I had no idea that Grant existed before reading Deneen’s article today. This is a crying shame and also very typical of what I talked about yesterday. I’m obsessive, and this means that I read every syllable of everybody who mewled anything about neoliberalism at any point in time. Yet I never heard that Canada had its own Zygmunt Bauman thirty years before the actual Bauman.
Get a load of this, for example:
Grant recognized that liberalism was more radical [than even Marxism] due to its fundamental commitment of freedom that ultimately sought (and required) liberation from human nature itself. Grant was especially attentive to the close alignment between liberalism and an embrace of transformative technology. “The conquest of human and non-human nature becomes the only public value” (56).
Liberalism wants to liberate us from human nature. It wants to achieve the state where there are no negative emotions, unpleasant feelings, or conflicts arising from human beings coming together. It seeks a reality where humans are not constrained by our biology. Where we can choose and remake every aspect of our bodies. Even today it takes hard work to make this argument. In 1965, for a dude born during WWI to say something like this is extraordinary.
Grant argued very correctly that liberalism (I call it neo while he didn’t which is utterly insignificant) is more dangerous than Marxism. Yes, Marx was completely mistaken in that communism was possible. But at least Marx’s fantasy involved people coming together and becoming less selfish for the common good. It’s in the name. Yes, it’s a pipe dream, absolutely. But the dream itself is a lot less malignant than the solitary human god of neoliberalism with his sewn-on body parts and claims to being able to remake the world, vanquish death, and become eternal.
Reader V07 asked yesterday what Canadian national identity could be. Well, Grant offers an answer. “We were the first on the planet to catch the advent of a new era and analyze it presciently ” is a pretty kick-ass identity. We are the new hub of world philosophy. We create ideas. What’s not to like?
Why should Deneen, an American, try to reveal to Canadians their own intellectual greatness? I’m sure Grant wasn’t working in a vacuum. There must be a whole intellectual tradition there. It’s up to Canadians to find and describe it.
Clarissa's Blog 
—Reader V07 asked yesterday what Canadian national identity could be. Well, Grant offers an answer. “We were the first on the planet to catch the advent of a new era and analyze it presciently ” is a pretty kick-ass identity.
thank you! Can something 99% of the nation have no clue about be the basis of national identity?
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Of course, if the people whose job it is to make it known do that work. When the Spanish intellectuals of the 18th century decided to base their national identity on one 17th century writer over another, most of the population of the country couldn’t even read. But they went to work and made their ideas known. If they could do it 250 years ago, today it definitely can be done.
This is always the work of the cultural elite.
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Also, I have to say that when it came to making the indigenous mass grave hoax a part of the national identity, that was achieved with lightning speed.
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