ALLAN SMITH Metaphor nd Nationality n North America I THE NATIONALIST USES LANOUAOE to define the nation's character and ex- perience n a way that will provide a rationale or its continued xistence. Lacking uch rationale nd he mental picture of itself which hat rationale helps o provide, o society an stay ogether. anguage hus becomes n in- strument o be employed n the fashioning f a nationalist deology which itself becomestooldesigned or a particular purpose, he integrating f the human elements n a given geographical rea nto a coherent, elf-conscious whole. n the course f fulfilling hat purpose, ationalist deology, ike deol- ogies enerally, ften does iolence otruth and masks eality. Yet rhetoric f this sort, however much t deals n distortion, maystillreflect something un- damental n the character f the society o whose mystique t attempts o give expression. ften it does his nadvertently y revealing certain character trait in the act of focussing n something uite different. hus he nationalist, in talking about his nation's ccomplishments, ay reveal. ride, superiority, or arrogance. n dilating upon his country's rospects or the future, hemay reveal optimism, xcessive elf-confidence, r a will to power. n this way he may, n spite f himself, make an unintended esture n the directionfreality. Less nflated hetoric may make his same esture n other ways, ntentionally, andnotas a result of error or oversight. epending n how good or conscien- tious an historian e s, he nationalist ay ind himself imited n what he can make of his nation's istory nd character y the circumstances f that history and the nature of that character. He may try to dramatize hisnation's ex- perienceyemploying triking nd memorable anguage, r by emphasizing those lements n it that make t (in his view) unique and superior. e will An earlier ersion œ his paper was ead at the Canadian-American eminar, niversity of Windsor, November 968. x Cf. Karl Mannhelm, deology and Utopia (New York x936
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THE NATIONALIST USES LANOUAOE to define the nation's character and ex-
periencen a way that will providea rationale or its continued xistence.Lacking uch rationale nd hementalpictureof itselfwhich hat rationale
helps o provide, o society anstay ogether. anguagehusbecomesn in-
strument o be employedn the fashioning f a nationalistdeologywhichitselfbecomes tool designedor a particularpurpose,he integrating f the
humanelementsn a givengeographicalrea nto a coherent, elf-consciouswhole. n the course f fulfilling hat purpose, ationalistdeology,ike deol-
ogies enerally,ftendoes iolenceo truthandmaskseality.Yet rhetoric fthissort,howevermuch t deals n distortion,may still reflectsomethingun-
damental n the character f the societyo whosemystiquet attemptso give
expression.ften it does his nadvertently y revealing certaincharactertrait in the actof focussingnsomethinguitedifferent. hus henationalist,
in talkingabouthisnation's ccomplishments,ay reveal. ride,superiority,or arrogance.n dilatinguponhiscountry's rospectsor the future,he may
revealoptimism, xcessiveelf-confidence,r a will to power. n thisway hemay, n spite f himself,makeanunintendedesturen thedirection f reality.Lessnflated hetoricmaymake hissame esturen otherways,ntentionally,and not asa resultof erroror oversight. epending n howgoodor conscien-tiousan historian e s, henationalist ay ind himselfimited n what hecan
makeof hisnation's istory ndcharacter y the circumstancesf that history
and the nature of that character.He may try to dramatizehis nation'sex-perience y employingtriking ndmemorableanguage, r by emphasizingthose lementsn it that make t (in hisview) uniqueand superior. e will
An earlier ersion œhispaperwas eadat the Canadian-Americaneminar, niversity
of Windsor,November 968.
x Cf. Karl Mannhelm, deologyand Utopia (New York x936
Vol. L•No 3 September97o
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not, however, epart rom realityentirely,he will not indulge n unlimited
flightsof fancy, or he knowshat historywill not sustain im on such jour-
ney.And sohe hovers nlya littledistancebovehe earth, he emptationouse orcefuland dramatic anguage avingyielded o a prosaic nd evenhomelyway of speakingbouthiscountry'sxperience.
Nationalist hetoric, hen,may unintentionallyr by design efer o reality.
Two rhetorical evicesommonly mployedn Canadaand the United States
suggesthe ruthof these bservations.he term"melting ot," n widespreaduse to delineate he characterof Americansociety, oes eflectsomething
fundamental n that society, lthough n a manner ts enthusiastsave not
perhapsully ntended. he metaphor f themosaicepresentsn attemptby
Canadiannationalismo come o gripswith a difficult,possiblyntractable,fact of Canadian life.
Describingn homogeneous,oherentommunity,ndattemptingo com-municate he sense nd meaningof its experience,s easier han doing he
same hing for a communitywhich s not homogeneousnd which acksco-herence. Canadians have known this truth for some time; Americans are
beginningo discovert as heyrewrite heir historyo takeaccount f the role
black Americans ave played n its making.Generally,however,American
nationalistsaveseen heirnationasa vessd ontaining single, irtuallyun-blemished ay of life, and their language as,accordingly,eenconfidentand assured. hey haveknownwho theywereand n what theybelieved, nd
their vocabularyhas reflected he pride and security hat this knowledge
brought.Canadian ationalism,n contrast, asbeen ess xuberantndmorediffidentbecauset recognizesow fragile and uncertain s the structurettries o celebrate, nd how delicatemustbe the touchof he who would work
all tsparts ntoa cohesivehole.
Canadaand the United States avebeenpeopled y immigrants. he experi-
ence hat thesemmigrants aveundergone, nd the character f the society
One speaksf theAmericanmelting ot and he Canadianmosaic? achofthesemetaphorsarries double urden.Each s supposedo symbolizeheactualnatureof thesocietyo which t isapplied, ndeach sheld o represent
the deal orm which hat societysattempting o realize.The melting-potmetaphor onjures p a pictureof peoples f diverse ri-
ginsbeing used n the crucible f a newenvironmentnto a groupof wholly
• The history ndmeaning f the first erm hasbeenexplored y Philip Gleason, The
Melting-Pot:Symbol f Fusion r Confusion?"mericanQuarterly,xvx, , springx964,20-46. There isno comparable xamination f the mosaic oncept.
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newbeings. achof these eings assevered is ieswith the Old World, and
each has been regenerated y his new environment.Each has become, n
Cr•vecmur's lassic hrase, new man. This themehasbeenone of endlessfascinationor Americans. hey haveexpendedmuch ime and energy ab-orating he imageof Americaas a New World, a garden,a virgin and, free
from the corruptand corruptingnfluencesf the Old World, and capable fregenerating am The American, nd all men who come o America,aretransformed.
In Canada he ideaof creating newman hasgainednothing ike the cur-
rency t has n the United States. ere the controllingmetaphor asbeen hemosaic, grand design onsistingf many differentelements, achof which
retainsts owncharacter nd qualitywhilesimultaneouslyontributingo therealization f the design sa whole.The objectives the rendering f a com-
positeigure, otthecreation f one hat swhollynew.The elementsf whichthiscompositeigure, hisnewnation, onsist ill be uxtaposedn such wayasto createa new nationality, newhichrests ot upona common ukure,
but upon tscapacityo serve ndprotecthe nterests,ultural ndotherwise,of its componentarts.The essencef thisnew nationalitywill be found nthe natureof the relationshiphesedifferentelements ear to one another,
and not in the fact that there will cease to be different elements. There willneed to be a consensusn this national state. t will, however,be a consensuswhich derives not so much from a shared culture or shared values as from the
beliefby all itspeopleshattheirbestnterestsrebeing erved y continuingassociationn a common oliticalramework.
Each of thesemetaphorsdealizeshe society o which it refers,and it
idealizesheexperiencef the mmigrant hohascome o thatsociety.mmi-grants o the United States aveoften etained, nd haveoftenbeenen-couragedo retain,somemeasure f theirethnic onsciousness.he existence
of ethniccommunities,speciallyn the cities f the industrial ortheast,s awell known act of American ife. It indicates learly hat Cr[veceeur's ew
man hasoften ailed to materialize, r if he has, hat he hasnot beenwholly
forgetful fhis ransatlanticast.Indeed, ultural luralism, hichsanotherwayof talking bout hemosaic,asbeen n mportant lementn Americansocial ife. A classic efense f it issuedrom the pen of HoraceKallen, a
Harvardphilosopher,n x9x5 5 Kallenarguedhat eachethnicgrouphadsomethingf value o contributeo the totalityof American ulture, nd it
3 R. W. B. Lewis, he American dam Chicago955); HenryNashSmith,VirginLand (Cambridge,Mass. 95o); Charles . Stanford, he Quest or Paradise:
Europe nd he AmericanMoral ImaginationUrbana, ll. •96• )
ought o be allowed o make hat contribution.he immigrant houldetainsomething f his Old World cultureand, more han that, he shoulduse t to
enrich the life of his new homeland.To the extent hat the immigrant o Americahas,however,beenrequired
to divesthimselfof hisethnic dentity,he hasnot become whollynew man.
He and his fellowshavenot beenmelteddown and then recast n an entirely
new mold. They have become, nstead,AmericanizedEnglishmen. he
dominantsocial ype in the United Statess an Anglo-Saxonype, and it is
to this ype hat immigrants avebeenexpectedo assimilate.he Americanbecomes,hen, not a new man, but a modificationof one who is old and
familiar.And so he term "anglo-conformity"asbeenheld o describe ore
accuratelyhan does he melting-potmetaphorwhat happenso the immi-grantwhocomeso theUnited States.
