George Grant: Canada’s Moral Conscience
George Grant: Canada’s Moral Conscience
In the heart of Toronto’s York University, a quiet professor with a fierce intellect and a sorrowful gaze penned a sentence that would shake Canada’s post-war complacency to its core: *“The truth is that we are a colony of a new kind of empire.”* The year was 1965, the book was *Lament for a Nation*, and the man was George Grant—philosopher, conservative revolutionary, and the unsettling moral conscience of a country perpetually unsure it had one.
Grant’s thought is a paradox that defies easy political labels. He was a conservative who mourned not progress, but the loss of tradition, community, and the good life in the face of a crushing, homogenizing “technological modernity.” He was a Canadian nationalist who believed his country’s sovereignty was already succumbing to the American-led juggernaut of liberal capitalism. And he was a deeply religious Christian (influenced by theologians like Augustine) who warned that a society focused solely on mastery and efficiency had abandoned any concept of inherent meaning or limit. His role was not to flatter Canada, but to question its very soul.
*Lament for a Nation*, sparked by the defeat of John Diefenbaker’s government and its more independent stance, was famously a eulogy. Grant argued that Canada’s historic project—a more communitarian, Tory-inspired society distinct from the American “republic of technology”—was no longer viable. The sheer gravitational pull of the American empire, with its ideology of individual rights, unfettered freedom, and technological domination, was irresistible. Canadians, he claimed, had willingly embraced this “universal and homogeneous state” for the prosperity it promised, selling their distinctive political tradition for a mess of consumer pottage.
Yet to call Grant merely a nationalist is to miss his profound depth. His lament was for something far greater than border policies. It was for the erosion of the “good” as defined by Plato and Hegel—a shared sense of justice, virtue, and order that modernity was systematically dismantling. In his seminal *Technology and Empire* (1969), he argued that the modern drive for technological mastery had become an end in itself, obliterating older ethical frameworks. When the only question is “Can we do it?”, the more vital questions—“Should we do it?” and “To what end?”—are silenced. In this, he foresaw debates about biotechnology, environmental degradation, and data capitalism decades before they reached the mainstream.
Grant’s persona as “moral conscience” stemmed from his unique position as an outsider on the inside. Scion of a famous Canadian family (his grandfather was Principal of Queen’s University, his mother a Hart Massey), he was deeply rooted in the establishment he critiqued. Wounded and inspired by his experience in WWII, haunted by the atomic bomb, and steeped in ancient philosophy, he brought a tragic, prophetic tone to Canadian discourse. He offered no easy policy solutions or happy endings. His gift was diagnosis, a chilling and precise diagnosis of a spiritual malady.
His influence is a subtle, lingering presence. He gave the Canadian Left a sophisticated critique of American imperialism that was not socialist, and the Canadian Right a traditionalism that was not merely economic. Environmentalists found in him a foundational thinker on the ethics of technology. Scholars of Canadian identity, even when they disagreed, had to grapple with his devastating, love-filled critique.
Today, in an age of algorithms, climate crisis, and deepening continental integration, Grant’s voice feels unnervingly contemporary. The questions he raised are our questions: What is a nation for beyond economic growth? Can a society survive without a shared sense of the sacred or the common good? What do we lose when efficiency becomes our only god?
George Grant did not provide comforting answers. He provided a piercing, sorrowful, and essential clarity. He was the man who stood on the bustling platform of Canadian modernity and asked, in a steady, unwavering voice, not where the train was going, but why we were so eager to board it in the first place. In that asking, he forever altered the moral landscape of his country.
About the Creator
Fred Bradford
Philosophy, for me, is not just an intellectual pursuit but a way to continuously grow, question, and connect with others on a deeper level. By reflecting on ideas we challenge how we see the world and our place in it.
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