Conflicting Richler and conflicted Cohen: Comparing two of Montreal's most prolific artists

Montreal is a city of contrasts: biting cold winter follows sweltering summer, concrete high-rises border lush, sprawling parks, la langue Française clashes with the English language, and rampant corruption makes news headlines alongside the city’s proliferation of social justice movements. Writer Mordecai Richler and musician Leonard Cohen, through their tumultuous personal and professional lives, personify the contrasting sensibilities of Montreal’s schizophrenic arts community. Both Jewish, Montreal-born, and wildly successful, the two artists have had distinctive impacts on the city’s art community, and have spawned vastly different legacies.

Mordecai Richler followed an unlikely path to literary success. Born in 1931 in Montreal’s middle-class Jewish neighborhood, the Mile End, Richler’s family was of modest means. He attended Concordia University, then Sir George Williams College, for English but failed to complete his degree. His relationship with his family was turbulent, and he ceased communication with his mother altogether later in life. At 19 he left Canada for Europe and spent twenty years living in France, Spain and London before returning to Canada. Upon his return he found himself disenchanted with the political circumstances which had become the everyday reality of life in Quebec and Montreal, and considered the effects to be ruinous of the city he held such a deep affection for. As a result, much of his later work was dedicated to critiques and commentaries on provincial and federal politics. Richler’s personal life is the subject of his novel, Barney’s Version, as well its 2010 screen adaptation of the same name. Married twice, it was with his second wife that Richler had several children and produced the bulk of his literary work, going on to receive, among a swath of accolades, three Governor General’s Awards.

In itself conflicting, the breadth of Richler’s work consists of novels, news articles, screenplays and children’s books, which elicited an array of responses from his Montreal and Canadian audience. Divisive and controversial, he was critical of Quebec nationalism, Canadian nationalism, the Anglophone community, the Catholic community and the Jewish community; in effect, he was successful in drawing the ire of almost every minority group in Quebec. In a scathing article published for the New Yorker, Richler decried the Quebec separatist movement, inciting strong opposition to his work and even an onslaught of hate mail and personal threats. He was often misrepresented by critics in the media and he was, to an extent, demonized within the province as an anti-Quebecker, sexist, self-hating anti-Semite. Some of his more controversial written work was banned by the Bloc Quebecois, only fuelling Richler’s zeal for sparking political discourse. An article for The Gazette describes gaffs that Richler became known for, such as lobbying the Quebec government for the creation of a “Twice as Much” bylaw, which would require that French be spoken at twice the volume of English, or the creation of the “Unpure Wool Society” which awarded a “Prix Parizeau” to distinguished Anglophone writers in Quebec. Antics such as this further cemented his reputation as anti-Quebec nationalist, and served to discredit his literary work – today, few Canadian universities teach Richler’s novels despite their popularity (Barber), indicating that his divisive tactics had lasting consequences for his status in the literary community.

Deriving his foundations from the same literary community, Leonard Cohen’s tumultuous journey from burgeoning poet to world-famous musician is just as fascinating as the volume of his work is impresssive. In contrast to Richler, Cohen was born in 1934 to a successful, upper-middle class family in Montreal’s affluent Westmount neighborhood. Upon obtaining a BA from McGill University, he had already built a reputation for his poetry, much of which was dedicated to his father who died when Cohen was nine. Continuing to write poetry and novels, he chose to live a hermetic lifestyle with his lover at that time on Hydra Island in Greece. Over time, following mixed reviews of his written work, Cohen shifted his focus to songwriting although he was later awarded the Governor General’s award for a subsequent poetry publication. His commendable string of lovers, battle with depression, relationship with Judaism and later Buddhism, and belief in social justice were some of the major influences that formed the basis for Cohen’s songwriting; surely, it is the depth and expanse of subject matter in his work that has allowed him to transcend such a breadth of demographics and establish the massive following that he has today.

