A Review and Critique of “Multiculturalism in Canada: Constructing a Model Multiculture with Multicultural Values,” Part II

The Brimelow Comparison: Heroes and Political Greatness

For those who seek an education in the particular impact of postmodernism on the West in general, and on Canada in particular, Forbes’ magisterial study may well be the necessary first step. But in order to gain a fuller sense of what Forbes has in fact done in Multiculturalism in Canada I believe it will be helpful to compare and contrast this work with Peter Brimelow’s “classic” study of Canada from the 1980’s entitled The Patriot Game, a book which has never received the close attention it deserves.

The Brimelow and Forbes’ books do overlap to a very considerable extent in respect of the subject matter covered, which, loosely phrased, would be “The Trudeauvian Revolution.” And although Multiculturalism in Canada and the The Patriot Game are separated by over three decades, which to say the least, is a long time in political history, at the heart of both books is the simple question “What Happened?” ^[1] To be sure, much has changed since The Patriot Game came out and so various elements of Brimelow’s discussion would need to be updated, especially concerning the Bloc Quebecois, mass immigration, 9/11, globalism, Islam and so on. But for all that, Brimelow’s analysis of certain Canadian phenomena is so effective that generally speaking his book could be employed as a useful launching pad by the politically minded individual who is setting out on his or her quest for the essential truth about Canadian politics. But for all their “overlap” on the career of Pierre Trudeau and the rise of “National Trudeauvianism,” it has to be observed that there are certain moments in Brimelow’s book that have absolutely no equivalent in that of Forbes (and almost by definition, vice versa).

The difference of approach between Forbes and Brimelow involves the distinction between the social scientific-academic mind and what might be called the politico-journalistic one.^[2] This distinction explains the role which human greatness plays in Brimelow’s work and its complete absence from that of Forbes.  Brimelow never fails to conduct his readers to the possibility of heroism being a vital part of a nation’s political history.^[3]  This fact must be connected to the additional consideration that when it comes to readability, clarity, orderliness and turn of phrase, Brimelow is much Forbes’ superior.

Brimelow’s feels it to be a necessity to consider whether or not we live in a in “a less (than) heroic age.”^[4] Such is markedly not a question which comes to the front and center of Forbes’ Kulturkritk.  Raising this question by referring to the possible disappearance of the hero from the domain of  social science and from society itself, is to suggest that heroism or political greatness should be considered a legitimate standard for political judgment. In short, observations of nobility and ignobility deserve a place at the social science table.

Of course, the idea of heroism and hero-worship implies the availability of radical statements of value. It suggests the possibility of clearly distinguishing between the figure of the hero and the figure of the traitor or coward. Not a pleasant thought in the age of “Equity Egalitarianism.” But for Brimelow the Canadian experience is unthinkable without bringing into view all the great Canadian figures from Wolfe and Montcalm to Macdonald and Laurier to Diefenbaker and Pearson and so on.^[5]

Homo Canadensis: Looking Up to Pierre Trudeau

In his assessment of Pierre Trudeau’s impact on the Canadian psyche, Brimelow tends to follow what might be labelled a “Straussian” approach. I say “Straussian” because Strauss argued that a regime is defined by the specific type of human being up to which it looks – soldier, priest, businessman, agriculturalist, “intellectual” and so on. Brimelow implicitly follows this line of argument when he states that Pierre Trudeau “was an almost surreal specimen of the future Homo Canadensis.” He represented “the human ideal to which sufficient eons of evolution and Liberal government would presumably refine the lumpen Canadian masses.” Homo Trudeauensis was the human “telos” of the New Canada.^[6]

So it is that Brimelow is alive to the question of nobility in politics and its connection to the politeia or regime. Of the general phenomenon of Quebec separatism, he states that “There was nothing inherently ignoble or illiberal about (it).”^[7] Of the enigmatic figure of Trudeau, Brimelow states in no uncertain terms that he was a “Great Man” and as such we need to appreciate “the secret of (his) political greatness.” This special secret, Brimelow argues, is “to be found in his heart rather than his head.” This remained the case even though Trudeau had a  tendency to talk endlessly about “rationality” and la raison avant la passion. It is not intellect or the quality of rational thought that Brimelow thinks points to Trudeau’s greatness but his possession of such qualities as his “vehemence combined with a romantic and drama-loving streak.”^[8]

It is manifest then that Brimelow does not mean by “Great Man” a towering force of intellect or a philosophical prodigy. Some commentators however have insisted that “in sheer power and range, Trudeau’s mind is the finest of all our Prime Ministers.”  And one observer even went so far as to say that Trudeau and Canada had finally closed the gap between philosophy and the city which was claimed to be achieved in Plato’s Republic. For George Radawanski “the election of Trudeau was, in a limited sense, an experiment with the Platonic concept of a philosopher-king, a leader chosen exclusively for the quality of his thought.” ^[9]

Such fulsome praise of Trudeau for his intellect in particular is indeed risible if we consider some of his predecessors in the office of Canadian Premier. Forbes himself says that we can “learn nothing of substance” from Pierre Trudeau. But this is not his attitude towards the work of the “political philosopher and political scientist” Will Kymlicka.  This distinction between the non-philosopher and the “philosopher” or “intellectual” as drawn by Forbes is markedly absent in Brimelow’s The Patriot Game. Trudeau “is what he is” for Brimelow. We might never be in a position to learn anything of substance about multiculturalism from this man, but for Brimelow that does not mean we cannot learn something from him about political greatness. ^[10]

Brimelow argues for the implicit absurdity of praising Trudeau for his high intellect as is done by commentators such as Gwyn and Radawanski. He goes on to explain that in fact Trudeau was “much more influenced by Wassily Leontief and by Joseph Schumpeter, under whom he had studied at Harvard” than he was by John Kenneth Galbraith.^[11]  In other words, the commentators had it backwards – Trudeau, far from being a fraternal-Canadian with Galbraith was more indebted to Galbraith’s rivals in the field of economics. ^[12]

Brimelow also points to Trudeau’s obviously “tongue in cheek” comment that “I have probably read more of Dostoevsky, Stendahl and Tolstoy than the average statesmen, and less of Keynes, Mill and Marx.”^[13] Brimelow takes this to mean that Trudeau’s much admired studies in political economy “were not altogether serious.” But this meant nothing as far as Trudeau’s being hired “presumably on the basis of his education” as a “junior economist” on the staff of Canada’s Privy Council Office in 1949.^[14]

In other words, Trudeau had more or less admitted that he was a kind of intellectual fraud and people like Gwynn and Radawanski presumably couldn’t see it. For his part, Brimelow is suggesting that Trudeau’s “shrewdness” in pretending to be a serious economist when in fact he was not, reflects the greatness “factor” that he was later to show when in power. As Brimelow says, “A little learning can be a dangerous thing, but in Canada it can also be an effective thing, at least for Pierre Trudeau.”^[15]

Brimelow’s case for Trudeau’s greatness is premised on the view that democratic countries are usually governed by “indecisive, timorous, (and) confused politicians” who instinctively follow from the front by and large always prove to be “incapable of organizing an office let alone a state.”^[16] The personality type that tends to “flourish in democratic politics” differs from the traditional heroic conception of “Leader of Men.”

Brimelow is also insistent that commentators such as Gwynn and Radawanski have no conception of the distinction between “intellectuality” and political greatness. Trudeau’s intellectual powers and attainments were nothing special, but his public activity had in it a touch of the grand.  Intellect is one thing, and the mysterious element of political greatness is another. In effect then, the commentators have it all backwards.  Trudeau’s philosophical intellect was nothing special but in politics this need not at all be the necessary end of the story.

For his part, Brimelow does indeed make use of both academic and journalistic sources but he never fully leaves the citizen horizon behind in prosecuting his case. His particular version of the social scientific consciousness maintains an awareness of the political significance of hockey parents at the rink and the clerk at the corner variety store one might say. This is essential for him if he is to provide a fuller sense of the extent of the regime change of the 1970’s and subsequently. ^[17] Thus, he states quite bluntly that multiculturalism-bilingualism is a “fraud,” and by all measures it would seem that Forbes is in agreement with him. The difference between the two is not as to logical purpose but to do with abbreviation and forthrightness.

