158 Quotes by John Ralston Saul

Criticism is perhaps the citizen’s primary weapon in the exercise of her legitimacy. That is why, in the corporatist society, conformism, loyalty and silence are so admired and rewarded; why criticism is so punished or marginalized. Who has not experienced this conflict?

To live in delusion is to live in the comfort of ideology.

Like other ideologies, that of free trade contains unspoken contempt for the individual citizen. It is a despairing response to the complexities of the real world and the politics of despair always replace choice with inevitability. Indeed despair is the natural tone of economists when they are selling their theories of salvation.

Again and again the schools which form the twentieth century’s elites throughout the West refer to their Socratic heritage. The implication is that doubt is constantly raised in their search for truth. In reality the way they teach is the opposite of a Socratic dialogue. In the Athenian’s case every answer raised a question. With the contemporary elites every question produces an answer. Socrates would have thrown the modern elites out of his academy.

He who burns with ambition to become aedile, tribune, praetor, consul, dictator, cries out that he loves his country and he loves only himself.

A foreigner is an individual who is considered either comic or sinister. When the victim of a disaster – preferably natural but sometimes political -the foreigner may also be pitied from a distance for a short period of time.

Such sudden respectability for undisciplined self-interest is one of the most surprising developments of the last three decades. It seems to indicate just how confused our society has become.

Remember, we non-Aboriginals were signatories. As a non-Aboriginal, I say we. And through Canada’s signatures we committed ourselves to the permanency of our relationship with the words that these treaties would stand “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows.” These were and remain binding legal documents. Perhaps more important, with our signatures we committed our government to act always with the Honour of the Crown.

The fundamental issues are treaties, power and capital. Are we able to be honest enough with ourselves to accept this? Do we want a settlement or not? The shape and direction of the country depends on how we act. This must become a political issue.