Mockingbird Lies and Truths

December 2, 2023

HERE'S MY TAKE

“Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.”

I recalled Pablo Picasso’s quote several times after taking in last week's Toronto production of the touring Broadway play, To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was among the favourites of my assigned English class readings during my schooling. Atticus Finch, the heroic lawyer courageously defending Tom Robinson, an African American wrongly accused of rape in the context of the Jim Crow south, was a metaphor for standing up for justice. Atticus’ virtue and his belief in institutions and process (even though those institutions and processes disappointed him) were both inspiring and instructive.

The story, of course, does put Atticus’ optimism into the context of realism. Atticus insists on seeing goodness in everyone, teaching his kids counter-cultural messages against the racism all around them. One of his most poignant messages came in standing up to the mob that wanted to lynch Tom Robinson before the trial. Atticus explains that people sometimes act like animals when they are in a mob but at the end, they are still individuals in whom some good resides. He trusted that a jury would behave like a series of virtuous individuals, not a mob. He proceeds with the trial with the confidence that all of the racism of his southern context notwithstanding, no jury would hand a death sentence to a man they knew to be innocent.

I’m a public affairs pundit, not a theatre reviewer. I do note, though, there is ongoing debate about the merits of how Aaron Sorkin’s stage version of the work reframes the story, both as it relates to the character of Atticus Finch and to the question of whether institutions can deliver justice. (I won’t leave you in suspense for long. Read on for more about that re-framing.) For now, what’s important is that Atticus Finch is a fictional character–a lie, to borrow Picasso’s lingo–and we can leave it to the arts pages to debate the merits of Harper Lee’s Atticus versus Aaron Sorkin’s Atticus. (The courts are also involved but that is an entirely different tangent.)

The storyline of justice and mobs takes my mind to the streets of Toronto and all of our major cities. These days, our cities are places of protest, with mobs routinely tearing down statues and posters, intimidating those who disagree, and waving hateful placards. The Ed Mirvish Theatre is within a block of Toronto’s famous (and lively) Dundas Square. To reach the theatre, we had to navigate our way through the messages of the pro-Hamas protestors. The disturbing messages provided an immediate setting about the questions of individual virtue, mob behaviour, and the adequacy of our institutions to manage these tensions.

It seems self-evident that a society relies on individual virtue as a building block for order. Trusting others to do good and right is essential to getting along and flourishing. In her original telling of the story, Harper Lee examines Atticus’ misplaced confidence that the sum of individual virtue will be able to overcome the mob mindset of injustice. The book was an important catalyst for my thinking in my teenage years about the relationship between institutions and the individuals who participate in them. I recall my adolescent self arguing that while individual virtue is essential for institutions to act justly, perhaps Atticus’ faith in the innate goodness of people was idealistically misplaced.

Sorkin’s play version opens with the line “Something didn’t make sense,” setting the stage for a reframe of the story from a focus on Atticus’ defence of Tom Robinson to the mystery that Harper Lee leaves at the end of the story. (Spoiler alert.) Bob Ewell (the father of the victim who essentially drives the unjust prosecution of Robinson to cover up his own abuse of his daughter) is killed and Atticus is convinced by the town prosecutor and judge to let the death be reframed as a suicide. The argument is that sometimes justice is better served outside of the formal system than it is within it. Sometimes even the best systems are impotent to deliver justice. In Sorkin’s re-telling, while the justice system could not deliver justice, working outside it (requiring some hypocrisy between words and actions) provided a sense of justice in Ewell’s case.

One needs to take great care in comparing historical situations. The anti-semitism and racism of Alabama in the 1930s has quite a different background than the current protests about the Middle East. But watching the play within a block of the current chanting, a couple of the lines prompted reflection. Atticus repeatedly tells those around him to “crawl into the skin of others,” explaining away the racist behaviour of certain individuals. While it doesn’t excuse, it does explain. In a memorable line, he notes that although the Civil War was 70 years earlier, “it was yesterday,” in that the South’s humiliation in losing the war has present explanatory power for behaviour. Sorkin exposes this rationalisation critically, presenting it more as an excuse for not calling out evil. In the process of understanding evil, the implication is that Atticus is covering it up.

Watching the reaction to the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past two months, I’ll confess to similar struggles. Are the people saying these unbelievable things, even celebrating the killing and hostage-taking of innocents, really so inhuman in their everyday lives? How can any parent who has looked into the eyes and felt the love for their own child be so callous when it comes to other children?

I do wonder whether the development of identity politics in recent decades has something to do with all this. Real consequences flow when we start seeing our dignity and worth emerging from our labels rather than our innate personhood. With that mindset, it becomes impossible to see myself (or anyone else) as a complex individual made with dignity and worth in God’s image. Rather, everyone’s identity is deconstructed to ethnicity, gender, social class, or whatever other identifying feature we emphasise (including our sympathies for either Palestine or Israel.) And belonging to a group brings with it a social role–the group is either privileged or a victim–oppressed or an oppressor.

When group identity supersedes individual identity, virtue gets redefined as opposing oppression. It’s not about right outcomes but taking the “right side” in the resistance. Resistance supersedes justice. In that world, the mob sets the norms for what is right so members of the mob no longer need to face individual responsibility. The feelings of the mob take precedence over any objective analysis of the issues. As I mentioned a few weeks back, the shape of our views on the present Israel-Palestinian conflict depend on which “original sin” we each build our narrative on. Victimhood, however it was acquired, stirs up intense emotions.