Interpreting and Valuing

Given Forbes’ manifest value judgements with regard to certain questions he might fairly be categorized as a “quasi-objectivist.” But by implication this would also mean he could be denominated a “quasi-relativist.” It is then as an “Objectivist-Relativist” that Forbes explains that he is only capable of a relative and as distinct from an absolute dispassion in the face of his subject. The specifically “Forbesian” approach involves above all the activities of “interpreting, thinking and valuing” (Forbes’ italics).^[18]  Hence Forbes is incapable of reducing his personal “input” to zero as much as he is a trained and disciplined social scientist. ^[19] His goal is not to seek an understanding of multiculturalism “by correlating the undisputed facts about its institutional development with other facts about prior events and social conditions.” To do so is to assume that there is “a mechanical linkage of some kind between the earlier ‘facts’ and the later ‘acts.’”^[20]   Rather, his aim is “to present a full and positive understanding of multiculturalism. To this end he is prepared to present a “medley of bare, value-free ‘facts’’as well an examination of the phenomenon of multiculturalism by approaching it “as an ongoing project and an imagined destination.” With this goal in mind, it is necessary that he should attempt to show his readers “a relatively dispassionate, disengaged clarification of the distinctive multicultural values that justify support for the ultimate goals of Canada’s multicultural policies and institutions…and that put limits on their acceptance of diversity and tolerance” (Italics added).^[21]

So Forbes then is not an “absolutely” dispassionate and disengaged observer. But then on the other hand, he cannot be absolutely “passionate” and “engaged” with his subject either, as this would smack of partisanship. Accordingly, Forbes does not wish to give a wink to partisanship of any kind because partisanship seems to have an intrinsic connection to that horror of horrors – Anger!^[22]  Such caution informs Forbes’ specific aim which “is to show the important conceptual links that have created a hierarchy of multicultural values, in order to get a better idea of the ‘vector of integration’ that results from their being combined to determine a direction of advance.”^[23]

Forbes suggests that Canada has been intellectually confused over time, and thus was doomed to make some serious policy errors. He says this as one who lives in a “limbo land” between actual politics on the one hand and political science on the other. He explains that “Values indicated by words such as diversity, tolerance, equality, freedom, recognition, authenticity, and openness “are often very puzzling” because although they are “much more than just personal tastes or arbitrary preferences,” they cannot in fact provide us with “hard rules nor definite principles that can be spelled out clearly.” Rather they occupy “the open space between principles and preferences” and in so doing they cannot be more than “direction signs” providing us with “basic guidance.” “They point to important, more or less obligatory considerations that everyone is supposed to take into account when choosing between better and worse courses of action.”^[24] Those seeking clear guidance via the means of “Command Ethics” would do well to pass by the sirens of multiculturalism.^[25]

So let us denominate Forbes a “metaphysical” positivist as distinct from a “mechanical” one. Forbes is evidently playing a “half and half” game here. But we are glad to see that his factualistic positivism is radically compromised by his sense of obligation to present multiculturalism’s “imagined destination” or its claim to be the “Best Regime.” Forbes then is no Aristophanean Eryximachus who utterly loses sight of his own place in the order of things because of his drive to specialized knowledge in his own science.  One might say, paraphrasing Max Weber, that Forbes is not necessarily a “specialist without vision.” But we can readily allow this point without at all denying that he could possibly be “a voluptuary without heart.”

We are obliged to address this possibility because Forbes is clear that he would never simply abandon himself to his own value tendencies as deep in him as they might be. Such an abandonment could lead to wild and unsustainable asseverations. As he says, “value words are (indeed) tricky things” and if they are simply allowed to “guide our thinking (they) can easily lead it astray.”^[26]

So Forbes is induced to ask whether or not there might be an “unacceptable assumption of superiority implicit in any demand that others conform, when this is not an absolute (practical) necessity?” What he is driving at here is shown by the fact that native-born Canadians with white skins sometimes find it difficult to make the right distinctions between necessary uniformity and optional diversity.^[27] They tend to be rather undiscriminating on this point. But at the same time they can be all too discriminating in the sense of inclining to discriminate against the newcomers if they seem to be “different,” particularly if they differ in their “religious, sexual, or political customs.”^[28] These specific kinds of differences tend to make even moderate, intelligent, educated Canadians reveal their faith that their own practices, such as sexual liberation and gender equality, “are clearly superior.” “(S)ophisticated, affluent, and successful Canadians,” who make a claim of education and professional success would presumably be immune to ethnic intolerance. But in fact, they end up “judging others by their own familiar standards and finding them deficient,” as do their less educated fellow-citizens. Their unstated conclusion is that “the newcomers should be kept subordinate (or at least isolated), so that their inferior beliefs and practices, which they are unwilling or unable to shed, will not infect the superior culture of Canadians.” Rather than wholeheartedly celebrating diversity, these still somewhat “ethnocentric” or even “xenophobic” Canadians may secretly oppose it or even openly deplore it.^[29]

We are struck by this attack on the Canadian “elite” classes to the point where it dawns on us that Professor Forbes obviously resides among them.^[30] If there exists one modern, intelligent, educated, sophisticated, successful Canadian it would have to be H.D. Forbes. But this fact simply puts him in an advantageous position to detect any signs of bigotry and racism that might be found in the halls of academe where he and Canada’s very “best and brightest” are frequently to be found. After all, Don Cherry was in no position to defend himself when under attack for controversial comments on the question of immigration. He was not in a position to respond: “I know for a fact that such things are also said by many Canadian academics in our universities.”^[31]

Detachment and Attachment

Forbes explains that his study “has been guided by the idea that it is possible to treat multicultural values ‘positively’ or ‘factually,’ avoiding both the waggling fingers of the ‘normative theorists’ and the deferential posture of the ‘social scientists.’”^[32] His assumption all along here is that multiculturalism in Canada will only be properly understood if the distinctive “values” which are definitive of its goals and priorities are clearly profiled. This is because “values define projects, one can say, and multiculturalism has been a Canadian project since the 1960s.”^[33]

Forbes describes the single “main line of thought” that unifies and harmonizes his whole   project as the concept of “a detached examination of the values associated with multiculturalism in Canada.”^[34] His ultimate goal is to “shed a clear light on multiculturalism’s nature as a political programme or project.” In short, Forbes’ study of multiculturalism is meant to be both “idealistic” and “interpretive.” It will scrutinize multicultural values with the aim of clarifying just exactly “what multiculturalism is.”^[35]

As it happens, at one point Leo Strauss spoke directly to the question of Forbes’ purposes here.  If we wish to be firm in our philosophical detachment, he says, we will be led to a serious   “attachment to the indispensable conditions of detachment and therewith also to firm rejections.” What this ultimately means is that “the commitment to scholarship is bound to have political consequences.” The dedication to scholarship produces consequences that are not free from ambiguity since “every society consists chiefly of men not committed to scholarship.” It follows then that the “interest” of the scholars as scholars and the “interest” of the non-scholars are not necessarily in harmony. In other words, scholarship cannot be politically neutral even if it wanted to be.  It has to be aware of its “indispensable conditions” and therefore be prepared to reject any politics that would endanger them.  Given the possible antagonism between the scholars and the non-scholars, the scholars should be prepared to work towards a community in which the non-scholar might be more well-disposed to them, or in Strauss’s words, a community which presupposes its purpose is “the preservation (of) freedom from barbarian domination”^[36]

Forbes does show awareness of Strauss’s problem in his study but he is careful to explain that he has relied partially, if not indeed exclusively, on a “dispassionate scholarly account” rendered by two professors for certain key pillars of his understanding.^[37] But at the very same time he tips his hat to Strauss’s stated concern in explaining that he has supplemented the research of these academics with “insights of some more partisan discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of the informality and broad discretion…of the procedures of human rights commissions.”^[38] In other words, there are the academic or scholarly authorities on the one hand, and more official authorities on the other hand to be found in Human Rights Commissions on the other, who are “respectable” because they are “academic” and/or “official.”

But at the same time there are other sources of understanding that qualify as more distinctively “partisan,” and so might lack the immediate purchase of the more respectable authorities. But although he might address the question of partisanship elsewhere, Strauss says nothing about it in his specific comments on the “attachment to detachment” question. For his part Forbes speaks as though partisanship is a simple impossibility for academic researchers and state officials. Not surprisingly then the “partisan” knowledge with which Forbes supplements his account, unlike the “non-partisan” information supplied by academic researchers and state officials, is unsourced by Forbes. Is he leaving his “partisan” authorities unnamed because their naming might lead some of his readers to conclude that he is prone to serious “professional” lapses? Is Forbes afraid that he might be seen to allow “street knowledge” to compromise his professionalism?^[39]

“The Normative Impulse”

Forbes makes a special plea to his potential critics to “restrain their normative impulse,” at least long enough to give him a hearing.^[40] What he means here is that even the most die-hard positive-relativists harbor something like an inner natural drive which he labels the “normative impulse.”^[41] The idea that all that occurs in the world, both human and non-human, is a product of necessity, and therewith that the natural order is “value free” might be accepted down to the very marrow of one’s bones, but for all that there will remain somehow the “normative impulse.”^[42] Allow this claim as established and social science loses all its freedom to deny the role of value judgments in human activities. In other words, what difference will it actually make if one accepts Nietzsche claim that “all becoming is innocent,” one will inevitably give way to his or her “normative impulse” sooner or later? Mankind will force their morality onto an indifferent world whether the world likes it or not. The only possibility remaining then is to distinguish between those who are more or less aware of the trap of the “normative impulse,” and those who are less so. Forbes feels he must place his opponents in this latter category but presumably not himself.