Finally,whilethe immigrant o the United Statesmightbe assimilatedo
the prevailing ultureand valuesystem, e is not always ssimilatednto theagenciesnd nstitutionshat operate ociety. is assimilations behavioural,but not structural. t is not total, and here too, the melting-potmetaphorbreaks downy
The mosaic oncepts alsoan idealization f reality.A greaterdegree f
behavioural ssimilationas akenplace n Canada han that conceptwouldappear o allow or. The majorityof second eneration erman-Canadians,Icdandic-Canadians,nd evenUkrainian-CanadianspeakEnglish nd not
theirparents' ative ongue. heir Old World culture,when t is retained,sregarded s somethingo be broughtout and dusted ff, ratherself-con-sciously, n special ationaloccasions.t doesnot form a centralpart ofCanada'scultural ife, and when t is brought o the attentionof Canadians
at arge, he endencys oregardt asan mported xotic.The mosaicurther mplies social ituationn whichmembersf different
ethniccommunitiesre able o retain heirethnic dentity,and yetparticipateto the full in the national ife. Here, also, he metaphorails o representhe
reality. Positions f power, nfluence, nd prestigehave tended o go toCanadiansof Britishdescent, nd continuing mphasis n ethnicoriginshas
beenudgedikdy o perpetuatehisstate f aftaimFinally, state edicatedo thepropositionhatall cultural roups ithin
it have an inalienableight to flourishwouldbe a state n which, deally,
groupwouldknow hat theirspecialnterests ouldbe ooked fter,and theywouldnot, therefore,ind it necessaryo solicit pecialavours. he national
interestwouldnot demand onstant djustment f the claims f rival groups.And precisely ecausehe interestsf eachgroupwould,automatically s twere,be served, oliticians ouldhavenothing o gain by manoeuvringor
the support f these roups. ut thisclearly s not the situation. oliticianswho,asAndr• Siegfried roteat thebeginning f thecentury,ound t neces-sary o "exert hemselves.. to prevent he formationof homogeneousarties,
dividedaccordingo creedor raceor class" avenoticedno changesn what
isrequired f them.The different roupstill eel t necessaryo promoteheirinterests, nd those nterestsmust still be reconciledwith one another. t
remains n essentialart of politicsn Canada o adjust heclaims f differentgroups nd interestsnd to insure snearlyaspossiblehat noneshallhaveundue nfluence nd that the stateshallnot fragmentalongethnic ines.The
existencef thepoliticiansbrokerndicates,ot hepresencef a fully unc-tioning ulturalmosaic, ut tsabsence.
III
Notwithstandinghis ailure o correspond ith reality, hereare goodhis-toricalreasons hich explainwhy eachof these ermscame nto use.The
Puritans f New England ame o see hemselvess ejectinghe Old Worldand the oldways, ndtheirabhorrencef thesehingswasconfirmed y theAmerican Revolution.To be an American, however, nvolvedmore than a
rejection f Europe.t involved mbracing new dealof life and society,which ound xpressionn a peculiarlymerican olitical ndsocial conomicfaith. He who wouldbe an Americanmustprofesshat faith. Thus John
Quincy dams ould riten • 8 8:9
They immigrantsoAmerica) omeoa lifeof ndependence,ut oa lifeoflabor and, if theycannotaccommodatehemselveso the character;moral,
political ndphysical,f this ountry ithall tscompensatingalancesfgoodandevil, heAtlanticsalways pen o them o return o the andof theirnativityand heir athers. o one hing heymustmake p theirminds, r theywill bedisappointedn every xpectationfhappinesssAmericans.heymust ast fftheEuropeankin, everoresumet. Theymustook orwardoposterityrather hanbackwardo theirancestors;heymustbesure hatwhateverheir
own eelings aybe, hose f theirchildren ill cling o theprejudicesf thiscountry.
It waspossibleor Americanso createhe deaof a newmanand o elab-orate a national faith becauseAmerica for the first two centuries of its exist-
9 Niles'WeeklyRegister,vm (•8•o), •57-8, cited n Gordon, AssimilationnAmerica," 268
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encewas,broadly peaking,deologicallyndculturally omogeneous.con-sensusn undamentalsaspossible,nd hatconsensusmerged.t made he
revolution nd characterizedmericanife and thought fter t. At its corewere hemain clementsf Englishiberal hought ndthechief endenciesfenlightenmenthought,elements hosempact n Americawasheightened
by the nfluencesf the American nvironment.øA belief n theequality fall men; a brief in progress,n individualism,n a fundamentalaw; and a
belief hat Americahad a specialmissiono showmen how to order heir
affairs all containedn a mindwhose entwasessentiallyragmatic:hesewere he eading lementsf theAmericanaith,and hiswas hequality fthe mind that professedt. These iberaland egalitarian alueswere ormal-
izedand madepart of the national dentity. t washisadherenceo them,hislife in a societyhat wasshaped y its reverenceor them,that defined he
American.ndeed,asSeymour artin Lipsetwrites,heybecame art of thedefinition f nationhoodtsdf.n Even the South, hat mostserf-consciousf
American egions, asbeendenied nyclaim o the status f a separateivil-ization with a faith and ritual all its own. Differences which obtained there
were at most sectional ariationswithin a commonculturepattern.TheSouth, ike the North, owed tspolitical heorymore o Locke hanBurke. ts
economy aynothavebeen ndustrial, ut t wascharacterizedy a capitalistand entrepreneurialpirit;cottonmay havebeenking,but it wentto market.
And, on the otherside, f the Southparticipatedn modes f thoughtoften
associatedith the North, it is likewiserue that the process assometimes
reversed. ven racismwas not exclusively Southern roperty, lthoughslavery eafly was.D. M. Potterargueshat it isnecessaryo recognizehow
very thin the historical videncesf a separate outhern ulture eallyare,"and C. Vann Woodward,who affirms he reality of a specialSouthern x-
perience, ssertshat theSouth remainsmoreAmerican y far thananything
else, ndhasall along. •2 Therewas, hen,somethinghat couldbe called n
•o For the consensusiewof Americanhistory, eeLouisHartz, ed., The Founding [
New SocietiesNew York •964), especially hap.4, "United StatesHistory n a New
Perspective,"p. 69-• •, and alsohis Liberal Tradition n America New York
•955); Ralph Henry Gabriel,The Course [ AmericanDemocratic hought New
York •956); Daniel Boorstin, he Americans2 vols.,New York •958, •965);
and D. M. Potter,Peopleo[ Plenty: EconomicAbundance nd the American
CharacterChicago 954). For a criticism f this mportant rend n American
historicalwriting,see ohnHigham,"The Cult of the AmericanConsensus':Homogenizing ur History," Commentary, vn, Feb. •959, 93-mo
• • The First New Nation: The United States n Historicaland Comparative erspective
{GardenCity, •.Y. •967) , p. •o•
I • D. M. Potter, "The Historian'sUse of Nationalismand Vice-Versa,"American
HistoricalReview, •.xvn,4, July •96•, 944. C. Vann Woodward,"The Search or
Southerndentity," The Virginia QuarterlyReview,xxxtv, •958, 338
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American aith, whichhad tsbeing n the country sa whole.The newcomer
wasexpectedo adopt hat faith ashisown.
Nor was this all. Influenced by nineteenth-centuryacist ideas, someAmericansupportedheir crusadeor ideologicaluritywith argumentsorthe exclusion f those mmigrantswhose acial background id not equipthem with the wit or the moral fibre necessaryo enable hem to conform o
the AmericanWay. And sonot only hosewho arrivedwith their own deasaboutmen and society,ike the Germansocialistsf the late nineteenth en-
tury,but also hosewhose ocial abits ndethnic ackgroundausedhem obe deemed inferior to the men who had made America found themselves
treatedwith scorn nd contempt.a"Americanism,"owever,wasat rootalwaysmore deologicalhan ethnic,morea matterof culture han of race,so hat the twentieth-centuryverthrow f the racistassumptionsponwhichAmerican nativismwas based eft the force of that idea, and the idea that all
menwho came o Americamustbe "Americanized," nimpaired.American-
ismbecame nce gainwhat t hadbeen n the ateeighteenthndearlynine-teenthcenturies, ssentiallyn ideology, setof values, culture,which any-
onemightmakehisown.Blackmen,however,were o be denied he right o make t theirown.They
were o be denied he right to participaten thiscentralprocessf Americanhistory. nd to deny hem his ightwas,perversely,o act n a manner on-sistentwith the liberal idea itself.That idea, to which gradationsn society
were oreign, ouldprovide nly or eachman'snclusionn societyna basisof absolutequality ithall othermen. f hewerenotequalhewasnot rulya man, and mustperforce e excluded. he black,patently,wasnot equal.His exclusionas herefore aturaland nevitable. utoncehebecame qual,
the same dearequiredhat he be incorporatednto the life of the societyfullyandcompletely.e must ecomenAmericanikeall otherAmericans.The central hrustof thecivilrightsmovement asbeen, hen,assimilationist.