Humanity’s long history has shown that we cannot rely on the innate virtue of ordinary people as the foundation for civic order and flourishing. By the same token, relying on the emotions of the mob, the rallying cry of identity against those who are different, has a long legacy of disorder usually accompanied by violence, brutality, and bloodshed. The rule of law, and its processes of institutions that seek to rise above the individual virtues, is the best we have. It appeals to an external, more objective standard of justice. It is noblest when it appeals to transcendent justice, something that isn’t invented by humans but is received and fundamental to our existence. Does it work perfectly in our broken world? Not at all, as both art and present reality remind us. Sometimes we get further in seeing and communicating truth by looking into art’s mirror than by repeating arguments that identity earmuffs prevent us from hearing from each other.

The title, To Kill a Mockingbird, has both nothing and everything to do with the story’s plot. It seems incidental to the plot when Atticus, teaching his kids how to safely use their new air rifle, tells them to go ahead and shoot “all the blue jays you want” but warns that “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Blue jays can be pesky but mockingbirds sing beautifully and harm no one. Mockingbirds serve as a metaphor for innocence throughout the text.

The story ends with the naïveté exposed, both in its individual and institutional form. Living together peacefully and social flourishing won’t result from everyone’s innocent embrace of virtue. Sometimes, we’ll kill mockingbirds. But the death of a mockingbird doesn’t negate what we learn from Lee’s (or even Sorkin’s) story. We can’t ever abandon our attempt to make our social institutions work, the reality of war and the failure of those institutional processes notwithstanding.

WHAT I’M READING

Christmas Giving

It may be a hard candy Christmas for many Canadians who are planning to spend less this year, according to a pre-Christmas poll by BMO. However, the spirit of Christmas giving is still alive, but on a smaller scale. Over three-quarters of those surveyed plan to buy fewer gifts this year. Half say that thinking about holiday spending causes anxiety. A third of respondents report they plan to give as much to charity as in past years. More than 33% plan to donate money, stocks, or securities to their chosen charities and causes this year while 16% plan to volunteer their time before year’s end.

Bill C-18 and No News on the ‘Net

Access to Canadian news has been blocked for nearly four months on major online platforms by Facebook (Meta) and Instagram in response to passage of the Online News Act, Bill C-18. This week, the federal government announced a deal with Google that will bring in $100 million annually to support the news industry. However, industry watchers have been quick to point out that this agreement fails to address the real problems at issue, and Bill C-18 appears to be a legislative failure, not a win. Long-time newspaper executive and former member of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Peter Menzies, tackled this debate at the Hub.ca. He outlined a plan and calling for a new wave of innovation and entrepreneurship to address an “adapt or die” crisis in Canadian journalism. Menzies concluded, “What Canada desperately needs instead is a multi-pronged, coordinated national strategy based on current economic and market realities that will allow journalism to flourish again.”

Gen X at the Privy Council Office

I wrote previously about my deep respect for the example offered by the late Hon. Ian Shugart who served as cabinet secretary and clerk of the Privy Council Office and led the Canadian public service from 2019-2021. Policy Options has profiled the new clerk, John Hannaford, the first GenXer to take up the most senior position in Canada’s civil service. In one of his first major initiatives he is leading a task force of deputy ministers to conduct the first values and ethics review in 30 years. An interim report is due out by the end of the year that will suggest where this back-to-the-basics focus on the mandate and mission of the public service might lead.

Unready Aye Unready?

The Royal Canadian Navy’s motto is “ready aye ready,” but that’s surely not the impression you get when the commander of the RCN takes to YouTube to warn about our naval forces’ “critical state.” Vice-Admiral Topshee sounded the red alert about the RCN’s difficulty in finding crews for ships, following a decade or more of recruitment shortfalls. He describes the difficulties of ageing combat ships which will serve well beyond their intended 30-year lifespan because their replacements are still years away from being built–never mind having crews ready for them. Journalist Paul Wells delved into the issue in an interview with the vice-admiral, if you prefer to read about Canada’s naval troubles.

MEANINGFUL METRICS

Where's The Bean Been?

Many Insights readers tell me they read this newsletter with coffee in hand. So, I found it interesting to see the Visual Capitalist reporting the latest data on the top coffee exporters and importers around the world. Not surprisingly, Brazil and Colombia are among the top three exporters, but did you know that Vietnam is the number-two coffee exporter in the world? It’s also interesting to note that Canada is the number-eight coffee importer in the world, bringing in slightly more coffee than the United Kingdom (with almost 1.8 times Canada’s population). Maybe that’s because the British drink more tea. However, Canada also imports almost as much coffee as France (which also has almost 1.8 times Canada’s population). Perhaps Insights readers have helped pull up Canada’s coffee-importing numbers?

TAKE IT TO-GO

Lane Hog

I drive often enough between Ottawa and Hamilton to be rather sensitive to lane hogs on the highway. So, when I read about a pig lying down on the highway blocking traffic near Kitchener, Ontario, I just knew this was a story for the Take It To-Go pen. I’ve even linked to the news story so that you know it’s not just hogwash. Back to Kitchener, thankfully, someone squealed and alerted provincial police. A crew soon arrived just in time to save the pig’s bacon. It’s quite a twisted tail, no?

Whatever you think of that, it’s not a boar.