is such a damnable word. In the middle-class lexicon “progressive” now means that most of the people I have known and loved are somehow less than others, who think and rationalize about compassion and fairness. As a case in point, I grew up with boys from rural New Brunswick who would bring their guns to school, so they could hunt on the way back home. I know we cannot do this today—I am not saying we should. But rifles were not something naturally feared when I was a boy. They became a part of a society feared by whole sections of intellectuals, who tell us that it is only conservatives and right-wingers who are paranoid about the “other.” Most of the people determined to align rifles with murder and thugs have never handled rifles—and don’t know the differences between them. In our modern novels, most often the hunter is also the subhuman, not a man of any grace or courage—unless the hunter is a First Nations man. They cannot be seen to be the “other.” Of course I am not saying they should ever be—but in a strange paradox, First Nations people are actually recognized as “other”
