Waiting for Coraf: A Critique of Law and Rights

David E. Smith is a professor of political science at the University of
Saskatchewan and the author of Building a Province: A History of
Saskatchewan in Documents and The Invisible Crown.

The title of this book needs explanation. “Coraf” is an acronym for
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the gerund phrase in which it
appears is an allusion to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Actually, it is more than an allusion, since the author draws a
“metaphorical comparison” between his work and the famous play by
the Irish dramatist. But metaphors can be distracting—and even
deceptive, as is the case here. For while Godot is suffused in
ambiguity, Coraf is crystalline in intent—to indict modern liberalism.


Hutchinson argues that prevailing attitudes to law and rights, the
Charter, and liberalism itself obstruct the realization of a democratic
and egalitarian society: “Liberalism is a failure; it cannot pass
conceptual, social, legal, or political muster.” “Rights-talk,” a
favorite phrase in these pages, disguises a “conservative ideology”
because it “trivializes and devalues profound human interests.” For
example, the right to free speech offers no answer “to how society
should deal with thorny problems such as pornography [or] hate
literature,” and the courts, who now are supposed to provide the
answer, speak in an abstract language unrelated to the world of policy.
Coraf appeared before the Supreme Court struck down legislation limiting
tobacco advertising (September 1995), but the controversy that decision
created echoed many of the arguments found here. Thus Hutchinson is a
stern critic of Supreme Court decisions (“all too predictable”) and
of scholars who fail to recognize the tyranny of rights-talk
(“dewy-eyed Corafians”). In his eyes, dependence on laws and the
courts undermines citizenship and devalues “civic conversation.”

This is a book with a strong, even polemical, critique for those who do
not share the author’s assumptions about the nature of politics and
society. As such, it is singularly distinct from the journey of
self-discovery for which Godot is a modern metaphor.