Tag: mark wegierski

Wegierski: On the 40th anniversary of Blade Runner (1982): A retrospective review of this great science fiction film

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Blade Runner (1982). Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard), Rutger Hauer (Roy Batty), Sean Young (Rachael), Daryl Hannah (Pris), William Sanderson (J.F. Sebastian), Edward James Olmos (Gaff). Directed by Ridley Scott. Screenplay by Hampton Fancher, David Peoples, based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), by Philip K. Dick. 117 minutes (US theatrical release), Colour. Blade Runner (1982) is one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made. It really deserves the appellation “sf” rather than “sci-fi” – the former being the term for serious science […]

Wegierski: The 2007 Shane Doan controversy in Canada

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Mark Wegierski recalls a rare Canadian victory over “political correctness” fifteen years ago. The news in Canada around April 2007 had been convulsed with the issue of Shane Doan, then the captain of the Canadian team at the World Hockey championships. He was accused of uttering an anti-French slur years before that – and therefore was supposedly unfit to be the captain of the team. Fortunately, massive public resistance put the efforts of various mostly Quebec Liberal and Bloc Quebecois politicians on ice, so to […]

Wegierski: A General Introduction to Board Wargaming with a Focus on Political, Social, and Cultural Aspects of the Hobby — Paleocons vs. Neocons in Board Wargaming

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There are in America, Canada, and most European, and some Asian countries today, a large number of what could be called „geek subgenres.” Apart from a more general interest in some of these areas by a larger proportion of the population, they are also followed by dedicated fan communities. These would include science fiction (such as Star Trek and Star Wars); fantasy (which was pioneered by J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings); role-playing games (such as Dungeons and Dragons); comic-books; and multifarious types of […]

Wegierski: Just How Liberal is Canada Today?

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One of the central reasons for the continuing failure of the Canadian Right since the 1960s is the ongoing establishment of vast liberal-leaning media, juridical, academic, educational, bureaucratic, and corporate structures – a nexus of interests which certain American and European critics have called “the managerial-therapeutic regime” – which could be characterized as socially liberal and economically conservative. There is also the fact that “North American” pop-culture is the primary “lived cultural reality” for most people in Canada, which tends to reinforce socially liberal, consumerist/consumptionist, […]

Wegierski: Just How Liberal is Canada Today?

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One of the central reasons for the continuing failure of the Canadian Right since the 1960s is the ongoing establishment of vast liberal-leaning media, juridical, academic, educational, bureaucratic, and corporate structures – a nexus of interests which certain American and European critics have called “the managerial-therapeutic regime” – which could be characterized as socially liberal and economically conservative. There is also the fact that “North American” pop-culture is the primary “lived cultural reality” for most people in Canada, which tends to reinforce socially liberal, consumerist/consumptionist, […]

Wegierski: New directions for conservative ideas in Canada

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There are so many different societies on the planet today. The possibilities of traditionalism or conservatism vary greatly across all of them. Having lived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for nearly his entire life, the author of this article is intimately familiar with Canadian history, politics, and culture, and can offer what he thinks is maximally possible for conservatism, in the Canadian context today. One should begin with an examination of the reasons for the Conservative failure in the Canadian federal election of September 20, 2021, […]

Wegierski: Examining the difficult situation for conservatives in Canada

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The Canadian federal election of September 20, 2021, was another failure for the Conservative Party of Canada, despite Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s attempted “move to the centre”. Now, the Conservative Party is consumed by a battle between pro- and anti- O’Toole factions. Looking back at history, the Conservative Party (called the Progressive Conservative party from 1942 to 2003) has largely failed to make an impact on Canadian society, politics, and culture, since the critical election loss of the staunch Tory John Diefenbaker to Liberal Lester […]

Wegierski: George Grant’s Children: Lament for Canadian Lives

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Thoughtful conservatives in Canada face a dilemma. Already in 1965, in his famous book, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism, Canadian traditionalist philosopher George Parkin Grant had pointed to the “impossibility of conservatism” in Canada. His writings have proved increasingly prophetic. Nevertheless, there are some thoughtful conservatives left in Canada, who could be called “George Grant’s children.” Their lives in Canada have been difficult – certainly at the psychological level – as they have been profoundly alienated from virtually every aspect of […]

Wegierski: Frank Herbert’s Dune and current-day reality

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Mark Wegierski examines the sociopolitical implications of Frank Herbert’s masterwork. In 1985, left-wing science fiction author Judith Merril complained that most science fiction was permeated by a typology of “feudal values plus high-technology”. Actually, however, this is one of the most creative and interesting paradigms of science fiction. One should look at another, rather more serious example than George Lucas’ Star Wars films of a world of the type „feudal values plus high-technology” — Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) (film by David Lynch in 1984). The […]

The Internet – help or hindrance to serious discourse?: Mark Wegierski sketches out some of the social, political, and cultural impacts of the Internet

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Can the Internet challenge today’s informational and cultural monopoly? Can the Internet generate real resistance to current-day trends, or does it mainly just accentuate them? The Internet arose as a truly mass phenomenon in the mid-to-late 1990s. In more recent years, we have moved into the so-called Internet Two – characterized by (among others) Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google, Instagram, and smartphones. The Internet had arrived, however, after three to four decades of some of the most intense, unidirectional mass media and mass educational conditioning in […]