We would benefit from something of a Hippocratic Oath for institutional reform—that is, where one may freely prescribe a remedy, one should not do so at the risk of damaging the faith in, or function of, any given institution.

Consider this recent example, from the Globe and Mail, about potential conflict between the Senate of Canada and the next presumptive government:

There is simply no basis in a democratic society for a group of 53 or more senators to be substituting their views for that of elected MPs, and the millions of Canadians they represent. It’s wrong when Liberals do it to Conservative governments, and it’s wrong when Conservatives do it to Liberals. It may be legal, but it is not legitimate.

Senators draw their legitimacy, apart from the chamber’s general role in regional representation, from appointment on the advice of the prime minister—a similarly unelected position which, in turn, draws its own legitimacy from the House of Commons. Our institutional framework is functional and quite elegant, even if it does not lend well to expedient punditry.

We can openly debate the merits of populating the Senate by other means, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of questioning the validity of the institution itself. Let me invoke the national past-time to make my point: if we grew frustrated with the way that certain hockey players behaved, or the way that the league enforced the rules, would we address those issues accordingly and specifically, or would we question whether the game itself had merit and was worth our time?

There’s a deeper issue here we should also consider. The so-called “Marvel Method” holds that because any given comic could be someone’s first, it should therefore organize itself around conveying essential principles first and foremost. Similarly, since any given political conversation could be someone’s first, and therefore a bridge to participation and developing an interest in our traditions, we ought to strive for decorum over cynicism.

While we’re on the subject, let me also observe a fundamental law of Canadian political punditry: any critique of the Senate, however well-intentioned, is almost always indicative of conversational bankruptcy or exhaustion. Welcome to summer.

I recently finished Lydia Millet’s “anti-memoir” (so sayeth the marketing copy on the dust jacket), We Loved It All (2024). I have always admired her sense of economy, but seeing her usual voice at home in non-fiction made me appreciate just how much it persists in commanding attention, and with ease, in a world where such spans continue to decline. Here’s an example that will haunt you:

Wisdom is harder to define than knowledge is—more qualitative, less quantitative—but broadly might be seen as consistency, over time, of sound judgement. Informed by morality, spirituality, and aesthetics. In the case study of nuclear weapons, for instance, it’s fair to say that, while it was the shared knowledge and industry of a massive group of scientists that brought us the most destructive munitions ever made, it’s only wisdom, along with some fear and some luck, that has kept us—so far—from the annihilation of a nuclear exchange. But luck, like hope, is not a plan.

I was similarly enthralled by Viet Thanh Nguyen’s memoir, A Man of Two Faces (2023), a vulnerable yet graceful personal navigation in the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous “test of a first-rate intelligence” quote. The thought below, alone, has changed how I understand memory and will navigate my own relationship with it in future:

Through the windows of my sandcastle of memory, I can hear the ocean of amnesia, perpetual, invincible.