Building The Canadian Dream - Introduction

Building The Canadian Dream

Introduction

Human Societies, Cultures and Civilizations emerge from Dreams and the workings of the Human Imagination. We have, through countless generations, devised methods or technologies for translating these creative Human functions into Reality, whether concrete or otherwise. We make tools, some of which are physical, some of which are otherwise.

This “otherwise” is essentially what I mean when I discuss or make reference to Human Software. We are clever and complex creatures: strong, but weak and sensitive and vulnerable; insightful, but often short-sighted; creative, but potentially destructive to our self, other people, and our environments; in possession of a physiology and Mind that places us at the pinnacle of responsibility for Human Life and The Planet Earth.

From Antiquity to The Present collective Human life has been governed by Software and Software packages that have expressed themselves in Cultures of many kinds. Rome was a dream, as was Great Britain and the Sultanate. Today The American Dream is a forceful culture in Global affairs. We have recently seen the emergence of The European Dream.1

The following set of essays aims at defining, clarifying, enabling and furthering The Canadian Dream. They represent one Canadian citizen’s perception of the magnificent social and political and cultural experiment that is Canada. But this perception is not solitary. Rather I came to this task as much as a reporting journalist as I do a political and cultural theorist and strategist. I have listened to Canadians and others, collated these points-of-view, and presented them to the best of my ability.

The creation of culture is, by definition, a collective activity.2 It requires group effort and “groupthink” to create these invisible structures of activity and interaction. In Canada we have collectively imagined, worked, and struggle together to build a Culture and Society that seems in many ways to be the embodiment, realization and fulfilment of much Human dreaming through all generations fading back into our mysterious Past. We have Peace, Rights, Choice, Freedom, Opportunity, Prosperity, Tolerance and much more. We have Responsible Elected Government organized into a complex framework that is functional and futuristic.

We know and have proven that people of all kinds and conditions can live and function together productively, peacefully and respectfully. I believe that the world benefits enormously as a result of our existence [Being] and activities [Doing]. These essays also seek to plot a safe and reliable course through the dangers of international politics while fulfilling our National Will to cultivate peace, justice, prosperity and functional stability everywhere.

A collective, focused and unified effort on our part may be sufficient to pre-empt the culmination of what seems to be escalating military capacity and warfare Globally, coupled with a compromised environment. If any Nation or Culture can urge, persuade and lead the Global Community in the direction of Peace and environmental responsibility, it is certainly Canada.

I believe that Now is the time for action. To do otherwise is inviting cataclysmic disaster.

“If we can dream it, we can make it.” 

1. Jeremy Rifkin: The European Dream is his recently published book.

2 See The Transformation Of Culture @ www.blindmansees.com in Essays