Subversion of Meaning

Rediscovering Canadian Principles

Photo by Khashayar Kouchpeydeh on Unsplash

By James Pew and Scott Miller, for the series The Great Illiberal Subversion: How Radical Activists Ru(i)n Western Democracies.

“Illiberal subversion, as it regards this series, refers to the “work” of radical activists and social agitators who force their will on society through a long on-going web of processes involving incremental efforts that chip away at the pillars of western democracies. Attacking and undermining public institutions as Gramsci had it - “a revolution from within” - through a drawn-out complex of affairs perhaps best viewed as death by a thousand cuts, the radical activists entrench in individual departments until they colonize an entire organization and effectively wield enough power to shape its directives. Once this happens to enough of the institutions (or pillars) of society (and it already has), the radical subverters effectively wield power over everyone, the power to shape social right and social wrong.” - The Ontology of the Great Illiberal Subversion

In today’s essay we take the Great Illiberal Subversion in a new direction. The reader can consider this the first essay in a mini-series which will cover in some depth what we feel are fundamentally important concepts essential for gaining a broad understanding of illiberal subversion in the West.

We begin this arc by making some important distinctions between the common political philosophies and ideologies of Western nations. A key consideration is that these things change over time. Canada, Britain and the United States all use terms like Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism and Nationalism, but each country has a unique vision concerning these ideas that attempts to reflect local culture and tradition. Because these and other terms are elastic both historically and geographically, it can be hard to pin down exactly what is meant when they are spoken. One way to address this problem is to identify a foundation, a part that is rooted and does not move even while other parts do. That foundation is liberalism. Modern western societies of the Anglosphere (the English-speaking West) have traditionally made liberal social values manifest. The version we feel best functions as foundational is the liberalism of John Locke. In other words, Lockean liberalism is the benchmark to which all other iterations from all other times and places are compared. 

On that note, we feel that to understand The Great Illiberal Subversion of Western democracies, it is important to understand the political, philosophical and ideological history of Britain, the former empire (the source of much of the Liberalism in the modern world), the United States, the current empire (where Lockean individualism is most overtly expressed), and Canada (the nation historically, geographically, and politically caught between the currents of those two great liberal nations). 

For reasons listed below, Canada is a nation with a high susceptibility to illiberal subversion. This is why we have decided to focus so much attention on Canada. The young age of the nation, coupled with a lack of national/cultural coherence, leads many to an incomplete distorted view of Canada. Many of the political leaders, including the current Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, have stated that Canada is the first post-nation. For reasons that will become clear as the reader works through these essays, we do not believe a post-nation is either desired by the majority of Canadians, or would be of any benefit to Canadians.

Why is Canada more susceptible to illiberal subversion than other Western democracies? The following set of theoretical surmises sketch one possible answer:

1. More multiculturalism/diversity/globalism means less nationalism.

2. Less nationalism means less conservatism and traditional political philosophy.

3. Less conservatism means less appeal to tradition, permanence and continuity.

4. Less appeal to tradition means greater cultural dysphoria.

5. Greater cultural dysphoria means greater susceptibility to radical leftist subversion.

We feel this at least partially explains why Canada is among the most subverted of the western democracies. We have the most multiculturalism, the least nationalism, and Canadians with traditional values are decreasing with every generation. Before we delve into the problems of Canadian Nationalism, we feel it is important to define liberalism and conservatism in the British and Canadian contexts.

In Canada, the federal political party of the Conservatives is commonly perceived to have issues with its image, its assertiveness and its ability to meaningfully distinguish its message from that of its opposition especially on social matters. If popular assessments are to be believed (and only “if”), then conservative ideology in Canada is an absolute mess from the “Red Tories” to the Blue, from the “Big C” conservatives to the “little C” conservatives to the social conservatives, all of whom may be for or against capitalism allegedly, some of whom may be leaning toward the left or even adjacent to socialism, allegedly(1). On closer inspection, it might be said that Canadian conservatism suffers from something of an identity crisis (and consequently, something of a meaning crisis) which is surely in no small part due to the fact that we have allowed biased and radical scholars to define what Canadian conservatism has been and is today, and to bestow upon it the multilaterally accepted label “Red Tory,” a label which implies some level of commonality with Canadian socialism, and a label which can serve no other purpose than to remake conservatism according to the designs of disingenuous actors.