Cohen’s popularity can be attributed to the capacity of his work to relate to a diverse audience. Even in his formative years, his poetry was well-received by critics, securing him his reputation as a respectable artist within Canada. Outside of literary circles, Cohen appealed to a variety of musical tastes. The song “The Partisan” related to those oppressed by war; it was later associated with the Polish solidarity movement, and contributed to the antiwar theme in Cohen’s work. Topics addressed in his music spanned the oppression of the gay community in the United States, his personal desolation, romantic successes and failures, political injustice, and religious experiences. He became known for his unique sound and style, setting him apart from contemporaries in the folk genre. Cohen is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the recipient of a Grammy Award, yet he has been praised for his humility and true dedication to the artistic process – just this week he received the Glenn Gould Prize for his lifetime of work, and dedicated the $50,000 in prize money to the Canada Council for the Arts (CBC News). One of Canada’s most prized cultural icons, Leonard Cohen has built an enduring musical and literary legacy, and his work will continue to influence and inspire for generations to come.

Both undeniably brilliant and demonstrably successful, both political and complex, these artists exist on opposite sides of a rift between Montreal and wider Canada’s cultural palate and tolerance for controversy. While Cohen’s antiwar, social justice stance strikes a chord with Quebec’s political sentiments, Richler’s political tack, though honest, served to alienate him from his domestic audience and stigmatize his work within Montreal’s art community. Richler’s pugnacious political pieces continue to incite Francophone/Anglophone tensions from beyond the grave and his literature, although widely read and critically acclaimed, has been snubbed by many leading Canadian academic institutions. Cohen on the other hand is held up as an example of the pride of Quebec, especially Anglophone Quebec, and is lauded for his lifetime of achievement. What this hugely divided opinion of these men illuminates in the Canadian and Quebecois cultural psyche is a limited, conditional tolerance for dissent. Both artists cherished the quality of authenticity in their work, yet it was Cohen’s diplomatic crusade for social justice and not Richler’s audacious criticisms of government that ultimately succeeded in winning the favor of the Canadian audience.

Works Cited

Bauch, Hubert. “Mordecai Richler was no friend of Quebec’s Political Class”. The Gazette 30 Jun. 2011. Web. 17 May 2012.

Barber, John. “Why Mordecai Richler isn’t being studied in Canadian universities”. The Globe and Mail 22 Dec. 2010. Web. 17 May 2012.

CBC News. “Leonard Cohen donates $50K from Glenn Gould Prize”. CBC News 15 May 2012. Web. 17 May 2012.

Sustainable Development versus Planned Economic Contraction: Reassessing the Growth Model

Introduction

A 2011 study by the United Nations indicates that current rates of consumption are depleting natural resources at an unsustainable rate. As international actors promote exponential economic growth as a means to address the issues surrounding human development and cope with the rapidly expanding population, the corresponding effects of natural resource depletion and environmental degradation lead to growth that has become uneconomic. The concept of sustainable development is a fallacy perpetuated by individuals and interest groups whose primary goal is achieving greater economic growth. These pursuits are problematic and cannot resolve the environmental crisis that we collectively face. To attain an acceptable standard of living for current and projected populations within the boundaries of the finite supply of natural resources available to us, we must re-evaluate current assumptions that are made regarding necessary levels of consumption. Planned economic contraction, or degrowth, is the most viable solution to the array of environmental challenges that we, as a global community, can no longer ignore.

When Growth Becomes Uneconomic

Uneconomic growth occurs when the social and environmental costs incurred from economic growth outweigh the benefits (Daly 63). Wealthy countries, with their insatiable habits of consumption, have potentially begun to experience social and environmental costs that are greater than the benefits of economic growth (Daly 63). The productivists of modern regimes have influenced the formation of public policy to the extent that attaining higher levels of GDP-measured economic growth is the dominant strategy in achieving human development and alleviating poverty (Alexander 1). This is problematic, as the western standard for development is unattainable on a global scale due to the limitations of earth's natural resources (Alexander 2). Adherence to this policy, theoretically, has uneconomic growth as its predictable outcome. In accordance with basic microeconomic theory and the law of the diminishing marginal utility of income, the marginal benefit of growth will decrease (Daly 64). As benefit decreases, costs increase according to the law of increasing marginal cost, and this will lead the global economy to a situation in which the costs of growth increasingly outweigh the benefits (Daly 65).

