By Daniel Dorman, August 18, 2023
Postcolonial theory is the dominant ideology behind the recent renaming of Canadian roadways and institutions, the vandalism of statues depicting historical figures, and the now routine calls to cancel Canada Day celebrations. As Senator Don Plett argued earlier this year, in reference to the renaming of Sir John A Macdonald Parkway, these efforts are part of an “ideologically driven campaign which seeks to vilify not only Macdonald, but Canada itself.” Postcolonial activism is the force behind this popular distortion and disparagement of Canadian history and institutions.
‘Postcolonialism’ is usually espoused by well-meaning people intent on correcting genuine injustices and yet the word is almost always spoken in ignorance of its ideological baggage. Far from expressing a straightforward (and laudable) desire to break away from the ills and legacy of colonialism in Canada, Postcolonial theory is intimately tied to an intellectual tradition with irredeemably corrupt and irrational assumptions about the nature of truth and justice in society. Sadly, this means that individuals committed to pursue justice in Canada through ‘postcolonialism’ are wielding the wrong tool – they’ve taken a chainsaw to trim the rosebush and the result will not be pretty.
Postcolonial theory is a subset of critical theory, a sub-discipline of sociology and literary theory. The seminal thinker of postcolonial theory was Edward Said, a prominent Palestinian American professor, literary critic, and political advocate. Born in 1935 in Jerusalem and educated in the British and American school systems, he wrote of the complex relations between Western colonial powers and Eastern nations from first-hand experience and from a personal concern to “understand the ways cultural domination has operated.”
In his landmark text Orientalism (1978), Said aims to detail and push-back the “web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism, [and] dehumanizing ideology” faced by Palestinians and other Arabs. Like many ‘postcolonial’ activists today, Said’s intentions were commendable.
What is damning about Said’s work is the critical lens he draws from earlier theorists. Said inherits philosophical assumptions from one of his intellectual heroes, Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci.
Gramsci belongs to an early 20th-century group of Marxists who sought to understand why Marxist revolution did not happen in Western Europe. This group revised Marx’s economic theory by claiming that literary and cultural productions collude with economic interests to suppress the working class and create a false adherence to the order of society. Gramsci expanded Marx’s definition of ‘ideology’ into what he coined ‘hegemony’ to denote the cultural ideas he thought constituted the coercive power structures of society.
Said explicitly adopts Gramsci’s cultural Marxism and his understanding of hegemony. Said wrote: “Too often literature and culture are presumed to be politically… innocent.”
The problem here is that Gramsci and Said’s cultural Marxism is dismissive of the possibility of objective truth or justice. In Gramsci and Said’s understanding, intellectual and cultural productions are ultimately bent towards coercion not truthfulness; for Gramsci, Said, and Postcolonial theorists afterwards statements of fact are merely political propaganda from a dominant class.
In Orientalism, the work which catalyzed ‘postcolonial theory’, Said explained his assumption that: “all academic knowledge about India and Egypt [or any other place] is somehow tinged and impressed with, violated by, the gross political fact… no production of knowledge in the human sciences can ever ignore or disclaim its author’s involvement”. In other words, Said believed that the pretension to knowledge is merely the tool of an oppressor.
Postcolonialism layers a radical skepticism about the capacity for human knowledge over a radical cynicism towards the possibility of justice in the world. In postcolonial theory, truth is just the opinion of the powerful and justice is merely whatever is advantageous to the stronger.
There is a horrifying irony in the idea that postcolonial theory could be a tool of ‘truth and reconciliation’; if postcolonial theorists succeed in implementing their vision of ‘truth and reconciliation’ it would be indistinguishable from ‘coercion and oppression’.
This short history of postcolonial theory underscores that postcolonialism is promoted by progressivist political elites influenced by Marxist thought. ‘Postcolonialism’ is not the original expression of indigenous Canadians seeking justice.
The attraction of postcolonial theory to many Canadians is its pretension to a moral high ground, its stated intention to root out injustice. The danger posed by ‘postcolonial’ theory is not from malicious intent but from an excess of virtuous feeling without understanding. Postcolonial activists should keep their zeal for justice but should drop the theoretical framework which eliminates the possibility of achieving any real justice and perverts their efforts into an unthinking, revolutionary hatred of Canada’s history.
Daniel Dorman writes independently on politics, culture, and literature. He holds an MA in English from the University of Ottawa and a BA from Tyndale University in English and Theology. He is the Communications Manager at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
