Civic Nationalism and Discrimination
I will preface things by saying that I did not grow up despising and resenting Canada, but it has given me every reason to do so. However, in hindsight, many of the things that seemed innocuous when I was younger betrayed a deeper systematic rot.
Recent events between Canada and the United States are a prominent example of the juxtaposition of “civic nationalism” expectations. As a response to possible tariffs imposed upon the former, the pushed response has been to “buy Canadian, don’t buy American”. As a concept, favouring a domestic economy in the face of external pressure is nothing new. However, in Canada’s case, it’s a ridiculously laughable idea. There is a Trudeauian narrative of Canada being a post-national state , coupled with both federal and provincial institutions’ DEI efforts explicitly favouring certain demographics and encouraging discrimination specifically against Whites. That’s not even touching upon the plethora of consequences of Canada’s suicidal mass immigration policy. It should be said that Justin Trudeau did not come up with all of these institutions or policies himself - a “post-national” Canada has been conceptualized for many decades - but he has effectively added more and more accelerant to a burning bonfire. From a completely different perspective, much of my own beliefs are “post-national”: there are things far more important than loyalty to an amorphous blob as a nation-state. Religion, community, race, family, securing your personal finances and accumulating generational wealth: these make far more sense to hold belief in or work towards than any loyalty to a modern nation-state. And Trudeau’s sentiments are hardly unique: you can find similar sentiments expressed throughout Europe.
From the U.S. side of things, Obama is most associated with civic nationalism. Canadian civic nationalism is also downstream of Obama civic nationalism, such as institutional emphasis on “Action Plan For Black Servants” and “increasing diversity of senior leaders”, which would be hilarious to consider that Canada is doing, if it did not belie how little of a fuck you will be given about if you don’t hit certain boxes.
I’m not the type to complain about “racism bad” or “imagine if the roles” were reversed. Discrimination based on factors such as race and culture (among other things) will never go away entirely, and I don’t think there’s a reason to pretend that it will, or that discrimination is inherently bad (or good, even) either. Essentially, it is a social tool that can be used constructively or destructively, and particular facets are effective and useful to varying extents. Intrinsic to its nature, not all forms of discrimination are equal. Quite a few would say because it has been used as a motive for X Y or Z sorts of (often ideological) actions - often in a historical context - it is always evil to discriminate. In a modern context, it’s hard to entirely divorce the notion of discrimination as a tool relative to an ideological one. Is it even possible? I do think so. Some scientists are interested in “race realist” science, but often this is heavily dissuaded and punished at an institutional level. It would be ridiculous to assume that every scientist interested in biological factors is a wannabe Dr. Goebbels (he did not have a scientific background whatsoever, for the record) advocating for a normative outcome based on his research. Of course, not everyone sees it that way. The underlying logic behind that is often that pursuing certain lines of study classifying or discriminating based on X Y Z is on a slippery slope to genocide. Oh, but it’s also “debunked” if you automatically studying a certain thing and come out with the “wrong” results. Tangentially, this reminds me of the downstream from Tumblr argument that committing a nebulous “microaggression” on someone is “violence”.
That said, none of this is making any specific normative suggestion of when to discriminate or where to draw the line when it comes to doing it. I do have opinions on such things, but one should be cautious. Not so much for reasons for avoiding an overly contentious political take that could get you into hot water, but mainly from a philosophical and intellectually honest perspective. While changing one’s views is normal, I’d rather not have to walk back my views often, and instead give complex issues the thought they deserve. In general, people should be able to freely associate with whoever will (ideally) support their best interests, and the natural tendency is that people with a common heritage and background will tend to congregate and organize together. The point of doing so is to organize your own interests against outgroups that will threaten your interests (the notion of abolishing any form of outgroup is unfeasible communist nonsense). As humans, we choose to have our own criteria to form ingroups and outgroups around, as well as how close we choose to behave towards the outgroups, or when someone in an outgroup joins an ingroup. You can have someone be in an ingroup at an interpersonal level, and an outgroup at a societal level, for instance. It makes more sense to think of oneself as part of multiple ingroups and outgroups simply due to the complexities of identity and that we have our own hierarchies of which of these are most valuable to us. We also deal with the consequences of the dynamics between and among these ingroups and outgroups. Hierarchy - another social construct that will never be entirely done without - is tied to discrimination, but discrimination is not always hierarchical.