We may gain a sense of the extent to which Forbes the social scientist succumbs to his own “normative impulse” by citing a few outstanding examples of his judgments of value. He says at one point that “(T)he value put on honesty and gratitude excludes liars, cheats, and freeloaders from the class of those whose ‘difference’ is to be recognized and celebrated.” Moreover, “Idiots are excluded by the value of intelligence.” [43] Forbes also says that “respect for life means that murderers cannot claim recognition for their contribution to diversity, even though they obviously make an enormous contribution to entertainment on television and elsewhere.” Forbes is keen to add here “that the common understanding of love and the value put on it also excludes pedophiles, rapists necrophiliacs and coprophiliacs from serious consideration for official recognition as identities to be celebrated.”^[44]

Forbes further explains that such isolated, problematic practices, as “incest” or “buggery” are no longer problems for multiculturalist theory as a consensus has settled to the effect that they are issues distinct from the multicultural field of concern.^[45] “Even in our more enlightened democratic age,” Forbes says, “should one not be taken aback by the suggestion that idiots, brutes, petty thieves, murderers, and fundamentalists deserve as much recognition, honour, esteem, respect, etc. as, say, full professors of philosophy or political science at major universities?”^[46] As Forbes sees it, “Only an idiot” could fail to see that “identifiable groups” alone are to be the beneficiaries of the progressive efforts to equalize recognition. So it barely needs to be stated that for one to recommend that “idiots and philosophers…be given equal honour and respect” one would have to be an idiot in the first place, precisely because “these groups are not really identifiable.”^[47]

At one point, Forbes suggests that a truly multicultural country might even learn to value its bigots, eccentrics and its “moderate extremists” (whoever these may be) in that they could “play the role of the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ whose singing might provide the most sensitive indication of the positive or negative effects of different experimental treatments.”^[48] Forbes also makes reference to a certain category of citizens who carry the titles “bigots,” “snobs” along with those that may be called “hairsplitters.” These are the types who might deny possible victims “the recognition they crave and think they are owed.”[49]

Forbes use of the language of “bigots, snobs and hairsplitters” indicates his true feelings about having people up before the authorities for failure to show every respect and the highest possible esteem for other members of the multicultural community. But a solution to the problem posed by these back-sliders is to hand – they can be “compelled to provide (the necessary respect and esteem)…by the police, the courts, or a Human Rights Commission” (Emphasis added).^[50] Such miscreants will not be allowed to slink off without paying their due respect to the official “recognizes.”

It is so refreshing to see perhaps Canada’s foremost social scientist here using certain somewhat traditional terminology in order to refer to practices which according to some elements of modern opinion “should be welcomed as enhancements of diversity” while other citizens want them “condemned as inappropriate.”^[51] It is very rarely if at all that one will study a social science at the level of sophistication which Forbes has provided us, and see it peppered with such nouns as “pedophiles,” “rapists,” “necrophiliacs,” “coprophiliacs,” “idiots,” “brutes,” “petty thieves,” “murderers,” “liars,” “cheats,” and  “freeloaders” – Bravo Professor Forbes!

“No Further Introduction” or, La Trahison de Taylor

Perhaps the sharpest contrast with the “Brimelow-Straussian” approach to political phenomena is that of the highly distinguished academic Charles Taylor who might be described as Forbes’ “villain of the (multicultural) piece.” If Forbes is prepared to adjudge some persons as “idiots” he is also not averse to suggesting that other persons might actually be traitors. In discussing the work of Taylor, Forbes points out “Canada’s foremost philosopher and public intellectual…(who) needs no further introduction” might even qualify for this label. To be sure Taylor is a man of “immense philosophical erudition, encompassing not just epistemology, theology, ontology, axiology, and sociology, but also history, language, religion, literature, and ethics.” According to Forbes, Taylor’s Inaugural Lecture for the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University entitled “The Politics of Recognition,” stands today as probably the single most widely read, cited, and discussed philosophic interpretation of multiculturalism.”^[52]

But to say the least Forbes has his criticisms to make of Taylor. He describes Taylor as a “professional moralist” who for whatever set of reasons is guilty of advancing “the absurdity of conformist non-conformity.” ^[53] For the ordinary observer, to see a distinguished academic figure such as Taylor embodying such absurdity might make him wish to tear his hair out. But in what is perhaps the understatement of the year, Forbes simply says that Taylor’s discussion of mutual recognition delivers us to “a discouraging result.”^[54] But Forbes simply wonders whether all the earnest multiculturalist talk about “shared values that define a common identity” might be just so much fluff?  Is there no hope of reasonable dialogue, no possibility of appeal to established principles, “no rational basis for resolving cross-cultural conflicts, no credible promise of peace?” Forbes encounter with Taylor and others suggest that the answer is “No.”^[55]

When we come to what might be called Forbes’ most evaluative statement concerning Taylor, we find him reminding his readers of Trudeau’s willingness to “play footsie” with “communist tyrants” such as Fidel Castro. Some of his critics at the time who were scandalized by his passion for Castro could not resist trumpeting. When some such observers sought to make sense of Trudeau’s purposes, they tended to conclude that as much as anything he might be a card-carrying communist. In this connection, the word “treason” was not unheard, (to say nothing of the inuendo that Margaret Trudeau’s relationship with the dictator might have been a little too close for comfort).  Having here raised the question of treason in relation to Pierre Trudeau’s strange tangle of ideological allegiances, the same issue emerges in relation to Taylor.^[56]

Although Forbes shies away from using the specific word, he basically accuses Taylor of downright treason to his country.^[57] In Forbes’ terms, Taylor is manifestly guilty of “deliberately creating national disunity, in order to weaken (her) war-making potential.” By any strictly legal definition the act of “deliberately creating national disunity,” not as a by-product of vigorous, political contention in the pele mele of rough and tumble electioneering and so on, but for the very specific purpose of “weaken(ing) the war-making potential of (the) nation” would qualify as treason. Over the centuries, many a man has stood under the shadow of the gallows for less. And this is precisely the thing of which Forbes accuses Taylor.

On Forbes’s showing the root cause of this treason is Taylor’s conviction that “the nineteenth-century ideas of national homogeneity and national sovereignty are the great destructive illusions of the recent past.” And so, for Taylor the vast store of energy released by nationalistic ideas must be channeled away from international conflict, specifically by means of the “diversifying (of) their populations.”^[58] Hopefully, such a policy will weaken the war-making potential of the nation. In a word, Taylor essentially calls for the undermining of the specific purpose for which the Canadian State was founded in the nineteenth century, i.e. “Peace, Order and Good Government.”

The Free Will vs. Determinism Question, Or, Beyond Unfreedom and Indignity

For Forbes the question of equality and the question of freedom are two sides of a single coin. Politically speaking at least, “All human beings may all deserve equal consideration and respect…because of what they all really are, free moral persons.” This is the true ground of equality as distinguished from what we just now might happen to think about “our current ‘intuitions’ about justice.” This an especially important point in Forbes’ view because even a slight shift in the understanding of a very basic value such as freedom, might well have “significant implications for the meaning of a derivative one (such as) equality.” ^[59] It is of the essence to grasp how it was that the orthodox “liberal egalitarian” conception of equality was displaced by the newer “culturalist” one. For this reason, there is a need to engage in the serious examination of influential theories about human freedom.

Forbes explains that his inquiries have led him into and beyond a consideration of freedom as “the distinctively human attribute and essential foundation for the modern axioms of political morality.”^[60] It might well be the case that the fog covering equality may look like “unclouded sunshine compared to the darkness surrounding freedom.” But it nevertheless remains the case that a consideration of the latter phenomenon, “may provide the key to understanding equality as both a liberal and a multicultural value.” The mystery at hand here is “the apparently unique capacity of articulate human beings to stand apart from themselves and to regulate their behavior in the light of principles.” These beings are therefore capable of responding to reasoning and not just to “contingencies of reinforcement.’”^[61]

So as a practicing social scientist, Forbes feels himself obliged to brush up against the $64,000 question that has baffled theologians and philosophers from Empedocles to John Stuart Mill and beyond, i.e. the question of “Free Will vs. Determinism.”^[62] At the same time, Forbes explains that he can “make no claim to having unravelled all the tangled webs of words that have been woven around the word ‘freedom’ over many centuries.” With so many concepts of freedom such as the physical, metaphysical, psychological, economic, political and cultural, the task is unthinkable. In other words, “Freedom is a big word in our world and one not easily explained.”^[63]

Forbes then points to those who would say “that individuals would be free if they were not determined in all their choices by laws of universal causation, being mere puppets of forces beyond their control.” Others say that “Individuals are said to be free when they are left alone, able to move about, and do whatever they want, not subject to arbitrary, unchecked authority, not enslaved, not in prison, and not in chains.” Yet others in the debate argue that “those are free who are not kept from doing what they want to do by paralyzing neurotic conflict.” For example, rich people, are said to be freer than poor people even if they are seen to be “puppets or full of neurotic conflicts.” This has to be the case it is argued, “because they have more choices and can enjoy more activities” such as “private yachts anchored in Caribbean coves etc.”^[64] But only a thoughtless person could possibly imagine that the laws of universal causation operate more forcefully on the poor than they do on the rich. On the determinist view, if one is human, one is pushed from behind by the laws of causation rich or poor. Forbes further poses the question of what it means to be a free person in a free society.  Does it in fact mean that one has the right “to go one’s own non-conforming way, even when it offends one’s neighbors or the authorities?”^[65]

In the face of these self-posed questions, I would submit that Forbes has no real intention of confronting them head on in this book. I would further argue that one has to turn to his book on George Grant in order to achieve a firmer grasp of his standpoint. In his Multiculturalism in Canada book, Forbes hints at, but does not fully spell out, his view that free will is a “fiction” in a world of universal determining causation.  In truth, Forbes is hiding his determinism under a bushel for “political” reasons shall we say.

