Some quotations from Lament for a Nation (1965), by George Grant

 

In Lament for a Nation (1965), George Grant writes as though Canada has already ceased to exist. While some of these quotations are satirical and ironic, they are all serious and even prescient. George Grant holds up Quebec as a model for an independent nation, French Canadians place national concerns over individual rights while the rest of Canada has the opposite approach; in other words, in Quebec there is a uniformity of national vision and resolve to attain it (the preservation of the French language and the possibility of independence); a vision of national purpose is lacking in the rest of Canada which seems to be following an American model for nationhood. Is Canada a "real" country? (Lucien Bourchard said it wasn't), or is English-Canada just a multi-cultural hodgepodge without any Canadian culture or belief in ourselves as a nation? 

 

On the disappearance of Canada:

... Canada's disappearance is not only necessary but good. As part of the great North American civilization, we enter wider horizons; Liberal policies are leading to a richer contentalism [sic]. (37)

 

In no society is it possible for many men to live outside the dominant assumptions of their world for very long. Where can people learn independent views, when newspapers and television throw at them only processed opinions? In a society of large bureaucracies, power is legitimized by conscious and unconscious processes. (42)

 

On the universal and homogeneous state:

The confused strivings of politicians, businessmen, and civil servants cannot alone account for Canada's collapse. This stems from the character of the modern era. The aspirations of progress have made Canada redundant. The universal and homogeneous state is the pinnacle of political striving. "Universal" implies a world-wide state, which would eliminate the curse of war among nations; "homogeneous" means all men would be equal, and war among classes would be eliminated. (53)

 

Modern civilization makes all local cultures anachronistic. Where modern science has achieved its mastery, there is no place for local cultures. It has often been argued that geography and language caused Canada’s defeat. But behind these there is a necessity that is incomparably more powerful. Our culture floundered on the aspirations of the age of progress. The argument that Canada, a local culture, must disappear can, therefore, be stated in three steps. First, men everywhere move ineluctably toward membership in the universal and homogenous state. Second, Canadians live next door to a society that is the heart of modernity. Third, nearly all Canadians think that modernity is good, so nothing   essential distinguishes Canadians from Americans. (54)

 

This world-wide society will be one in which all human beings can at last realize their happiness in the world without the necessity of lessening that of others. (56)

 

The belief in Canada's continued existence has always appealed against universalism. It appealed to particularity against the wider loyalty to the continent. If universalism is the most "valid modern trend," then is it not right for Canadians to welcome our integration into the empire? (85)

 

Liberalism was, in origin, criticism of the old established order. Today it is the voice of the establishment. (93)

 

... facts about our age must also be remembered: the increasing outbreaks of impersonal ferocity, the banality of existence in technological societies, the pursuit of expansion as an end in itself. Will it be good for men to control their genes? The possibility of nuclear destruction and mass starvation may be no more terrible that that of man tampering with the roots of his humanity. .. The powers of manipulations now available may portend the most complete tyranny imaginable. (94)

 

The classical philosophers asserted that a universal and homogenous state would be a tyranny. (96)

 

If the best social order is the universal and homogeneous state, then the disappearance of Canada can be understood as a step toward that order. If the universal and homogeneous state would be a tyranny, then the disappearance of even this indigenous culture can be seen as the removal of a minor barrier to that tyranny. (96)

 

On American Conservatives:

To return to the general argument. There is some truth in the claim of American conservatives. Their society does preserve constitutional government and respect for the legal rights of individuals in a way that the eastern tyrannies do not. (63)

 

Their concentration on freedom from governmental interference has more to do with nineteenth-century liberalism than with traditional conservatism, which asserts the right of the community to restrain freedom in the name of the common good. (64)

 

They are not conservatives in the sense of being the custodians of something that is not subject to change. They are conservatives, generally, in the sense of advocating a sufficient amount of order so the demands of technology will not carry the society into chaos. (67)

 

On the CBC:

The jaded public wants to be amused; journalists have to eat well. Reducing issues to personalities is useful to the ruling class. The "news" now functions to legitimize power, not to convey information. The politics of personalities helps the legitimizers to divert attention from issues that might upset the status quo. (7)

 

The Conservatives also justifiably felt that the CBC, then as today, gave too great prominence to the Liberal view of Canada. (19)

  

On the Quebec Nation:

The French Canadians had entered Confederation not to protect the rights of the individual but the rights of the nation. They did not want to be swallowed up by that sea which Henri Bourassa had called "l'américanisme saxonisant." (21)

 

In Canada outside of Quebec, there is no deeply rooted culture, and the new changes come in the form of ideology (capitalist and liberal) which seems to many a splendid vision of human existence. (43)

 

To turn to the more formidable tradition, the French Canadians are determined to remain a nation. During the nineteenth century, they accepted almost unanimously the leadership of their particular Catholicism--a religion with an ancient doctrine of virtue. After 1789, they maintained their connection with the roots of their civilization through their church and its city, which more than any other in the West held high a vision of the eternal. To Catholics who remain Catholics, whatever their level of sophistication, virtue must be prior to freedom. They will therefore build a society in which the right of the common good restrains the freedom of the individual. Quebec was not a society that would come to terms with the political philosophy of Jefferson or the New England capitalists. (75-76)

 

Yet to modernize their education is to renounce their particularity. At the heart of modern liberal education lies the desire to homogenize the world. Today's natural and social sciences were consciously produced as instruments to this end. (79)

 

On Tradition:

My lament is not based on philosophy but on tradition. If one cannot be sure about the answer to the most important questions, then tradition is the best basis for the practical. (96)

 

On the Future:

In political terms, liberalism is now an appeal for the "end of ideology." This means that we must experiment in shaping society unhindered by any preconceived notions of good. "The end of ideology" is the perfect slogan for men who want to do what they want. (57-58)

 

Implied in the progressive idea of freedom is the belief that men should emancipate their passions. When men are free to do what they want, all will be well because the liberated desires will be socially creative. (58)

 

The next wave of American "conservatism" is not likely to base its appeal on such unsuccessful slogans as the Constitution and free enterprise. Its leader will not be a gentleman who truly cares about his country's past. It will concentrate directly on such questions as "order in the streets" which are likely to become crucial in the years ahead. The battle will be between democratic tyrants and the authoritarianism of the right. If the past is a teacher to the present, it surely says that democratic Caesarism is likely to be successful. (This is a footnote, on page 67)

 

The kindest of all God's dispensations is that individuals cannot predict the future in detail. (87)

 

But if history is the final court of appeal, force is the final argument. (89)