George Grant (philosopher) - Politics and Philosophy

Politics and Philosophy

In 1965, Grant published one of his most widely known works, Lament for a Nation, in which he deplored what he claimed was Canada's inevitable cultural absorption by the United States, a phenomenon referred to as 'continentalism'. He argued that the homogenizing effect in current affairs during the period when it was written would see the demise of Canadian cultural nationality. The importance of the text is reflected in its selection in 2005 as one of The Literary Review of Canada's 100 most important Canadian books. Grant articulated a political philosophy which was becoming known as Red Toryism. It promoted the collectivist and communitarian aspects of an older English conservative tradition, which stood in direct opposition to the individualist traditions of liberalism, and subsequently neo-liberalism. The subjects of his books, essays, public lectures, and radio addresses (many on CBC Radio in Canada) quite frequently combined philosophy, religion, and political thought. Grant strongly critiqued what he believed were the worst facets of modernity, namely unbridled technological advancement and a loss of moral foundations to guide humanity. He defined 'philosophy' as the search for the "purpose and meaning and unity of life". What he proposed in place of the modern spirit was a synthesis of Christian and Platonic thought which embodied contemplation of the 'good'. It is a synthesis that was given form by his neo-Hegelian Canadian idealism, which he had been a part of his upbringing (his grandfather had been student of John Caird and a close friend of John Watson) but only really took explicit form when he was introduced to Hegel's work by James Doull.

His first book, Philosophy in the Mass Age (1959), was his most explicitly Hegelian book. It began as a series of CBC lectures, and in it he posed the question of how human beings can reconcile moral freedom with acceptance of the view that an order exists in the universe beyond space and time. He applied a neo-Hegelian concept of history to the modern dilemma of reconciling freedom and order. He saw history as the progressive development of humanity's consciousness of freedom and Canada's unique combination of British traditional institutions and American individualism put it at the forefront of this final stage of history. In 1965, furious that the Liberal government had agreed to accept nuclear weapons, he published Lament for a Nation. At this point, Grant had been influenced by Leo Strauss and his neo-Hegelian conception of historical progress became more restrained, losing the hope that we had reached or were on the verge of reaching the fullest consciousness of freedom. Lament for a Nation created a sensation with its argument that Canada was destined to disappear into a universal and homogeneous state whose centre was the United States. The idea of progress had lost its connection to our moral development and had been co-opted into a utilitarian mastery of nature to satisfy human appetites. Technology and Empire (1969), a collection of essays edited by poet and friend Dennis Lee, deepened his critique of technological modernity; and Time as History, his 1969 Massey Lectures, explained the worsening predicament of the West through an examination of the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. Grant's works of the 1960s had a strong influence on the nationalist movement of the 1970s, though many of the New Left were uncomfortable with Grant's conservatism, his conventional Anglican Tory beliefs, Christian-Platonist perspective, and his uncompromising position against abortion.

Grant's last work was Technology and Justice (1986), which he prepared together with his wife, Sheila Grant. His three-decades-long meditation on French philosopher Simone Weil's works led to the conclusion that there were fundamental moral and spiritual flaws in Western civilization, consigning it to a fate of inevitable collapse. Nevertheless, Grant affirmed his belief that a better civilization could eventually replace it.