussion shifts to other things.

Anyway.... 'Tis enough impromptu lecture for today. :-) I'm curious to know the take of other Canadians though - are my largely-institutional arguments out of touch with practical Canadian politics?

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Hi, and thanks for the post pimpage. Some people have dropped by with really well-thought-out comments on my rather flippant original post.

> many Canadians really don't like fuss, bother, and change

Oh, boy howdy is this true. IOW, are we really more tolerant, or just more apathetic? Sometimes I truly envy the way Americans get all het up about whatever political change is in the offing.

[quiller77.livejournal.com]

I've never woken up after a depressing election to wonder what country I'm actually in. Otoh, if I were living in Alberta, I might .

Are you referring to provincial or federal elections here? Because I can assure you that every time there's a federal election most Albertans feel alienated and, though they might not voice it, disenfranchised. Our votes are essentially meaningless with the election being decided east of Manitoba. So yes, after every federal election I wake up feeling that I live in a different country.

We're going through the quietest provincial election I've ever seen right now. King Ralph will win, of course. My hope is that he will at least be surprised with a larger opposition.