This post will partly parallel my post in the Edmonton Museum thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by transplant99
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While I agree with Nenshi on a great many things, including these exact words, I don't agree with the position that the words were used to support.
Nenshi brings up the Milwaukee example saying that he saw the art museum without actually having gone to Milwaukee specifically to see it. Lo and behold, look at what he is bringing up, rather unprompted, 7 or 8 years later.
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Now I'd like to address this part of the article:
Quote:
“Both sides hardened and the bridge became symbolic of something — it was a cowboy and hippie dynamic,” says Nenshi.
“If you didn’t like the bridge, you were called a redneck who didn’t believe in beauty. If you liked the bridge you were a total hippie who didn’t understand the value of money.”
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I was actually going to make a post the last time this thread was bumped that touched on this.
The bridge project has, probably more unfairly than not, become a battleground where war has waged between the ends of various false dichotomies. Suburbs vs. inner-city, cultured vs. uncultured, fine art aficionados vs. McLean-Creek-frequenting-weekend-warriors, right vs. left, cyclist fags vs. road-raging car lovers, mouth breathers vs. the self-declared-enlightened, and as Neshi puts it, cowboys vs. hippies. Right vs. wrong, for or against.
I think most of the contributors to this thread are guilty of it. I tread over this ground myself in an earlier post when I declared myself a "supporter" of this project, whatever that actually means in a practical sense.
I think it's a shame that it's happening, regardless of whether it's over the Peace Bridge or some other project or issue. The project itself has good aspects and it has bad aspects. The problem with what the issue has become is that a lot of it isn't really about weighing the good against the bad anymore. Those "for" it are blinded to the bad, and those "against" it are blinded to the good. The positions of for and against have become proxies for being "conservative" or "liberal;" "cowboy" or "hippie."
I don't know if I've captured all my thoughts on the subject, so maybe I'll wait for any responses as a chance to clarify.