I'm talking political philosophy here, not Viennese waltzes. People keep asking why Stephen Harper acts as he does, it looks so buttheaded. He seems to muck up his own prospects: firing decent people, lashing out, raising the partisan rhetoric, proroguing Parliament haughtily, binging on military toys, mauling the census -- he's a bright boy, it's hard to figure.
I used to favour a theory of political Tourette's, the kind portrayed by Robert Redford in 1972's The Candidate. You suppress your political ideals for the sake of electability as long as you can; then the buildup leads to random outbursts. But there's another explanation: Straussianism.
Leo Strauss was a German-Jewish thinker who escaped Hitler for the U.S. but despaired over the depravity that liberalism might lead to there as it had in Germany, after the liberal 1920s. He felt almost any means were valid to save Western civilization but, due to liberalism's strength, the strategy had to be cautious, secretive, even duplicitous, with the truth confined to an elite. This rarefied vision became highly influential when it was spread by his students (and theirs) in government, think tanks and media during the Reagan and Bush years. It's a prominent force at Mr. Harper's intellectual home, the University of Calgary. What does it illuminate in his behaviour?
Secretiveness, an aura of manipulation and a sense of hidden agendas. From a Straussian view, these are good things as means to noble ends. When I studied in the U.S., Straussian students used to lurk, literally, around antiwar protests or demos. Some sneakiness is routine in politics but here it gets a high-minded intellectual justification. It's almost romantic.
Religion. Leo Strauss felt most people will never do the right thing for rational reasons; they need to be motivated by the myths and emotionality of religion. So his neocon disciples, many of them Jewish, built strong links to the Christian right. Stephen Harper attends an evangelical church, yet he doesn't seem much of a fit; he shows none of the passion there that he has for politics. Perhaps it just goes with the Straussian territory.
Nationalism. The PM may have shown his real feelings about Canada in 2000 when he called it "a second-tier socialistic country." Still, for Straussians, nationalism ranks alongside religion as a way to motivate people to great things beyond the vapidity of liberalism. This may help explain the Harper Arctic sovereignty initiatives, or even his curious focus on hockey.
Populism and democracy. Leo Strauss (like his man, Plato) never liked democracy much but his disciples are ready to use it against the real villain, liberalism. To this end, they appeal to the "anti-liberal" impulses of ordinary folk against the "liberal elites," via "wedge issues" like gun control, abortion or attacks on high art. (That one was especially self-destructive in Quebec.)
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Contempt. There seem high levels of this, even for politics, among the Harperites (John Baird, Jason Kenney etc.). But Straussianism requires a strong sense of Us v. Them, to overcome the lassitude created through what it views as liberal notions such as tolerance and cultural relativism.
By way of comparison, take Preston Manning. His Christianity seems deeply felt, like his populism. They aren't elements of strategy. He appears to believe he can actually persuade voters, not just fool and control them. He's a conservative but he's no Straussian (unless he's a very devious one).
One can see the appeal of Canada to Straussians. The U.S. always had so much fevered religiosity, hypernationalism and paranoid individualism, you hardly needed to seed them there by stealth. Here, though, we still have liberals, Liberals, even social democrats. We may be Straussianism's happy hunting ground.
This article was originally published in the Globe and Mail.
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Harper is indeed a nationalist, but not a Canadian nationalist. He does nothing to enhance any Canadian identity separate from that of the United States and it is quite clear that he hates everything that makes Canada different from the United States. He is a North American nationalist and an Anglo-Saxon nationalist. His militarism is a reflection of those nationalisms. As a neoconservative (or "Straussian" if you prefer), Harper sees historical continuity between the British Empire of the past and the military establishment of today's North America, with its "empire of bases". And in fact, North America today is home to over 75% of the world's native speakers of English. So North America is today the centre of gravity of the Anglo-Saxon world and in many ways the true Anglo-Saxon homeland. And Harper surely sees it that way. The North American nationalists of today see their historical mission as being the same as that of their British ancestors: to civilize the world, by force if necessary. But instead of saying "civilization", they say "free market economies" and "human rights".
(I do not mean here to disparage the concept of human rights. I'm totally in favour of human rights. I'm just pointing out that "human rights" is a code-word used by neoconservatives)
In addition to being a neoconservative, Harper is also a neoliberal, and his policy of military expenditure serves his neoliberal agenda as well. The more money flushed down the toilet of "defence", the less is available for pubic services, and the easier it becomes to subject the population to the dictates of the "free market".
I would like to know just how much this guy has benefited from the public purse in pursuing his career. I know the private sector just loves government contracts and push their privatization agenda in our publically ( mainly ) funded universities. A great society would have free post secondary education paid for through surplus of production. Today surplus goes to private sector only while workers get cutbacks and pay more by users fees on top of taxes. What Canadians want the type of society is not what Harper proposes and I dare say Liberals can't get us there because their own ideology is wedded to free market capitalism. The contradiction in our political parties are stunning. Only a socialist Democracy can produce the type of society and standard of living that Canadians want. Unfortunatley the most massive and powerful economic forces on the planet are operating freely out of the province of Alberta while the finaciers work out of Toronto. I flogged Marx for seven years at a post secondary institution and I can tell you most Canadians believe the BS they have been told about this country and the free market system of capitalism-free for capitalist all others must pay. In spite of outrageous fees and live long debt I wonder just how many must have gotten a trust fund from granny. This current generation is ill equiped to deal with the social forces that we must contend with if we are going to change the direction in which we are heading and it into the abyss-the geo-pokitics of oil here and abroad are ruining what little civilization we have managed to garner over the last few thousand years-we will soon be back to sticks and stones if we don't do something about it now. I think All Canadian's have to become FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE AND STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH OUR NATIVE PEOPLE. THEIR TREATY RIGHTS AND RESPECT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT CAN SAVE US ALL. WE FORMED THE CANADIAN FEDERATION BASED ON THE FEDERATED SIX NATIONS PEOPLE AND SAW HOW GOOD IT WORKED FOR THEM. WE HAVE TO LOOK TO THEM AND THE HONOUR OF THE CROWN TO POLITICALLY SUPERCEDE THIS CRISIS OF HUMANITY. THAT WILL WORK ONLY SO FAR. WE WILL HAVE TO HAVE A DIRECT CONFRONTATION WITH THE POWERS THAT BE.
General strike against pension attacks sees huge workers' protests
www.socialistworld.net, 10/09/2010
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI
Sarkozy forced to mouth concessions but fight set to escalate
http://socialistworld.net/doc/4513
We must all become french workers!
RR.