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The Good Life vs. The Good: Grant Calls Liberalism to Account
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10680 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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1 / 1986 |
6,407 Words |
| Author
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Larry Schmidt
Larry Schmidt is an associate professor of religious studies
at Erindale College at the University of Toronto and is the
author of George Grant In Progress. |
Officially, Canada has no philosopher laureate, no philosopher formally called upon to articulate the truth of philosophy for the nation at large. But unofficially, George Parkin Grant has been fulfilling that role for close to forty years. By birth and background he was perfectly placed to know his nation; by education and temperament he was drawn to philosophy; by grace or chance he felt called upon to relate the two. Canadian society has been much richer thanks to the coincidence of these circumstances. The recent publication of English Speaking Justice in the United States makes this an appropriate time to introduce Canada's foremost political philosopher to a wider audience.
Patrician Beginnings
George Grant was born in Toronto in 1918. Both of his grandfathers, after whom he was named, had achieved eminence before he was born: Sir George Robert Parkin (1846-1922) had been the principal of Upper Canada College and first secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust in Canada; George Munro Grant, a Presbyterian minister had been the founder of Queen's University in Kingston. Both grandparents were very loyal to the British crown though for different reasons. The Grants were Presbyterian Scots from Nova Scotia and their religion cemented their loyalty. The Parkins were Loyalists. In the 1890s George Munro Grant and Sir George Parkin wrote books in favor of a strong economic and political union of Canada with Great Britain. It would be difficult for George Parkin Grant to ignore his Canadian background or his European heritage.
Grant's father, William Lawson Grant, a graduate of Oxford and headmaster at Upper Canada College, and his
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