Toward a philosophic basis for Canadian conservatism

Toward a philosophic basis for Canadian conservatism J. W. DALY The contemporary crisis of our semi-liberal social order has encouraged the emergence of voices which challenge that order from the Right, as well as from the Left. In Canada the name of George Grant is associated with a critique of liberalism, and Professor W. L. Morton has contributed to the intellectual respectability of ideas which have, until recently , been ignored by virtually all those who wished to consider themselves the thinking portion of the Canadian public. What gives these men peculiar importance is their desire to grapple, not with the ephemera of political issues, but with the underlying assumptions which must give life to those issues. Indeed their recent writings have at least touched on every aspect of such a stand - though not always with sureness or success. Professor Morton's thoughts on "Conservatism and Technology" 1 make a forceful case for a conservative answer to our contemporary malaise. With much of that case any conservative will agree. Equality as a social goal, the state as an agent of social change, the widespread expectations associated with the name of Progress, all these receive a proper comeuppance. However much one might disagree with an emphasis here, or a contention there, the tone is right, the vision authenic. But in one respect he has signally failed to come to grips with a viable conservative position. His superstructure is admirable, but it is reared on foundations which are insufficient if not downright anticonservative . He defends what he calls "pessimism" (which turns out to be a rather optimistic pessimism) on the grounds that it avoids one of the "traps" in the western mind, "the teleology of traditional Christianity." This "teleology " (eschatology?) he defines as "the faith in a hope of salvation," which he declares to be "a specious and historical accretion to the teachings of Christ," who supposedly taught "a clear and immediate reconciliation with the here and now." And he continues, "The man who has learned to forget himself and to love his neighbour need give no thought to the outcome of things."2 A number of questions immediately occur: 50 need "a clear and immediate reconciliation with the here and now" rule out a belief in eternal salvation? What about the biblical evidence on which the alleged "historical accretion" was based? (For that matter, why should a believer in Professor Morton's apparent brand of continuity-worship object to something on the ground of its being a historical accretion?) Surely it would have been better not to obtrude such a reckless assertion when it could not be more fully explored . And why should self-forgetfulness and love of neighbour deprive one of the need to give thought to "the outcome of things"? Such attributes have never prevented saints from doing just that - hence the "historical accretions." and much besides. Thought about "the outcome of things" is part of what we call wisdom, and while virtue does not always lead to wisdom, it hardly forbids it entirely. It would seem that the Morton position comes perilously close to that of Tertullian 's friends, those anti-philosophical Christians who believed that (in Etienne Gilson's happy paraphrase), "since Christ has spoken it is no longer necessary to think." Christ was not a simple Galilean preacher of positive thinking; his simplest words demand speculation on the highest plane. That is why Christians think about "the outcome of things." If none of this would move Professor Morton, he would surely admit that the conservatism which he loves developed in centuries when nearly everyone did believe in an after-life, and those names to whom all conservatives are drawn were usually devout Christians who so believed - Hooker and Burke are obvious examples. It would be strange indeed if a man who so rightly stresses the organic nature of conservatism, the virtue and necessity of continuity, would maintain that conservatism must at the outset discard a belief which was held by almost all those who built up the deposit of attitudes which he calls conservative. Ob.viously one can be a conservative with no such belief, without Christianity at all, but surely neither the belief nor Christianity...