The discoveryhat theblackman sequalhasmeant hat hemustbecomewhiteAmericann all respectsave he colour f hisskin.He, too,mustpro-less he national faith. He also must be brought within the Lockeancon-sensus. 4
•3 OscarHandlin,RaceandNationalityn American ife (Boston957); JohnHigham,Strangersn theLand:Patterns [ AmericanNativism,x86o-x9• (New
Brunswick, . . •955). In an articlepublishedn •958 Highamsuggestedhat it is
necessaryo looknot only o ideologyor an explanation f nativism, ut also o the
dynamicsf American ocietytself,specificallyo the statusivalries hat tookplace
within t asnewgroups hallenged, r seemedo challenge,he powerand status f
the old; see"AnotherLook at Nativism,"The CatholicHistoricalReview,xzsv, 2,
July •958, •47-58
•4 Hartz,ed.,The Founding [ NewSocieties,p. •6-•o, 53-8; alsoHartz'sarticle, A
Comparative tudyof Fragment ultures,"n Violencen America:Historical nd
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Each of these wo societiesad its own values,raditions,ife style,and an-
guage.One was French-speaking,atholic,and, with somequalifications,agrarianand feudal; the other was English-speaking,rotestant, ommer-
cially-minded,nd conservativelyiberal n its viewof society?Agreementon fundamentals asdifficult. he creation f an idealnational ype n whichall Canadians ouldseesomething f themselves,nd which hey couldall
strive o emulate,was mpossible.he national reoccupationame o bewithdifferences,ot similarities, ith creating nationout of culturally isparate
groups, ot with establishingultural niformity. he absencef a nationaltype (therewasno CanadianCrb.ecceurecauseherecouldbeno Canadian
new man) and the absencef a dear and specific ational aith whichallCanadians ouldprofess, eant hat therewasnothing o whichan immi-grant couldbe required o assimilate.he onlyelementn their experiencewhich the two communities had in common was the link each of them re-
tainedwith a transatlanticulture, hat of imperialBritain n the onecase,
Catholic uropen theother. ronically,hen, heoneelementhe wosharedcouldnot result n a commitment y newcomerso a whollynewway of life.
Instead t servedonly to encouragehem to maintain heir tieswith their
parent ocieties.Confederationreated political ntitywhichowed tsbirth o the concern
of its people,both French-speakingnd English-speaking,o preserveBritish civilization n North America, one which would, in time, assumehe
status nd dignityof a greatstate.There wouldbe a consensusn thisnew
society,s heremustbe n anysociety,ut t wouldnotderive roma particu-lar cultureor a set of valuesnarrowlyconceived.t would be a consensus
whichdid not imit but ratherencouragediversity nd freedom, nd hisnot
merely f individualsut of groups.t wouldbea consensusuiltuponwhat
Cartiersuggestedere he "kindred nterestsnd sympathies"f the BritishNorth Americans, ut central o those nterestsnd sympathies as he con-
viction hat conformityo a nationalypewasnotpossible.t wouldbea con-
sensusn support f the Britishand monarchicalystem f government,sTach• madedear, but that system f government as o be supportedre-cisely ecausehe kind of political ocietyt maintainedn beingwasnotmonolithic. Even Macdonald, whose deal remained a centralizedstate in
Comparative erspectives. Report to the National Commissionn the Causes ndPrevention f Violence,une 1969 (New York t969), pp. •oo-• 7
t5 SeeA. R. M. Lower,"Two Waysof Life: The PrimaryAntithesis f Canadian
History,"CanadianHistoricalAssociation,eport, •943, 5 • 8, and KennethD.
McRae, "The Structure f CanadianHistory," n Hartz, ed., The Foundingof New
Societies, p. et9-74
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which,ultimately,he assimilationf all laws n the provincesxceptQuebecwould ake place, hereby howinghat not merely he unionbut the fusion
of the BritishNorth American rovincesadcome o pass,wascompelledoyield o the plural[stmperative. legislative nion,he proclaimed, as m-
possible,n the forseeableuture at least. t was mpossibleot merelybe-causet would ail to satisfyhe French-speakinganadians, ut alsobecause
it would ake nsufficientccount f Maritimeparticularism.nd so, rresist-ibly, pluralismmade necessaryhe constructionf a politicalsystemhatwould accommodate it? 6
The new politicalnationalitywouldembrace ot simply he FrenchandEnglish, ut the Scots nd rish aswell.The Irishman,Scotsman,r English-
man who had emerged n the BritishNorth Americanshore ollowinghisvoyage crossheAtlantic oundnoparticular etof values, ospecial ayoflife, whichhe wasexpectedo adopt,nothing n favourof which he wasex-
pected o abandon he culturalbaggage e broughtwith him. He wasper-ceivedas the representativef a particularOld World culture,and not assomeone hose rincipal usinesst was o adopta whollynewway of life.His way of life wouldof course hange;he would become BritishNorthAmerican;but the changewouldbeowing o the mperatives f circumstance,
not thoseof a national creed.The Canadianstatewould not, becauset couldnot, requireconformityo a single ype, or even o one of two types. t wasfounded, n the estimationof thosewho made it, on diversity. n Cartier's
words: "... there couldbe no danger o the rightsand privileges f either
prehendhat anything ouldbe enacted hichwouldharmor do njusticeopersonsf anynationaiRy.•7
But while there was to be culturalpluralism, t was not conceived f as
embracing ll ethnicgroups. nder he nfluence f nineteenth-centuryacist
ideas,Canadians laborated concept f nationality hat did not explicitlyrequire ssimilationo a common ultural ype,but whichwas o be imitedin other ways. Canadiansike Sir John G. Bourinotconcludedhat thenorthernpeoples f Europewere he firstamongmen. They had developed
the highestormof civilizationhe worldhadyetseen, nd,of equal mpor-tance,modern elf-governmentadevolvedrom heirprimitive ribal nstitu-tions.Canadians toodn thisgreat radition n two ways: Canadawas tself
a northernnation, and therefore ts environment,ike the environmentof
northernEurope, alled nto play hose ualitiesmost o be desiredn man-kind, hose ualities hichhadproducedhebeginning f modern ivilizationin the Germanicorests. anadians erenot,nor could heybe,slothfulMedi-
•6 Parliamentary ebateson the Con[ederation the BritishNorth American
ProvincesQueen'sPrinter 1865) pp. 6o, 6, 29
17 Ibid., p. 55
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northernpeoples. ven the FrenchCanadians ouldbc includedunder his
dispensation,or their ancestors ere the Normans,and they had bccnas
virile,upright,andNortherna people s heworldhad everseen.ndeed, hepossibilitiespened p by thisview of thingswcrcalmostunlimited. ustasthe NormanFrenchhad contributed, fter I o66, o the makingof themodern
Britishnation,so might their descendantsn modernCanadacome ogether
with that country's nglo-Saxonlementso form a greatnew Britain,a new
northernBritain, which might, ultimately, eplace he old Britain at the
centreof the empire. n thisscheme f things herewas,of course, o placefor the inferior aces.Not onlywere he non-whiteaces nd the peoples f
southern nd casteraEurope ncluded n this atter category, ut even,occa-sionally,hose f the United Statestself. ts people, fter all, lived n a moresoutherly limate,one hat conducedo decay ndeffeminacy. oreover,heysccmcd determined to allow themselves to bc overrun with aliens who could
not possiblytrengthenhe race.Canada, n contrast, s Sir GeorgeParkin
emphasized,ouldhaveno cities like New York, St. Louis,Cincinnati, rNew Orleanswhichattractcvcn he vagrantpopulation f Italy and othercountries f SouthernEurope." t wouldnot therefore lipdownwardsn the
scaleof nations sthe United States oobviously asdoing.s This kind of
nationalism,hen, allowed he FrenchCanadians, longwith any groupwhich could claim descent from the ancient inhabitants of the northern
forests,o be integratednto the nationalcharacter nd yet retain heir own
special ulture.t wasa clever nd maginativeonstruction,or it sccmcdosatisfy oth he pressingccd or a coherent ationalism nd the equally n-sistent demand that such a nationalism accommodate the obvious differences
within Canadiansociety. et it wasableto accomplishhis eat only at the
priceof conceding,t one evelof meaning t least,hat Canadawasa plural-
ist society.The anxiety roused y theYellowPeril evealedn a starkandunpleasant
way the limitswhich acism nd fear could mpose n the pluralistdea;butracism n thiscontextdid not deny hat idea altogether, s t had not deniedit for Bourinot and Parkin. How, indeed, could it? For the same sanctions
that required he nationalists f casteraCanada to adjust their integral
nationalismf it was to havemeaningbeyondEnglishCanadapreventedthosewho wereconcerned ith Oriental mmigrationrom bolstcringheirarguments ith appealso a conventionalulturalnationalism.he narrowAnglo-Saxonismhich pervaded he BritishColumbiaargument or exclu-
sioncouldnot provide he rationale or actionat the national evel.There,
• 8 Carl Berger, 'Race andLiberty': The Historicaldeasoœ ir JohnGeorge
Bourinot," anadianHistoricalAssociation,eport, • 965, 87-• o•};Berger, The
True North Strong nd Free," n Russell, d., Nationalismn Canada,pp. 3-26
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the argument ad to be a broaderand more atitudinarian ne.How else
couldLemieux e got o goto Japan? urely e wouldnotgo n defence fa narrowlyAnglo-Saxon anada.
