Lise Ravary: Le Bonheur teacher’s rant strikes a chord and a nerve – Montreal Gazette

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When one reaches a certain age, it becomes hazardous to express traditional opinions about society. One risks being labelled an evil boomer.

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Things are weird right now. COVID-19 is turning our lives upside down, but there is more than that going on. When one reaches a certain age, it becomes hazardous to express out-of-the-box read: traditional opinions about society. One risks being branded an evil baby boomer with a mind shut tight like an alligators snout on its prey.

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As if years spent on this Earth count for nothing. As if past mistakes and successes mean nothing. As if the knowledge that a historically important generation, the post-war babies, acquired over the decades is irrelevant, because it is tainted by racism and transphobia and other discriminatory mental postures.

But, it seems, ageism is OK.

We are ignorant vieux schnoqueswho should shut up once and for all. But sometimes, our cauldron, too, boileth over.

Theres a fantastic new sitcom on TVA called Le Bonheur, about a French teacher who reaches the end of his rope with his inept students and decides to change his life and move to the country.

The first show opens with actor Michel Charette delivering a hysterical tirade as his character has a meltdown in front of his students.

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Year after year, I teach students more stupid that those from the previous year. After 20 years, what does it produce? Vegetables, ostie, not even capable of pluralizing horse, and who want to decide the sex of chairs, tabarnac.

His rant is so politically incorrect that all French-language media ran stories about it, and call-in shows lines were jammed with people who largely agreed with the main characters frustrations about modern youth.

At the same time, some academics earnestly bewailed the episode as deepening the generational divide, exaggerating youth viewpoints and even damaging the future of the French language by turning off youth with harsh criticism, perhaps even driving them to less-demanding English.

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No sense of humour there.

Generational head-butting is old. I grew up during the 60s and 70s when it probably reached a peak, fed by sex, drugs and rock and roll, and rage at the United States for the war in Vietnam. (When the Soviets brutally invaded Afghanistan in 1979, however, there werent anywhere near as many demos.)

Every generation has its blind spots. Ours but not mine was Marxism. While young people today might argue whether binary biological sex exists, we debated whether communism was a great idea badly implemented. I remember fist fights at the Pie IX mtro station near my house between Communists and Maoist CEGEP students.

Now, Marxism appears to be gaining appeal among millennials. In case you forgot, Marxism is all about the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the proletariat (working class people), and the establishment of a classless communist society.

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For example, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors, came out as a trained Marxist in 2015. BLM co-founder Alicia Garza, describes herself as a queer social justice activist and Marxist according to the Poynter Institutes PolitiFact . To include social justice and Marxism in the same sentence indicates she has missed a few history lessons.

Im not suggesting that all BLM supporters are Marxists, nor that anyone is wishing for the return of politburos and gulags, just that todays Marxists still seem to believe that if the cause is saintly enough, people can simply be rebooted.

Those of us who have been around a little longer generally dont harbour warm and fuzzy feelings for thing like disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure. Last year, after much controversy, BLM removed that line from its list of beliefs, but it remains part of Marxist doxa.

A bad idea then, a bad idea now. And forever.

The schism between young and old is as deep as the frustrations expressed by the teacher in Le Bonheur.

Every generation thinks it knows better than the one that preceded it. To todays youth, I say, be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

lravary@yahoo.com

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Lise Ravary: Le Bonheur teacher's rant strikes a chord and a nerve - Montreal Gazette