Spacecraft, Law, and the North American Argument

by Rick Dykun

There seems little to suggest that an American moon mission and the Canadian legislative process might form the basis for a heated and dynamic dialogue about social values in North America. That is, unless spacecraft and law are considered as communication media, each with its own innate message.

Two events bring this into focus: In 1969, after decades of flaunting its technical prowess, the US launched its Apollo 11 moon mission. The blast was typically American, nervy and flashy, an expression of pure technique for its own sake. Years earlier (1952), former US war correspondent Cornelius Ryan wrote of the potential for an American space program: "We have the scientists and the engineers. We have the inventive genius. We have vast industrial superiority." (Across the Space Frontier, Cornelius Ryan, ed., Introduction) The Apollo 11 launch articulated this message far more effectively than the printed word would have.

Two years after the Apollo 11 mission, after decades of lamenting over its frayed cultural fabric, Canada creates Cancon, a system of quotas designed to strengthen the Broadcasting Act of 1958. This administrative event was typically Canadian: staid and low-key, the product of a long, consultative process and a string of Royal Commissions. The current Broadcasting Act (1991, s. 3 (1) (d) (i)) declares that the Canadian broadcasting system should "serve to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada." By enshrining this message in law, Canada invokes the printed word in its most technical and powerful form.

When Apollo and Concon are considered as pure messages, they illustrate the point / counterpoint dynamic that has long characterized the American / Canadian dialogue. In The Bias of Communication, H.A. Innis speaks of the "possible significance of communication to the rise and decline of cultural traits" (33). The American / Canadian dialogue in North America is really an argument about cultural traits--the Americans arguing for a space-oriented empire, the Canadians arguing for a time-oriented culture. The crux of the argument is contained in the very notions of "empire" and "culture," the former suggesting expansive and forceful extension into the space of others, the latter suggesting an enduring entrenchment into one's place of origin.

With the launch of a spaceship, the American technological dynamo "speaks out" by claiming more space. Not only physical space, but also psychic space. NASA and Hollywood invade our psyches by dazzling and enticing us with masterful technique. It's appropriate that the Apollo missions were named for the Greek god of light, youth, beauty, and prophecy. Imbued with such qualities, Americans have mastered movies, TV, and spacecraft. They use these media to entice us, speaking boldly and engagingly, coaxing us to abandon the obscure past and embrace a dynamic present.

Canada "responds" to the American message, attempting to restore balance by invoking the formal, ritualistic language of law to protect the past and preserve a culture that has not quite coalesced, but just might given time. As humans have long used myth to "galvanize populations, creating of them civilizations, each with a beauty and self-compelling destiny of its own" (Joseph Campbell, Primitive Mythology, p. 5), Canadians use a mythic notion of culture to galvanize their nation. In many ways, culture is like myth. It's not built with metal and rocket fuel, like a space program. Instead, it's vague and ephemeral, something that has been bequeathed to those deserving. While Americans use the materials of advanced technology to venture out, Canadians turn inward and tend to the cultural fabric, almost as if protecting a priceless heirloom.

Appropriately, each nation chooses the proper medium through which to express its particular message. Even stripped of any externally applied content or meaning, spacecraft and legislation are definitive and clear messages. Ultimately, it's the action of the American blast that is important, not that it was aimed at the moon or Parliament Hill or the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, for that matter. It is a statement about the power of a technologically advanced empire to extend into both psychic and physical space, maybe even to ultimately become omnipresent. In 1952, Cornelius Ryan envisioned a space station that could "observe every portion of the earth" (Across the Space Frontier, Introduction). If technique extends human capability, then such omnipresence might be considered technique's ultimate goal.

In the same way, it is mostly irrelevant that Cancon was created to uphold the integrity of Canadian culture. More important is the action of invoking law in order to galvanize and perpetuate a society. With Cancon, Canada's culture is made permanent by encoding and enshrining it. Innis explains the rationale behind invoking a formal code in order to endure: "An emphasis on continuity and time in contrast with an emphasis on space demands a concern with bureaucracy, planning, and collectivism" (The Bias of Communication, 189) The notion that there is a suppressed and fragile Canadian culture that needs to be cultivated is formalized by an act of government. So codified, it's the myth around which Canadians will rally against the American thrust.

Significantly, the marketplace is a point of contention in the Canadian / American dialogue. Americans have mastered the marketplace, using a range of media to draw profit out of it. Apollo 11 illustrates how the marketplace, dependent on rampant consumption, works. Despite its cost and complexity, Apollo is ultimately disposable, most of it either having been burned up or abandoned by the time the mission is finished. This is much like the American "star factory," which builds a dynamic but disposable pop culture in which endurance has little or no value.

On the other hand, Canadians traditionally despise the marketplace. In response to market forces, Canada holds up its culture as an intangible object that is, if anything, threatened by cheap commercialism. Legislation is seen as the counterbalance to an unbridled marketplace, a means to regulate chaos. The Aird Commission Report of 1929 was commissioned during an influx of American media into Canada. Its purpose was to make recommendations "as to the future administration, management, control and financing" of Canadian broadcasting. Regulation is seen as a way to beat back gauche American technique and preserve an unmarketable but priceless Canadian cultural fabric. Again, Canada posits a "cultural alternative to the expansionary liberal vision of the United States" (Arthur Kroker, Technology and the Canadian Mind, 34) and the point / counterpoint dialogue continues.

Recently, though, the messages that once propelled this dynamic argument about empire and culture have become garbled. American ventures into space have lost their sparkle, with even the recent Mars probe hardly causing a stir, despite all the hype. Americans often turn away from technology and toward more mundane concerns raised by tabloid journalism and high-powered marketing. Often, a burgeoning sports mythology commands much more attention than does a show of hi-tech mastery. In the meantime, Canadian pop icons replete with marketplace savvy are popping up everywhere, albeit mostly as American clones. And ironically, while there's still no tangible sign of Canadian culture, a piece of Canadian space technology, the Canada Arm, is prominent.

It's as if the disparate messages raised by Apollo and Cancon, one articulated by a space-obsessed empire, the other by a time-obsessed, marginalized society, are attempting to find balance. The volatility of a rocket-fueled society seeks grounding; the stagnancy of a paper-heavy society seeks vitality. As Innis pointed out, "[A] stable society is dependent on an appreciation of a proper balance between concepts of space and time" (The Bias of Communication, 64). In many ways, the voices that articulated two very different visions of North America are mingling, maybe even becoming indistinguishable from one another.

References

Campbell, Joseph. Primitive Mythology. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.

Innis, Harold A. The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1951.

Kroker, Arthur. Technoloogy and the Canadian Mind. Montreal: New World Perspectives, 1984.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

Ryan, Cornelius,ed. Across the Space Frontier. New York: The Viking Press, 1952.

The Broadcasting Act (1991)

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting web site (http://friendscb.org/fcb3.htm)

Media Awareness Network web site (http://www.screen.com/mnet/)