Ian MacKenzie

Empty’s Theme Park: Reflections On The Vancouver Riot

Photo: foxtongue

“Tell me will I dream?
And tell me will it be serene?
Or tell me will I stay
With my feet in exactly the same place?”
- Matthew Good, Empty’s Theme Park

I held off commenting directly on the Vancouver riots for some time, as I needed to formulate my thoughts. I didn’t want to succumb to the obvious sense of disgust and hatred towards these destructive hooligans, without reflecting on the type of society that pushes these acts to occur.

After all, we don’t live in a vacuum. Drunk, malicious hockey fans don’t wander out of the forest, before disappearing into the night. While many of them did not live directly in the city of Vancouver, they certainly came from the same culture.

An editorial in the Georgia Strait sums it up perfectly:

We can’t just blame a few “bad apples.” This riot didn’t happen on its own. Society as a whole ensured that it was the only outcome, starting with the assumption that our over-amped if not war-like passion for something as inconsequential as a hockey game is appropriate to begin with, let alone officially sanctioned. But hey, it’s a fucking goldmine for advertisers and a hell of a vacuum to suck in a growing population of bored, distracted, disassociated, and quietly despairing Lower Mainlanders marinated in the hegemony of cheap sensation, and governed by institutions hostile to art, truth, and beauty. It’s a problem that, as always, starts at the very top.

Reading this piece I was struck by how it reminded me of Tyler Durden’s devastating critique of consumerist society, in the film Fight Club:

“We’re the middle children of history…. no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives.” – Tyler Durden, Fight Club

The day after the riots, a photo comparing the various “reasons for rioting” began circulating the web. It compared the social unrest in Egypt, fueled by a populace fed up with dictatorship, against the senseless violence of largely suburban kids, protesting…what? The loss of the Stanely Cup? A trigger but not the reason.

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