George Grant: A Biography by William Christian

Abstract

William Christian, George Grant: A Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993). xxiii, 472. William Christian’s life of George Grant is a most enjoyable book, providing all that one might want from an intellectual biography: lots ofphotographs, telling anecdotes, memorable vignettes, a solid sense ofhistory, and a warm, personal introduction to an illustrious Canadian thinker. In it, “George,” as Christian insistently calls him, comes across as a cranky, rumpled eccentric, the privileged offspring of one of our most influential families, a man who left an indelible mark on the nation his ancestors invented. Christian provides a fascinating snapshot of Canada’s colonial past as the idea of the nation took shape in the imaginations of Principle Grant of Queen’s and George Parkin of Dalhousie. Out of that history came George Grant’s conservatism, a growing conservatism that seems an inevitable part ofthe man’sdestiny. In 1889, Christian tells us, Sir George Parkin (George’s maternal grandfather) was “recruited” by Lord Milner, “one of the leaders of English imperialism,” “to travel throughout Britain and the Dominions, preaching the cause they both so deeply believed in, Imperial Federation. One contemporary called him ‘the prince of imperialists and their first mis­ sionary’” (8). Later, Christian writes, “his mother never allowed [Grant] to forget he was George Parkin’s grandson. ... How could anyone ever be worthy of that?” (36). The fate of George’s father, the man who ruled Up­ per Canada College during his son’s boyhood, did nothing to dispel Grant’s philosophical disposition. “My father,” he recalls, “was ruined by the first world war. He was ruined physically; he was terribly wounded. For these people, who had grown up in the great era of progress, to meet the holo­ caust of the trenches was terrible” (6). Grant himself began World War ii as a pacifist, a position that Christian makes clear never hindered his truly heroic behaviour during the bombing of Britain. The imperial mission, the betrayal of liberal idealism, the powerful chastening effect of growing up under the dour eye of a venerable patriarch, these are only some of the el­ ements that went into the making of George Grant. We are well prepared by Christian’s account of a man who shifts from his early conviction that “‘without forcing myself to be North American my whole mental being is caught up by that tradition. ... I hope that I survive the war to be able to contribute to that tradition & bring Canada more into line with it’” (84) to the position he assumed after Mahatma Ghandi’s assassination: “‘The British,’” Grant came to believe as had his grandfather Parkin before him, “‘were truly civilization at its best—just, firm, caring only for this world and the bayonet used fairly. My god the Empires we are going to get now. The Russian, indeed, the most awful—but the American Empire—kinder, certainly, more just perhaps—but not so different’” (138). 95 Christian’s circumspection about the political substance ofGrant’s think­ ing after the shift towards conservatism took place, however, can be un­ satisfying. The book is prefaced by a telling Socratic dialogue with Grant that Christian has invented. It opens with a question that establishes the biographer’s agenda: ‘In your case there are other reasons for writing your biography. Do you acknowledge the absolute centrality of Christianity in your thought?’ ‘Let me just say this about that.’ George’s eyes gaze into the middle distance while he thinks. [Pause] He opens his mouth, starts to speak but no sound comes out. [Longer pause] ‘Yes, it was just absolutely central.’ (xxii) I found this to be a provocative assumption. Four hundred pages later I remain intrigued but sceptical about such a premise. Is Christianity the motivating force behind the profound moral regret that animates Grant’s political philosophy? Grant’s ideas, of course, are most readily accessible in Philosophy in the Mass Age, Lament for a Nation, and Technology and Empire. In the in­ troduction to the Carleton Library edition of Lament for a Nation, Grant insists that the “central problem for nationalism in English-speaking Canada has always been: in what ways and for what reasons do we...