Multiculturalism In Canada: Constructing A Model Multiculture With Multicultural Values

328 Pages·2019·2.365 MB·English

by  Hugh Donald Forbes

RECOVERING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Multiculturalism
in Canada
Constructing a
Model Multiculture with
Multicultural Values
hugh donald forbes
Recovering Political Philosophy
Series Editors
Timothy W. Burns
Baylor University
Waco, TX, USA
Thomas L. Pangle
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX, USA
Postmodernism’s challenge to the possibility of a rational foundation for
and guidance of our political lives has provoked a searching re- examination
of the works of past political philosophers. The re-examination seeks to
recover the ancient or classical grounding for civic reason and to clarify the
strengths and weaknesses of modern philosophic rationalism. This series
responds to this ferment by making available outstanding new scholarship
in the history of political philosophy, scholarship that is inspired by the
rediscovery of the diverse rhetorical strategies employed by political phi-
losophers. The series features interpretive studies attentive to historical
context and language, and to the ways in which censorship and didactic
concern impelled prudent thinkers, in widely diverse cultural conditions,
to employ manifold strategies of writing, strategies that allowed them to
aim at different audiences with various degrees of openness to unconven-
tional thinking. Recovering Political Philosophy emphasizes the close
reading of ancient, medieval, early modern and late modern works that
illuminate the human condition by attempting to answer its deepest,
enduring questions, and that have (in the modern periods) laid the foun-
dations for contemporary political, social, and economic life. The editors
encourage manuscripts from both established and emerging scholars who
focus on the careful study of texts, either through analysis of a single work
or through thematic study of a problem or question in a number of works.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14517
Hugh Donald Forbes
Multiculturalism
in Canada
Constructing a Model Multiculture
with Multicultural Values
Hugh Donald Forbes
Department of Political Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, Canada
ISSN 2524-7166 ISSN 2524-7174 (electronic)
Recovering Political Philosophy
ISBN 978-3-030-19834-3 ISBN 978-3-030-19835-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19835-0
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For Elliott and Luke
The current of modern history was against us.
George Grant
S e ’ P
erieS ditorS reface
Palgrave’s Recovering Political Philosophy series was founded with an eye to
postmodernism’s challenge to the possibility of a rational foundation for
and guidance of our political lives. This invigorating challenge has pro-
voked a searching re-examination of classic texts, not only of political phi-
losophers, but of poets, artists, theologians, scientists, and other thinkers
who may not be regarded conventionally as political theorists. The series
publishes studies that endeavor to take up this re-examination and thereby
help to recover the classical grounding for civic reason, as well as studies
that clarify the strengths and the weaknesses of modern philosophic ratio-
nalism. The interpretative studies in the series are particularly attentive to
historical context and language, and to the ways in which both censorial
persecution and didactic concerns have impelled prudent thinkers, in
widely diverse cultural conditions, to employ manifold strategies of writ-
ing—strategies that allowed them to aim at different audiences with vari-
ous degrees of openness to unconventional thinking. The series offers
close readings of ancient, medieval, early modern and late modern works
that illuminate the human condition by attempting to answer its deepest,
enduring questions, and that have (in the modern periods) laid the foun-
dations for contemporary political, social, and economic life.
The title of the present volume may lead one to expect simply an his-
torical case study of a Canadian public policy. And the book does indeed
begin with an explanation of the background to Pierre Trudeau’s 1971
establishment of official multiculturalism as the most effective counter-
poise to the official bilingualism that was established in 1969. But Forbes
goes on to develop a comprehensive and contemplative reflection on the
vii
viii SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE
origins and tendency of a new way of thinking about national politics and
global governance. Because of Canada’s multiculturalism, many influential
Canadians and some foreign observers now think of the country as “the
first postmodern nation”—embodying a remarkably happy synthesis of
nationalism and globalism.
Forbes aims to show what multiculturalism really is by a meticulously
critical analysis of its distinctive values. Its watchwords are diversity, inclu-
sivity, sensitivity, and tolerance, but these gleaming words are shadowed
by practices of homogenization, exclusion, insensitivity, and intolerance;
and this provokes Forbes to a critical examination of the current under-
standing of five more basic multicultural values: equality, freedom, recog-
nition, authenticity, and openness. These words, with updated meanings,
better define and justify the ultimate goals of multicultural policies. Forbes
finds that the principle of the natural equality of individuals has been trans-
formed into the administratively contrived equalization of admittedly
unequal (sotto voce) groups; that freedom and recognition, rather than
being understood as goals to be achieved, have become rights legitimating
claims to the various compensatory benefits provided by bureaucratic
agencies; that authenticity is losing its connotations of honesty and self-
knowledge in order to put a better face on practices of deceptive domestic
diplomacy; and that openness, having left behind openness of mind, now
refers to “evidence-based” management (or “piecemeal social engineer-
ing”) of the tensions induced by the diversity resulting from open borders.
He finds, moreover, that these five goals are guided by the hope of eventu-
ally “schmeltzing” all traditional religious differences on the basis of a
new, progressive mythology, to secure a higher and less troublesome spiri-
tuality. In short, Forbes finds his way through the “veil of words”—the
bright, cheerful, welcoming, reassuring, misleading words—in order to
see more clearly the problematic character of what multiculturalism
has become.
Forbes is aided in his analysis by careful meditations on the works of
Will Kymlicka and Charles Taylor—the key theoreticians of multicultural-
ism—and of Karl Popper, David Mitrany, and Henri Bergson. These medi-
tations form the theoretical core of the work. In the two chapters (9 and
10) that precede his conclusion, Forbes conjures an academic who pro-
poses policies designed to bend the arc of history toward multiculturalism,
striking “a progressively advancing balance between universal values and
cultural relativism.” Here we are treated to what one is tempted to call a
series of Swiftean modest proposals, warnings of what the future holds,
SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE ix
owing to the anti-democratic and anti-liberal nature of both the theory
and practice of multiculturalism as Forbes has unfolded it. The resulting
portrait shows the emergence of an Orwellian world of incoherent dou-
blethink, in which experts nimbly manage internal conflicts at home and
practice a bullying imperialism abroad, wherever they can, to export “dis-
tinctively Canadian” multicultural values, “to show Canada’s exceptional
national identity and to strengthen its unity.” After the completion of their
work, “the truth of multiculturalism, all will … recognize, with relief, is
Canadian and global monoculturalism.”
Waco, TX Timothy W. Burns
Austin, TX Thomas L. Pangle
c
ontentS
Prologue xiii
1 Introduction: Celebrating Diversity 1
2 Official Multiculturalism 33
3 Visionary Policies 53
4 Culture and Equality 73
5 Cultural Freedom 95
6 Cultural Recognition 127
7 Ethical Authenticity 147
8 Forms of Openness 167
9 Culturally Open Governance 199
xi