What follows is largely a summation of the position of the late Rod Preece, a British born political scholar and professor emeritus at Wilfred Laurier University. For reasons which will become clear, Preece took issue with the spurious and obfuscating label “Red Tory,” although the same term has generally been blithely accepted by the Canadian populace at large (to include Conservatives). In order to explicate for the reader just how essential it is to object to these conventions (if Canadian conservatism is to have any meaning at all), the following discussions are offered below: a) what is a Whig and a Tory in the British tradition?; b) what English Conservatism is not, and what Canadian Conservatism is not (it isn’t “Red Tory”). 

A) What is a Whig and What is a Tory in the British tradition? The Whig movement emerged in the 1670s as an opposition to the rule of the king Charles II (who developed Catholic sympathies) and particularly to the succession of his heir (who was Catholic). Essentially, Whiggism began as a protestant movement which resented the power of Catholic kings to curb or even suppress the religious freedom of the Protestants of that time. The Whigs, who in due course would become the dominant political party of 1700s England, were led by the Earl of Shaftsbury who had in his service one John Locke (1632–1704). It was Locke’s Whiggish philosophy that would give voice to that vision of liberalism and personal liberty which, in due course, was to birth the modern free West.

Notably, the Protestants were already a majority in England in these times and, with the overthrow of the Catholic king James II (the heir of Charles II) during the revolution of 1688, and with the enthronement of William III of Orange (a Protestant king brought to the throne by the machinations of Protestant Whigs), Lockean principles were set to transform England. For example, in 1689, the English Bill of Rights was passed by the British parliament. It was based on those Lockean principles which have perpetually enshrined in British policy making the liberal values of individual rights (including freedom of religion as well as freedom of speech) while simultaneously shifting Britain away from monarchic absolutism and toward parliamentary authority. From here, the Whigs were set to dominate English politics for much of the 18th century to follow(2).

What, then, is a Tory? The British Tories were formed in 1679 and emerged in British parliament as reactionary opponents attempting to counter the Whig party’s move to oust then reigning Catholic king Charles II, and, concurrently, as the parliamentary voice opposed to the transformation of social policy according to Lockean whiggish designs. As is obvious from the sketch above, these original Tory positions were drastically out of step with the course of history and this version of Toryism was short-lived: the 1688 revolution came less than ten years after the Tory party formed and struck up its obstinate positions, and, with the passing of the British Bill of Rights in 1689, as well as the transformation of the role of British parliament, Tory monarchical absolutism was already moribund (that is, next to death) and the party found itself (perhaps by necessity) embracing the liberalism it had initially staunchly opposed. Already in 1689, then, the British political system had assumed the dynamism which would come to typify the politics of the Anglosphere (the English-speaking world) ever after: dominant oppositional parties united by their philosophical liberal principles yet divided in their interpretation and application of the same(3).   

By the mid-1800s, the Whigs would be rechristened (following a partial transformation) as the “Liberal” party in Britain and the Tories would be rechristened (following a partial transformation) as the “Conservative” party in Britain. These conventions have the unfortunate effect of implying (misleadingly!) that in the mid-1800s one side was philosophically liberal while the other side was not. The quintessential political philosophy of the British Conservative party at this time was (and remains) derived from the thought and the writings of the philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797), a Whig party member in point of fact. In turn, Burke was a devotee of liberal ethics, he embraced liberal reform while adding his own adjustments and embellishments to Lockean thought — he believed in ordered liberty, for example, he developed Locke’s moderation into a sophisticated theory of cautious and pragmatic reform and, while he embraced Lockean toleration, he added that there is a point where forbearance ceases to be a virtue(4). His opposition to the radical and immoderate overreach of the French revolution (think guillotines) produced a split in his party (which was the Whig party) and those favoring Burke’s tempered liberalism are sometimes referred to as “Classical Liberals”(5). 