The argumentor restrictedntry, ike that for nationalistheory, ad to rest
on grounds f race,not culture.For if the nation,and not usta part thereof,
wasto be mobilizedn its support, hat argument,ike the one on which
anynationally cceptableationalistheorywouldhave o rest,mustallow orculturaldiversity. nd soLemieuxwent to Tokyo,not in support f cultural
uniformity, ut rather o negotiate n agreementhat wouldreduce acialtension. or him, the issue ad to be basedon the broad groundof race. He
went,ashe explained ponhisreturn, o resolve problem ndemicwher-
ever"the woraces,Mongolian ndCaucasian,avecomentocontact..,,•9He went, although e himselfdid not share he fearsof thosewho saw t in
imminentdanger, o uphold he integrityof a branchof western ivilization
nowendangeredy theexpandingordes f the East.That civilization,eenfrom a worldperspective,ashomogeneous;ut the broadhomogeneityfa civilizations not the morenarrowand restrictive omogeneity f a particu-
lar nation or culturewithin it. Nothing seems learer han that it was theformer and not the latter that was held to be at stake.
Two sets f events, nepolitical nd heother ntellectual, orkedogetherin the twentieth entury o overthrowhe assumptionsponwhich hisracist
conceptf nationality asbased. he fateof Germanyaised uestionsboutthe validityof argumentsased n the notion hat oneracewas nherently
superior, hileadvancesn anthropologyhowedhat therewasno scientificbasisor racism? Colour,however,emained n obstacle. t firstonlya part
of the message asreceived. he overthrow f racismmighthavedestroyedthe barriers ividingwhitemen from eachother,but thosewhichseparated
white from yellowand both rom black, emained.And soonlysomeof the
limitson pluralismn Canadawere emoved.n x936,thegovernoreneral,Lord Tweedsmuir,wasableto tell a groupof Ukrainian-Canadianshat by
beingbetterUkrainians, y remaining onsciousf theirethnicheritage,heywouldbe betterCanadians. ut when, wo years ater, JohnMurray Gibbon
publishedisprofile f Canadian ociety, anadianMosaic, herewasnoroom in it for Orientals and blacks. The book's subtitle revealed its racist
heritage,or it was o be the storyof "The Makingof a NorthernNation."Not until after the SecondWorld War, whose normities adeplain the con-
sequenceshichmight low rom acism, id hepluralistdeabecomenclu-sive.Not until then were the non-white acesawarded, n principle,a full
placen the abric f Canadianociety.x9 Canada, ouse f Commons,ebates,9o7-8, •585
Bourinothad recognizedhat a coherentCanadiannationalist octrine ould
not reston culture,and a•ter a fascinatingnd complicatedearch e hadlocated ts base n the nineteenth-centurydea of race,and the link provided
among he peoples f Canadaby their commondescentrom the Northern
peoples f Europe.There were hose, owever,who continuedo see n cul-tural uniformity he key to nationalstrength. or them, ndeed, ll the signs
suggestedhat by a kind of historical ecessityulturaluniformitywasexacfiy
what the futurewouldbring,and theybent hemselveso the taskof hasten-
ing tsarrival.The nationalismf the McCarthyires, omentarilyriumphant
in the Manitoba School egislation f • 89o was,however, ransformedntothe pluralist etfiement f • 897 the necessityor whichgrewdirectlyout ofthe absence f a nationally cceptableype to which assimilationouldbe
urgedand the reluctancef the Manitobanso accepthe biculturaldea.Asingle ulturenationalism howedtself o be impossible,or FrenchCana-dianscouldnot acceptt, and it wasreplaced y its opposite,he only hing
acceptableo Westerners,ho had by now come o regardall minorities scoequaln status. ut multiculturalism,n the eyes f some ad enough, asto show tsall ntolerablewhen accompaniedy multilingualism.he drivefor nationalschools asaccordinglyenewed arly n the twentieth entury.
It wassuccessful,owever,nly n the imited ensehat t created popula-tionunilingualn Englishn most f Canada utside uebec.t did notpro-vide hatpopulation itha culture. hat population asnot"Canadianized."
Ralph Connor's roposition,hat in the CanadianWesta nationwasbeingcreated,hat "out of breeds iversen tradition, n ideals,n speech, nd in
manner f life,Saxon ndSlav,Teuton,Celt,andGaul,onepeoplesbeingmade •x remained ssentially prophecy ntilled.Where Cravecoeurould
definehis new man, Connorwrote only n vaguegeneralities.Where IsradZangwill n his• 9o8 playThe Melting-Pot ould xplain learly nd n a waythat couldappeal o him as well as to the established embers f hisnewsociety hatwas o happeno the mmigrantn America,Connor rguedora kind of domesticmperialismn which the immigrantwas not so much
transformedy hisnewenvironmentsupliftedby hiscontactwith the Prot-
estantAnglo-Saxonse found n it. HIS bookdemonstratesothingmore
dearly than the impossibilityf articulating Canadian ational ype nwhich all elements f Canadiansociety ouldseesomething f themselves.
HIS attempt o forgewith hisprose he devicewhose xistencen the UnitedStates angwillhad dramatizedhe yearbefore howedtself o be a failure.What emergedn the 192OS as ot a drift towardsntegralnationalismr in
Ralph Connor CharlesWilliam Gordon], he Foreigner Torontox9o ), Preface
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flourished, hile the passionor conformityo a provincialprocess f standard-izationhascrushedhem n the United States.n Canada, he Scottish
Highlander, he Acadian,and the Doukhobor,or example, avenot beencom-pelled o abandon heirmemories. he life of their forefathers as lourished
when ransplantedo a newsoil.That wise olerance ndappreciative atholicitywhich snot alwaysound n a new andhaspreserved ld ovelinessere...•'a
FouryearsaterKateA. Foster f Toronto ublishedstudy f the oreignborn in Canada entitled Our Canadian Mosaic?
If Bourinot and Parkin met the difficultiescreated for Canadian national-
ismby cukuraldiversitywith the assertionhat at the most undamentalevel
they disappeared,. G. Creightonmet them by assertinghat at the most
fundamentalevel heycouldbe ignored. he Laurentian ypothesis5 notonly howedow nvironmentalistodesf hought,ithertosedoempha-sizewhatwasheld obeCanada'sssentiallyorthAmerican haracter,ouldbe employedn the constructionf an argumentor the independencefCanada in North America; it also revealed how fruitless he search or the
unityandcohesionf Canadawasnowheld o be f that searchwasnotcarried
beyondts people. he forces hichunified he Canadian xperience,t
asserted,ereobe oundn geography.heStLawrenceiver nd hesys-temsributaryo it hadnotonlymade henation ossible;heyhadcalledtinto being. It was upon this great natural phenomenonhat the modern
Canadianstate ested.t linked he regions f Canada rom east o west. ts
existence eant hat therewas nothingartificialor fragmented bout hatstate.Canadapossessedhe mostsolid,natural,and unifiedof bases.More
than hat, hecontoursf Canadianistorytself adbeen ivenheirvery
• Victoria aywardndEdithS.Watson,omantic anadaToronto 9•), P. x87;
the introduction asby EdwardJ. O'Brien.•3 Ibid., p. xm
•4 Mentionedn J. M. Gibbon,CanadianMosaic: he Makingo a NorthernNation(Toronto x938), Preface,p. ix
•5 SeeD. G. Creighton,he Commercialmpireof theSt.Lawrence,76o-z85o(Torontox939)
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shape ndsubstanceythemanifold vents cted ut n thecourse f exploit-ing the great ranscontinentalmpire o which he St Lawrence ystem aveaccess.
The Laurentianhypothesisave Canadianhistorya sophisticationnd
depth t hadnotpreviouslyossessed.t wasa dazzling chievementn othergrounds swall, or it suppliedtrength ndunitywhere heyhadnot existedbefore.t camedose o duplicating rederick acksonurner's reatwork nAmerican istoriography.ut where he rontier hesis adseemedo explainall the centralquestionsf Americanhistory- expansion,onflict, nd the
special haracterf theAmerican eople where t was, or its ime, ruly aunifyingvision, he Laurentianhypothesisouldexplainonly someof the
centralquestionsf Canadianhistory.t comprehendedhe dynamicsf ex-pansion nd conflict, ut the results btainedrom t were ess atisfactorywhenwhat t impliedabout he national haracter asexamined.
It explainedwhy menhad beendrawn nto the northernnteriorof NorthAmericaand acrossts vastexpanse.t explainedhe riseof the Canadian
state. t explainedhe central onflicts f Canadian istory.t explained hygovernmentnd orderprecededettlementn the west.As an historicalon-struct,t explained uch ndeed. ut asa nationalistisiont coulddo only
partof the ob. t explained anadianndependencen NorthAmerica, ndit conferred nityand cohesionn the country.But the price t requiredo be
paid for these onsiderableccomplishmentsashigh.For the hypothesisinvolvedhedearly mplied ssertionhat hosewhodidnot ind t possibleomake heproper esponseso the mperativesf thegreat iversystem ere obe considered anadians nlymarginally nd in the most ormalsense. hey
had failed to attune hemselveso the major chordsof the Canadianexperi-
ence.They wereout of harmonywith itsverycoreand essence.hey denied'.,
or wereunable o appreciate,he forceswhichgave heir societyts ife and
being.And so, egrettablyut necessarily,heywereplacedbeyondhe pale.They had failed to discern nd movewithin the parameters f Canadiannationhood.