Some people will find different factors important to varying extents. However, the pattern historically seems to be punishing White people for associating with each other without being “inclusive”, and to a lesser extent punishing other groups if/when they have some form of positive association with Whites (often East Asians or SE Asians). Of course, the real debate to be had is to what extent discrimination based on race should affect other forms of public policy. Obviously, it’s in my interest to be discriminated against (but not for) as little as possible, or at a level where the benefits in my own life outweigh the discrimination I might experience. I don’t expect not to be discriminated against at all either (as I said, it will always exist in some form or another for everyone), but to minimize its impact on me.
Therefore, this contrast is impossible to reconcile in good faith when it comes to the current state of Canada if you belong to an implicit outgroup (even if you’re supposedly in an ingroup as a national). Why support something that treats you like an abused (step?)child and expects you to say you deserve it in the name of greater principles? Just because an outside actor is threatening you and you should rally around your national soy state is laughable when you A) push the “post-national” state that implicitly ought to reject this very concept B) defacto are treated as a second-class citizen in the name of equity. This is for advantages you never had in first place, which the powers that be have decided you do have. There is no reason to act against my own interests, even more so when there is no one to institutionally vouch for them. As someone who grew up in Canada, my SE European background did not grant me any favours, and the social support my family received was far less than anything. My adult life post-secondary has awarded me a lack of opportunities nationally, to the point where half of my jobs have been foreign remote jobs. Even after studying abroad and obtaining a Master’s degree, the situation has worsened enough to where the situation is not any better compared to before I obtained my degree, even if my personal situation has improved. Most places to live are far apart, very cold for most of the year, and increasingly expensive. Internal migration tends to be somewhat of a bigger deal than in more dense countries for those reasons.
My societal and personal complaints aside, the point of this article is not as a “woe-is-me” piece, even if there is a liberating catharsis to put one’s grievances on (virtual) paper. Rather, my point is that this sort of civic nationalism pushed onto us is disgusting, and people who suddenly become civic nationalists in light of this are also disgusting. I’m not saying I expect people to necessarily approach this from a racial or “diversity” angle, even if that is a major factor. I know there are Canadians of founding stock who are in a similar situation to me and see things for what they are, and for them, what they’re experiencing is an even bigger disgrace and must be even more demoralizing. Rather, Canada time and time again has given me little reason to engage in its civic nationalism and idiosyncratic culture of shame and pride. Repeated manufactured consensus has diluted any sort of consensus. So what if you are not America, so what if you want to get back at Trump? That’s no reason for loyalty.
I would not say civic nationalism can be completely discredited as a concept either: e.g. Belgium, Switzerland and Singapore are all states that are united by - to varying degrees - a civic national ethos, although the different cultural and historical context for their existence is also a factor. Therefore, to say that they’re “civic nationalist countries” would be oversimplifying the situation, and would require much more of an in-depth exploration beyond the scope of this blogpost.
Bonus political opining: I don’t like putting faith in political parties in general due to principles and poor experiences due to my own involvement in them. I don’t think people should generally do this either. That being said, I should add some brief context about the political future of Canada.
The party that could somewhat put the brakes on the current direction of looming catastrophe in Canada - the People’s Party - is currently polling at 2-3%, and the most likely outcome of the next election is Pierre Pollieve - a diet Justin Trudeau who pretends to be “based” - will become PM and his party will take a majority government. In the current state of things, I imagine that Canada will increasingly unironically end up like the comic below. But who knows? Change is inevitable: the question is how things will change. One is best off planning for the near future while hoping for the best in the distant future.
