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HOW WE GOT HERE: THE 70’S. Book review

David Frum How We Got Here: The 70’s: The Decade that Brought You Modern Life—For Better or For Worse. (: Canada; 2000) pp. xxiv + 419 pages, hardcover, ISBN 0-679-30966-7

James Allan Evans

h, the seventies! According to tion in faculty hiring, produced a well- t was a period when experts created my calculations, David Frum footnoted report which concluded I problems for the best reasons, and A was only ten years old when that they did. There followed a brief then established programs to repair they started, but he is a qualified post- bout of academic breast-beating, but them. For instance: dyslexia, which NAFTA observer, having spent his boy- the are not a recognized baffled educationists. “Dyslexia” does hood in Toronto and his university victim group and in any case, the not refer to tiresome rhetoric, as its years at Yale and Harvard. The war in attention span in the Groves of Greek roots imply, but rather the Vietnam ended in the with an Academe is short. The Symons Report inability to read. Parents noticed that undignified American exit. While it generated no “rights” and was soon some of their offspring, who had been lasted, it brought Canada a string of forgotten. The péquiste government of taught reading according to the most Vietnam refugees, and refugee partners René Lévesque was elected, and up-to-date methods, could not read at or mothers, including Diane Francis Quebec’s first referendum closed the all. Weekend Magazine, which was still and Jane Jacobs, and founded the only decade in 1980. The Canadian dollar published in the seventies, printed a industry which has continued to flour- started its downward slide. In , story of a dyslexic teenager who ish in British Columbia under the pres- the Hall-Dennis Report modernized hanged himself in despair. Circa 1978, ent NDP regime: marijuana produc- education, and in the process gutted I attended a meeting of the Vancouver tion. In 1976, Tom Symons, a former the schools: Before Hall-Dennis, a Association for Learning Disabilities president of Trent University who had graduate of the Ontario Grade 13 where the speaker was a former dyslex- been commissioned by the Association could enter sophomore year at the ic who had overcome her learning dis- of Universities and Colleges of Canada University of British Columbia, while ability and now ran a private institute to respond to the complaint that soon after it he (or she) could barely which taught dyslexics to read. A con- Canadians suffered from discrimina- qualify for first-year entrance. cerned mother asked a question. Was

POLICY OPTIONS 75 OCTOBER 2000 James Allan Evans

dyslexia a modern ailment? What into the conflict. Only unbelieving ammunition. There is some irony to caused it? Air pollution? Too much Canadians thought the reason was the fact that it was Sen. Edward TV? Lead poisoning from the water that American territory was attacked at Kennedy, whose brother as president pipes? Why had no one mentioned Pearl Harbour and that Japan’s allies, had entered the Vietnam quagmire in this malady when she went to school? Germany and Italy, declared war on the first place, who mobilized a Senate The reason, the speaker replied, the . But in the 1970s the vote forbidding the Pentagon apply was that the method she used to teach faith of the United States was shaken. money left over from 1972 and 1973 dyslexics to read was the method by Frum has a point. Some of the appropriations to assist South which, once upon a time, everyone was trends he notices antedate the 1970 Vietnam. To give South Vietnam taught to read. Thus the schools used to New Year and others flowered after the money “would perpetuate involve- produce fast readers and slow readers, decade ended, but it would be unfair ment that should have ended long but, slow or fast, everyone mastered to confine his thesis by the Gregorian ago.” The North struck again in late reading. But with up-to-date approach- calendar. Consequential social and 1974, the South collapsed, and at the es, the “slow readers” that obsolete end of April 1975, the last Americans teaching methods produced, became Frum has a point. Some left their allies behind and made a victims of a Learning Disability. swift exit from Saigon. of the trends he notices Frum thinks the retreat was a mis- o much for the seventies in antedate the 1970 New take as Talleyrand defined mistakes: S Canada. In the United States, how- Year and others flowered that is, worse than a mere sin. But he is ever, future global trends were being after the decade ended, too young—or too comfortable—a crit- born, and David Frum has written a ic to analyse the trauma that Vietnam lively book about it, full of much rant but... consequential social inflicted. Hitherto, Americans had and right-wing angst—and some sub- and psychological upheavals won all their wars; even the War of stance. Frum is the son of the late took place in the United 1812 had produced a nice victory at , a Canadian who now States in the seventies, New Orleans. Vietnam was different. It lives in Washington, a contributing was a clear defeat, and the response editor of the Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly some of which Canada was was peculiarly American. In World War Standard, a for the National spared at the time, though I, Canada which had a population of Post, and, despite his youth, a conser- we have since experienced less than nine million, lost more sol- vative in politics in a period when the fallout. diers in four years than the United conservatives have redefined them- States did in Vietnam, and on the selves as followers of Thomas other side of the globe, Australia Jefferson, believing that the least gov- psychological upheavals took place in which sent men to fight in Vietnam ernment is the best government, while the United States in the seventies, alongside the Americans, suffered the left yearns for social engineering. some of which Canada was spared at more casualties in proportion to the Frum has zeroed in on the 1970s, the time, though we have since experi- size of its population and emerged the decade (as he sees it) which formed enced the fallout. from the defeat without the scars the American mindset at the start of which the United States suffered. Even the twenty-first century. Before the he war in Vietnam ended. By now, 25 years on, the United States seventies began, Americans went to T spring, 1972, only 92,000 shrugs off the idea of compensation church in great numbers, and opted Americans were left there, down from for the ecological damage it caused for the traditional denominations. a half million when Nixon became with Agent Orange, for compensation They were oddly patriotic—even president, and at the end of March, sounds like reparations, and repara- nationalistic—from the viewpoint of North Vietnam struck. With US air tions are what vanquished enemies Canadians who were not used to so support, the South Vietnamese army pay. If Vietnam were to apologize to much bunting or hands held over the drove back the North Vietnamese. In the United States for the defeat, it heart when the flag paraded by. Their January, 1973, Henry Kissinger ini- might be worth half a billion dollars in republic had never known defeat, and tialed a US-North Vietnamese peace aid. Of course, Frum does not follow they were convinced of its morality accord, and promised the South that it that line of reasoning. and generosity. Most believed they could rely on US air power to help, if entered World War II out of an altruis- North Vietnam attacked again. he angst-driven presidency of tic impulse to help Britain and the Congress ignored the promise and T closed off the Commonwealth, though there was a chopped military aid. Without petrole- decade. Symptomatic of the reaction paranoid cadre who imagined that um the South Vietnamese airplanes against the strident anti-communism Britain had inveigled the United States could not fly and the army ran short of of the fifties and sixties was an order

