My boyfriend finds it good, advertising to make us aware of the decline of French, with the peregrine falcon “quite chill “. According to him, it would have been perfect if it had been narrated by Charles Tisseyre, but the only problem is that since then, we keep saying insane, just for fun, which was probably the opposite of the desired effect. We’ll try not to make it a habit, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than adults talking like teenagers.
But I still want to call this spring ainsane, with this rehash of the ice storm crisis in the middle of April, when I discovered, in the new house where I live, that there is a definite advantage in heating and cooking with gas when the electrical system fails collapses. I was able to drink my coffee warm and ask myself questions about the energy transition with the desire to see madmax.
Insane also, this anti-drag queens fever that has germinated, even if Barbada has been reading children’s stories since 2016. Why now? Where does it come from? From the cesspool of social networks, of course, boosted by populists who miss no opportunity to recruit. Unsurprisingly, Éric Duhaime has launched a heartbreaking petition against drags.
It always ends up overflowing into reality, like a small surplus of bile, and those who have other things to do than be indignant all day long in front of a screen are always surprised when these outbursts occur. There are many divisive subjects in Quebec, but drag queens, I’m sure, were at the bottom of the list for the majority of people, who couldn’t care less. I won’t hide, I’ve loved drag since I discovered Divine in John Waters’ films when I was little, and believe me, she was not telling benevolent children’s stories.
I think those who demonstrate against drag are more afraid for themselves than for their children. That their ideas become outdated, that their children no longer think like them. Which, however, will inevitably happen, since that is the cycle of generations; one does not evolve by rising towards a supposed progress, but by zigzagging.
My boyfriend, born to hippie parents, reminds me that at the nudist summer camp in his town in the 1970s, lesbians explained to children where the clitoris was. No trauma, but he never became a nudist.
Mind you, Trump is back in the picture, and America’s conservative right is on fire. For months, she has been passing laws against abortion, drags, LGBTQ+ rights, she has banned books that address these subjects, and there are people here in Quebec to relay this cultural war. American.
It is revealing to see those who implore us not to import the “wokism” of American campuses stick so closely to the program of this American conservative right. When she rolls over the wokethey roll over the woke and impose the word years later on a society that still cannot define the word. When she flips over gender theories, trans and drag, they flip over gender theory, trans and drag. If tomorrow she named the Jell-O and the squirrels as enemies, they would have a new bone to gnaw. I write this as a joke and I come across an editorial by Mathieu Bock-Côté at CNews attacking a Barilla pasta advertisement because the company offered an “inclusive” carbonara recipe.
Fascinating, as Charles Tisseyre would say.
In this spring insaneall that was missing was another little ride on the Ferris wheel through reasonable accommodation, secularism and our good Catholic background for Easter.
During this time, we do not talk about inequalities, the housing crisis or the environment, which are the real dangers that await us. We are more and more in the process of being dispossessed of our future, it is almost normal for us to panic. A small part of the answer to this permanent anger which constantly seeks new targets can be found in this excellent documentary by Isabelle Maréchal, middle class means, which confirms that an increasing number of people are no longer able to make ends meet, even when working very hard. Above all, everyone is afraid of being downgraded and being dropped on the wrong side of history.
In a society where people are suffering, you have to give bones to gnaw on, to keep them away from the real issues. In the long run, it becomes a factory of hatred because these indignations do not solve the basic problems which only worsen, and people can well pass their frustrations on scapegoats, nothing will concretely improve in their life.
I often think back in these moments to the trial The Age of Wrath – A History of the Present by Indian thinker Pankaj Mishra, published in 2017. In the following excerpt, he talks about Muslims, but we could replace Muslims with any group that becomes a scapegoat. “In a world where all the social, political and economic forces that determine their existence seem opaque, many individuals live in constant dread. As the volatility and globalization of markets restrict the freedom of action of nation states and as refugees and migrants challenge dominant ideas of national citizenship, culture and tradition, the swamp of fear and insecurity is extends. Gripped by a fever of competition, haunted by the idea of having been trapped in a role of losers, the relatively well-to-do also tend to invent enemies for themselves – socialists, liberals, a foreigner with skin brunette in the White House, the Muslims – before holding them responsible for their own internal torments. »
I would like to remind you that last year at this date, we had started to lift the sanitary measures. So it’s our first real spring in three years, it’s high time to go play outside and I’m banking on the good weather to change the general mood a little – even if, as soon as we exceed 20 degrees after months of winter in Quebec, we all become insane.