Liberalism - Fighting Against Disintegration

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had deep concerns about his country.  The Republican/Conservative drift of the previous years had created a system of winners and losers, with the latter dwarfing the former.  A rigid idealism from the Republican leadership had created a kind of absolutism that turned politics into an overly negative sport in the beginning years of the Depression.In September 1932, when as the Democratic nominee for president, a reporter asked him to offer his own vision for the challenging years ahead, he gave two answers.  First, America needed “someone whose interests are not special but general, someone who can understand and treat the country as a whole.  For as much as anything it needs to be reaffirmed at this juncture that the United States is one organic entity, that no interest, no class, no section, is either separate or supreme above the interests of all.”Secondly, he maintained that rigid Republicanism had rendered the nation incapable of the change it required to survive the Depression. “I am a liberal,” he stated, “one who recognizes the need of new machinery, but also works to control the process of change, to the end that the break with the old pattern may not be too violent.”Roosevelt’s ultimate success is now clear to all, but at the time it was more revolutionary.  He had concluded that America had become a “mean” place and it was time to restore its philosophy of optimism and progress.In this country, the years of Clark and Mulroney could hardly be classified as “mean” times; that is a new phenomenon, and in the Canadian context it’s jarring.  Absolutism – the belief in only one view to the detriment of all others – repeatedly eschews the complexity of the Canadian character.  For years we have been becoming more and more decentralized – a dangerous situation in an angry country.  The West is its own separate entity, as is Quebec, as is Ontario, as is the east, and as is the north.  Roosevelt’s belief that his country needed to become an organic entity finds its modern counterpart in Canada.At this time, perhaps more than any other in recent memory, Canada needs to undertake a serious work on self-organizing, preparing itself for the new world that is surely coming.  Self-organizing, whether individually or collectively, is a liberal concept – perhaps its greatest.  For it to function, all important and critical issues must be put on the table, discussed openly, with an eye towards find a grand compromise loosely structured enough to permit our various regions their independence, but coherent enough to stay together in ways that provide opportunities for all.Into such a mix, the arrival of self-certainty, of the kind of absolutism demonstrated by the present Conservative government, is like a cancer to the system.  People love to categorize – that happens around the world.  But when it happens to the degree where we create “us” versus “them,” where oversimplification of our differences creates enmity on a national and regional scale, then something must occur that can break us out of it.Believing that all Liberals are just “tax and spenders” or that Conservatives have little time for complexity is remarkably seductive.  It makes us feel better and, above all, certain of ourselves.  Our country is full of it.  Problem is, it’s not true – not even close to being true.  We have permitted a dichotomy to develop in the country where people believe there are only Liberal or Conservative (or NDP or Bloc or Green) solutions, when in reality the only solution that is credible, or can work, is a general solution.  The majority of Canadians are not from any of these camps and have come to distrust simplified political bromides.  The internecine wars amongst parties at a time when our nation must find a new direction are hardly uplifting.Liberalism today must maintain its focus on national or general initiatives, and I think that’s what Michael Ignatieff is sincerely attempting to do.  He speaks out against a view of our northern regions that is security minded but doesn’t include the Inuit people in the plans.  Placing China on hold while tens of thousands of Canadian Chinese citizens press for better relations, just doesn’t make sense.  Undertaking a few “one-offs” with the nation’s Aboriginal people instead of a larger initiative that is more inclusive makes no sense to him.  Handing out billions in small stimulus undertakings when our deeper infrastructure networks that keep us together are permitted to atrophy only makes it harder to come together.It’s only a matter of time until all of our parts as a country become less than the whole, and historical liberalism, with its focus on self-organization and freedom to work together will once provide the remedy.  As Liberals, we must keep presenting that inclusive vision.