In his Grant book however, where the audience will be more interested in philosophical-theological questions than in Canadian political history, Forbes undertakes to expound the thought of Simone Weil for the reason that Weil was such a huge influence on the greatest of the “Red Tories.” In this less “political” context one may say, Forbes makes a brief appearance as an absolute determinist. Whatever expressions he may make about the deep mysteriousness of the ultimate question in the Multiculturalism book, in his Grant study he explicitly refers to the possibility that “(T)he imperfection of human understanding (which can lead to evil choices) may be as much a part of the natural order as tornadoes and volcanoes.”^[66]

The principle which Forbes seeks to articulate here is stated by Weil herself as follows: “The human will, although a certain sentiment of choice be irreducibly attached to it, is simply a phenomenon among all those which is subject to necessity.” The Frenchwoman continues: “One may still wonder whether it is within the power of the will to choose its understanding of what is good and worth promoting. Are not all choices made in the light of one’s understanding of the good? Is anyone ever willfully ignorant? Do we not all want to root out those ‘lies in the soul’ that keep us from seeing what is truly good for ourselves?”^[67]

So in contrast to his Grant book, we find that in the context of Multiculturalism in Canada, Forbes making an attempt within this virtually limitless field to provide an explanation of the “two established strands of multiculturalism’s practical political meaning.” He does so in order to clarify what is involved in giving multiculturalism “a liberal interpretation that (can) put some limits on its policies of cultural accommodation.” Forbes wishes to examine the precise limits which are designed to make multiculturalism “acceptable to people who like to think of themselves as liberals, without, however, banishing all the doubts of those who suspect that such policies do not really enhance their freedom.”^[68] This particular statement indicates Forbes’ need to skip the possibility that the “Freedom” in question has been drowned in the acid bath of Christian necessitarianism or modern science or both. Forbes is after all, a social scientist by profession. He is not giving us his true thoughts on human freedom in this book and with this being the case, ambiguity in its pages will be his rule of thumb on the “Free Will vs Determinism” question in its pages.

In his discussion of the work of Will Kymlicka, Forbes describes this scholar as “going behind the practical political meanings of freedom to clarify why they are valuable.”^[69]  Kymlicka’s account does not directly dispute “the ‘metaphysical’ idea of freedom as a mysterious rent in the fabric of natural causation.” Where this freedom exists it should be seen in terms of “an ultimate and inexplicable power of arbitrary choice that humans alone possess” and which makes “all (human) choices truly their own.” But for all that, neither does Kymlicka invoke the metaphysical idea of freedom.

Rather, Kymlicka’s approach is to accept that individual freedom “cannot ever be, so to speak, absolute or unlimited.” Individuals must submit to and accept the “normative constraints” which stem from their obligations to each other. But for Kymlicka even their least constrained choices, which might only affect themselves alone, are inevitably made within a prior framework of attitudes and beliefs “that is not itself simply chosen.” The key point here is that if the framework of attitudes and beliefs prior to the making of individual choices themselves have been chosen, there would have to have been some “deeper” basis for this deliberate choice, some even more basic, unchosen attitudes, beliefs, or values. In short, Forbes says, Kymlicka’s version of freedom of choice “depends upon something behind or beyond what is freely chosen, and this basis for choice, Kymlicka says, can be called a culture.”^[70]

Thus Forbes gives us a Kymlicka who is sure that “Whatever the basis for choosing may be called, it comes to us from our culture.” This culture is not, whatever its pretensions may be, a “simply universal culture of truth and justice.” Indeed, rather than being the same for all humans everywhere, it has to be “more local, demotic, ethnic, national, familial, or religious.” Such a culture may end up revealing that it has “its own strange preoccupations, tendentious exaggerations, and appalling blind spots.”^[71] Forbes’ Kymlicka then is a radical historicist.

Forbes explains that one will confront “difficulties” in arguing that behind what appears to be “free choice” there must be something called “culture.” Might it not be better to indicate what Kymlicka means by “culture” by calling it “knowledge of the good…assuming there is such knowledge?”^[72] In other words, the issue between Forbes and Kymlicka is precisely whether knowledge of the good is available to the human species. If it should so prove it would mean we are free to drop the word “culture” and talk in terms of “good” or “true value judgements” which is to say of “values guiding or regulating the choices to be made among various valued options.” Such options could be deemed as either “true or false.”^[73] But Forbes keep his cards close to his vest on the question of the necessity of some conception of the Good to the psychological vitality of any society including the liberal one. How else could the liberal society find an axis around which all its diversity might spin?^[74]

Without doubt, Forbes argues, human goals “span a wide spectrum from the most personal and material to the most social and spiritual.” And the choices of goals and of the ways of reaching them “are normally discussed today using the language of values, e.g. authentic, business, conformist, or democratic values, and so on.” Indeed, the language of values “has become the common coin of moral and political evaluation.” More specifically, Forbes says that “The values associated with multiculturalism, such as diversity and tolerance, may be no more obscure or muddled than most values, but that is not to say that they have simple, transparent meanings or that the actions they govern are easy to understand.”^[75] No indeed.

Although values are very often at least as hard to understand as the choices they are said to explain, they may be said, and in fact are often said, “to govern the choices that individuals make, and thus they have explanatory import.”^[76] No one can make sense of multiculturalism without understanding the distinctive “multicultural values” that define its goals and priorities. Forbes seeks “a clear separation between the values most often associated with the project and the ones that most clearly define its guiding purposes.” ^[77]

So Forbes’s treatment of the mysterious relation between values and human choice confronts us with something of a quandary. Forbes leaves us wondering whether human actions are matters of individual agency or are in fact the last moment in a train of causation extending all the way back to the “Big Bang.” But surely this question must be approached directly if the pursuit of social science is to be justified before a wary public. If science is only capable of observing the world and its operations, then any attempt at prescription would be a waste of time. Prescription only makes sense if it is genuinely possible for man and society to “change direction” whatever the train of causation up until the changing moment.

Forbes has decided to leave the whole “Free Will vs Determinism” question at the statement that “free will” is a concept “which is very difficult to explain.” All that can be said is that “Human beings may or may not have (it).” Forbes’ summary statement in this context is simply that human beings “are undeniably creatures that act purposively, as cats and dogs do, and one way of explaining their behaviour is by understanding their goals.”^[78]

The fact that the 21^st Century sees the Canadian “illuminati” attracting flocks of intellectuals to Canada’s shores even as the Guru Maharaj Mahesh Yogi attracted the Beatles and their “flock” to his ashram in India is for Forbes indicative of the sheer corruption prevailing in La Republique des Lettres.^[79]

Resentful, Fearful, Suspicious and Laggardly

According to Forbes, the distinction between the reality of multiculturalism and its often “value over-loaded language” compels those who qualify as especially “sophisticated observers” to either “like (or dislike) the reality they see behind the veil of words.”  The “dislikers” are not amused by “smiling babies proclaiming their commitment to diversity.” They lack confidence that “their loving caregiver(s) would never dream of creating a world in which evil would have the same rights as good or enemies would be allowed to become citizens.” Forbes uses the term “big babies” for those who fail to be either sophisticatedly skeptical or vulgarly hostile to multiculturalism’s intentions. ^[80] In so doing he is implicitly pointing to his academic colleagues, presumably including those who declined to assist his book to publication. We have reason to believe that Forbes belongs to the true “dislikers.”

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for those who are in fact “babies,” St. Paul has long since explained that the time comes for all of us to “put away childish things.” And so “babies” eventually become “wary adults” and their wont is to “challenge the assumption (which the babies can be assumed to accept) that ‘diversity’ can refer only to those desirable differences, the admission and recognition of which will not just nourish a rich and creative culture.” These most desirable differences are seen as helping to “grow the economy, raise tax revenues, top-up pension funds, advance social justice, and promote world peace.”^[81] But wary adults will not be like those suffering from this form of arrested development syndrome, who blithely assume that ‘diversity’ always means a positive change towards something nicer and more comfortable, and not a negative shift towards something worse or any regression to an earlier condition” (Emphasis Forbes).^[82]

Forbes notes that he and others like him who are evidently of Caucasian descent, of necessity feel the need to hide their “subliminal or unconscious reservations about others” more than do those who are non-Caucasian. In short, the non-Caucasians do not feel the same pressures to hold themselves back as does the Caucasian community and Forbes is sensitive to the difference. So is Professor Forbes in fact amongst the very few Caucasian Canadians or Americans who are no longer openly “racist,” but may in fact harbor subliminal or unconscious reservations about “others” who look “different” or who have “different cultures,” and who naturally betray a preference to live and work with “their own kind”?

