Angry in the Great White North

Consider this opening to an article in the Toronto Star by architect and urban affairs critic Christopher Hume:

Back in the 1960s, when the future was still something people looked forward to, architects never missed a chance to celebrate the Brave New World that lurked just round the corner.

Their buildings soared, twisted and turned transparent as they explored the endless possibilities of tomorrow.

Nearly half a century later, that future has come true. The dream morphed into a nightmare and its architecture now finds itself unwanted, unloved and in the way.

The rest of the piece is about the architecture of the building, a bit about the original architect John B Parkin, and some questions about what to preserve and what not to.

No where does he address the assertion that the "dream morphed into a nightmare".

What dream specifically? And what nightmare? The nightmare of Islamic terrorism?

That building, which is the subject of the article, does nothing to evoke Islamic terrorism. But of course. The nightmare is not that Islamic terrorists are blowing up men, women, and children every on the planet. No, it's something else entirely:

Rapturists, those merry Americans who believe the end of the world is at hand. Every time something like the Great Blackout happens, they cheer, too. It's not so much the occasion they love as what it might presage, namely, their ascendance to heaven to sit at the right hand of God. No wonder they're in rapture. No wonder they can't wait for the next blackout. No wonder they vote for George W. Bush. If there are any Canadian rapturists, they are, typically, low-key compared to their U.S. brothers and sisters. At least they don't run the country.

That's from an August column promoting the idea of a planned blackout to force us to have energy-free days.

My wife was very pregnant when the Great Blackout happened. She was dying in the heat, and I spent a great deal of time driving around looking for ice to bring home to help cool her off. Hume, turn off your own lights and A/C if you like, but leave me alone.

Architects design buildings. One day I'd like to meet an architect who doesn't think his political thinking soars as mightily as his skyscrapers.

But then that's the problem, isn't it. In our society, even in Canada, we still believe that people should be given wide latitude to make choices. For Hume and other like him on the left, we need to have the correct choices made on our behalf by our betters. Needless to say, he would believe we don't listen nearly enough to architects:

The program [to add new garbage/recycling bins to city streets and to sell advertising on them] illustrates yet again why we need more debate about privatization, which isn't the panacea its proponents pretend. The private sector does what's best for itself and its profit margins, not the public sector. The two don't coincide.

Though Eucan pays a fee to the city and also gives space for municipal advertising, what was once public property is now private. Citizens are reduced to consumers and the city becomes a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder.

Thanks Hume. I like paying taxes. I would gladly pay more taxes so that my city garbage cans don't have ads for real estate agents on them. That makes a lot of sense.

Architecture is the most public of the arts. It's too bad, like most of the arts, it seems to be populated solely by the likes of Hume and Paul Murdoch, the architect who thought making an Islamic crescent the centerpiece of a memorial to brave American civilians who killed a clutch of Islamic terrorists at the cost of their own lives was a good idea. These architects are people who hate the private sector, who hate capitalism, who hate conservatism.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

With all that hate, is it no wonder that Hume thinks the present is a nightmare? All that private sector economic activity, all that capitalism, all those people in Canada and the US who prefer to conserve, and in particular conserve our personal freedoms.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

With all that hate, is it no wonder that Murdoch sympathizes, perhaps even identifies himself, with Islamic terrorists?

I really don't care what Hume's and Murdoch's personal politics are. I just wish they would keep them personal. I just wish they would shut up and draw.

[Another look at Christopher Hume]