SHAWVILLE, QUEBEC | Is "government" or even "society" as bad as everyone says? One message we soak up with the air is that "government" is, at best, a necessary evil, and usually nothing but some form of extortion and self-aggrandizement by politicians, those who do the governing.

"Society" is out to stifle us all, clamp down on individual freedoms, kill creativity, and steal our kids' minds -- if you listen to the subtext of so much talk and political comment. It's weird that most of this weird talk comes from some politicians themselves -- or from people who don't know a thing about what's going on in the world and seem to be proud of it.

How can this be true?

If we lived in a clear, old-fashioned dictatorship the truth might be self-evident, and we have the famous novels about a horrible future, 1884, Animal Farm, and Brave New World, which softly deposit the concrete pad upon which sits most of our thinking about the world. But we don't live in an old-fashioned dictatorship or on an Animal Farm.

In our society "government" and "society" are made up of our neighbours and co-workers. Are we saying our neighbours and co-workers are bad people, extortionists, and manipulators?

A society would not survive long if it was torn by such fears, suspicions, and hatreds. Those fears are around, no doubt, as the occasional bizarre shooting rampage demonstrates. But if this were the dominant feature of our society and its government, that we think all the rest of us are crooks, we would not have made it this far.

Canada, Quebec, and the community of Aylmer have faced tremendous threats in their histories, but overcame them through unity, cooperation, and working together, as much as via competition. Isn't that true? So why are our neighbours now so suspect? Why is our self-organization, our government, seen as such a disease on the collectivity?

Yet we rarely meet a person who doesn't bad-mouth something about our government-from snow removal to health care-in the first few minutes of conversation.

People around us here in Aylmer are also disheartened about the apparent rudeness and incivility, especially from our kids. We enter a mall passing by obscenities; no one says "please" or "thank you" any more; there seems little attempt to be pleasant as opposed to churlish; appreciation and respect seem to have disappeared from those around us - aren't these common complaints?

Wait a minute: we bad-mouth our neighbours and especially anyone in authority. Then: we are amazed that our youth show disrespect and unappreciation to those around them. Why are we amazed? Wasn't it us who taught rudeness and self-interest?

Actually the situation isn't this simplistic or this extreme, although what's above is pretty accurate. We know we're exaggerating when we criticize "all governments."

We know that unlike complaining about the weather, our complaints about politicians can drive us to enter the arena and try to change things.

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Copyright © 2010 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/01.10