The suspicion we are harboring here is that Forbes might also be among the “resentful cultural laggards” who stand in opposition to the “swashbuckling political adventurers” who in their haste to get to the Promised Land might “deepen the already dangerous divisions in a diverse society.” Is Forbes among the “slow-pokes” who could in effect frustrate the whole purpose of “affirmative action or employment equity programmes and perhaps even…the whole idea of multiculturalism and the peaceful global integration it foreshadows”? ^[83] Privileges for one group may increase the burdens for another, even if they are overlapping or “intersectional” rather than completely disjunct sets.^[84]

In addition to the “resentful cultural laggards” there are also the “fearful and suspicious adults,” amongst whom Forbes might well be numbered. As a result of the simple “cynicism” of these folks, they manage to hear “some very alarming undertones in the usual cheerful talk about diversity and multiculturalism.” They look at multiculturalism and see very clearly its “bright, playful, welcoming façade.” But at the very same time these persons “detect a dangerous relativism or anti-Semitism or even a determination to destroy the whole Western scientific and philosophical tradition, with its dedication to reason and its respect for truth.” Indeed, some of these “fearful and suspicious adults” are concerned that “fundamental Western political values are becoming mere personal preferences.” Certain of them even go so far as to say that a “charter of values” is “urgently needed to impose hard limits on the accommodation of cultural diversity.”^[85]

And there is yet another category of Canadians who manage to be “trusters” in authority but who at the same time manage to be “doubting Thomases.” Such types may well “concede the need for definite limits” to cultural diversity but they also fear “the consequences of playing to base sentiments with explicit statements and simple pictures.” These “fence-sitters” may think (without saying so) that such difficult problems are “better managed with nods and winks.”^[86]

Forbes’ vague reference to “explicit statements and simple pictures” that might be socially unhelpful recalls to his readers images that one feels justified in thinking might show certain minorities in a bad light. And the “fence-sitters” in the neighbourhood sense that there are “difficult theoretical questions of relative merit or validity” when dealing with intra-family relations. For them, certain forms of intercourse that have to do “with the unsettling relations between different systems of socially transmitted values and practices” and the “tricky practical problems of accommodation” that accompany these relations, make life more stressful than it might otherwise have been.^[87] By contrast with these various laggards, cynics, fence-sitters, doubters and skeptics, the larger body of non-theoretical citizens, just let their “normative impulses” do the job of establishing their moral boundaries.

Of course, there is no doubt whatsoever that Forbes is a “theoretical citizen” and that his theorizing might be something of a “smokescreen” for his inner “normative impulse.” In his own terms he might be nothing less than a “wary, fearful and suspicious adult.” This suspicion follows naturally from a close reading of his analysis of the disjunction between appearance and reality in the Canadian political context.^[88]

Being Canada and Canadian Being

Forbes explains that even though he has emphasized the domestic context of Canadian multiculturalism, he has not wished to suggest that one can understand domesticated multiculturalism without taking into account the larger backdrop of “the global problem that multiculturalism in Canada was meant in part to address.” This global problem at its very core comes down to the question of the relationship between the modern West and truest form of  “Being.” In other words, the fundamental subtext underlying the whole of Forbes’s discussion of modern western, specifically Canadian multiculturalism comes down to the question of whether this policy enhances or subtracts from the potential scope of human experience.^[89]

What this means specifically, is that terms such as “freedom,” “equality,” “diversity,” “tolerance,” and their cognates, which are the terms of evaluation in most common use today may in fact be “blocking our approach to the reality of multiculturalism.” These are indeed “familiar words,” but despite or because of their familiarity they may be “obscuring” multiculturalism’s positive or at least distinctive features. In so doing they may be leading our thinking about the liberal West into dead ends. Even if we were to leave such terms behind and switch to ones like “relativism” and “political correctness” we may not be much better off. And of the two terms that feature most prominently in the Canadian “theorization” of multiculturalism and have proven most influential – “authenticity” and “recognition” – it may be asked whether they serve to shed any light on the sources of its surprising appeal?^[90]

To say the least when we hear the words “authenticity” and “recognition” we immediately feel that Martin Heidegger must be somewhere nearby. Indeed, Professor Forbes’s book literally begins on a “Heideggerian” note when he affirms his agreement with the German thinker that it is a “darkening world.” But the point which the Schwarzwald recluse failed to note and which Forbes wishes to indicate is that within such a world it is Canada that has been “a reassuring point of light.”^[91]

What is this Canadian light that shines forth into a world of darkness? Forbes’ seizing upon the concept of openness as “the most important and most immediately revealing multicultural value, the polestar, as it were, of multicultural navigation” suggests this is the source of such light. An open society naturally aspires to the transcending of national and especially religious divisions of the past and “overcoming the deadly rivalries between the various closed moralities based on the old static religions and national cultures.”^[92] Immigration for example, is for the open society as traditionally understood, an “exogenous variable.” It lacks any “defining connection” to specifically multicultural policies and purposes. But in contrast to this view, the newer concept of openness suggests that such a narrow conception of multiculturalism (as simply an adaptation to immigration) is inadequate. In short, the old version of the “Open Society” could reject or accept any particular program of immigration as may be, but “openness to migration from non-traditional sources has been an essential part of what is called multiculturalism in Canada.”  The new concept of openness in effect begs the global masses to come and stay. What was once an considered an “un-Canadian” attitude is now taken simply to be the Canadian attitude.^[93]

So Forbes here presents Canada as an “exception to the (Heideggerian) rule.” After all as a manifestation of modernity and the modern West, Canada symbolizes the “Empire of Reason” (especially in the strange case of Pierre Trudeau).^[94] Western logocentrism and Eurocentrism found their embodiment in the original Canadian experiment such that within her bounds “Darkness at Midnight” might be inconceivable, let alone “Darkness at Noon.”

The irony here is delicious given that Forbes’ book is all about the immense impact which postmodernism, which is ultimately to say “Heideggerianism,” has had on the “True North, Strong and Free.” If we are to believe the claims of postmodernism in general and Martin Heidegger in particular, western and therefore Canadian rationalism and progressivism simply present a world-picture which obscures and occludes the simply human experience of Being as such. The Heideggerian claim is that progressivist, liberal rationalism is a recipe for depressing the deepest drives of the people or the nation.  On this view the western version of “Being” or “Life” is just one amongst others and its truth just one form of reality perception, so much so that it is in dire need of being complemented by other truths revealed through other forms of human existence.^[95]

The issue here, obviously enough, is that true Being will not disclose itself to rationalistic processes of thought. Rather it is poetry and art which have the greatest potential to do so, and these pursuits vary in their nature according to time and place. “Two plus two” equaling four may be allowed as a universally valid formulation. But Dante, Milton, Shakespeare and Cervantes “belong” uniquely to their respective national cultures. Each “ethnic” way of life, including that of the West, calls us to go behind the appearance they present if we wish to see the manner in which they reflect an aspect of Being as a whole. Each “civilization” constitutes a “portal” through which to pass to the broader vision of Being as such.

This problem of the relativity of access to Being is in fact the question of the relationship of liberalism to multiculturalism draped in “metaphysical” garb.  How does the West open itself to the non-West without compromising such values as freedom, tolerance, equality and inclusion, values which serve to distinguish it so markedly from the non-West?  The very short answer is that it cannot (as Forbes definitively shows). But then what are we to make of all the Sturm und Drang surrounding the “Crisis,” “Decline” or “Suicide” of the West?^[96] Should we not be striving mightily to “beef-up” our Western Logocentrism and Eurocentrism if these pessimistic prophecies have any merit? Surely, we need to fight off the challenge of illiberal and inhumane values which are antithetical to openness, pluralism, rights and inclusion etc. Well – “Not in Canada” one might say.

But might it not possible to deviate from these western values in a simply “skin deep” fashion and evade the conflict problem in this way? Perhaps, but to do so would mean “skimming” over the depth and wisdom of the non-Western ways of thinking to which we need to expose ourselves in the fullest possible manner. On the other hand, to stress and emphasize the possible spiritual profundity and deep wisdom of non- or anti-Western values would hold up the mirror to our “liberals” revealing nothing less than their hypocrisy and shallowness.^[97]

At all events, discussion of the “Heidegger Factor” in Forbes’ work naturally suggests that we should look in his direction for assistance in tracking the deepest possible roots of the multiculturalist phenomenon. Nietzsche is famous for having said that “Christianity is Platonism for the masses” and following suit Professor Forbes succeeds in suggesting that “Multiculturalism is Heideggerianism for Canadians.”^[98]

NOTES:

[1] Peter Brimelow, The Patriot Game: National Dreams and Political Realities (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1986). In the case of Brimelow’s book we encounter an analysis of the Canadian question that stands out for its brilliance as compared any number of works by Canadian-born authors.  As a “Briton” Brimelow was in a position to view Canada from a very broadly global vantage point in general, and a comprehensively Anglo-Saxon framework in particular. His book is further evidence for the “law of the foreign writer” thesis. Like Alexis de  Tocqueville and James Lord Bryce in the American case, and D.H. Lawrence and Anthony Trollope in the case of Australia, Brimelow passed through Canada and saw deeply into her soul. It has been said of another “Brit” (Alistair Cooke) that “he recounted what was going on in his adopted country with a poise and understanding unequalled by any other expatriate and unsurpassed by any native-born observer.” William F. Buckley Jr., A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century ed. James Rosen (New York: Crown Forum, 2016), p.107. See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America trans. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. and Delba Winthrop (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,2002); James Lord Bryce, The American Commonwealth 2 vols.(Indianapolis: The Liberty Fund,1995);) D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997); Anthony Trollope, Australia and New Zealand (Adamant Media Corporation, 2000) and Colin D. Pearce, “Aristocratic Writers and New Continents” Rananim: The Journal of the D.H. Lawrence Society of Australia 5:2 (1997).

