Unexpected as it might seem, causing some to lament and others to rejoice, I have returned to my old masthead. T’was an end only the Almighty could see, but like all things that Karl Barth called “the damn Catholic ‘and,’” I have elected to rise to the occasion of my vocation and once again take up the mantle of “prophet.” Of course the surest sign that this title is not too presumptuous lies in the proof that indeed I am back by both popular and unpopular demand.
My 18 months and good behavior are apparently all the debt I owed to our town’s last printed newspaper. And while I have no intention of litigating anew the maelstrom that led to my exit from the Citizen, I will assure both my supporters and my detractors that my hiatus, marriage, as well as the loss of my father, have only increased my incendiary abilities. I have seen the best and the worst of what our species is capable of - and I am here to tell you about it.
To be clear, my reappearance will not bookend what is often called the “tail ends of the bell curve” alone. Simultaneously, I am not interested in forging a false middle-ground, with absolutely farcical ideas about how we can all be richer, healthier, and happier without sacrifice. Instead, if one was to call it a rebrand, my new focus will be both commentary on external events as well as making my own realizations, new and old, clearer for the comment of others.
For we are in desperate times, which have grown only more dire during my brief holiday from this space. And with the 21st century having finally left adolescence, patterns and echoes are emerging that must be discussed frankly. I fully admit to my bias - I will always be to the “right” of the discourse. But I’ve not been idle these last nearly one score of months, and my view has matured or even changed regarding the challenges we face in our place and time.
What will some of these themes be? Beginning with the widest scope, it is clear that the market economy of the postwar era is breaking down in our time - what renovations are to be entertained? Likewise, institutions private and public appear captured at every level - what will reform look like or should we starve the beast? Housing, from affordability to zoning, has lost any touch with our people or practicality - how will the concept of private property survive?
Of course the root of all these problems is ultimately spiritual, another topic that I have treated before and will again. But even from the agnostic perspective, the empirical evidence is too strong to ignore: how we know things (epistemology) is breaking down to the point where no common ground can be found. You cannot have a liberal democracy if all of the camps cannot speak to one another for fear of contaminating themselves with “unclean” ideas or people.
We do not need to agree on everything to move our community or country forward - yet if we cannot reach a consensus on the most basic questions, including scientific ones, your neighborhood will not survive the decade, let alone the nation. It will take sacrifice to hear one another and agree to give up the mutually assured destruction stance that has been enticed in us by the media and manipulators. But there will be no survival for any of us without this victory.
Perhaps that sounds bleak, but we must remember that human history is broad and long - not every dark age was unavoidable, and some civilizations in “terminal decline” did manage to pull out of their dead stall. However, the consistent point of redemption in nearly all stories, both fable and fact, begins with the humblest folk refusing to participate in calumny, and the support of their actions by honest leadership stripping the corrupt of their power. We must have a jubilee.
In short, some of my diction and method will be changed in these renewed pages, but my message will remain the same: our world, nation, community, and citizenry is in desperate need of new ideas. But they must begin with the common man, not impositions from the top.
Nathan Giede is a Prince George writer.
