Murphy's Law: Opinion Matters

By Adam Donaldson

Has this world truly gone mad? Veteran journalist and CBC commentator Rex Murphy thinks so. Even the cartoon version of him that adorns the cover of his new book, Canada and Other Matters of Opinion, looks grim. I don’t know too many authors who can translate that kind of glower power through caricature; cartoon Murphy even regards the title of his own book with certain suspicion.

If there’s anything crazy about Canada – a collection of Murphy’s recent columns and commentaries – it’s the intellectual whiplash I got while reading it. Sometimes I found myself nodding vigorously along with some tersely delivered common sense; other times I was floored at what is either curmudgeonly resolve or sheer naiveté. Or maybe it’s an epochal divide, mine versus his. Murphy is 30 years older than I and writing about events as they happened, while I’m looking at them with the benefit of hindsight.

That’s perhaps the aspect I enjoyed the most about Canada and Other Matters of Opinion: the nostalgia factor. Sure, some of the events Murphy writes about are not even five years old yet. But in my experience, the hectic pace of our times can make months seem like years. It’s hard to believe that the failed Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition was barely a year ago, and the hubbub over the Mohammed cartoons sometimes seems like a plot from a movie I barely remember seeing.

Murphy is at his best when attacking hypocrisy. In one section called “The Pleasures of Smoking,” he savages a Vancouver by-law that bans cigarette smoking from within six metres of an entryway, window or intake, but provides for the continued operation of hookah parlours. That’s despite the fact that one hour on the hookah is equivalent to 200 cigarettes.

Now I’m not a smoker, but considering that my father died of lung cancer following 50 years of puffing on tobacco, I might be forgiven for being one of those “ever-so superior non-smokers” Murphy refers to so derisively. Oddly enough, it is here that I find in him a kindred spirit: neither of us can stand when someone argues that two similar things are completely different.

Other areas of agreement between Murphy and me include a loathing of celebrity fawning, political posturing, and the sometimes preposterous nonsense of what qualifies as a human rights violation nowadays. Times like these, if I were riding with Murphy on the subway train rather than reading him, I’d say something like, “Right on, Murph!” and he’d look at me like the whippersnapper I am.

On other occasions though, be it his bizarre praise of Don Cherry or his elevation of Krispy Kreme donuts over Tim’s, my reaction can go from head-shaking disbelief to wide-eyed surprise. His language concerning the conflict formerly known as the War on Terror seems dated and reactionary, which I suppose they were at the time, but these sections are bereft of a little, grey box update. I suppose that’s fair indication that Murphy’s thoughts on the matter haven’t changed much.

There is a trend in high-profile political books to preach to the choir. A love it or leave it form of writing that energizes the base and infuriates the opposition. It takes a particular talent to make reading the contrarian view interesting if not necessarily enjoyable. Spending time with Murphy’s mind is always, at the very least, engaging. Whether you agree or disagree, you always want to see where he’s going with it. It may be a matter of opinion, but Canada is a fine read.