In an interview with the N.Y. Times in 2015, Justine Trudeau proudly declared the following: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada, [we are] the first post-national state.”
Whatever the Nation State may have been 1000 years ago, the philosophers of the European Enlightenment saw it as a pragmatic means of organizing the world into distinct geographical units which guaranteed certain mutually agreed upon rights and freedoms to their citizens while allowing them to pursue their own economic self-interest within the rationally defined limits of the Rule of Law. Google the topic and you will find: “The core ideas advocated by modern democracies, including the civil society, human and civil rights, and separation of powers, are the product of the Enlightenment.”
Canada and the U.S. are clearly products of the ever-evolving cultural traditions of Western European Civilization. Seventy years ago, few intellectuals would have denied this. That Reason and Science are essential to Man’s quest for a better future was deemed to be self-evident. Yet in this era of Inclusiveness, one need not look far to find politicians, academics and “intellectuals” declaring Reason and Science to be but Western European fetishes of no more inherent value than the world-views of every other people on the planet. Hence the conclusion that Sir John A. MacDonald’s references to Canada’s Indians as “savages” was racist. Hence the contention that our Residential Schools were not meant to educate the Indigenous but to destroy their culture. We had nothing to teach them, we simply saw the world differently!
Whereas the Ancient Greeks took it to be self-evident that Man’s Mind was his defining attribute which by definition made him responsible for his existential condition, both material and moral, “progressives” have ironically come to see us as just another Animal whose valuations are always utterly subjective. This trend, rooted in Marxism and academically supported by Post-Modernism, has inevitably led to the erosion of concepts such as Objective Truth, Personal Responsibility, Merit, Achievement, and the efficacy of Rational Constructs such as the Nation State.
Trudeau’s assertion that Canada has no “core identity” is a natural extension of the Intellectual Nihilism described above. While our nation’s prosperity and relative political stability are clearly products of its Western European heritage, expressing pride in that heritage is now frequently characterized as a form of White Supremacism and an insult to all those from other cultures. You are no doubt aware of “intellectuals” who have declared the widespread celebration of Christmas here in the West to be an affront to Inclusiveness. While all minorities are apparently entitled to their culture, we are not. At the heart of such insanity is the Neo-Marxist belief that Success is always rooted in Oppression, that Western Man came to dominate the Americas not because he was inestimably more evolved and industrious than its Indigenous, but because he was more evil. As this criminally dishonest narrative virtually eliminates Merit and Initiative as factors in all historical outcomes, it implicitly impugns the right of every Nation State to defend its borders. The rest of the world is just as entitled to occupy the land known as Canada as are its present, legally sanctioned citizens. As for those among them who might consider themselves “mainstream” in their appreciation of the history and traditions that made this country what it is, their views no longer matter. The efficacy of Reason and its application to the Human Condition no longer matter. Indeed the notion of Canada as a valid rational construct designed to preserve our fundamental values and economic prosperity, is now obsolete. Our Prime Minister gleefully said as much over eight years ago.