The Looming Issue...The Great Paradox

De-amalgamation.

Speak the word out loud and it's fascinating to watch the reaction.

A rolling of the eyes.

A shaking of the head.

A clearing of the throat.

Maybe all three. Or...

A brightening of the listener's mood.

It all depends on what they have invested in its propagation.

Here's one thing I've come to learn about modern Life as it's being lived: people are resistant to acknowledging that something needs to be changed.

That is, admitting failure, conceding mistakes, being able to deal with the guilt and shame attached to 'turning the ship around'.

I've witnessed it with the American economy, where greed saw people purchasing houses they could not afford, the banking system looking for unreasonable profits through sub-prime mortgages and Wall Street using leverage techniques as if they were the stuff of magic. Even now, people are resistant to being honest about 'what got us here', and therefore, sound, honest solutions are not being effected.

But I've seen it on a much broader level, where people refuse to fathom that a 'consuming culture', not only being prone to pretty horrible cycles magnifying inherent flaws in its very concept, is in fact, doomed. So they're incapable of considering alternatives.

I've seen it with people not being able to accept responsibility for the the personal financial morass they find themselves in. Until a calamity descends.

I've seen it with people not being able to accept responsibility for the personal health crisis they've created. Until a calamity descends.

I've seen it with people not being able to accept responsibility for how their kids are being brought up-

Anyway, here's my belief in a nutshell: people don't want to consider that how things are just aren't the way they should be, because that would mean that they've been 'wrong' in their behaviour...and people in this modern world of ours simply do not want that degree of 'feel-bad'.

Personal responsibility.

It's the opposite of what our culture seems to stand for.

There seems to be a pretty hardcore resistance to even considering that amalgamation isn't working, that it's never worked, and that likely, it never will. (Never mind that many in the communities that were 'affixed' to the City of Hamilton have every right to not want to be part of this 'super-city', that they shouldn't have to defend their desire to return to autonomy.) But the most bizarre aspect of this situation is that nobody chose amalgamation. We had it foist upon us. So it's not like the psychology I've just presented should be sufficient enough a factor to have people dig in their heels so heartily.

Nevertheless, it's there. Politicians, even before understanding the costs, even before considering the benefits (um...they'd have to be acknowledged, first...), even before assessing how things might be done regarding strategic uses of resources across the board...refuse to act like the elected officials they are, and instead roll their eyes, shake their heads and try to remonstrate the questioner. (Some in fact actually shift into 'lecture' mode.)

I think I've been pretty clear about how I feel about amalgamation in the editorials I've posted here. As someone who was born in Hamilton, brought up in Stoney Creek and lived a sizable portion of his life in the area-in-general, I can admit my loyalties are both split...and unified.

I believe that what Hamilton needs to do to secure a better future requires that its efforts, its resources be applied in a non-compromising way. That its reinvention, its rejuvenation -especially its downtown core- not be hindered by having to 'defend' its mandates to the peripheral partners in this current iteration of the city.

Similarly, I don't believe that the 'satellite' entities such as Stoney Creek should have to, for even one second kowtow to 'the greater good', nor should they have to apologize for feeling that they shouldn't. Further, that they deserve the right to continue their own standalone heritages, to be proud of what and who they are, and not have their own energies drained off...when it wasn't their choice to be corralled into the über-dynamic in the first place.

Hamilton deserves to address its own needs. So do Stoney Creek, Dundas, Ancaster, Flamborough and Glanbrook.

Virtually nothing in our world is 'impossible'. (Though, as Hamilton has become the 'can't do' community, we all may have convinced ourselves that this is the case.) So don't for a second believe anyone who tries to tell you that de-amalgamating is 'impossible'. More to the truth: they can't be bothered to try to get their head around the notion.

But no decision regarding de-amalgamation can be made before a) investigating the costs, b) determining the possible ramifications and benefits of a new paradigm, and c) how the residents of all the involved entities genuinely feel about the prospect of a fresh, independent start.

At the end of the day, if we can be honest about everything associated with de-amalgamation, then we might just be able to forge a new, brighter future.

But I have to admit that the impetus will have to come from us, the residents. After all, if our elected officials can't do something as practical as choose a site for the Pan Am Games stadium, then it's highly unlikely that they're going to be able to deal with something as conceptual as how we feel about where we live and how we live our lives there.