As will be made explicit below, the distinctly liberal disposition of English conservatism is special. Conservatism of the French and German derivation, affected neither by the Whiggish revolution nor by the thinking of Burke, is distinctly anti-liberal. Importantly, one might note the early and ongoing tendency of the “Liberal” party to dilute (to controvert even) its founding Whiggish principles by opening itself up to socialist revisionism. A good example is John Stuart Mill, the liberal party member sometimes dubbed “the most influential” English philosopher of the 19th century. Although Mill is credited (and much vaunted by the left) for producing the tract called the Subjection of Women, the fact that his feminist wife effectively ghostwrote much of the work (note the feminist title), and that feminism owes its core precepts to Charles Fourier (a father of early 1800s socialism), is rarely articulated(6).  A genuinely liberal position would be that women are entitled to the same individual rights that men are — in contrast, John Stuart Mill and his wife, in the mode of the feminists / socialists, represent that women are “subjected” and oppressed (by their families). When today’s right-wingers zealously cite Mill in defense of free speech, naively labeling him a “Classical Liberal,” they tend to overlook the fact that the same man, late in life, wrote the tract Socialism in which he argues for a liberal socialist mode of governance(7).  

If Mill is to be unscrupulously held up as an exemplar of what liberalism is supposed to be about, and he often is, let him also stand as metaphor for the illiberal leftward drift of Western liberal parties. In fact, the leftward drift of “liberal” party politics has continued apace in the modern West, coalescing in recent times into the disposition which political scientist Eric Kaufmann terms “left modernism” (essentially, a description of the 1960s merging of left liberalism with “culturalized versions of socialist ideas around oppressed groups and oppressor groups”(8)). Notably, the terms left modernism and the terms wokism describe, effectively and in essence, the same thing.

B) What English Conservatism is Not, and What Canadian Conservatism is Not (It Isn’t “Red Tory”): There are other trajectories that conservatism might take if birthed somewhere other than the land in which liberalism first emerged and spread across party lines. The below comments on German and French conservatism serve to emphasis what Canadian conservatism is not:

The Reactionary Absolutism of German Conservatives: in 19th century Germany, liberal ideas were already present among the country’s intelligentsia, however, since Germany remained a scattering of tiny kingdoms there was no reliable mechanism with which to spread liberal governance and liberal policy. German intellectuals of the day, to include its conservative thinkers, remained in the service of the establishment which was ultimately headed by an absolutist monarchy; as a result, they tended to agitate in a manner that would ensure the perpetuation of the regime and German intellectuals of this sort could, and did, pervert the thought of Burke –a devotee of Locke himself– into an argument for absolute monarchy(9). As Preece relates, such intellects found inspiration in the anti-liberalism of Hegal, who held that “the state was the possessor of infallible knowledge, tolerance thus became a "criminal weakness", and the individual achieved his freedom in subordinating himself to the state…”(10).

The French Political Romanticism:  a second sort of pro-monarchy absolutist position which might be called conservative is the French reaction against the French revolution (1789–1799) called political romanticism. As Preece relates, the political romanticists believed that all social ills can be attributed to the revolution and the radical enlightenment and they believed in absolutist royalism and paternalistic religion — accordingly, they despised individual liberty, the (in their view) greedy materialism of capitalism and “the arrogant pretended omniscience of scientific thought”(11). As such, they were decidedly anti-liberal.

Canadian conservatism was, and forever should be, understood in opposition to the royal absolutism and political romanticism of the French and German traditions. John A. MacDonald, a member of the Canadian conservative party, made the philosophically liberal aspect of his politics clear when he said: “I have always been a member of what is called the Conservative Party. I could never have been called a Tory... I have always been a Conservative-Liberal”(12). Assuredly, Macdonald was entirely sympathetic to the parliamentary system and the constitutional monarchy of Britain and stood in opposition to American politics and any American ideological influence on Canada; and yet, as was borne out in the course of this essay, this should in no way mitigate against the reality of MacDonald’s (philosophically) liberal principles.  Canada’s founding philosophy, emphasizing efficiency, harmony and permanence in the union, is best associated with the pragmatic and ordered liberalism of (whiggish liberal philosopher) Edmund Burke(13), manifesting in a mode of governance and policy making that had long been germane to both British and Canadian conservative parties(14).