[2] Brimelow explains that journalist Pierre Berton’s Why We Act Like Canadians “was unkindly attacked on the grounds of factual inaccuracy by academics, the ‘remote and ineffectual dons’ when Hillaire Belloc defended G.K. Chesterton against them in the early years of this century.” The Patriot Game, p.134.

[3] By my count Forbes makes reference to twenty-one academics and nineteen statesmen while Brimelow alludes to nineteen statesmen-politicians in his index’s  A’s and B’s alone. A lawyer friend of mine said the following in email recently: “(Canada’s) appeal for me is largely sentimental, having regard to some truly great and accomplished persons in all fields of human endeavour, to its historical connections to the UK and more particularly to the latter’s Parliamentary and legal institutions, the works of English literature, and certain political and cultural heroes.” See Roger Scruton, England and the Need for Nations (London: Civitas, 2006)

[4] The Patriot Game, p.272. So Brimelow is in full agreement with Leo Strauss that in the field of modern political studies the proper study of politics includes a focus on the phenomenon of human greatness and magnanimity. Strauss is on record as having said: That those who would engage in the study of politics “have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves…of political greatness, human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence. For we are supposed to train ourselves and others in seeing things as they are, and this means above all in seeing their greatness and their misery, their excellence and their vileness, their nobility and their triumphs, and therefore never to mistake mediocrity, however brilliant, for true greatness.” “Remarks on Churchill” (January,1965) Powerline – January 23, 2015 quoted in Steven Hayward ihttp://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/01/leo-strauss-on-the-death-of-churchill.php. See also Harry Harry V. Jaffa ed., Statesmanship: Essays in Honor of Sir Winston S. Churchill (Carolina Academic Press,1982); Jean Yarborough, Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition (University Press of Kansas, 2014); Thomas di Lorenzo, The Real Lincoln (Crown Forum, 2003).See Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and hero-Worship (1841) and Eric F. Bentley, A Century of Hero-Worship (Boston: Beacon,1957)

[5] See Duncan Campbell Scott and Pelham Edgar” eds. “Makers of Canada” 20 vols (1903-1908) and George M. Wrong and H.H. Layton eds. Great Men of Canada 30 vols (Toronto: Glasgow Brook and Company, 1914-16)

[6] The Patriot Game, pp.62-63. Mark Steyn follows along here when in the course of discussing the “changing face of Canada” he says that this “face” was, in effect, “M. Trudeau’s own face.” Mark Steyn. “A Fool on the Hill,”  https://www.steynonline.com/4237/the-fool-at-the-hill July 6, 2011. See “Kurt Riezler (1882-1955)” in Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,1988), pp.233-235.

[7] The Patriot Game, p.227.

[8] The Patriot Game, pp.71-72. Sir John A. Macdonald is reported to have said: “If I had had a university education I should probably have entered upon the path of literature and acquired distinction therein.” His biographer comments here that “(Macdonald) did not add, as he might have done, that the successful government of millions of men, the strengthening of an empire, the creation of a great dominion, call for the possession and exercise of rarer qualities than are necessary to literary fame.” See Sir Joseph Pope, The Day of Sir John A. Macdonald: A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion (Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Company,1911), p.6

[9] The Patriot Game, p.66.

[10] Forbes makes a further distinction which would by extension place Trudeau in a third category of being neither a philosopher nor scientist nor a simple partisan of the multicultural cause. This is his distinction between the “most concerned partisans of multiculturalism in Canada” and “the sociologists and social theorists who write books about it.” It is the former who have the greatest immediate interest in the reality of multiculturalism. He is referring here to “the recent immigrants and their offspring who are adapting to a new land and a new way of life…(T)here are many cases where conformity to local conventions is not so obviously necessary or even desirable and where demands for assimilation may therefore be demeaning and perhaps not even possible to comply with.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p.129.

[11] The Patriot Game, p.68. Wassily Wassilyevich Leontief (1905-1999), was a Soviet-American economist known for his research into how changes in one economic sector may affect other sectors. Leontief joined Harvard University‘s Department of Economics in 1932 and became professor of economics in 1946. He later won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1973. Leontief was one of the first to make significant use of computers for mathematical modeling and he set up the Harvard Economic Research Project in 1948 and also chaired the Harvard Society of Fellows in 1965. In pursuing the provable influences on the mind of Pierre Trudeau Brimelow looks more to the “left” than Forbes.

[12] Brimelow explains that Trudeau himself “once denounced the prevalent view that he had become a disciple of John Kenneth Galbraith, who was born in Canada and whose abiding faith in the efficacy of state intervention in the modern economy has always found an audience in his native land.” Trudeau as a “Galbraithian” would be a nice Canadian “One-Two” if true. But Trudeau himself flatly denied it. The Patriot Game, p.68. In fact, the true Canadian “One-Two” in this regard involved none other than Stephen Harper. William F. Buckley says in his testimonial to J.K. Galbraith that the Canadian Harvardian at one point informed him that he had been voted the third most influential economist of the 20th century, after Keynes and Schumpeter. But at that time Buckley had just received a book about the new Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, in which the National Review and its founder are cited as the primary influences in the new Prime Minister’s development as a conservative leader. But Buckley did not mention this to Galbraith. William F. Buckley Jr., “In Memory of Ken Galbraith, Friend and Adversary” https://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Buckley-In-memory-of-Ken-Galbraith-friend-and-1492041.php

[13] The Patriot Game, p.67.

[14] Forbes comments “Nothing that Trudeau said or wrote about nationalism and multiculturalism sheds much light on them.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p.102.

[15] The Patriot Game, 67.

[16] The Patriot Game, pp 275-276.

[17] Forbes explains that textbooks on political science tend to place so much emphasis on stable institutional patterns and their antique justifications that “students must look elsewhere for knowledge of their own politics.” On the other hand, it is possible for the writer on things Canadian “to show Canadian politics from a more revealing angle than that of (either) newspapers or the textbooks.” This is because on the one hand, the newspapers are full of details about the issues and personalities of the day, but they do not show, or may indeed contrive to hide, “the deeper patterns of conflict and consensus that make any politics what it is.” In the case of Charles Taylor, we have an effort to get closer to the Brimelow position with his book entitled The Pattern of Politics. This effort seeks to transcend the Textbook/Newspaper dichotomy and is connected to the fact that the book was Taylor’s campaign document at a time when he was being touted as a possible successor to Tommy Douglas as leader of the New Democratic Party (Multiculturalism in Canada, p.277).  For Taylor it is a politics of polarization which will most effectively raise “fundamental questions of principle” and serve the good by revealing how the system almost always produces policies that fail to serve the well-being of most people and even, in some respects, “the people as a whole.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p.277.

[18] Multiculturalism in Canada, pp. 5-6

[19] Multiculturalism in Canada, pp. 5-6. We appreciate that Forbes is no ordinary social scientist when he observes of his fellow Canadian Nelson Mandela that he “helped to found the armed wing of the African National Congress and then to coordinate terrorist strikes against military and government targets.” “Mandela to be Honoured with Canadian Citizenship” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mandela-to-be-honoured-with-canadian-citizenship-1.264674 (November 19, 2001).

[20] “Mechanical necessity holds all men in its grip at every moment.” Simone Weil, Notebooks 2:361 quoted in Multiculturalism in Canada, p.205. Compare: “Science offers no pronouncement with regard to values; but our leading publicists continue to talk as if though it did. The effect of their debates is, therefore, to hide – from the debaters and listeners alike – the role of values in the formulation of social policy, and to perpetuate a situation in which political discussion is the monopoly of a scientific elite…(but) there is no correlation between the amount of scientific training a man has received and his capacity to deal effectively with aesthetic and moral problems.” Willmoore Kendall, “Majority Rule and the Scientific Elite” Southern Review 4 (1939): 472

[21] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.5

[22] We recall here a comment made sixty years ago by that “uber” Canadian George Grant when he stated in the “Introduction” to the 1970 re-issue of his famous pamphlet Lament for a Nation that that the book was written “too much from anger and too little from irony.” George Grant, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (Ottawa: Carleton University Press,1986),p.x. In the view of the “other” Charles Taylor there is an intrinsic connection between anger and conservatism. One of the stated purposes of his book Radical Tories is to “Explore anger as a component of conservative mentality…(and to) relate this to my general sense of anger throughout the land…(and) the failure of the liberal North American dream…Later it would occur to me that anger, spleen and satire are the logical outcome when a conservative with his belief in a larger moral and political order confronts a world which is manifestly flawed. With his suspicion and his spite Dean Swift is a classic example.” Charles Taylor, Radical Tories: The Conservative Tradition in Canada (Halifax: Formac Publishing1982), p.104, p.106. See Stewart Umphrey, “Eros and Thumos” Interpretation vol.10 (1982), pp.353-422 et. seq.