The hegemony f the great iver systemmightexplainmuch n Canadian
history,t might ndeed e hecentralactof Canadian istory, uta national-
ist theorybased n it wouldhavedifficulty ainingnational cceptancenothergrounds s well. Sucha theorycouldnot take with greatseriousnesssectionalismnd the genuine f not insurmountablearrierswhich divided
the sectionsnd gave he peoplen thema self-consciousnessnd a sense ftheirown nterests.n itscosmologyhe relationshipf the outlying arts othe vital centrewas o be oneof subordination.hat relationship as o be,in fact, rankly mperial.How onewould eact o thisarrangement,sW. L.Mortonwrote,depended,ike one's ppreciationf a club,on the end romwhich one contemplatedt. Thosewho had not contemplatedt from the
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properendremained nconvincedhat an argument hichdepended n theassertionhat unityandcoherenceere o be purchasedt theprice,not of
subordinationf the parts o the whole,but of what they regarded s thesubordinationf some arts o another art couldeverbe acceptables hebasisor a healthynationalism.
Nine yearsafter the Laurentian ypothesiseceivedts first ormulation,Morton questionedts adequacy sa nationalist evice lthough e appeared
to accept he main thrustof itsargument shistory.He found he dominance
of the centrewhich it assertednd the culturalhomogeneityt implied ob-
jectionable. The Canadianstate,"he wrote,"cannotbe devoted o absolute
nationalism,he focus f an homogeneousopularwill. The two nationalities
and the four sections f Canada forbid it." Rather, he concluded, t mustrespondo the nterestsf the communities,egional nd otherwise,f whichit consists.The state n Canada mustpromote iberty of persons nd com-munities ...,,•6
In 196o Morton, by then clearly ecognizinghe value of the LaurentJan
hypothesisor the nationalist rgument et still firmly convincedhat Cana-
dian societymustbe understoodn pluralist erms,attempted o synthesize
modifiedversionof that conceptwith the pluralist dea. His objectwas to
articulate n ideaof Canadawhichwouldon the onehandprovide ohesionandon theotherallow or diversity,newhichwouldpromoteibertyof per-sons nd communities ithoutat the same ime inviting ragmentation f the
polity.Therewas,hewrote n an argument f near-metaphysicalubtlety, neCanadianway of life, given ts character y the northernclime.Within that
broadpattern, t was rue, were o be foundmanyothers. hey were,how-ever,onlyvariantsof the one.All Canadianswerenortherners nd therefore
in essencehe same.But while herewasaboveall a common esponseo acommonnorthernenvironment,t did not enjoin a rigid and absolute on-
formity.Canadiansociety,hen,wascharacterized,ot by unity in diversitybut diversityn unity. In this way Morton advanced is I946 argumenta
nationMist xplanation f their nationand its experience,neto whichallCanadiansn all partsof the countrymightrespond. ut if culturalunifor-
mity cannotbe said o exist n the country s a whole,neitherhas t beenpossibleo argue hat it can be foundwithin the linguistic ommunitywithwhich most Canadians associatehemselves.When the immigrant learns
English,he acquires mediumof communication,ut he does ot acquirea
culture.This situation rose,and hasbeensustained, artly by design nd
partlyby accident.
The English-speakingommunitywasnot at Confederation onceived f
asculturally omogeneous.ot only he newnationality s a whole,but also
the English-speakingart of it, wasthoughtof as beingculturallydiverse,
involvingScotsand Irish as well as Englishelements. his concept,ike somanyothersn Canadianhistory, ouldenter ntothe service othof French-
and English-speakinganadians ecauseachof them couldemphasizeif-ferent elementsn it. For the French,concentrating n the principleat its
centre, t meant that their positionn confederation,s one nationality n astate dedicated o the serviceof different nationalities,was unassailable. or
the English, oncentratingn the realitywhichseemedoclear, t meant hatEnglishCanadawasno ess unity hanwasBritainherself,or herdifferent
parts, sdid those f theUnitedKingdom, articipatedn a common ukureand civilization,one that was mostoften described s BritishNorth America.
But the essentialoint s that the assertionf the pluralist dea not onlyre-flected he present bsence f, but alsopreventedhe future creationof, an
English-Canadianype.A commitmentad beenmadeon the evelof prin-ciplenot o dualitybut o pluralism. hisdidnotseem oelearat the ime, orthe diversitywhichexistedn English-speakinganada n 1867wasobscured
by the fact that the elements f whichEnglish-Canadianociety ascom-
posedwerebound ogether y theircommonanguage,heirBritish eritage,
and theirparticipationn the BritishNorth American xperience.he plur-alist deawas hus endered t oncenecessarynd harmless,or while t grew
naturallyout of the absence f a normativeype, t wasnot really aken,ex-
cept n Cartier's hetoric, o indicate he presencef any verymeaningfuldegree f culturaldiversityn EnglishCanada.
The migrationsf the Laurierperiodat last caused nglish-speakingCanadianso confronthe implicationsf the pluralistdea.They werebroughtace o facewith cukural iversityot mitigated y similarityf
background nd the useof a commonanguage. he confrontationausedthem o think that pluralism arried oo far wasundesirable,ut it also e-yealedhow powerlessheywere o overcomet. The absence f a normative
English-speakinganadianype o which ssimilationightbeurgedmeantthattheonlydevice hich ouldbeusedo bind hesocietyogether as tsBritish haracter n the onehandand tsparticipationn the New-Worldex-
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perience n the other.The firstof these he immigrant egardedwith suspi-cion.He missedhe nationalismt the rootof muchof the EnglishCanadian's
attachmento the empire.For thishe couldnot reallybe blamed, or many
EnglishCanadians issedt too.To him, a remark ike Stephen eacock'sthat if thingswentas heyshould, prettysoon he Ukranians sic) will thinktheywon the Battleof Trafalgar" - meantonlythat he wasbeing nvited o
submergeisethnic dentity n someonelse's.t did not suggesthe existence
of a "Canadianism,"or even an "English Canadianism,"with which he
couldwithouthesitation eek o identifyhimself.The monarchy,t was rue,aroused he enthusiasm f someof the newcomers, ut their reverence or it
recalled he French-speakinganadian's ttachmento an institutionhat did
not compel is assimilationather han the EnglishCanadian's elebrationof an agency isallegianceo which nvolved im, if onlyvicariously,n one
of thegreatepics f humanhistory.The role playedby Britain n the nineteenth enturywasassumed y the
UnitedStatesn the wentieth. anada ame o bedefinedmoreby tspartici-pation n the New-Worldexperiencehan ts place n the mperial.The two,in fact,werenowheld n some uarterso be mutually xclusive.hisprocess
was ntensifiedndmade asier y Canada'sbsorptionf American opularculture which oozed rresistibly orthwards, teadily ncreasingn volume
until t assumedhe proportionsf a flood. ts presencexaggeratednglish-
speaking anada's ssentiallyorth American haracter,or it suggestedabsolutedentitywhere n fact therewasonlyclose imilarity.And soas hat
partof thedefinitionf theEnglish-speakinganadian haracter hich en-tredupon tsparticipationn British ulture nd civilization asdeprived fits relevancynd recededn importance,t was eplaced, ot by a compact,commonlycceptableefinition f Canadianism,ut by the deaof Canadaasan American ation.Whilethis urn of eventswasagreeableo, and n fact
had beenparflyengineeredy, Canadian ationalistsf the Liberalpersua-sion,othersound t wanting.
To them hisappreciationf the Canadian haractereemedncompleteat thepointat which t wasmostmportanto nationalistshat t becomplete,for by focussingn the undeniableimilaritiesetweenhe two societiestignoredhewaysn which heydiffered nd n consequencead ittle o sayabout hat in Canadawhichwaspeculiar o it. If, therefore,he nationalism
of the Canadian mperialistsouldbe easilydiscredited,he nationalism f
the continentalistsouldalso,and for much he same easons.t seemed, s
Canadian mperialism ad seemedo its detractors,o be a definition f thenational haracterramedn terms f Canada'sffinityo some ther ountry.It thereforeeft Canada onceptuallyefencelessgainsthatcountry.
All of this- Britain'sdecliningelevanceo a definition f the English-Canadiancharacter,he incompletenessf a definitionof that character
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based n its similarityo the societyo the south, nd the continuingmpos-sibility f creating n English-speakinganadian ounterpartf Cr•vecoeur'sAmerican left the pluralistdeaexposednd alone.Of the threeelementsthat had definedEnglish-speakinganada's haracter t Confederation,nly
it retainedtsmeaning.English-speakinganadacouldno ongerbe British,it wasnot merelyAmerican; he absencef an English-Canadianypemeant
that t was,necessarilyndasbefore, luralist. hisresurgencef thepluralistidea n the twentieth enturyhasbeenacceleratedy the mmigrant'seaction
to his new society's rientation irst towardsBritishcultureand then Ameri-
can, or it suggestedo him that English-speakinganadawas ndeed ther-directed, hat it contained o verystrong ndigenousulture,and sobecame
to him an argumentor retaining isown.It would,of course, e erroneouso deny hat behavioural ssimilationas
takenplace n EnglishCanada. t has,and at a rapid pace.The language,
the culturepatterns, ndthe values f hisnewsociety ll actupon he mmi-grant and makeof him, in some ense, newman. But asa sociologisteach-
ing in Canadahas ecentlywritten, hisprocesshasnot removedhe nega-
tive stereotypeshat have dentifiedmembers f different thnicgroups"nEnglish-speakinganada.The reasons not hard to find. AssimilationnEnglishCanadahasbeenopen-ended.he absence f an English-speakingCanadian ype has meant that there is nothing dentification ith which
woulddeprive he ethnicstereotypehe immigrant arriedaroundwith himof its meaning.There is nothingwhich cancelst out and deprivest of its
potency. he persistencef ethnic dentificationn both a negative nd posi-
tive sense as ed to the argument hat the Canadianmosaic e deprivedof
its verticality,not by obliteratingt altogether that would be impossible,
since hat which producedt preventsts overthrow)but by emphasizingstructural ssimilationn the part of thosewho retain heir groupor ethnic
identification.It wouldappear,"Professorsajiw writes, that the problemof ethnicstatus an be dealtwith ... by meansof ethnicpluralismtself.•8The creation f a society f undifferentiatedtomic ndividuals, ll of whom
conform o the same ype and samesetof values,s not now, as t neverhas
been,a tenabledeal,either n Canadatselfor in the English-speakingartof it.
