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Heavy thoughts under leaden skies

Two of Canada’s premier cultural commentators visit town and chat about all that is Whistler I sense something strange – something out of the ordinary – as I take a quick glance around Whistler village on this particular Sunday morning

Two of Canada’s premier cultural commentators visit town and chat about all that is Whistler

I sense something strange – something out of the ordinary – as I take a quick glance around Whistler village on this particular Sunday morning.

Although it’s nearly 10:30, the village is pretty much empty except for a few stragglers, who look as pale as the overcast sky, on their way to bed after a night of debauchery in one of the resort’s umpteen bars.

Something tells me that there’s not a lot of philosophical debate or serious thinking that goes on around here – Whistler is not known around the world as the home of Einstein-type thinkers.

Considering the circumstances, it is a bit ironic to be sitting outside of Tapley’s pub engaged in a Socratic conversation with the person who has been called Canada’s most important social and cultural theorist since Marshall "the medium is the message" McLuhan.

I’ve managed to corral Mark Kingwell for a few minutes after he has finished speaking to a conference room full of 300 public relations professionals.

Kingwell is a serious thinker. He teaches philosophy at the University of Toronto and is the author of four much-heralded books (his latest is The World We Want: Vice, Virtue and the Good Citizen ).

His essays have appeared in more than 25 high-brow magazines, including Harper’s , the Utne Reader , Saturday Night , Adbusters and Shift , while his commentaries are a staple in the National Post and his book reviews frequent in the Globe and Mail .

Kingwell has been nominated three times for a National Magazine Award and, as one of the Globe and Mail ’s "five most-quoted Canadians," he can usually be found speaking somewhere on TV or radio about current issues.

But despite the heady praise and impressive resume, he has been accused of being a talking head and worse, a – gasp – media whore.

A couple of years ago, the CBC show Undercurrents named Kingwell as their "pundit of the year." Last year, the Montreal-based online Good Magazine ran a "Kingwell Week" that featured five days of satirical stories. (He dismisses both as "mean-spirited" and "irrelevant.")

As a light drizzle starts to fall on us, Kingwell muses on why Whistler is such a good case study for what is happening around the world.

"It’s like Disneyland," he tells me between sips on a bottle of water. "All the public spaces have been taken over by retail."

Within a five-minute stroll of where we are sitting is a Gap store, two Starbucks cafes and a Nike outlet – just like anywhere else in the global village.

"We could be in Banff or Vail. There’s such a banality, a sameness to it all and that’s a shame," he says. "Local cultures are in danger of losing their public spaces to the marketplace. A community needs a place where people can meet and have conversations as citizens or else we’ll all become mentally cramped."

And with multi-million dollar homes that sit empty for the bulk of the year and a buy-buy-buy ethos that pervades Whistler, Kingwell ponders whether we are citizens or consumers.

"There is an escalating gap between the haves and have-nots and you can absolutely see it around here," he says.

Kingwell’s Sunday morning sermon echoes a column he wrote for the National Post during last April’s anti-globalization demonstrations in Quebec City.

"The world is becoming more and more private, individual, and driven by an insane quest for personal wealth. Who are we becoming?"

These same philosophical questions now apply to Whistler – a community that was once full of naked ski-bums and others whose sole quest was to get as high as humanly possible in the mountains.

But Kingwell does see a way to reconcile the past and present with the future.

"We need to be more compassionate and empathetic towards each other," he explains. "We need to bridge the distance and belong to something bigger than ourselves.

"It is our duty to each other because we will be less than ourselves if we don’t."

And as if those weren’t enough heavy thoughts for one day, I was able to chat with yet another highly respected thinker who was speaking at the same conference.

Evan Solomon is another known as a mover-and-shaker on Canada’s culture scene. He has been recognized by Maclean’s magazine as one of "100 Canadians to watch," while the Globe and Mail selected him to a list of notable Canadians who are "shaping the nation."

Solomon is the founding editor of Shift magazine and the host of CBC Newsworld’s Hot Type , a show about contemporary print culture. He is also a regular columnist on The National , CBC’s flagship news broadcast, the former host of the award-winning show Futureworld, a novelist and a contributor to various magazines and newspapers.

Solomon is part of a new gang of Toronto-based Canadian media gurus which includes uber-pundit Kingwell, TV host and fomer MuchMusic VJ Avi Lewis and No Logo author Naomi Klein, as well as Vancouver novelist-cum-artist Douglas Coupland.

(Solomon believes writers and such are uniquely qualified to comment on culture and society because they are professional observers. "They have a profound insight and understanding into the human condition," he explains.)

We sat across from each other on some dismantled sound equipment after being kicked out of an empty banquet room by the Whistler Conference Centre’s cleanup staff.

Solomon is an expert on the latest in technology such as computers and the Internet but cautions not to get too wrapped up in being a consumer instead of a person.

"Despite all the technology, people forget the one thing you can’t buy… creativity and skill," he says, noting that people too often focus on the latest-and-greatest and dismiss the tried-and-true.

"Skiing at Whistler is the perfect example – you don’t have to have the latest gear," he says, "because the comforts of technology cannot deliver inspiration." Solomon does, however, believe that technology – like Gore-Tex clothing, the latest pair of fat skis or a dual-suspension mountain bike – do allow people to experience the good things life has to offer.

"Technology is supposed to ease the burden, not create one," he says. "It is a means to an end, not one unto itself.

"Society provides technology that alleviates unnecessary discomfort so we can feel pleasurable discomfort and the thrill of being alive."

Philosophy and technology aside, one old saw seems to sum it up concisely – the more things change, the more they stay the same. Life goes on, just like the seasons come and go each year.

Despite Whistler’s façade of kitsch-and-glitz, this place does have a soul and moments of lucidity are available for free.

Forget about all the hype and all the marketing. The best way to keep it real is to get involved in the community, have a meaningful conversation with someone or – even better – just get as high as humanly possible in the mountains.