Building Solidarity: Or, Fighting our Way towards a Better Country

The essay makes a contribution to the theory of patriotism by advancing a set of insights addressing the problem of pan-national belonging and solidarity in the Canadian context. It draws on the work of philosopher Charles Taylor, who has written extensively on the topic but whose ideas have been inconsistently received. The first part of the essay reviews some of his better-known concepts on Canadian diversity as linked to the national unity debate. The second and third parts draw on less-well-known aspects of Taylor's thought linking patriot-ism to the organic social unity that arises from participation in civil society. The author thus moves beyond approaches that view problems of national belonging solely from the perspective of cultural diversity to offer a broader picture of the means through which an engaged citizenry can be understood to take root. This expanded view includes a focus on the integrative effects of small-scale co-operation and an emphasis on the specifically democratic form of patriotism that is manifest in partisan social conflict.