Thereare,of course,theractors hich ave layed part n theemergenceof the mosaic oncept. ertainethnicgroups avebeenmotivated smuchby thehistory f theirnation r culture utside anada sby circumstanceswithin t to retain heir ethnicconsciousness.he Ukrainians,he Doukho-
bors,and the Hutteriteshaveall beenconcerned,or reasons hich ie essen-
tiallyoutsideheirCanadian xperience,o retain heirspecial haracter.m-migration uthoritiesave,asa matterof policy,encouragedmmigrantsoretainsomemeasuref theirethnicdentity o easeheprocessf acculturationand reduce he intensity f cultureshock.An explanationor the absence f
a consensusn bothculture ndpolitics asbeen ound n thekindof politicalsystemCanada possesses.democraticepublic equires ll its citizens osharecertain undamentalbeliefs.The rule of citizenover citizen, he rule of
a majorityover a minority s not acceptable nlesshere s a consensusn
fundamentals. monarchy,nlikea republic, emandsllegiancef itssub-jects, ndthat s all. No conformityf viewssrequired. s Mortonhassaid:
"... the society f allegiancedmits f a diversityhe society f compact oesnot,andoneof theblessingsf Canadianife is hat there sno Canadianwayof life, much ess wo, but a unityunder he crown,admittingof a thousanddiversities.'
Finally, he Canadianvaluesystem,t hasbeensuggested,ncouragesa-
nadianso see heirsociety sone hat consistsf differentiatedroups,ather
than an homogeneousass, ll of whosemembers onform, r in principleought o conform,o a single ormativeype:
The verystrength f hierarchical tatus,raditional eligion, nd governmentalauthorityn Canadahasmeant hat n a varietyof ways...Canadian alues all
somewhereetweenhose f Britain nd heUnitedStates.. Oneconsequenceof therelative onservatismf Canadian ocietyasbeen hatgreater mphasisisplaced nparticularistroupdentifications,speciallythnic ndregionalbut also o someimiteddegree, lass nd status.ø
Not surprisingly,he French-Canadian onceptionof Canada has beenshapedby French Canada'sspecialand overridingconcern or survival.
Cartiermusthaveseenhe multinationaldeaasespeciallyttractive ecauseit provided he argument or French-Canadianightswith a forceand co-gencywhich t seemed o reasonable an coulddeny. f Canadawere o be
29 Morton, The Canadian dentity, p. • • •
3ø S. M. Lipset,"Introduction,"AgrarianSocialism: he Cooperative ommonwealth
Federationn Saskatchewan. Study n PoliticalSociologyGardenCity, N.Y.
•968), p. xvii. For an extendedreatmentoœhissubject, eeLipset'sThe First NewNation: The United States n Historicaland ComparativePerspective Garden
City, N.Y. •967), especially hap.7, "Value Differences, bsolute r Relative: The
English-Speakingemocracies,"p. 284-3 • 2; and his "Canadaand the United
States a Comparative iew," Canadian eviewo[ SociologyndAnthropology,
•, 6, Nov. •964, •73 ff
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a state oundedon the principle hat no harm couldbe done o persons f
any nationality,hen clearly he French-speakinganadians ouldnot bealone n askingor, and receiving,pecialreatment. hey would n fact beaskingor nothing o whichothergroupswerenot onlyentitled, ut whichthey werereceiving.f the wholesocietywaspredicated n the assumption
that the interests f differentgroupswouldbe served,what couldbe morereasonable, oreentirely n order, han that thoseof the FrenchCanadians
should eserved swell.The pluralistdeaalsoentextraweighto theargu-ment for FrenchCanada'singuisticights.For if theseothernationalities
the English,he Irish, and the Scots were o enjoy he right o use heirlanguage, nd nothing ouldbe clearer han that theywere, hen,since he
Frenchwouldpossesshe same ights n the new state, t wasequallyclearthat they oowouldbe securedn theuseof their anguage. rench-Canadianrightswould thusbecomembedded n the nature of things. f not one, or
even two, but three "nationalities" ere to enjoy full culturalrights nCanada, t was herefore ntirelyconsistent ith the way societywasordered,
and in no sense demand or special rivileges,hat the FrenchCanadiansbe given he rightsof their "nationality" swell.But why, then, f thisexpla-
nationexplains omuch,why, f thepluralistdeaprovided osolid base orthe assertionf FrenchCanada's ollectiveights,was t overshadowedndindeed eplacedn French-Canadianhinkingby the biculturaldeaand the
principle f duality?Cartier'spluralistargumentwas as much a rhetoricaldeviceas it was a
descriptionf what he took o be the realities f Canadiansociety.t wasvaluable ecauset allowed forceful nd convincingrgumento be madein supportof French-Canadianights. f the time camewhen k couldno
longer erve hat purpose,t wouldhave ost ts utility and the searchwould
begin or something kh which o replacet. By the beginning f the twen-
tieth centuryt wasclear hat it had indeedostwhatever sefulnesst mayhave oncepossessed,nd so, without anfareand almostas if it had never
existed,t was aid to rest.But the matterdid not quiteend here, or by astrange aradox hat whichdeprivedt of itsvalueasan argumentor French-
be nullified, ut - and herewas he crucialpoint nullifiednot by logicbutby circumstance.hould hosecircumstanceshange,shouldCanada come
to be composedf culturalgroups hichsharedmore han wo anguages,helogicof Cartier's rgument ould equiret to be appliedn support f multi-lingualism. nd, at century's nd,circumstancesid change. he migrations
of the Laurier yearsbrought o Canadaa substantial umberof immigrants
whose anguagewas neitherEnglishnor French. f thosemigrations aused
EnglishCanadianso confront he implications f the pluralist dea with avigour hat made hat idea's eassertionf itsprimacyall the more mpressive,
their mpacton French-speakinganadawasevenmoredramatic. or whereEnglishCanadians ltimately ound t impossibleo revolutionizeheir con-
ceptionof Canada,where heywereunable o respondo the new pluralismin the way manyof themwouldhave iked,where n the end heyhad to con-
cede ts existence, renchCanadianswere able to alter fundamentallyheir
concept f thenewnationality.
For them to have followedCartier after •896 would have been o argue
that each of thesenew groupswas entitled o the useof its language.But
multilingualism as unacceptableo the English-speakingajority. That
majoritywassometimesompelledo acceptt, as t did in Manitoba n x897
but it did sogrudgingly.t arguedconsistentlynd with vehemencehat, inthe Westat least, he mmigrants hould ecomeluent n the anguage f the
majority n order o build a strong nd vital nation. n soarguing,t did nottrouble,as Connorhad not troubled, o distinguish etween ecentlyarrived
immigrants nd the French-speakinganadians hose ncestorsad openedthe West. In thesecircumstances,he argumentbasedon pluralismcould
only encouragehosewho werealreadyanxiouso put FrenchCanadians n
an equal ootingwith the newcomerso do so.They woulddo so,however,not for the purpose f securing ll of them n the useof their anguages,ut
rather of denying hem their use.The more strenuouslyhe pluralistargu-mentwasput, the moreconvinced ouldbecomehe majority hat assimila-tion of all minorities, inguisticand cultural, must take place in order to
prevent ocial nd inguistic haos.t waspreciselyo this dentificationf the
French-speakingith the otherminorities, ndertakenor the purpose fassimilatinghem all, that the French ook strongexception.As Armand
Lavergnewrote: "In constitutinghe FrenchCanadian,who has ived n the
country incetsdiscovery,heequal n rights ndprivilegeso theDoukhobor
or the Galicianwho has ust disembarked, e have openedbetween heEasternand Western ectionsf Canadaa gulf that nothingwill be able to
dose.axAn argumenthat ook hem n thisdirection asvaluelesso FrenchCanadians. t was now necessaryor them to distinguishhemselvesrom,
3x LesEcoles u Nord-Ouest Montreal •9o7), p. •8, cited n RamsayCook,Canada
and the French-Canadian uestion Toronto x966), p. 35
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not identify hemselves ith, the otherminorities.n the new circumstances,
then, the multicultural rgument ouldonly accelerate,ot retard, he uni-
lingualprocess.t wouldbecome n example f precisdyhe sortof particu-laristoutlookhat, n theviewof themajority,mustbeovercome.All of this had been obscured from Cartier's view. He could construe the
new politicalnationalityn a broadand expansive ay because,ar fromendangeringhe position f the French anguage nd the ntegrity f French-Canadian culture, to do so seemed o make them more secure.But after
• 896 this would clearlynot be the case.Multiculturalismwould now resolve
itself nto unilingualism,nd that mustnot be allowed o happen.For theFrenchCanadians,anguage ndculturewere ntimatdy elated. f therights
of the onewereeroded,he otherwouldsurely ollapse.The conservationfthe language",wroteFrenchCanada'seadingnationalistn x9x3, "is abso-
lutelynecessaryor the conservationf the race, tsgenius,tscharacter nd ts
temperament.a2What wouldconservehe anguage, hatwoulddenyuni-lingualism,what would distinguishhe French-speaking inority rom the
otherminorities, asa rejection f the pluralist dea n favourof a clearand
unambiguousoctrine f biculturalism.he homogeneous,ndeedmonolithic,
character f English-Canadianociety ad to be assertedo hat the special
claimsof any minoritywithin t (saveof coursehe French) couldbe denied.The cultures f which Canada was composed ust have the right to their
respectiveanguages, ut the argument or that right mustnot derive rom
too latitudinariana concept f Canadiannationality,or else,as the fate of
Cartier's rgument ad plainlydemonstrated,t would ose tsutility.
