The way things look now, it will be as hard to keep track of Jack’s afterlife as it was to keep up with the pace he set in his all-too-brief existence down here.
His death has inspired an extraordinary outpouring of sorrow, love and spiritual reflection that will go down in history as a critical moment in our evolving Canadian identity.
The difficulty with interpreting a charismatic presence is that charisma is about the willingness of others to project their own thinking, struggles, hopes and dreams onto another’s magnetic personality.
Some read Jack as the ultimate social democrat. It’s undeniable that this was a huge part of his life, but he was bigger than life because he challenged social democracy the same way he took on any expression of the old order.
I believe the essence of that challenge transcends – or perhaps redefines, enriches and expands – politics as it’s been practised for at least a generation. It may take decades to catch up with what Jack got a glimpse of during his flat-out, exuberant and engaged lifetime.
Jack believed in the need for deep-seated and soulful personal engagement. He called on people to improve themselves as a precondition for effective change in public policy. He wasn’t overly “politically correct,” because his starting point wasn’t “the personal is political” as much as “the political is personal.”
In contrast to conventional welfare-state liberalism and social democracy, which the birthing of the New Democratic Party in 1961 brought together, Layton’s signature campaigns began with the need for individual commitment, not just government intervention.
The pre-Layton conception of socialism was that governmental change would do the trick without much need for personal responsibility or exertion. Laws and institutions, not individuals, were the focus of efforts for reform.
But Jack called on men to take responsibility for ending violence against women. Protective laws were essential but could never be sufficient without personal commitment by those perpetrating violence.
Likewise, he called on people to compost and recycle, conserve energy and water, garden and stop smoking because these were campaigns that couldn’t get to first base unless people made individual efforts that government might then support and enable.
This enabling conception of government, I believe, was unique. I remember going with Layton in 1993 to a meeting of Ontario Hydro executives after we formed the Coalition for a Green Economy. Before sitting down, Jack walked to the window, raised the shades to let the sun shine in, and then turned off the lights. He pointed out that there was no need for artificial light when there was plenty of daylight.
Hydro brass couldn’t believe their eyes. It was Jack’s way of saying, “You’ve got to respect and engage with life forces before we do the technocratic think about how we use them.”
Layton expressed this understanding of public policy on food issues in a way that foreshadowed how typical legislation will be drafted in the emerging era, when personal and public spheres play back and forth. Jack and Debbie Field of FoodShare, for example, developed a cost-shared, partnership-based funding model for school meals that included contributions from family, city, the board of education, the province and federal government. Is this privatization or publicization, or should we call it the laytonization of public and personal responsibility?
Jack treated public space as sacred. His joyful moments were often public: his wedding, his cavorting at Pride and Caribana parades, his distribution of multiple copies of folk song book Rise Up Singing at parties so people could join in, his hilarity as an auctioneer for hundreds of fundraising organizations. No surprise that he told his spiritual adviser, Brent Hawkes, that he treated each day as an act of worship.
I think Jack calls us to reconsider secularism. To embrace religious tolerance doesn’t require keeping public life free of personal beliefs or spiritual opportunities. The public realm has too long been seen as a government-monopolized sphere.
Once, during a 1999 meeting of Toronto’s Environmental Task Force, which he chaired and I worked on, there was a discussion of the crucial role played by marshes – swamps, they used to be called before their crucial importance and beauty were appreciated. I publicly asked Jack if he was ready to declare himself an unabashed marshist. “Yes, I am a marshist,” he said to great applause.
His concept of the public sphere, which he saw as sacred, went far beyond the idea of government. This gave him the courage to speak openly and publicly about love – not only his deep devotion to Olivia and family, but his deep love for people he barely knew.
Jack saw and named a role for love in public life. Without starting an argument about who the “J” in the evangelical WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) really is, this was the message of two of history’s great rebel leaders. Jesus called on people to love their enemies as themselves. Gandhi allowed no one to join his circle of militant supporters unless he or she loved the British. The goal, Gandhi insisted, was not liberation from British rule, but self-rule and self-liberation, which required love of the other.
Whether Jack was mindful of this heritage or not, I do not pretend to know.
But there is no doubt that he worked hard to honour this code and came to a point where he could share with the country his lesson of a lifetime. Do you mind if I repeat it?
“Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
This call to reflection and action goes beyond social democracy. It is liberation democracy, a spirit now abroad in the land.
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