[23] Multiculturalism in Canada, p. 89. By comparison, Brimelow states his aim to be the “unravel(ing) of the skein” of the “tangle of pathologies” in which Canadian politics is embroiled.” The Patriot Game, p.5

[24] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.6

[25] At one point Forbes describes his specific theme as “the modification of values and their accompanying judgements rather than their validity.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p.88

[26] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.6

[27] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.84

[28] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.130

[29] Multiculturalism in Canada, pp.130-131(Emphasis Forbes)

[30]  We of course do not mean to suggest that Professor Forbes is an “Egghead” as classically defined; only that he has spent a lot of time researching the work of such individuals. The classic definition of the “Egghead” reads as follows: “Egghead: A person of spurious intellectual pretensions, often a professor or the protégé of a professor. Essentially confused in thought and immersed in mixture of sentimentality and violent evangelism. A doctrinaire supporter of Middle-European socialism as opposed to Greco-French-U.S. ideas of democracy and liberalism. Subject to the old-fashioned philosophical morality of Nietzsche which frequently leads him into jail or disgrace. A self-conscious prig, so given to examining all sides of a question that he becomes thoroughly addled while remaining always in the same spot. An anemic bleeding heart.” Louis Bromfield, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), pp. 9-10). Raymond Aron states that Bromfield was “The most intellectual of the anti-intellectuals.” The Opium of the Intellectuals (New York, W.W. Norton, 1962),p.230. See Edmund Wilson, “What Ever Happened to Louis Bromfield” in Selected Essays etc. (Check)

[31] “Don Cherry fired by Sportsnet over ‘you people’ rant on Coach’s Corner” National Post (November 12, 2019) https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/don-cherry-fired

[32] Forbes’ “half-and-half” approach is prudent but it does come at a price that we appreciate if we spend some time with Brimelow. In the case of Brimelow, we can say that he has something of a  “methodology” which consists in his appraising the political situation as sensitively as possible and then stepping forward with a clear judgment which might have some claim general objectivity. This is done without any special reference to the “philosophy of the social sciences” and the problem of the fact-value distinction which so detained the likes David Hume and Max Weber.

[33] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.269.

[34] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.3.

[35] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.3.

[36] Leo Strauss, “Replies to Schaar and Wolin: II” The American Political Science Review 57:1 (1963), p.155. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1952725, p. “Replies to Schaar and Wolin: II,” p.155

[37] Forbes is speaking of R. Brian Howe and David Johnson, Restraining Equality: Human Rights Commissions in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2000)

[38] Multiculturalism in Canada,p.68.

[39] Leo Strauss speaks of the danger of political embitterment and strife that might arise from the exposure of the “pedigree of ideas.” In his view this danger can only be overcome “by leaving the dimension in which politic restraint is the only protection against the hot and blind zeal of partisanship.” Natural Right and History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p.7

[40] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.5.  See Jurgen Habermas, Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press,1973), p.44.

[41] “The moral of the story of the phrase ‘the survival of the fittest’ would seem to be that biologists can neither live with nor live without normative concepts implying standards of excellence.” John C. Greene, “Darwin and Religion” in W. Warren Wagar ed., European Intellectual History Since Darwin and Marx: Selected Essays (New York: Harper Torchbooks,1966), p.28.

[42] “(W)hen you start to look at the world of the elites, there are very few moral issues that are not translated into a softer form of moral discourse, and that communicates a loss of the ‘ought’ in terms of any kind of theistic ethic. It’s a deontological ethic, a command ethic, and what you are left with is just the idea that it is not that smart. In other words… rational choice theory in terms of moral argumentation is not going to get us out of this.” Albert Mohler, “Coming Apart – America’s New Moral Divide” Thinking in Public https://albertmohler.com/2012/10/29/tip-charles-murray (October 29, 2012)

[43] A good example of idiocy here is when Liberal Defence Minister John McCallum spoke of the Battle of “Vichy” Ridge. In so doing he gave off the impression that Canada’s great triumph at Vimy had something to do with Marechal Petain and Vichy France.  He made this error in seeking to explain an earlier confession that he’d never heard of the Dieppe Raid. As Mark Steyn observed of the issue: “If you don’t know what Vichy is, it’s hard to figure out Casablanca.” When Prime Minister Harper to spoke on a solemn occasion of the events at Vimy Ridge it was evidence for some observers that the Harper government intended “a radical and unprecedented remaking of the face of Canada.” “A Fool on the Hill.’ See also Mike Bechthold, “The Dieppe Raid: Telling and Retelling” The Dorchester Review (August 19, 2021). https://www.dorchesterreview.ca/blogs/news/the-dieppe-raid-telling-and-retelling

[44] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.15, p.35 Rephrasing Leo Strauss somewhat we can have him saying  that the world homogeneous state will be one where “sufficient title to full membership” will be supplied by achieving adulthood, not being classified as non compos mentis by the relevant authorities and not being currently incarcerated in a penal institution. We note that Strauss had said earlier in this passage that liberalism, if only at “first glance,” “seems to agree with Communism as regards its ultimate goal. Leo Strauss, Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,1995),p.vi.

[45] Speaking of Michael Ignatieff and Alan Dershowitz’s confidence in the relativity of rights, Forbes notes: “Although both authors prudently refrain from unnecessary clarity, I assume that both would agree that there should clearly be an absolute ban on the torture of young children, except in the most extreme circumstances.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p.253 n16. Forbes quotes Charles Taylor as saying: “I couldn’t just decide that the most significant action is wiggling my toes in warm mud.” Ibid., p.260

[46] Professor Forbes certainly gives some grounds for Michael Kinsley’s observation that Canada is a “land of assistant professors.” (Brimelow, The Patriot Game.p.12, p. 99).

[47]  Multiculturalism in Canada, p.145 (emphases in the original). “(W))ithout ever being clearly acknowledged by the advocates of equal recognition, it is generally shunted aside by silently invoking a taken-for-granted restriction, namely, that only ‘identifiable groups, such as racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities, are to be the beneficiaries of the progressive efforts to equalize recognition.”

[48] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.245.

[49] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.138.

[50] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.138.

[51] See Tom Wolfe, Ambush at Fort Bragg (New York: Random House,1997)

[52] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.xviii. Forbes explains his approach to Taylor’s work by suggesting that “we may get a more satisfactory understanding of Taylor’s presence among the philosophical stars by looking slightly away from his sparkling theoretical achievements to the practical political side of his thought.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p. xix.

[53] Multiculturalism in Canada, pp.152-154. The great science fiction writer H.G. Wells once delivered a paper to the Oxford Philosophical Society in which he questioned the validity of logical categories which he insisted are a device for the mind to ignore individual differences and thus to comprehend an otherwise unimaginable number of unique realities. On this view, all reasoning that arises from the fallacy of classification is false, in what is quite conceivably a universe of “uniques.” Wells was famous for his social reform plans to save Western Civilization.  Carey, The Intellectuals and the Masses etc., pp.147-148.

[54] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.154. Elsewhere Forbes details Taylor’s relationship with Rousseau, explaining that even though Taylor’s whole discussion is rooted in a remarkable knowledge of modern political theory, some of his formulations can be misleading. While bringing the politics of difference to light, as an alternative to the liberal theory and practices, Taylor borrows some of Rousseau’s objections to individual rights but he “rejects his fundamental principles.”  “Rousseau, Ethnicity and Difference” in Clifford Orwin and Nathan Tarcov eds. The Legacy of Rousseau (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,1997), pp.220-221. See Jessica L. Radin, “A Civil Encounter: Leo Strauss and Charles Taylor on Religious Pluralism” in Bernstein and Schiff, Leo Strauss etc., pp.111-134.

[55] Socrates can usually be expected to give up on a dialogue with his interlocutor after the discussion has reached a certain limit. But Professor Forbes will stay long into the night with his academic colleagues long after it has become evident that that they have even less of a propensity to see the light than Cephalus or Euthyphro.

[56] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.275 n.44.

[57] Julien Benda’s famous attack on “les clercs” was on the grounds of their abandonment of the heights of western philosophical humanism for the sake of “party politics” of the day. “Those who for centuries had exhorted men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their differences … have now come to praise them, according to where the sermon is given, for their ‘fidelity to the French soul,’ ‘the immutability of their German consciousness,’ for the ‘fervor of their Italian hearts.’ In short, intellectuals began to immerse themselves in the unsettlingly practical and material world of political passions.” Roger Kimball, “The Treason of the Intellectuals and ‘The Undoing of Thought’” The New Criterion (December, 1992) https://newcriterion.com/issues/1992/12/the-treason-of-the-intellectuals-ldquothe-undoing-of-thoughtrdquo.  Forbes version of the same basic criticism could be described as the betrayal by the intellectuals of an already hollowed out and corrupted philosophical universalism for the joys of  what is now called “identity politics.” See “Bernard-Henri Lévy “Traité de ‘traître’” par Eric Zemmour: https://fr.news.yahoo.com/trait%C3%A9-tra%C3%AEtre-eric-zemmour-bernard-095854233.html (October 15,2021)

[58] Multiculturalism in Canada. p266. (Russia and America could be said to have shown the way.)