And so,by a peculiar wist,Cartier'splan for multiculturalismad to be
retired rom service, wing,not to the riseof a monolithic nglishCanada,but to itsopposite.he vigorouseaction f manyEnglish anadianso thatoppositeaised he spectre f a culturally omogeneousnglishCanadaand
the realityof a unilingual ne.Cartier's rgumentor multiculturalismro-videdno defence gainst he second f these, nd therefore,n the view of the
French-speakinganadians,one gainsthe irst. t would n factonlyhastentheircoming,or to employt nowwouldbe o convinceheEnglishhat heymust ndeedact expeditiously,r Canadawouldbecome Tower of Babel.
It therefore ecame ecessaryo assertheprinciple f duality. hat principlewould not command niversal ssent ut it seemedmore susceptiblefdefencehan the pluralistdea.The prophetof Canadaasa bilingual,multi-
cultural ocietyecame,hen, hepartisan f Canada sa bilingual, iculturalsociety. he changing haracter f EnglishCanadahad metamorphosedCartier into Bourassa.
What Bourassaearedand opposed,he riseof a virtuallyunilingualCan-
3• H. Bourassa,a Languerancaiset l'avenirdenotre ace Quebec 9•3), P. 4, cited
in M. Wade,The FrenchCanadiansToronto 956) p. 6ee
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ada outside f Quebec, xplains hy he argumentor biculturalismecamean argumentor binationalism.he refusal f the majority n English-speak-
ing Canadao upholdhe inguisticights nd hereforeheculturalntegrityof theminorityed hatminorityo asserthat t should ave, ndisputablyndwhere t could xerciset, the political owernecessaryo insuretssurvival.If Cartierbecame ourassa,ourassa,wing n partto thefateof the bicul-tural dea n EnglishCanada, ecameMichelBrunet.For him the history fFrenchCanada asbecomehehistory f a people earchingor a fatherland,a statewhichwill serve ndprotectheirpeculiarraditionsndculture. ndwith this ransformationomethinghichhadbeencentral o thethought fbothCartier ndBourassaisappeared?
SomeFrench-speakinganadian ntellectualsave ried in recentyears odissolvehe equationmanynationalistsavebeenanxiouso makebetweenculture nd the state.Their approacho thetheoryof the state n general nd
that of the Canadian taten particular asbeen unctional ndpragmatic.ntheir political heory,and especiallyn the political heoryof PierreElliottTrudeau, he wisdom f and the necessityor thisequation asbeenannihil-ated. n • 962 Trudeau, akinghistext from JulienBenda,wrote a scathing
attack on the nationalistntdlectuals f French Canada.His objectwas to
showhowpernicious ouldbe the consequencesnd howself-destroyingnfact was the substancef their nationalism.No state,he argued,was homo-
geneous. ationalism, verweeningeverenceor a particularway of life,thereforeead inexorablyo exclusivismnd ethnocentricity.his was espe-
cially rue of a state ike Canada,and of a provinceike Quebec,where he
consequencesf cultural ationalismould eall tooplainly een.t producedinjusticeor the minorities,ut more han hat, t narrowedheminds f themajorityand subjectedhem o spiritual nd intellectualsphyxia.t wastherefore ecessaryo recognize,n principle nd in fact, that the state n
Canadacotfidnotbecomehe nstrument f a particular ulture. t wasneces-sary o recognizehat here ould eno nationaldea n Canada, eekingikesome ortof Hegelian eisto actualizetselfn all of society.f therewas, heCanadian tatewouldcollapsendera weightt couldnotbear."We must",hewrote, separatence nd orall heconceptsfstate ndnation, ndmakeCanada trulypluralisticndpolyethnicociety.a4Threeyearsaterhemade he grounds f hisoppositiono classicalationalismven earer. "I
33 Fora critical ssessmentf Brunet ndhiswork, eeRamsay ook, TheHistorian
and Nationalism,"n Cook'sCanadaand the French-Canadian uestion Toronto•966) pp. • •9-42.Brunet peaksorhimselfn hisessayThe French-Canadians'Search or a Fatherland" n Russell, d., Nationalism n Canada,pp. 47-6o
34 "La nouvellerahisonesdercs,"CitdLibre,April •962.Reprinted s"TheNewTreasonof the Intellectuals" n Trudeau,Federalism nd the FrenchCanadians
(Toronto•968) p. •77
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believe," e wrote,"that a definition f the state hat is based ssentiallyn
ethnicattributess philosophicallyrroneousnd would nevitablyead tointolerance. "3•
For mostFrenchCanadians, owever,pluralismhasyielded o dualism,which hasbecome, n turn, the basis or somevariationof the binational dea.
The pluralistdeahashadmorecurrency y far in English-speakinganada,for English-speakinganadiamhavebeenstruck ot onlyby the country'slinguistic ualitybut by thedisparateharacter f that part of it in which heylive. In recentyears hey have givenrenewedvoice o their convictionhat
althoughCanadamay be a nation n whichduality igures rominently,t is
replacedby pluralismbeyond he level of language, nd sometimesventhere? 6
Cr•vecmur'sewmanwasdistinguishedotonlyby hispeculiarineage: ewasan ideologuef sorts,endered niqueby theviewshat he held.He was,
Cr?:vecmuradwritten,notsimply newman,but a newmanwhoacts ponnew principles. e possessedsetof social, olitical, nd economicalues,and it was hese, smuchas he singularity f hisdescentnd familystruc-
ture, hat sethim apart.Theseprinciples erenot,of course,ntirely ew.They seemed o, however, ecause f the degree o whichthey had become
characteristicf the Americanmind. Subsequentenerationsf Americansmade them as much their own as had those of Cr•vecmur's time. The Ameri-
canpoliticalradition asbeen lmost niformly ockean, nda competitiveindividualist, ntrepreneurialpirit has characterizedhe American n hiseconomic relations. s?
Less igorous asbeen he American's mulation f hiseighteenth-century
prototypen otherrespects. e hasnot beenuniversallynterestedn losing
hisethnicconsciomness.et it wasnot as f the prevailingmores f Americansociety id not impel him in this direction. he meltingpot hasbeen heideal; hepointof a restrictivemmigration olicywas o get mmigrants hocouldsuccessfullydapt o Americanwaysand excludehosewho couldnot;
Kallenwrote o criticizehe conventional odeof thinking boutwhatought
to happen o immigrants pon heir arrival n the United States;Moynihan
35 "Quebec nd he Constitutionalroblem,"bid.,p. •9
36 See, or example,Morton,The Canadiandentity; KennethMeNaught,"The
National Outlookof English-Speakinganadians,"n Russell, d., NationalismnCanada,pp. 6 t-7 t; andJ. M. S. Careless,Limited dentities n Canada,"
CanadianHistoricalReview,L, •, March •969, x-•o
37 Besides artz'sThe LiberalTradition n America ndPotter's eopleo[ Plenty,
seeRichardHorstadler, he American oliticalTradition New York •96• ),
especiallyntroduction, p. v-xi
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and Glazer ound t necessaryo show hat assimilationasnot occurringn
New York City. The existencef culturalplurali.•mn the United States e-comes hen the measureof an ideal's failure; and the failure of that ideal
shouldnot be taken o mean hat its opposite aseverpart of the nationalethic.
