Self-Hating Canadians Tell UN Culture Czars (Tsars?) To Take Off, Eh?
Nick Gillespie | November 3, 2005, 8:40am
A while back, Reason's Tim Cavanaugh attacked the UN's Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions like Bill Clinton with a pizza delivery girl, noting that two of the major malefactors in the deal (Canada and France) lap up American pop like so much Labatt's Blue spilled on the bar at 3AM NST.
Now Wendy McElroy, longtime friend of Reason and proprietor of the great ifeminists site--and a Canadian resident herself--turns her back on Maple Leaf protectionism. And she does so with the help of yet another Canuck cultural collaborator, Neil Hrab. Writing in her Fox News column (always worth a look), McElroy notes:
Culture is the accumulated knowledge, experience, beliefs, and customs within a group, which emerges over time and can be passed to others through literature, music and other expression. It cannot be created by government. You can't vote culture into being; you can't pass a law to turn a movie into a beloved classic. Culture emerges spontaneously and defies political control.
The freer a society, the more vigorous and diverse its culture, and vice versa.
Hrab asked an intriguing question in his commentary [at Tech Central Station]. "Thanks to the spread of personal electronic devices and the rise of sites where you can download content from the Internet, will this 'right' to regulate mean anything? Can governments seriously influence the viewing/reading/listening habits of citizens anymore?"
Whole McElroy col here.
The short answer to Hrab's query, btw, is yes: governments still can influence the cultural habits of their citizens. It's always a losing battle in the long run and--this is the key point--they can do it less efficiently than ever before.
For two signature Reason takes on the flow of culture across even the most iron of curtains, check out In Praise of Vulgarity (which ends with a glorious shout-out to "Hobbit re-enactors in Kazakhstan" and pachinko-playing dissidents in Cambodia) and "Bert and the Infidels" (which answers the question of how Ernie's longtime companion ended up standing with Osama Bin Laden in the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh)
Requiem for former Molson pitchman "Joe," who moved to the US, here.
John B | November 3, 2005, 10:46am | #
Neil Hrab's column is interesting, but as a libertarian-leaning Canadian who is still subject to assorted pinko tendencies, I would like to make two points:
1) Can we not agree that culture is different than other commodities? What this means for trade policy can be debated elsewhere, but they're just DIFFERENT, okay?
2) (From a more libertaian angle) As a record store owner, I have watched in amazement as Canadian music has gone from something I would be deeply suspicious of, if not ashamed (ie: "Which grant panel member did this guy blow to get this piece of crap pressed?") to something that I could actually be proud of. Bands like Arcade Fire, New Pornographers, and Broken Social Scene have become huge sellers in my little store.
They all benefited from government assistance, yes.
But they absolutely did not benefit from any trade restrictions, protection or Canadian-content rules.
In fact, on this last point, Canadian radio stations should be deeply ashamed of their lateness in promoting these amazing bands. Any radio station who defended their license on the grounds of some claimed mandate to promote Canadian talent should have their license revoked. For all the Canadian talent that is out there, Canadian radio still sucks.
And I would point out, these bands succeeded within the independent label scene, which generally lacks the government connections to influence trade legislation. They were among the first to realize that they operated within a global market, or at least a North American market, and understood that the protection of the Canadian government would not mean squat to a record seller in Austin. They were forced to survive, and because of it, they have more than thrived.
John B | November 3, 2005, 1:55pm | #
>>MK: How did they benefit from public assistance?
If you look at the new Broken Social Scene CD, you will notice a "Thank you" to something called FACTOR. This is a government-funded program that extends loans and grants to Canadian artists. BSS would have probably received a loan, which theoretically must be repaid, but still counts as government assistance.
>>R C Dean: It seems to me that a boxcar of Britney Spears CDs is a commodity. And if Britney CDs are commodities, so are Yo Yo Ma CDs, no?
If you are grinding up those CDs up to make building materials, then they certainly are commodities, and please feel free to trade them away as quickly as possible.
However, those CDs do more than just sit in a boxcar. They influence attitudes, behavior, morality, and feelings about oneself. This is why such creations get the same protection under the First Amendment as ideas and religion.
Now, what would happen if someone managed to package up the idea of say, "Freedom," and stuffed it in a boxcar for sale? Would you like to see Freedom sold off to the highest bidder? What if the price of oil went a bit higher?
Now the fact that those CDs really are piled up in a boxcar does suggest that they are indeed commodities. I am just saying they are also something else, something that is different, and may under certain circumstances require different treatment.
In other words, I'm not sure it is a good idea to simply merge the marketplace of ideas into the marketplace of commodities. I am willing to be persuaded otherwise, but for now, I am happy to keep those two markets separate. And again, what that actually means for trade policy is another discussion.
By the way, I suspect the real libertarian argument here isn't that Canada has too often refused to compete in the marketplace of COMMODITIES (a dirty lie, incidentally, you softwood protectionists!), but that Canada has too often refused to compete in the marketplace of IDEAS (which I believe I addressed in my first post). In that, I do not disagree.
And ChrisO: Canada is indeed extremely lucky to have escaped obliteration after "Snowbird," but you guys owe us big for "2112"!
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