The philosopher G.F. W. Hegel (1770-1831), for all his many failed attempts at explaining life, has an interesting idea in relation to the passing on of ideas and events through history. This idea is known as Aufhebung. Perhaps fittingly, Aufhebung is contradictory in definition. It refers to both cancelling something, and keeping it. Contradiction is not a great obstacle to Hegel. A quick explanation of Aufhebung would be to consider some historical event/idea. This event/idea, as time passes, is somehow packaged up in its bare essence and moved forward as one complete big picture idea. For instance, when considering communism most might consider Stalin, government taking control, and many deaths. When considering Napoleon people might have a snapshot of him taking control of much of the world, failing, coming back and failing again. Or perhaps when considering the industrial revolution people might think about lots of pollution, slave labour, and the old way of life changing. In other words, events and ideas have a way of condensing into their bare essence, and being remembered only for this.

Now whether or not Hegel actually believed that events and ideas ontologically changed is besides the point. Forget about Hegel now. The point is that there is some truth to how we often only remember certain principles or general details of history. Perhaps in our modern day culture I fear our events and ideas are often reduced to even a single photograph.

For instance, mention the American Civil Rights movement and most people will picture something like this:

 

Mention Iwo Jima and you will get this image:

Muhammed Ali?

9/11? Something like this:

Perhaps more recently, even certain news events become memorialized by a recent picture. 

Pope Benedict XVI's resignation:

The whole Obama/Notre Dame controversy:

Well, I fear if you mention president Trump's meeting with Pope Francis, the enduring image will not be pretty. The two leaders held their highly anticipated meeting. The interest in this meeting was heightened after Pope Francis took some shots at Trump in the weeks leading up to the visit. So what did they talk about? Was Trump put in his place? Did Pope Francis get the arrogant Trump treatment? Was some form of understanding reached? Are they more or less enemies? Words have been shed over the meeting, but all in vain. What the meeting will be remembered for is this:

Modern day Aufhebung. Whatever events and ideas arise can be reduced to a simple picture. For better or for worse. The Hegelian message, then, is further reduced to one principle: Always remember to smile.

Or maybe that's the whole point of the picture?

The Chicken and the Egg

I just received an email from Kevin O'Leary. Although I like to think he writes to me personally, apparently he leaked our private correspondence to the media because it's everywhere. Yes, this just in, O'Leary has dropped out of the CPC leadership race. He cited lack of support in Quebec as well as minimal second ballot support. O'Leary is, to quote Donovan Bailey, "a chicken." O'Leary says he's throwing his support behind Maxime Bernier. It was just over a month ago that Bernier called O'Leary "a loser." Of note, O'Leary still had a Donate button at the end of his email. The button links to donating to O'Leary, not Bernier. Wow... when you put everything like that O'Leary... sure, take my money!

Bernier is clearly the front-runner now. At this point, and depending on where O'Leary's support actually goes, it seems only Andrew Scheer and possibly Erin O'toole have a chance of catching up to Bernier. This is, as Bertie Wooster would say, the posish.

Campaign Life Coalition will still tell us that only candidates Pierre Lemieux and Brad Trost are pro-life. Meanwhile CLC continues to ignore Scheer's pro-life voting record and how under him, via individual MPs, it is possible to get pro-life legislation PASSED. CLC will continue to support the 2.7 and 2.9 percent candidates. Yes, that is a single 2 in front of their support ranking percentage. Lemieux and Trost possibly would be great leaders. But they are insignificant at this point. Either way, it seems to me that CLC continues to lay an egg in the work they do.

"I have zero chance of winning."

A Conservative Helping of Spam

I'm going to make a confession here. Becca and I have Conservative Party of Canada memberships. Please don't tell my teacher's union. That is the equivalent of a protestant sneaking off to Mass, a Canadian watching soccer on TV, or a dietitian pounding back a tin of spam. Yes, we are members specifically so that we can vote in the upcoming leadership race. Or is it upcoming? Because it sure feels like this race will never end.

It's the emails. My inbox is full of emails. Mainly from Scheer, Lemieux, O'Leary (just for the amusement) and Trost. Then there's my spam inbox. It is bursting, more than bursting, with emails from the likes of all the rest, such as Bernier, Blaney, and Saxton. The emails are never ending. I'm told that each candidate has to pay lots of $$ to have an email sent to members. Whatever the price is, it's not enough. I have not been emailed this much since back in the days when Becca and I were dating and she, out of pure obsession, emailed me non-stop. And as if that wasn't enough, they've started calling. I mean, we were invited last night to join in on a live phone chat with candidate Erin O'toole at 8pm local time. Who wouldn't want to spend their evening doing this? "Thanks for the invite!" we replied. Just kidding. We didn't pick up the phone. But they left a long voice message. My facebook account is loaded with Conservative Party leadership postings. As well there's the never ending debate over Is Andrew Scheer pro-life? Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: Yeeeeeeeees. Someone kick CLC in the rear-end please and tell them to smarten up or quit. If we're judged by our fruits then it's not looking good for them.

So when is this leadership race over? The answer is clear: Not soon enough.