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Article Excerpt
Perspective can only be gained from examining the past, and applying it to the present. Through virtue and learning about the world from another era's perspective, we better understand, and rule, our own. Speech to Stinson Lecture, Lindsay, Ontario, October 20, 2002.
One of the most difficult challenges for either a writer or a speaker is figuring out how to begin. I find it a good idea to plunge right in.
At least we have a title for today's chat. It's called "Journeys into the Present". Obviously, unless playing with science fiction, to journey into the present we have to go into the past. What it really means is that I'm going to tell you some stories. There's a subtitle, of course. "Gaining Perspective". It really should be, "Seeking Perspective".
You've probably noticed that we live in a rather chaotic world these days. An historical perspective tells us that it has always been chaotic. But today, everything comes at us so fast we have no time to digest it, let alone to find a place from which to view it. And you can't get perspective without a place to stand.
How do we find a spot from which to view racism, discrimination, privatization, taxation, universal health care, public education, globalization, pollution, leadership, war itself--how do we judge the relative merits of conflicting ideas? We need perspective, and perspective is personal.
I remember once sitting in a pub in Ireland--in Dublin--and listening as an elderly gentleman regaled me with tales of "the troubles," the uprisings of 1916. He was particularly graphic about the "battle of the post office." He claimed to be one of the rebels holed up in the building during the gun battle with the hated British. He was particularly vitriolic, in his colorful Irish sort of way, about the British.
Then he described a particular incident--"a young British officer," he said, "came around the comer and one of the boyos shot him. But praise be to jaysus, he didn't kill him. He was a literary man."
That is perspective.
So come with me on a journey. We are going back in time, but only to gain perspective on the present. For me it is a journey remembered. For you, since I ask you to accompany me, it is a journey in imagination.
There is debate these days over the "social safety net"--the welfare state--the whole ball of wax.
Come with me to Africa. To Angola. Back in time more than forty years.
We are with a Canadian doctor who comes from Pictou County, Nova Scotia. His name is Sid Gilchrist. We are in a mud-walled, thatched-roof hut and Sid is performing a skin graft operation on a hunter's knee. Logistics don't permit transporting the patient to the distant base hospital. The unfortunate hunter has fallen into a cooking fire and one knee and part of his lower leg is in terrible shape. The patient's wife is standing to one side, watching. At one point s capable nursing assistant has to slip out for supplies and Sid conscripts one of us to hold two small blocks of wood that, pressed firmly on the thigh skin and moved apart, stretch the skin tightly so the doctor can shave off delicate layers which he then transplants to the wound.
As for me, I find myself assaulted by the conflicting emotions of fascination with the procedure, and empathy for the patient. I glance at the wife. She seems to be showing only intense interest.
"This guy's wife--" I say, "she seems pretty cool about his suffering."
"She is," says the doctor. "she's being very analytical. She's thinking, 'Will he get better? Or will he be a useless cripple? If he won't get better, I may as well leave him now.'"
I am aghast.
"Think about it," says the doctor, "He's her hunter. Her provider, her security. She's his cook, his gardener, the bearer of his children. Together, they can just survive. When either one can't fulfill their function it's madness to stay together."
It is then I realize that in a society without social safety nets--no welfare, no funded health care, no rehabilitation clinics, no disability pensions, no long term hospice care--human relationships can be reduced to ruthlessly practical considerations. Perspective.
Stay with me.
We are in Sid's examination room at the base hospital. He is assessing a patient. A...
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