76 OPTIONS POLITIQUES OCTOBRE 2000 Book review from the Massachusetts Supreme example of the United States is not judicial muscle was the ordering of Court that Alger Hiss be readmitted to reassuring. Activist courts had a pro- school busing to enforce integration. the bar. All decent people thought him found effect on American society in Frum cites the case of Boston, where an innocent victim of Nixon’s the seventies, and proved Lord Acton’s school busing was enforced by Judge McCarthyist phase—until the Soviet maxim that “Power corrupts, etc.” W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. Busing lacked KGB files were opened after the Cold Canadian judges who lack even the grass-roots support among either the War, and the charge of spying turned minimal checks on their power that white or black community, but Garrity out to be true after all. American judges have, will no doubt pushed forward with the sensitivity of The fashionable perils that prove Acton right once again. a Gauleiter. No one could fault his ulti- alarmed the media were overpopula- The turning-point in the United mate aim, which was to erase a regime tion and . Paul Ehrlich States, according to Frum, was Goldberg of asymmetrical rights that had vic- revived the Malthusian thesis in his vs. Kelly in 1970. New York wanted to timized blacks, but the pupils who The Population Bomb (1968) which deny welfare to one of the plaintiffs, were bused became only units on a promised famine in the 1970s as mil- drawing board. Their welfare was sub- lions starved to death, and the United ordinate to the grand design. Yet the States abandoned countries such as The fashionable perils that proof of the cake is in the eating, and India and Egypt to sink under the alarmed the media were busing in Boston has to be judged by weight of excess humanity. Doomsday overpopulation and Global the same yardstick as cakes. scenarios infected Hollywood, and Cooling... Stephen Frum makes the telling point that President Carter commissioned a Garrity’s own children were not bused. report; when it appeared, under the Schneider’s The Genesis Nor were the children of Michael title Global 2000, it was a counsel of Strategy in 1976 predicted Dukakis, Edward Kennedy, or George despair. Stephen Schneider’s The that falling temperatures McGovern—in fact, the chief propo- Genesis Strategy in 1976 predicted that would cause major crop nents of busing made certain their falling temperatures would cause own children were not affected. Like major crop failures by the decade’s failures by the decade’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s Duke of Plaza end. Then, in 1977, the American end. Then, in 1977, the Toro, who led his army from the rear, Geophysical Union introduced Global American Geophysical they saw to it that the policies they Warming. President Carter set up an Union introduced supported did not inconvenience Office of Carbon Dioxide Environ- them or their families. Frum points out mental Effects, and Stephen Schneider Global Warming. that the Duke’s philosophy was also metamorphosed into a global warming prevalent in the , where guru. Armageddon remained a certain- Juan De Jesus, alleging that he was a the generals stayed out of harm’s way, ty; the question was whether to face it drug addict. Supreme Court Justice in contrast to World War II. He is not in our long johns or our Tilley shorts. William Brennan ruled that New York quite right: US General Mark Clark on must hold a formal hearing to demon- the Italian front in WW II was as good udicial activism heated up. David strate that De Jesus was a drug addict a Plaza Toro as any modern general. Sir J Frum on the American experience before they could refuse him his wel- Isaac Brock who led the York volun- with activist judges in the seventies fare cheque. The Fifth Amendment teers up Queenston Heights in the War should be read with attention by guaranteed him the right to due of 1812 belonged to an obsolete style Canadians, for before the Canadian process. The ruling seemed not unfair where leaders led by example as well as Bill of Rights, there was nothing simi- in theory, but it meant that every case by fiats and ukases. Brock’s reward was lar in Canada. Judicial activism was so of welfare fraud had to be litigated. a bullet in his chest and even as early foreign to Canadian legal tradition Goldberg vs. Kelly contributed to New as 1812, most leaders preferred to keep that until the middle of the last centu- York City’s 1975 fiscal crash. themselves intact. ry, appeals from the Canadian Soon Goss vs. Lopez (1975) ruled Supreme Court could be made to the that public school students could not n era ended in the seventies: For Judicial Committee of the Privy be suspended for disciplinary reasons. A me, Charles Lindbergh’s death in Council in , an august, rather Board of Curators vs. Horowitz did not same year that Americans fled from fusty body which has only rule that a medical student had the Vietnam is a significant turning-point. recently abolished. Once upon a time, right to a hearing before being flunked Frum, however, does more than preach its elegant judgements had a bracing out, but by only one vote in the doom about the new era that began effect on the Canadian legal establish- Supreme Court. O’Connor vs. then (his final “Part” is titled ment. But the pendulum has swung Donaldson (1975) released the mental- “Regeneration”), and How We Got Here towards judicial activism, and the ly ill to the streets. The best example of makes lively reading. In fact, what is

