Dear Mr. Bouchard,
I wrote to you this summer after reading your two texts: “Our impotence (I)” and “Our impotence (II)”, published in the pages of Duty. Among various themes, you noted an important element that I wanted to address with transparency: the discourse of mediocrity among Quebec intellectuals. I regret having often felt it and it is this feeling that I want to understand, in order to transform it. The subject is complex and the space for this letter is insufficient. However, I will tell you about this flame that your words animate. I will tell you my desire that Quebec does not again miss its appointment with History.
The letter you wrote to me is beautiful and encourages me to respond to you on my relationship to nationalism, Quebec identity and its history. Behind my disenchantment, I wondered if I was not repressing a nostalgia for a collective imagination, part of which is folklorized. I wanted to know what exactly it would be legitimate to be nostalgic for, or for what particular era in our history.
Personally, certain symbols of the second half of the 20th centurye century appear strong to me (the couple Gérald Godin and Pauline Julien, the words of Miron, the look of René Lévesque, etc.). If the nostalgic feeling is also present among certain people who have not experienced the tremors of the sovereignist project, the object of this nostalgia appears to me as what was only a fragile ideal, whose main avatar is that of “survival”. Isn’t Quebec struggling to persevere in its being? He drags his ghosts. Some myths feed nostalgia instead of pushing us toward the future.
I do not embrace the cynicism that I expect in myself and in part of my generation, because it is too easy and powerless an attitude. However, I observe a division and a disengagement at a time when, collectively, we could face the greatest challenges of the future. Social inequalities, development of artificial intelligence, climate change, etc. Thinking about these issues, taking responsibility for them, measuring ourselves against them with confidence and rigor: this is how we could reverse the omnipresence of the feeling of failure that appears behind the discourse of mediocrity. My Quebec pride will still evoke the past, but when it resonates, it is the future that I will hear.
What is mediocrity? The concept immediately brings into play the notion of value and average. Value is constituted from emblematic events in our history, through our art and our speeches; it enters into duration through memory and through its presence in the field of experience. It requires small actions which generate great deeds, is measured not only by comparison, but by the power of the desire it arouses in those who discover it and enliven it through their own talents.
“Mediocre minds usually condemn everything that comes within their reach. » (La Rochefoucauld) Within a debate, mediocre minds attack the integrity of their opponent under the pretext of their difference, instead of elevating the discourse, listening and responding with intelligence. Mediocre minds freeze, while thought is movement. Certain current discourses (nationalist or not) reflect a narrowness of thought which fears dissimilarity and refuses diversity. Narrow minds look haughty, are blinded by their prejudices, polarize the discourse, create no value. A community born of narrow-mindedness fails to build belonging and often only succeeds in making enemies. Suspecting her mediocrity, she hides her fears, retains her weak legitimacy which she fears losing and lives, for the moment, on her contentment.
How could I desire an ideal of survival? Survival of the French language in North America, survival of French-Canadian heritage, survival of the Quebec province in Canada. This Quebecois identity, French in language, so rich and colorful, I don’t want to see it survive, I want to see it unfold, develop, I want it to be chosen!
I agree with you: historians today carry out rigorous and remarkable work. We have examples of success in the past that we value. Loving and defending a culture certainly requires the construction of symbols and the preservation of heritage, but above all an attitude that is not based on fear of loss. It is by weaving strong links with old stories, but also with new, different, demanding ones, which are not only fragmentary, that an identity will emancipate itself from survival.
Every day, I try to participate in this story, knowing that beyond the symbolic imagination, the freedom to create value is experienced through action and dreams. Action will take us out of a feeling of helplessness, but it will result from the work of a vision. The greatness of Quebec will not be measured by the quality of the resources it possesses or the beautiful heritage of its past, but by the use it will make of them, with what it will cease to see as a threat, and the gratitude he will give him.
You ask me my ideals and I will tell you about my love for difference, courage, greatness, excellence and self-sacrifice. If I value the historical epistemology of the concepts that have formed our identity, it is to invigorate my thinking, break my ruts and question myself. Although I can convince myself of the value of Quebec with reason, it will always be its poetry, its stories and its courageous actions that will make me love it with my heart. If I felt my disillusionment so strongly, Mr. Bouchard, it is because I expect nothing less from Quebec than a magnificent work.