This question seems theoretical, but it has important implications. The question is whether our feeling of forming an authentic society is well founded or whether it is largely an illusion. Such a question would have had much less relevance in the 19th century.e century, when the French-Canadian population was relatively homogeneous, the vast majority rural, linked by strong community solidarity, supported by Catholicism and the promise of survival. These conditions no longer exist. Have they been replaced?
A true totality or an artificial assembly? Everyone roughly conceives that a society is characterized by a coherence born of integration, a mechanism endowed with powers of governance (State or other), a set of sectors or spheres of activity in interaction, a large core of rooted population in a territory. We also imagine that it is engaged in a future activated by the orientations of the State, themselves supported by citizens, which allows us to speak of choices or social projects. Finally, it is important that everything is orchestrated by an overall vision. However, if we examine current Quebec in each of its components, what do we observe?
The economic sphere. Our economy is made up of multiple industrial, commercial, financial and other businesses. But how much of it do Quebecers really control? We know she’s thin and she’s getting worse and worse. Economic borders are shattered, the main decision-making centers are elsewhere. Just look at the kowtowing our government is currently doing (to the point of changing its environmental rules) to accommodate a multinational. In addition, the State’s indebtedness to large international lenders considerably restricts its room for maneuver. At the same time, coming from everywhere and nowhere, artificial intelligence (AI) is preparing to fundamentally shake up our lives — who asked for it?
Cultural “productions”. In many sectors, our creators are increasingly targeting extranational markets. Who will blame them? As a result, the titles and contents of films, songs and shows are increasingly anglicized and disembodied. The “products” that we consume themselves come largely from outside.
Politics. Our state, as part of Canada, has seen much of its authority shift to powerful bodies, such as the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others. It must also continually defend itself against encroachments from the federal government. Nevertheless, it poses itself as the center of power, master and arbiter of the fate of the nation. But we are well aware of the narrowness of its area of action and the weight of its dependencies.
The demographic base. The population of the past has changed a lot. She has become very mobile. It has fragmented into diverse groups, carrying interests, aspirations and identities that are sometimes intertwined, sometimes parallel, sometimes conflicting. It has diversified under the effect of immigration, but also under the influence of new forms of individualism combined with the breakdown of old perceptions and conventions formerly perpetuated by custom. As in all societies, once again, it is in perpetual renewal in its styles of life, its uses, its subdivisions – latest mutation: the new “genres”, the new sexual orientations and identities.
We could find not only an illustration, but a confirmation of the above in the fact that most practitioners of the social sciences have renounced the ambition to understand their subject globally. The very notion of global society has deserted scientific language.
This brief overview will obviously not teach anyone anything. I mention this only to draw attention to a reality of which we are perhaps not sufficiently aware. Under the effect of its fragmentations and its dislocations, this society of ours escapes us more and more. We even come to wonder if we form a real society. How are its spheres related? How do they form an organic whole? Are they not left to the unpredictable winds of the planet? So: an unstable, fragmented, artificial aggregate?
The nation. This is fortunately not the case. But what keeps us from it? The answer is in one word: culture, deep culture, that is to say: the feeling of belonging, identity, language, founding values and myths, memory, traditions, dreams, visions of the future as well as religion where it lives or survives. This whole has a name: the nation. She is the one who welds the pieces. It creates the “we”, it gives it life, cohesion and roots. And that is one of the reasons why it must last. The nation has not always been defined this way, it has come to be especially so with globalization.
Does this vision of the nation give too much weight to culture – does it lapse into “culturalism”? I simply believe I recognize the essential function, more eminent than ever, that it fulfills.
But will the nation, with its cultural foundations, resist centrifugal forces for much longer? Will it continue to reproduce the conditions necessary for our democracy and the life of our institutions? Is it doomed to erosion, to continued fragmentation? The answer to these questions lies largely in our ability and our desire to show solidarity, faithful to our values and eager to continue in America an improbable adventure of four centuries of adversity and resistance, tenacity, creativity and patience.
As we begin the new year, perhaps we should all ask ourselves: What have I done for our culture and for our nation in the last twelve months?