[59] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.89

[60] “Equality in this straightforward, familiar sense collides with a variety of other equalities, requiring that the analysis of equality as a multicultural value be carried to a higher level.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p.89

[61] “Equality may seem to stand alone at the apex of modern political values…But equality in (the) straightforward, familiar sense collides with a variety of other equalities, requiring that the analysis of equality as a multicultural value be carried to a higher level.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p.89

[62] “Today we no longer have any pity for the concept of ‘free will’: we know only too well what it really is – the foulest of all theologians’ artifices.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Error of Free Will” Twilight of the Idols in Walter Kaufmann ed., The Portable Nietzsche (New York: The Viking Press, 1960), p.499. For the most recent installment in this on-going 2,500 years old debate see “This House Believes Free Will Does Not Exist” Cambridge Union, November 23^rd, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA4tGpJPc8Q. For earlier overviews see Sidney Hook ed., Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science (New York: Macmillan,1958) and Sidney Morgenbesser and James Walsh eds., Free Will (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc.,1962).

[63] Multiculturalism in Canada, pp. 95-96.

[64] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.95

[65] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.96.

[66]  George Grant: A Guide to His Thought, pp.203-206, p.212. Curiously enough Raymond Aron makes use of a statement from Simone Weil as an epigraph for his book entitled The Opium of the Intellectuals (New York, W.W. Norton, 1962). This is more than serendipitous in that Forbes’ book may be considered as a 21^st Century update of Aron’s famous work. Part III of Aron’s book entitled “The Alienation of the Intellectuals” (pp.203-235) containing sub-sections such as “The Intellectuals’ Paradise.” A section which is called “The Intellectuals’ Hell” considers matters also considered by Forbes, making due allowance of course for the difference in time and space. To be sure, Forbes cannot hold a candle to Aron’s literary craft. Forbes is forced to bear his social scientistic burden, in the precise respect of which Aron is unencumbered.

[67] Quoted in George Grant: A Guide to His Thought, p.200. If Forbes follows Weil to the letter, then the phrase “consenting adults” becomes an oxymoron. See Michael J. Palmer, “George Parkin Grant’s English-Speaking Justice” American Review of Canadian Studies (15(1985), pp.351-353

[68] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.96

[69] Forbes says that the object of Barry’s scorn was the “theoretical multiculturalism of the most celebrated theorists of multiculturalism such as Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka” (Emphasis Forbes).  This theoretical multiculturalism was “detached from any particular context of cultural diversity with its particular challenges and justifications,” such as would be revealed through the study of the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Quebec, or Australia.”  Multiculturalism in Canada, p.75.

[70] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.103

[71] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.104.

[72] Multiculturalism in Canada, p,103

[73] At one point in his discussion Forbes asks his reader’s indulgence while he temporarily adopts the vantage point of “a controversial book by a prominent political theorist (Brian Barry).” Whatever his area of agreement with Barry it cannot extend to liberalism’s “official” neutrality regarding conceptions of the good else how could he be so skeptical of multiculturalism’s inner relativism. After all, this relativism is in fact the worm in the apple which has spelled the doom of classical liberalism and its progeny in the first place. Multiculturalism in Canada, pp.266-277. “The novelty and distinctive appeal of multicultural equality will, I hope, stand out more clearly if it is approached in this way, against the background of its most important modern rivals, before confronting it head-on.” Ibid., p.74

[74] See Heather Macdonald, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (Macmillan Audio, 2018).

[75] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.3. Forbes explains that however much multiculturalism might be a “complex aspiration,” and however much we prolong our “scrutiny of the language of multicultural values,” it is nonetheless “fairly easy to provide a brief description of the ideal modern multicultural society,” to wit: It is a social order under which “an open, diverse, free, and equal liberal democracy that honours and upholds its own core values while recognizing everyone’s authentic identity and their right to their own values.” Furthermore, the multicultural ideal contributes to scientific progress, economic growth, sustainable pension plans, global integration, and world peace. (Multiculturalism in Canada, p.189).

[76] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.3

[77] For Forbes, “The values most closely associated with multiculturalism are probably diversity, inclusivity, sensitivity, and tolerance—the DIST syndrome. Multiculturalism in Canada, p. 270.

[78] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.3. Leo Strauss says: “Philosophy in the strict and classical sense…presupposes that there is an eternal and unchangeable order within which History takes place…It presupposes in other words that any ‘realm of freedom’ is no more than a dependent province within the ‘realm of necessity.’ It presupposes…that Being is essentially immutable and eternally identical with itself.” Leo Strauss, “Restatement on Xenophon’s Hiero” in Leo Strauss, On Tyranny, Victor Gourevitch and Michael S. Roth eds. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000)

[79] “All rational liberal philosophic positions have lost their significance and power.” Leo Strauss, “An Introduction to Heideggerian Existentialism,” in Thomas L. Pangle ed., The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989) p.29. See Steven B. Smith, Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy and Judaism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,2006), pp.28-29; pp.111-113; pp. 186-189.

[80] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.21. Max Weber said one hundred years ago: “After Nietzsche’s devastating criticism of those ‘last men’ who ‘invented happiness,’ I may leave aside altogether the naive optimism in which science–that is, the technique of mastering life which rests upon science–has been celebrated as the way to happiness. Who believes in this? – aside from a few big babies in university chairs or editorial offices.””Wissenschaft als Beruf,” Gesammlte Aufsaetze zur Wissenschaftslehre (Tubingen, 1922), pp. 524-55. Originally a speech at Munich University, 1918, published in 1919 by Duncker & Humblodt, Munich. From H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Translated and edited), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 129-156, New York: Oxford University Press, 1946.

[81] It may be fair to say that at some level Canada is a “Kantian” country, as Forbes suggests. Nevertheless, it remains the case that per capita Canada has one of the most violent histories of any of the western nations, especially if we consider Newfoundland as being “Canadian” before 1949. Some 619,636 Canadians enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during WWI, and approximately 424,000 served overseas. Of these men and women, 59,544 died during the war, 51,748 of them as a result of enemy action. The small Royal Canadian Navy reported 150 deaths from all causes. An additional 1,388 Canadians died while serving with the British Flying Services. Of the more than 172,000 Canadians who reported wounds during the war, medical authorities classified approximately 138,000 as battle casualties. See William Arthur Bishop, Salute! Canada’s Great Military Leaders From Brock to Dextrase (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997) Those who see Canadians as somehow inherent “Lennonists” will be most unlikely to focus on the career of William Grant Stairs (1863-1892) who massacred his way across Africa in the Pasha Expedition of 1887-1889. His friend Henry Stanley Morton, who himself was no stranger to “cruelty well used,” is said to have chased down the Canadian for be too harsh and murderous.

[82] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.22

[83] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.86.

[84] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.86

[85] Multiculturalism in Canada, pp. 21-22.

[86] Multiculturalism in Canada, pp. 21-22.

[87] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.15.

[88] Multiculturalism in Canada, p. 15. For Peter Brimelow Canada is a “classic case of ideological hegemony transcending objective material reality.” The Patriot Game, p.161.

[89] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.128, pp. 272-273.

[90] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.128 At a minimum it is unthinkable to say of Forbes what Norman Podhoretz has said of Sir Isaiah Berlin: “Berlin (is not) the moral hero that his biographer tries to make of him in an effort to cover over the spinelessness that the relativistic core of liberalism, even in its most sophisticated and civilized form, invariably brings out when determined challenges are posed to it, especially from the Left.” “A Dissent on Isaiah Berlin” in Thomas L. Jeffers ed., The Norman Podhoretz Reader (New York: Free Press,2004), p.434https://www.commentary.org/articles/norman-podhoretz/a-dissent-on-isaiah-berlin/

[91] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.xv. See Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times (Mariner Books,1970) and   Walter Terence Stace, Man Against Darkness, and Other Essays (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press,1967)

[92] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.270.

[93] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.271.

[94] “If politicians must bring emotions into the act, let them get emotional about functionalism!” Trudeau once declared. Multiculturalism in Canada, p.66.

[95] See Oswald Spengler, “The Soul of the City” in The Decline of the West (New York: Oxford University Press,1991),pp.248-252

[96] Consider “The crisis of the West consists in the West having become uncertain of its purpose …We no longer have that certainty and that clarity of purpose in which all men could be united.” Leo Strauss, City and Man (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,1964), p.3. See Brimelow, The Patriot Game, pp.71-72.

[97] Multiculturalism in Canada, p.138. It is not unreasonable to point in the direction of the Burke, Bentham, Mill tradition if we would appreciate just how far contemporary Canadian liberalism has strayed from the core values of the older liberal philosophy.

[98] Forbes notes English language discussions of “recognition” are deepened and darkened by the ambiguity of the original the German terms for this concept. He explains that the two words in the German language for recognition – Wiedererkennung (or simply Erkennung) and Anerkennung can point to the “two senses” of  the idea. One suggests “perception and classification” and the other “personal acknowledgement on the other.” Multiculturalism in Canada, p. 132.

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