Principled Pluralism Redux
June 28, 2005
Prof. Koyzis details his change of heart regarding the thorny question of Quebecian independence. This is interesting to me not so much for the Canadian politics, which do hold a sort of morbid lilliputian fascination, but for Prof. Koyzis’s underlying reasoning. After advocating for a preserved union some time back, Koyzis has now come to wonder, as “a Christian who strongly believes in the public witness of the christian faith, … whether the presence within Canada of a radically secularized Quebec might not constitute a nearly insuperable obstacle to the progress of such a witness.” Thus, after describing Quebec’s militant secularism and its detrimental effect on Canadian politics, Koyzis concludes that Quebec must be shown the door: “Up until recently I have thought it best to accommodate Quebec to the extent possible within the current framework of confederation. It is with some sadness that I am coming to conclude that this may not be in the longterm best interest either of Quebec itself or of the remainder of the country. If Canada is to have some chance of casting off the stranglehold of official secularism and embracing something like a principled pluralism, then it may have to find its way without la belle province.”
There is a problem, however. Is it in defense of the “public witness of the Christian faith” or in defense of “principled pluralism” that Quebec must be allowed, or forced, to go its own way? Or is Koyzis advancing the argument that these two are one and the same? The definition of principled pluralism one finds when following the link Koyzis provides is given by Jim Skillen: “Principled pluralism means … that no philosophy, ideology, or religion should be given a privileged place that leads to public discrimination against other communities of conviction.” My guess is that Koyzis believes, along with other accomodationists seeking detente with the dominant liberal order, that gaining a seat at the table of public “discourse” is the most faithful public expression of his Christian faith.
I have often explained the weaknesses and pathologies of this approach, but am always glad to further point out the many problems which arise when Christians like Koyzis attempt to take it. Implicit in Koyzis’s change of heart regarding Quebec is his recognition that some philosophies, ideologies, or religions constitute “insuperable obstacles” to the presence and progress of others, such as Christianity. As such, in defense of the one, the other’s invitation to the ball must be revoked. However, such action is directly contrary to the central rule of liberalism, stated so succinctly by Skillen: “no philosophy, ideology, or religion should be given a privileged place that leads to public discrimination against other communities of conviction.” Koyzis and others who seek to maintain a viable public witness for Christ (or even for some simple moral code) through their advocacy of a liberal public square will eventually suffer what Fr. Neuhaus has dubbed the “divided soul of liberalism.” Koyzis here advocates ill-liberal means (getting rid of Quebec) for liberal ends (a pluralistic liberal public square). Eventually, the means or the ends must triumph. And the longer a person believes he can master some subtle balance between two powers greater than he, the more likely he is to be overwhelmed by the more evil of the two.
The root of Koyzis’s conflicted soul can be more deeply plumbed by careful observance of his strange defense of his new views. Koyzis locates the root of Quebecian intolerance not in its new found secularism and nationalism, but it its older commitments to Catholicism: “The old pre-1960 Quebec might have been our allies [sic] on some issues, but, having abandoned Catholicism, Quebecois have adopted the new faith of nationalism. Where the perceived heavy hand of the institutional church once lay upon nearly the whole of Quebec society, including schools, hospitals, labour unions, &c., this has been replaced by l’Etat du Quebec, as some have phrased it–essentially a new church. On the other hand, I would not wish to romanticize old Quebec. Neither its integrisme, with its notion of a monolithic Catholic society, nor its contemporary monolithic secularism is particularly hospitable towards principled pluralism. One need only call to mind Duplessis’ Padlock Law [which outlawed the communist party in Quebec in the 1930s].”
Passing over the fact that Catholics in Quebec are not at all as Koyzis describes them, his remarks are most telling. Here Koyzis tips his hand in favor of a liberal conception of the good over and above a Christian one. Koyzis’s own ecclesial history sheds further light on this. As a born and raised conservative Presbyterian, he suffered a narrow escape from fundamentalism while studying at Notre Dame, dabbled in the protestant high churches, and finally settled in the Dutch Reformed tradition of the Christian Reformed Church. He now refers to himself as a “Byzantine Calvinist” which suggests all kinds of possible conflict and instability. This salad bar approach to one’s tradition is the most potent weapon in the arsenal of liberalism for undermining and deracinating a vibrant and muscular public Christianity which remains the greatest threat to liberalism’s hegemony.
One who has been through these formative religious experiences will have a tremendously difficult time not at least sympathizing with liberalizing tendencies in the public square towards tolerance and the autonomy fetish of unlimited choice. Ultimately, this sympathy will lead to a high desire to protect the liberal public square out of a misplaced need to guard one’s own autonomous right to adopt whatever tradition one wants. And here, as is so often the case in tottering protestant democracies of the late-liberal era, these underlying derailments eventually come out in expressions of anti-Catholicism which amounts to nothing less than advocacy of an anti-Christianity which is more damaging, because more subtle, than even militant secularism.
The lesson is, as Koyzis rightly divines, that Mother Church is the real threat to his vaunted principled pluralism–and a good thing too. Otherwise, who would save us from the communists?
This is Principled Pluralism Redux in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Animal Planet | Next: The Soft Middle of Evangelical Assimilation | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
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