An article in Saskatoon's The Star Phoenix alleges that Alberta's oil sands are an exemplification of uneconomic growth. The author posits that in addition to the pollution, acid rain and CO2 emissions caused by oil sand development, all in the name of employment growth, the resulting effects lead to job loss. In Alberta's case, as oil revenues spiked the value of the Canadian dollar rose accordingly, and over 600,000 domestic manufacturing jobs were lost. While this is an example of a market repercussion for uneconomic growth, the environmental repercussions are paramount. In an article for the magazine Canadian Dimension, economist Peter Victor points to loss of biodiversity, climate change and upsetting the nitrogen cycle as three main components in which economic growth has perpetrated uneconomic outcomes. Victor argues that we have exceeded earth's capacity for resource provision, and that western countries' current consumption habits cannot be satisfied in the long-run. He asserts that GDP growth is not necessarily indicative of human development, and questions the correlation between increasing wealth and happiness. Both authors conclude that economic growth does not always lead to human development and that it has been, in many cases, counter-productive.

As with any cost-benefit analysis, this conclusion begs a re-evaluation of investment strategies and goals. However, such a re-evaluation is becoming more difficult due to the implications of globalization for sovereign policy making and enforcement (Daly 63). As national boundaries become a concept of the past, countries and transnational corporations are both unwilling and unable to internalize the environmental and social costs of their economic activity (Daly 75). Instead, the global pursuit of profit is disguised as investment in politically correct “sustainable development” in order to allow continuity of the status-quo without forcing the population to consider the negative implications of unrestricted growth (Latouche 12). The macroeconomic justification for this is such that as resources become increasingly scarce, their allocation will become increasingly efficient (Alexander 5). Pricing mechanisms will lead to substitution and technological innovation will allow the market to make extremely efficient use of the remaining resources, or even access previously inaccessible reserves (Alexander 5). This theory, as will be demonstrated, is problematic.

The Shortcomings of Sustainable Development and Population Control

While sustainable development is a comforting concept in the face of resource scarcity and environmental degradation, it does not hold in reality. Despite our society's endless potential for innovation, as long as growth remains the dominant paradigm in economic planning we will consume an increasing, and unsustainable, quantity of resources (Alexander 9). Consider the example of innovations in fuel-efficient vehicles to illustrate the shortcomings of the sustainable development concept: With the invention of the fuel-efficient car, we proceed to drive more and buy more cars, secure in our assurance that the problem has been solved and we are free to consume at a standard, or increased rate (Alexander 9). This relationship between innovation and growth-driven consumption illustrates the need to reassess the traditional macroeconomic argument that growth is able to continue exponentially into eternity. With a finite and rapidly disappearing supply of resources, it is becoming increasingly apparent that at this rate, the path of economic growth will lead to disaster. The sustainable development pursuits of the past 20 years have not yielded the results necessary to contain the problem at hand, and with consumerism continuing to grow unchecked we must adopt a new approach (Martinez-Alier et al. 1)

Population reduction as a means to address environmental challenges is a policy advocated by conservative politicians (Latouche 25). In 1974 Henry Kissinger introduced a proposal to control the populations of thirteen developing countries viewed as a threat to US dominance by encouraging their leaders to promote the use of birth control (Latouche 26). Another proponent of population control, public health specialist Maurice H. King, suggested that if family planning is not effective it is the poor who should be “left to die” as their lifestyles impose more on the environment (Latouche 26). This demonstrates the precarious balance of justice in the practice of population control – who will be subject to control measures may become an arbitrary decision, with the burden distributed unevenly amongst the world's population. Approaching population reduction without the looming influence of earth's demise would allow for the formation of level-headed policies which would avoid, for example, global bacteriological warfare as a method of population reduction (Latouche 26). Although population reduction is demonstrated to be both desirable and necessary in resolving the environmental crisis (Latouche 27), it is a concept that must be approached calmly to ensure a peaceful and equitable implementation of measures. Following a period of degrowth, it would be possible for leaders to address this issue in the absence of excessive pressure.

Decoupling and Degrowth

The concept of decoupling involves breaking the link between resource use and economic growth (UNEP xiii). It suggests a shift from innovation which encourages resource consumption to innovation which reduces the use of resources, in addition to the adaptation of a growth indicator which is more comprehensive than GDP and considers the social and environmental impacts of growth (UNEP xvii). However, evidence shows that this approach is insufficient in solving the environmental crisis on its own (Victor “Uneconomic Growth”). A 2002 OECD report suggests that decoupling indicators are flawed since, for example, they do not capture externalities such as cross-border pollution. The report suggests that this approach must be used as a complementary measure to other tactics. Furthermore, absolute decoupling cannot occur simultaneously with economic growth, and will increase in efficiency only in correspondence to slower growth (Victor). For this reason, although developed countries should practice decoupling regardless, it is a strategy that can only be effective when paired with measures for degrowth (Victor).