Tocqueville erceivedongagowhat modernsocial cience asnot found
it necessaryo deny, he basic mpulse f Americansocietyowards onfor-
mity. sThat impulse asnotcausedthnicityo disappear; hat t haspro-duced s a largemeasure f social onformity nd an almostrresistibleen-dency o conform o the essentialsf the American aith, and that tendency
For, in the languageof the socialscientists,Newcomerso America facedheavysocialpressureo conform, he instrumentsf conformity ecomingevermoreefficientwith the growthof industrialization, ass ommunication
and publiceducation. ome n-groupnormsand residual ubcultural at-ternshavesarvived, ut immigrant ultures sself-containedystemicntities
began o disintegrateoon fter he nitialsettlement."ven houghheymayhave etained ome art of theirethnicconsciousness,the ethnicsnternalized
a loyalty o thecorepolitical ymbols,alues, nd nstitutionsf theAmericanpolity.aøTheir thnicdentitywas hus ubsumedn somethingarger,moreinclusive,ndultimatelyar more nfluentialhan he diluted mperativesfa culture ar fromtheirsource.By every ealistic riterion,"Will Herbergwrites,"the AmericanWay of Life is the operative aith of the American
38 Tocqueville'sssessmentf the American haracter as,of course, eensubjectedo
intensive crutiny, nd somewritershavewanted o qualify certainof its central
people.. Sociologically,nthropologically,f onepleases,t is the character-isticAmerican eligion, ndergirding mericanife andoverarching merican
societydespiteall indubitabledifferences f region,section,culture, andclass. 40
Canada doesnot Possesshis basic mpulse oward conformity ecausetherehasbccnnothing n Canada o whichconformity ouldbc urged.There
is no ovcrarching anadianWay of Life, nor can therebe an ideological
Canadianism.he Canadianpolitical raditionhasno single etof transcen-
dent values mmancnt n all its partsbinding hem to one anotherand toitself.The most igid application f HartzJan ategorieso Canadianpolitics
yields, s t must,a dual political radition,a "double ragment," o usc he
HartzJan erminology, nd cvcn t provides nly a limited insight nto thenatureof the Canadianpolitical radition.To argue hat English-Canadiansocietys one-dimensionaln the same ensehat American s, o argue hat it
is merelya fragmentof thc liberalsociety f America,suffused y the samc
principles,ts radicalPoliticsenderedmpotentn the sameway, s to missthe nuances f its Politicaldevelopment. or while that development as
been undamentally orth American, ts course asbeen nfluenced y non-
liberal dcologics,he ground or whichwasprepared y the toryism f the
Loyalists. heir comingntroduced Tory "touch" nto the Canadian oliti-cal tradition,which not only endured tselfbut alsoequipped hc Canadian
mindwiththecapacityo respondo organic, ollccrivistrinciplesnd o theidea of classn the form in which they wcrc brought o Canada by British
as iberalprinciples.t has,unlike he American, mbraced olitical artieswhich ange hroughhe deologicalpectrum,nd n thisway Canada's ul-tural and sccrional iversity as ound tselfcomplementedy ideological
pher, • Lord Actonhasbecome anada's.f the American onsensusasformedaroundLockean rinciples,he circumstancesontributingo the for-marionof the much broaderCanadianconsensusuggesthe point at which
Actoh'shought asbecomeelevant o Canadians.f the American tate sthe instrument f, indeed he ultimateexpressionf, a particularway of life,Canadianshave viewed their federal state in ActonJan erms, as one that
4o Will Herberg,Protestant-Catholic-Jew:n Essayn AmericanReligious ociology(New York •955), PP. 88, 9o
4• G. Horowitz, Conservatism,iberalism, nd Socialismn Canada: An Interpreta-
tion," Canadian ournalof Economicsnd PoliticalScience,May •966, pp.
42 "The GreatMr. Locke,America's hilosopher,783-•862," n hisProbingOur Past
(New York •955), PP. 69-•8
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oughtnot, and ndeed annot,dentify tselfwith a single ultureor ideology.
For them necessarily,sfor Acton n principle, he beststatebecomeshat
statewhich containsseveralcommunities, nd strives o serve he interestsofall of them.They have akenas heirs he ideal that Acton defined n 1861:"... The coexistence of several nations under the same state is the test as well
as the bestsecurityof its freedom .. we must conclude hat thosestates re
The idea of Canadaas a pluralist ociety ashad, then, a lengthyhistory.That history, owever, asbeena complicatedne.Circumstancesave m-posed he pluralist dea, and many nationalistsave bitterly esentedhose
circumstances.hey have beenmade supremely nhappyby the fact thattheir nationalist onceptualizations,f they are to have meaning n all of
Canada,mustbe framed n terms hat take account, omehow, f its plural-ism.They haveknown hat nationalistmagerymustnot onlybe emotionally
satisfying,ut that it mustalsoappear o be true,at least o thosehe essence
of whose ocietyt issupposedo represent.hey have husbeencausedmuchdistress,or that imagerywhich s credible s not alwaysemotionally atisfy-
ing, while that which s emotionally atisfyings not alwayscredible.Many
of them, n consequence,avewanted, ota pluralist ociety ith tsproblemsof identity and its lack of coherence, ut a society hat has a clear sense f
itselfand is unitedand strong.And so,while acknowledginghe disparatecharacterof their society n the one hand, they have tried to minimize he
importance f theseraitsontheother.Theyhaveconcededheheterogeneous
character f their society nlywith reluctance, r they have cleverlyworkedits differentpartsup into somethingmeant to resemble coherentwhole.Only n therecent asthas hespiritwithwhichmanyCanadians ave nfusedthe pluralistview of their society ndergone change.Only recentlyhave
Canadiannationalistshown hemselvesilling to accept,and sometimesevencelebrate,he paradox hat liesat the heartof their nationalism.wothings xplainwhy hishashappened. he social ciencesaveshownhat thelife of societys to be found n its experience. he Canadianexperience, s
nationalistsike everyonelsemust ecognize,ashad at itscentre ccommo-
dation,compromise,nd adjustment. n understandingf Canadian ociety,how it works,what is its nature,and any attempt o realizeand define tscharacter,must take these acts nto account.But there is evidentmore than
simply newwillingnesso bringa functional erspectiveo bearon hestudy43 Lord Acton, Nationality,"n hisEssays nFreedom nd Power,selected y
GertrudeHimmelfarb (London•956), p. •68
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of Canadian ociety, ore han a newenthusiasmor theresults f emphasiz-ing he unctionalmethod.n some uartersheabsencef a monolithic ana-
dianism asproduced ositive atisfaction.t hasbecome,n fact, the basisfor a new Canadian nationalism. The reason is not hard to find. Classical
nationalism,he nationalism f race,culture,unity, coherence,nd strength
hasmade tself epugnantn the wentieth entury. he Canadian ationalist,therefore, ashad ess nd ess ifficulty djustingo the factthat hisstate fit is to survive an neverbe nationalistn that special,mpoverishing,ndabhorrentway. Nowheresthis ension, nd ts inalresolution, oreobvious
than n the thinkingof VincentMassey.n hispanegyric n BeingCanadian
he made t clear hat he waspreparedo concedehe pluralist haracter f
Canadian ociety nlywith reluctance.ISacceptancef themosaic onceptwas tentative and uncertain. His ideal remained a bicultural nationalism and
he wasat pains o show hat Canadawas irmlyunitedundera common ol-
iticalnationality. We maybe," he wrote,"a mosaic omposedf manydif-ferentsizes nd shapes nd colours, nd sometimeshe cementbetween he
bitshasseemedo wear thin, but for all that the mosaichasa nationalpat-
tern .. There sa continuityf principle..,,44 ut f in • 948 Massey'smpha-sis adbeen smuchonunityaspluralism, ytheearly 96os eshowedim-
self much more willing to define he nation'scharactern termsof its ex-periencendto recognize atter-of-factlyndwithouthesitationtspluralistcharacter.n writingof immigrantso Canada ince 945 heobservedimplythat "we try to fit in the new-comersmuch as they are, as piecesn theCanadian mosaic.'
The spirit nforminghepluralist iewof Canada asclearly lteredn therecentpast. n the absencef a nationally cceptableommon tandard,tretains, s muchas any abstractionan retain, ts credibility.But now, f it
still s not asdeeply atisfyings he primitiveand emotional ense f exalta-
tion whichcomesrom knowledge f the unityand perfection f one's ocietyand culture,t is at leastmoreclearly cceptable.s Massey's orksuggests,the tensionhat formerlyexisted etweents credibility n the onehand and
itsappeal san objectof nationalistenerationn the otherhasshowntselfto becapable f resolution.
Americannationalism pproximateshe classicalype. The Americannation-states the Americanpeopleorganized.t is co-extensiveith a par-ticularculturewhosenterestt is tsprimary esponsibilityo serve ndprotect.
One way it hasof doing his s by requiring onformity y onemeans ranother, o those alues t sees s ts businesso preserve nd strengthen. he
rhetoric f themelting ot, he creation f a nationalaith, sbut onemani-festationfthis mpulseoward onformity.44 Toronto x948, pp. x2-x3
45 CanadiansndTheir CommonwealthOxford 96x), p. 6
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Canadiannationalisms clearlyat variancewith thistype. t is in fact anon-nationalism,as Canada is non-nation. American nationalism demands
the assimilationf all to a commonway; Canadiannationalism, ecausethasno choice,s predicated pon he tolerationof differences. anadacan-
not exaltoneculture,or setof values, r way of life, overall others nd require
conformity o it. Canadian nationalismcannot be exclusivist r narrow; it
cannot be conformistor totalitarian; if it is, the state it seeks o servewill
perish.Canadamustbe founded n diversity, nd the concept f the mosaic
is one attempt o come o gripswith that most undamental f Canadiantruths.
Eachmetaphor,hen, s relevant o the nationalexperiencet is meant orepresent; achhasbeencreated y the history f the country t attemptsodescribe,lthough ach ails o describe ith complete recisionnd accuracythat history;each s graphic, ts meaning asilygrasped; eitherexaltsone
ethnicgroupover he others; ach, inally s the nevitable y-product f thekind of nationalismound n eachcountry.The impulse owards onformity
in the United States ascreated he melting-potmetaphor;Canada's har-acteras a heterogeneousociety asgiven ise o the mosaic oncept; o ongaseachcountry etains hese mong ts distinguishingharacteristics,mages
of conformityn the one nstance nd diversityn the otherwill continue ohave orceandrelevancesdescriptionsf thenational haracter.