POLICY OPTIONS 77 OCTOBER 2000 James Allan Evans

impressive about the American experi- his book has two great drawbacks. colour. The “isms” of the seventies ence is how well the checks and bal- T One is that Frum sounds middle- became either unfashionable or ances work in American society, which aged before his time: He looks at the mature. One remained intractable: makes errors, but puts its problems seventies with a pervasive sense of dis- ageism, which grows more significant behind it and moves on, in a way that approval. The other is the straight- as more people ignore the average life Canada cannot. The Fifth Amendment jacket that he has made for it. Why spans approved by Social Security actu- which saved Juan De Jesus’ welfare isolate the seventies, interesting aries, the Canada Pension Plan and the cheque also ensures due process for though the decade is? Did Frum start New Testament. Frum is an impres- everyone, whereas in Canada, due collecting newspaper clippings at the sionist social historian, dealing lightly process in the courts depends on the age of ten and run out of storage space with developments which a profes- disposition of the judge, and Human by the time he reached his majority? sional sociologist would envelop in Rights tribunals are free to disregard it. The sixties flowed seamlessly into the leaden prose. Perhaps I should expect Judges are patronage appointments seventies, and when twenty-first cen- no weighty conclusions. But I find it and their performance is not subject to tury historians look backwards, they easy enough to agree with his general any periodic review. The checks in the will find the eighties and nineties thesis, so far as I can understand it, US Constitution which can lead to more seminal. These were the decades namely that a number of events took government stalemate also prevent the of Thatcherism and Reaganism. The place in the seventies, and they are development of an all-powerful prime Cold War ended and a crop of tribal worth a book. minister’s office, or even more and ethnic wars took its place. omnipotent premiers in the provinces. Resurgent capitalism widened the gap James Allan Evans is Professor emeritus I would like to see a counterpart of between the rich and the poor, and the of Classical Near Eastern and Religious How We Got Here for Canada, with an Internet increased the gulf between Studies at the University of British appendix titled “Where We Are the articulate and the inarticulate Columbia. His latest book is the second Going.” I would expect to disagree classes. Multiculturalism became gen- edition of his The Age of Justinian: The with some of it, but I would read it erally accepted, and the new aristocra- Circumstances of Imperial Power. He is with attention. cy of wealth is no respecter of skin a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Master at work I had to admire pausing to greet each leader in turn No special help Recently ... the way in which , a master and engage in thirty seconds of ani- the widespread need for more of television, worked the room at the mated conversation. His head was per- home care has led to the proposal 1994 NATO summit in Brussels. He fectly angled for the television crews that we provide special funding for delayed his entry until all the other fif- tracing him from inside the doughnut it. We should not. The effect would teen leaders were at their seats in the of the round table. It was a personal gift soon be to over-expand home care circular chamber. (This meant winning to each NATO head. In fifteen nations relative to other health services, to a game of chicken with the protocolaire the evening newscasts would show waste money by distorting the allo- François Mitterand. As a president of their leader deeply engaged with the cation of resources. It would be much longer standing, Mitterand liked President of the United States. And US inequitable as well as inefficient, to exercise the right of coming in last.) television would have the President as because the extent to which home It took Clinton seven and a half minutes the centrepiece of the event. care is more needed than better to get from the door to his seat. He community facilities, for example, slowly circumnavigated the chamber, John Major, The Autobiography varies among areas and among provinces. Such priorities are mat- Picture of discipline: Federal net debt, 1993-2000 ters for management within each provincial program. Special federal funding of bits and pieces of medicare would be neither effi- cient nor fair. Our partnership role is to support the program as a whole.

Tom Kent, What should be done about Medicare, Caledon Institute, August 2000

78 OPTIONS POLITIQUES OCTOBRE 2000