April 21, 2003

FACING THE DRAGONS Our local educational station TVO has been broadcasting a remarkable series of programs called Big Ideas, featuring lectures by speakers like Camille Paglia, George Steiner and Jean Baudrillard. Yesterday's program featured Jordan Peterson talking about Facing the Dragons. He began by telling the children's story There's No Such Thing as a Dragon , written and illustrated by Jack Kent. In a nutshell, the story is about a little boy who wakes up to find a small dragon on his bed. He pets and plays with the dragon until his mother insists there is no such thing, and from then on the dragon is ignored until it becomes as large as the house, and ends up running down the street with the house on its back. Finally the family acknowledges the dragon really exists, and it quickly shrinks back to kitten size. In case the message was too subtle, the final words from the little boy are "I guess it just wanted to be noticed". Peterson goes on to describe the two ways in which people react to the unexpected. If it is perceived as a threat, the reaction is anxiety and fear. If it perceived as an opportunity, the reaction is hope. In both cases, it is necessary to acknowledge the dragon, to confront or explore, and finally to change, to adapt to the new reality. To do nothing is to invite the dragon to get larger, like an unpaid bill or a task put off too long. To do something requires you to take personal responsibility. It's a poweful message about the danger of procrastination, of burying one's head in the sand, and of leaving it up to others to take action. At a personal level, such behaviour can lead to divorce or to suicide. At a national and global level, it can lead to civil war, dictatorship, environmental disaster, unimaginable cruelty and the abrogation of personal rights and freedoms. There are a lot of people vigorously denying the existence of dragons today, in their families, in their communities, and on the world stage. Liberals are denying the crises on the home front and the tinder keg in many countries worldwide, fooling themselves that it will get better if they just wait it out. Conservatives are denying the utter failure of their draconian measures like "three-strikes laws" and foreign military adventures to lessen the threat to peace and security one iota either at home or abroad. Clowns like environmental holocaust-denyer Lomborg are embraced for concocting fictions that tell us we're not to blame, it's not our fault. Religious wingnuts are embraced for telling people to turn their backs on the historical social activism of the church and instead wait for some deus ex machina to solve the problem for them. Meanwhile, the dragons are just getting bigger and bigger... 11:08:06 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Dave Pollard. Last update: 01/05/2003; 11:42:16 AM.