Gopnik vs. Gladwell: the showdown

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m one of those strange, mystical creatures with a subscription to Macleans (but I’m also a subscriber to Broken Pencil, Fillip and In Style – wait, that last one doesn’t make me sound any better). Usually I just feel embarrassed about this, especially when the new issue comes – and they’re weekly, so I feel like there’s always one here – and other tenants in the apartment see it in our mutual mailbox.

But, this week my Macleans (which I never read, actually, but Cait devours them) made me feel smarter and hipper because it had an advertisement for an upcoming public debate between Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell about the need for a common Canadian identity in order to be a “modern nation.”

I know Malcolm Gladwell is totally brilliant, but his press photos
always make him look a little crazy and like the most Jewish man on the planet.

In Conversation with Maclean’s,

Canada: Nation or Notion?
Featuring Malcolm Gladwell & Adam Gopnik

Moderated by Andrew Coyne, National Editor, Maclean’s

March 30, 4-6 pm

Do We Need a Common Identity to be a Modern Nation?

Join the national conversation as two great Canadian journalists, staff writers at The New Yorker, battle it out with wit and humour about the importance and relevance of a Canadian identity in North America and in the world.

The debate between Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik will be moderated by Andrew Coyne. A question and answer session will follow the debate.

I already got my tickets and am really excited to hear them both speak (apparently they faced off over health care in Canada and the U.S. in 2000 in a heated debate), but I’m confused about one thing: modern nation? Aren’t we, technically speaking, no longer in the modernist period? Does this mean it’s a debate about how Canada can finally get into the remedial classification of “modern nation,” following hot on the heels of countries that were established in the last half of the 20th century, like Burkina Faso and Micronesia?

As one of my classmates recently said, “sometimes I forget that some people don’t know about postmodernism.” But I don’t think that’s really the issue – I’m sure Gopnik and Gladwell have read their Frederic Jameson. Maybe it’s those damn people at Macleans’ fault.