The world according to Saul
Roger Levesque, Edmonton Journal , 16 December 2001
Over the past decade John Ralston Saul has brought a stimulating new vision of understanding the place of the common citizen in western civilization. In the books Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion and The Unconscious Civilization, he has treated us to an in-depth philosophical survey of the ideas and forces that shaped our world during the past 400 years or so, since the so-called "age of reason" took root and then turned into something scarier.
Mind you, his conclusions weren't always very uplifting. In fact, this citizen came away from the books feeling wiser, but powerless after absorbing Saul's all-too-convincing argument that a technocratic and corporatist elite has come to largely hijack the decision-making process in democratic nations.
So what has this multi-faceted writer-thinker-historian, novelist, former investment banker and oil company exec been up to lately, since he began hanging his hat at Ottawa's Rideau Hall (Saul's wife is Governor General Adrienne Clarkson; his last, 1997 book Reflections of a Siamese Twin focused on Canadian society)?
It was only appropriate that he should offer up a sequel to his trilogy that might empower us or perhaps identify a few tools we could use to do something about the state of the world. Wouldn't you know it, we've had them all along.
Imagination, reason, memory, intuition, ethics and common sense. In his new book On Equilibrium, Saul maintains those are the six qualities that make us human, the traits that give us the ability to interpret and act on the world around us. The key to dealing with life's uncertainties, he says, is to balance each quality against the others in a kind of dynamic equilibrium, hence the title.
What do those qualities really entail? On Equilibrium looks short but the challenging tome really seeks to fill out a new mindset around those six words. Each term is thoroughly examined in its own section of the book, which is really a work of philosophy, examination and argument and less a "how-to" volume for translating ideals into action, as the dust jacket suggests.
As with the trilogy, Saul shows his gift for bringing a fresh perspective to concepts we've come to take for granted, for unmasking absurdity and explaining the paradoxical. He has a way of clearly delineating the fine liens that can exist between knowing and understanding, for instance, or between sense and nonsense. The first quality, common sense, he argues, is something that can only exist with shared knowledge, and the lack of that only leads to selfishness and panic. But even common sense goes out of whack if it isn't used in tandem with the other qualities.
If we can pull them together then we have a chance to see through the smokescreen of techno-speak and bureaucratese, the propaganda of the power elites, and the way they use words like "progress," "development" and "the common good" to promote their own self-interest. Perhaps, Saul suggests, if we are able to start using our innate qualities together and to promote "the right to say no," we can begin to address the problems of a society that's out of touch with the real common good.
If the book occasionally feels too caught up in the minutiae of language itself, then Saul is at his best in digging up history both ancient and recent, offering pertinent examples of how the six qualities work or don't work in action. Among the many insights, you read about General Romeo Dallaire's experience of trying to stop the genocide in Rwanda, the causes and effects of mad cow disease, and some closing comments on how the events of this past Sept.11 may be tied to the short-sighted thinking of international arms sales.
Even if you don't agree with everything he says, it's hard to ignore the sense that Saul is one of the great fluid thinkers around. Ultimately, the finest quality of his writing is that it continues to stimulate our thoughts.
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