In every political party there are rival factions and there are aberrations who degrade the message: George Grant, an influential Canadian conservative philosopher in the 1960s, is notable in this regard on two counts: i) his fervent Canadian nationalism which caused him to crusade against American capitalism and American liberalism, seemingly, at the expense of his esteem for liberalism generally ii) his desperate and deeply idiosyncratic attempts to buttress theology and religion against scientific modernity — in doing so, Grant would draw intellectual inspiration from the thought of Sartre (a French Marxist), Heideigger (a Nazi irrationalist), Rousseau (the French father of illiberal collectivism), Hegel (the idealist who buttressed royal absolutism against liberalism), and others of that ilk(15). In his later formulations, Grant abstracted “liberalism” to mean all those who brought about modernity at the expense of tradition (including, preposterously, Karl Marx)(16). That Grant in no way upheld the values of English (British/Canadian) conservatism was plain to Preece who described his principles as being akin to French political romanticism (that brand of conservatism which despises individual liberty, capitalism and science).

In the 1960s, a Marxist academic (namely, Gad Horowitz) would use George Grant’s aberrant example as an opportunity to sell the public a new analysis of the nature of the Canadian conservative, a feat celebrated in the book Subversive Itinerary: the Thought of Gad Horowitz (written by Horowitz’ academic admirers)(17). According to a Marxist intellectual, case in point, according to Horowitz, it is liberalism itself which is “hegemonic” and “repressive” (as the same aforementioned book makes clear) and which must be overcome for the greater good. What Horowitz had proffered in the 60s was a new way of thinking about the Canadian conservative, whom he labelled —with masterful dissimulation— the “Red Tory”(18). The “red” is supposed to imply, essentially, that because aberrations like Grant are substantially illiberal, and because socialists (like Horowitz himself) are entirely illiberal, a Canadian conservative might as well be considered adjacent to socialism. That Horowitz has in one stroke achieved what were undoubtedly his ends —to greatly obfuscate the liberal values of Canadian conservatism to the public (including the conservative public)— can be seen in the mass acceptance of the term “Red Tory.” As Preece observes, “the Horowitz thesis has by now become a part of Canadian academic conventional wisdom, it has had a significant influence on subsequent writings on Canadian political thought (W. Christian and C. Campbell's Political Parties and Ideologies in Canada being the most notable recent example), and it serves to provide rationalizations for students who are unable to distinguish the behaviour of Canadian political parties”(19). And so, the “Red Tory” thesis is now a standard feature in Canadian political-history books. The entry for “Red Tory” in the Canadian Encyclopedia agrees with Horowitz that “historic conservatism in Canada does have leftist leanings” (“left” here intending socialist or liberal socialist) and the entry for “Red Tory” on Wikipedia calls John A. MacDonald a bloody “Red Tory”! 

Thus, it might be said that many Canadian conservatives have reached a sad state of befuddlement, duped and blithely dancing along to the siren song of Marxian intellectual warfare, wondering if they are really socialists after all. What is conservative, what is liberal, what is socialist, will Canada forever demur on the most basic problems of modern politics? How many Canadian conservatives have gamely assumed the self-descriptor “Red Tory,” naively supposing the political and philosophical integrity of such nonsense wizardry? Will the shock of emerging woke culture dominance be enough to shake Canadians from this confused state, that they might rediscover their own principles? 

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Thanks for reading. For a complete index (with summaries) of The Great Illiberal Subversion series of essay’s, check out The Ontology of the Great Illiberal Subversion.

Bibliography:

Goldstein, Leslie. 1982. “Early Feminist Themes in French Utopian Socialism: The St.-Simonians and Fourier.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 43/1: 91–108.

Horowitz, Gad. 1966. “Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation.” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 32/2: 3–57.

Jacobs, Jo Ellen. 1994. "The Lot of Gifted Ladies Is Hard": A Study of Harriet Taylor Mill Criticism.” Hypatia, 9/3: 132–164.

Kaufmann, Eric. 2019. Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities. Penguin Books.

