Pearl Lorentzen
In Slave Lake, the second snow of the season was on Nov. 22, basically a month after the last one. In-between, the weather was autumnal, unseasonably so for this area. This allowed me to wear fall jackets and boots, which some years barely make it out of the closet.
However, the cartoons in the Lakeside Leader and South Peace News remained under the impression that it was cold. We receive these from (I believe Montana), which could very well have been experiencing a cold snap, but it is also possible that they were written ahead with the concept of a typical year in mind.
There is something sinister about the idea of the typical. I’ve been watching the World War II drama World on Fire on PBS. One of the themes is eugenics.
“Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices aimed at improving the human population through controlled breeding,” says the Canadian Encyclopedia.
What is terrifying to me is that this was not a Nazi invention. Canada, the U.S., the UK, and many other nations had eugenics programs.
The article adds, “Many Canadians supported eugenic policies in the early 20th century, including some medical professionals, politicians and feminists. Both Alberta (1928) and British Columbia (1933) passed Sexual Sterilization Acts, which were not repealed until the 1970s.”
The Nazis took it to the largest extreme with death camps, but in Canada many people were stopped from reproducing against their will.
Even more disturbing, the article adds, “Although often considered a pseudoscience and a thing of the past, eugenic methods have continued into the 21st century, including the coerced sterilization of Indigenous women and what some have termed the ‘new eugenics’ — genetic editing and the screening of fetuses for disabilities.”
At its core, eugenics stems from the idealization of the typical – that typical human traits are more desirable than others. These can be racial, sexual orientation, gender, mental, or physical. The Nazis chose blonde-haired blue-eyed cisgender (a modern term for identifying with the gender of birth) heterosexuals as the ideal, but – really – people can choose any number of traits.
It is the sense of the superiority of one (or more traits) that is disturbing.
As a writer who dabbles in science-fiction and fantasy, I find eugenics as a world building tool fascinating, but the more I learn about it the less I need to imagine. The ways that governments and individuals have used this concept in real life is stranger than fiction and far more terrifying.
We are not living in a country governed by extremists. However, in everyday life, we champion the typical in more subtle ways. We divide people by anything – dry, normal, or oily skin, light, medium, or dark hair, or neurotypical (normally functioning brain) vs neurodivergent (brains develop or work differently), etc.
Most people don’t put a lot of moral weight between the texture of your skin. There is, however, stigma attached to neurodivergency, which can make it harder for nuerodivergent people. They also have some different struggles.
What it all boils down to is we are humans and each and every one of us has inherent value. We all have something to offer. Our differences can divide or bring us together.