The prominence of the growth paradigm is a product of the problems addressed by Malthus, Marx and Keynes regarding overpopulation, wealth distribution and unemployment: Economic growth became the accepted all-around solution, leading to decades of policy formation in the interest of furthering of this goal (Daly 73). As has been demonstrated, however, the increasingly uneconomic effects of growth mean that it is no longer a feasible solution to these problems (Daly 74). Zero growth is undesirable as well, and the answer lies in a middle-ground – the slowing of growth (Alexander 13). In the developing world where growth is imperative to raise the population to an acceptable standard of living, degrowth is not a possibility. It is wealthy countries who possess a standard of living that would make a period of degrowth manageable, and therefore they should allow any room for growth to occur in the countries where it is needed most (Alexander 2).

It is believed that slow growth would lead to full employment, poverty elimination, fiscal balance, CO2 emission reductions and more leisure time (Alexander 13). A planned economic contraction, as opposed to the undesirable unplanned alternative, can be achieved through a combination of restructured investment strategies, reduced workweek hours, and a redistribution of labour amongst the population (Alexander 14). Restructuring of investment strategies would have the aim of shifting investment from private to public goods (Alexander 14). A reduced workweek and the redistribution of labour responsibilities would allow for a steady standard of living by substituting wealth for an increase in leisure (Alexander 14). Systems of progressive taxation, the implementation of a maximum wage, and the proliferation of worker cooperatives would all contribute to a shift from high to low consumption patterns (Alexander 17). Sudden and drastic degrowth would be too great a shock for the population, but a gradual implementation would be a viable step forward in policy making (Martinez-Alier et al. 4).

Conclusion

Productivism and the growth paradigm, originally intended to solve the problems associated with overpopulation, unjust distribution of wealth and unemployment have become the foundation for a culture which emphasizes, above all else, the acquisition of material wealth. The resulting levels of consumption in wealthy countries has led to a point where growth has become uneconomic, and does not provide an overall benefit to society. Not only has growth become uneconomic, but it cannot possibly be sustained at current population levels. Sustainable development initiatives are insufficient in addressing the severity of the environmental crisis, and only serve to allow the customary patterns of consumption to continue unchecked. Population reduction, within the current sociopolitical framework, would likely lead to unjust and possibly violent outcomes and should only be evaluated following a period of degrowth. Decoupling strategies are necessary, but also insufficient in achieving ecological sustainability if implemented alone; the most effective policy to attain both environmental and economic stability is one of planned economic contraction, or degrowth. The restructuring of investment and a redistribution of labour will reduce consumption patterns in wealthy countries while allowing the developing world the necessary room for growth. In light of the growing imperative for an ideological shift toward true sustainability, degrowth must be the primary goal of the global community.

Works Cited

United Nations. “Humanity’s voracious consumption of natural resources unsustainable – UN report”. UN News Centre 12 May 2011. Web. 04 Apr. 2012.

Daly, Herman E. “Un-economic growth: Empty-world versus full-world economics”. Sustainable Development: The Challenge of Transition. Ed. Schmandt, Jurgen and Ward, C.H. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 63-77. Print.

Alexander, Samuel. “Planned economic contraction: The emerging case for degrowth”. University of Melbourne: Office for Environmental Programs/Simplicity Institute. 03 Aug. 2011. Web. 04 Apr. 2012.

Hanley, Paul. “Oilsands an example of 'uneconomic growth'”. The Star Phoenix 17 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 Apr. 2012.

Victor, Peter A. “Uneconomic Growth”. Canadian Dimension 05 Mar. 2012. Web. 04 Apr. 2012.

Latouche, Serge. Farewell to Growth. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009. Print.

Martinez-Alier, Joan et al. 'Sustainable de-growth: Mapping the context, criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm”. Ecological Economics 69 (2010): n. pg. Web. 04. Apr. 2012.

United Nations Environment Programme. Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth. UNEP, 2011. Web. 04. Apr. 2012.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Environment Programme. Indicators to Measure Decoupling of Environmental Pressure from Economic Growth. OECD Environment Programme, 2002. Web. 04. Apr. 2012.