Dear Philippe,
Your emails, like those I sometimes receive from young people like you, intrigue me and, quite frankly, upset me. But don’t think I blame you, far from it.
You tell me that you are part of “this generation which is perhaps missing the challenge it should take on”, that it had “all the disillusionments to overcome”, that it is struggling with “discouragement” , which generated “cynicism, abandonment”. And you “never recognized yourself in Quebec culture”. You add: “I would have liked to be proud, I tried, nothing to do. » You have not found in our history “sufficiently beautiful, clear and assertive stories”. Having frequented our “classics”, you think that our intellectuals “did not know [dresser] the scale of values allowing one to build pride.” In summary, you tell me your inability to love Quebec.
I will surprise you: I arrived at adulthood with dispositions similar to yours. I was not really instilled with pride in being Quebecois. For what ? What I had been given to read since primary school exuded artificial patriotism expressed in false lyricism, mired in simplistic religiosity. At twenty, I did a big clean-up, also abandoning religion (I didn’t take any risks…) and I started everything again.
In my case, I was able to pull myself together first thanks to new historians who told our past differently, thanks to a truer, liberated story. I discovered a tension in our story, a moving journey that challenged me. I also discovered novelists and artists who made people dream by celebrating a new and free country. And which showed in often very modest characters predecessors who had stood up and, in certain cases, sacrificed so that their descendants could stand with their heads held high.
My generation was able to live the experience of a society which was transforming, which was not just for the privileged, which gave a new face to democracy and equality, which opened up to others and nourished a big project — you guess which one. This is what my youth was nourished by. That said, I certainly don’t use myself as an example, I know that I come from a bygone era. At that time, it was easier to love Quebec.
Then everything changed. The great Quebec project was not realized, plunging a large part of our society into gloom. Many Quebecers of my generation found themselves distraught by the failure of our dreams. Out of spite, intellectuals set out to denounce our mediocrity, our impotence, they gave free rein to their spite, to their feeling of defeat, and they declined without thinking that this depressing message would be internalized by the generation that followed. Our future seemed empty of dreams, of heroes. You perhaps see yourself as a descendant, an heir of our collective failure. How can you blame yourself?
But since then, everything has changed once again. The old “vast world” has become smaller and closer. It opened up other horizons, other frontiers, it shook old allegiances, it gave rise to other dreams. Perhaps, as happened to me at twenty, you will find there to overcome your abandonment, your cynicism (I use your words)? Perhaps you will be able to be reborn intellectually, humanly? You tell me that “it’s a lost bet”. Is this really true?
I’m trying to imagine myself in your situation; what would I do ? I would probably first look to the past (yes, the past) to rediscover what honors us. I think of these pioneers who, through daring, tenacity and altruism, moved our society forward: the oppressed women who fought for their emancipation, all these families who cleared the territory in the greatest poverty, those who made the cause of exploited workers triumph, who led the great fight for freedom, who had to overcome much misery to create a life of the spirit and, finally, those who were the artisans of the great Quebec project.
Isn’t this past a school of dignity, courage, pride? Don’t these women and men deserve recognition and respect? Don’t they give us a taste for relaying them, either by picking up where they left off, or by opening other paths? Don’t they make people love Quebec a little?
I say the world has changed. Isn’t it on this scale now that you could define yourself, find inspiration, a future? But you can’t work on the whole universe, you have to start with the piece that’s nearby. So, along this path, you will perhaps find Quebec again, but in another light, a society to rediscover, to reinvent. By visiting this Quebec and comparing it, you will perhaps come to think that it is not so bad after all. You might even love it for what it is and because it might give you access to something greater.
In other words, you could try to become the intellectual you couldn’t find, apply yourself to building the Quebec you dreamed of and contribute to tracing another history that will inspire, yourself and your descendants, pride. Isn’t that what all those who, not loving their nation, have worked to make it something else have done?