Preece, Rod. 1977. “The Myth of the Red Tory.” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 1/2: 1–28.

Preece, Rod. 1984. “The Political Wisdom of Sir John A. Macdonald.” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 17/3: 459–486.

Song, Robert. 2006. Christianity and Liberal Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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[1] See, for example, a typical if often dubious comment by Wegierski: https://thehub.ca/2022-09-06/mark-wegierski-social-and-paleoconservative-critiques-are-vital-to-canadas-conservative-movement/

[2] This summary follows the comment of Mark Goldie (2016). in a preface to John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration. For general introductions to this topic see the wiki entries for English Revolution of 1688 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution) and the English Bill of Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689).

[3] These understandings follow Preece (1977, 7) who states: “Toryism as a philosophy in Britain was moribund by 1688; as an ideology even, it was ceasing to have influence by 1789.”

[4] Following Preece 1977, 13.

[5] Preece 1977, 16.

[6]  For the impact of Harriot Taylor Mill’s feminism on her husband, see Jacobs 1994; This influence is spelled out by John Stuart Mill himself in his autobiography, see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/harriet-mill/ . For an easily accessible account of this influence, see also: https://areomagazine.com/2021/05/12/john-stuart-mill-socialist/ . For founding socialist thinker Charles Fourier’s coining of the term “feminism” see Goldstein 1982.

[7] Justifiably, Preece (1977, 16) refers to the liberalism of Mill as having “social democratic overtones.” For a quick overview of Mill’s ideas and impact, including his leftward drift into socialism, see: https://areomagazine.com/2021/05/12/john-stuart-mill-socialist/ 

[8] For a discussion of left modernism, see Kaufmann 2019, 281.

[9] Preece 1977, 5.

[10] Preece 1977, 7.

[11] Preece 1977, 8.

[12] Quoted in Preece 1984, 462.

[13] Preece (1984, 466) analyzes the speech of MacDonald in one of the Confederation debates of 1865 as positively Burkean in spirit: “Macdonald spoke of first principles of British constitutional government." He twice referred to "conservative principles." He commented on the virtues of "representative institutions," "free institutions," and "the liberties of Parliament." He quoted the London Times on the "rights and property of Englishmen, the prerogatives of the Crown, the privileges of the Lords and the authority of a representative Assembly." In such phrases one can only note a consistency with, rather than an emulation of, Burke's philosophy. After all, most liberal-conservative thinkers from Locke through Hume would have concurred. Nonetheless, three times in that speech Macdonald echoed the very words of Edmund Burke when he asserted that "we in this House are representatives of the people and not mere delegates," when he gave due deference to "the wisdom of ages," when he spoke with due regard to "prescriptive rights.'" Nor was this speech much of an exception but a fairly typical example of Macdonald's parliamentary addresses.”

[14] Preece 1984, 462–463.

[15] This description of Grant’s intellectual tendencies follows a biography of Grant written by H.D. Forbes: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/grant_george_parkin_21E.html

[16] Following Robert Song 2006, chapter 4.

[17] For Gad Horowitz’ Marxist system of analysis, see the aforementioned book Subversive Itinerary: the Thought of Gad Horowitz (2013, Bell and Kulchyski). This title of this work, written by Canadian poli-sci professor Shannon Bell (seen here kissing a statue of Karl Marx https://www.yorku.ca/shanbell/), is not intended to be an indictment of Horowitz’ lack of academic integrity, rather, describing Horowitz as a subversive is intended as a badge of accomplishment. The observation in the introduction “what cements Horowitz’s diverse works together is that they are continuously and consistently subversive” should be understood in this way. Bell goes on to describe his work as a “radical critique of hegemonic liberalism and its inherent repressiveness.” To the uninitiated: are we starting to see what the modern humanities are all about? 

[18] See the Canadian Encyclopedia entry “Red Tory” which states: “The language of Red Toryism became popular in the mid-1960s when Gad Horowitz suggested that George Grant was Red Tory.” https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/red-tory  .  The work in question, which popularized “Red Tory” was Horowitz 1966.

[19] Preece 1977, 4.