He’s making a list and checking it twice….
– The Jackson Five, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"
Size matters
– No it doesn’t
Yes it does
– No it doesn’t
Yes it does.
– William Shatner and Henry Rollins, "I Can’t Get Behind That"
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat and we’re all busy making lists. Cards to send, presents to buy, parties to attend, people to avoid, excuses to make… and so on. It’s also – as Christian celebration runs helter-skelter into a much older pagan ritual marking the birth of a new year – time to reflect on the 12 months just gone by.
More lists. Lazy-ass columnists, especially, crank out makeshift "top 10s" which vaguely resemble end-of-year summaries, but in truth are little more than predictable and pointless filler.
Not me, of course.
Nope, but I am drawn to the siren appeal of lists all the same. I’m assured by sociologists and pop psychologists that this is a "guy thing." Men, much more than women, have a need to construct hierarchies. We – men, that is – need to know the order of things, and – more to the point – just where we stand in that order. That’s why we crave public recognition and acknowledgement of our meagre talents; that’s why we covet the approval of our peers (who aren’t, of course, our peers, but from a rank slightly above ourselves); and that’s why we engage in infidelity, to prove the old bull elephant is still head of the herd.
Author Nick Hornby made much of this male obsession with lists in his 1995 novel High Fidelity. Rob, the book’s central figure, is endlessly striking lists and explaining their significance. Top five albums of all time, top five favourite books, top five dream jobs, top five most memorable break-ups…. It’s an amusing literary device, for sure, but beneath that, Hornby tells an important truth about men: we can’t function unless we reduce the world around us, and our engagement with it, into a series of pecking orders.
I know this to be true. I’m forever making "to do" lists, numbering in order of importance the tasks I’ve yet to complete and deadlines yet to meet. Never works, of course, but the point is that – in my own mind, at least – I’ve managed to impose a sense of order, and even control, on the world around me.
It’s not just me. This past summer, the CBC ran a lengthy series called 50 Tracks, whose aim was to determine the 50 most essential songs of the 20th century. Some basic guidelines or criteria for judging songs were established early on – structure, melody, revolutionary impact on music, etc. – but as various guests made their pitch for favourite songs, the whole thing soon devolved into a Hornby-esque exercise in list-making. Thus Lennon’s "Imagine," that syrupy ode to passivity and wishful thinking, somehow emerged as the "most essential" recorded song of all time, followed closely by another Lennon weepy, "In My Life."
Then there’s been the CBC’s more recent bid to determine the "greatest Canadian." This drawn-out process, which wrapped up in excruciating and self-congratulatory fashion on November 28, again had invited "advocates" to nominate and justify who they believed to be the most important Canuck of all time. An exercise in futility and improbability from the get-go, it eventually gave the title to Tommy Douglas, who led the first socialist government ever elected in North America and inspired the founding of medicare. (For the record, the other top-10 greatest Canadians are, in order: Terry Fox, Pierre Trudeau, Frederick Banting, David Suzuki, Lester Pearson, Don Cherry, Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky.)
Other commentators have already got themselves worked up over the preponderance of white males (nine, or 10 if you include Suzuki), politicians (four) and hockey figures (two). Me, I’m just confused as to what we’re meant to do with all this knowledge. So, now we finally know what the "most essential song" and who the "greatest Canadian" are. Phew! That’s a relief. I’d often pondered both questions, and can now rest happily knowing that the answers are in.
Of course, we "know" nothing of the sort. Increasingly, it seems, we’re happy simply to be told the order of things or the outcome of events, mistakenly equating that "knowledge" for a genuine understanding of those events themselves. Just why, in what ways, and in what circumstances is "Imagine" really a better song than, say, "Do They Know It’s Christmas?" Why is Tommy Douglas really "greater" than Bill Shatner, who failed to make even the top 50 Canadians? Are we really to trust such authoritative lists, even when voted for by "the people?"
"The people have spoken" is the common post-election refrain. Winners take care not to crow too loudly; losers meekly accept their fate, not wishing to further alienate the messenger. In their recent victories, both U.S. President George W. Bush and Alberta Premier Ralph Klein secured popular majorities. Bush could now disregard lingering accusations that he’d "stolen" the previous election and prepare to spend his "political capital," while Klein’s fourth consecutive mandate was a slap in the face for those critics who’d claimed he’d been losing touch with the common people.
Yes, the people have spoken. "Imagine" is the most essential song of the 20th century and Tommy Douglas is the greatest Canadian. Or could it be that the majority simply got it wrong…? |
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