John Ralston Saul
John Ralston Saul, CC ,
Ph.D (born
June 19,
1947) is a
Canadian author,
essayist and
philosopher. He is married to
Adrienne Clarkson, journalist, author, and former
Governor General of Canada.
As an essayist Saul is particularly known for his commentaries on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good; the failures of manager, or more precisely
technocrat, led societies; the confusion between leadership and managerialism; military strategy, in particular irregular warfare; the role of freedom of speech and culture; and his critique of contemporary economic arguments.
Born in
Ottawa, Saul studied at
McGill University in
Montreal and at the
University of London, where he earned his
Ph.D in
1972. After helping to set up the national oil company
Petro-Canada, as Assistant to its first Chair, he turned his attention to writing.
As a novelist
His first novel,
The Birds of Prey, was an international best seller. He then published The Field Trilogy, which deals with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. It includes
Baraka or The Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor of Anthony Smith, The Next Best Thing, and
The Paradise Eater, which won the prestigious
Premio Letterario Internazionale in Italy.
De Si Bons Americains is a picaresque novel in which he observes the life of modern nouveaux riches Americans.
As an essayist
The Dictatorship of Reason
His philosophical essays began with the trilogy made up of the bestseller
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, the polemic philosophical dictionary
The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense, and the book that grew out of his 1995
Massey Lectures,
The Unconscious Civilization. The last won the
1996 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction Literature.
These books deal with themes such as the dictatorship of
reason unbalanced by other human qualities, how it can be used for any ends especially in a directionless state that rewards the pursuit of power for power's sake. He argues that this leads to deformations of thought such as
ideology promoted as
truth; the rational but anti-democratic structures of
corporatism, by which he means the worship of small groups; and the use of
language and
expertise to mask a practical understanding of the harm this causes, and what else our society might do. He argues that the rise of individualism with no regard for the role of society has not created greater individual autonomy and self-determination, as was once hoped, but isolation and alienation. He calls for a pursuit of a more
humanist ideal in which reason is balanced with other human mental capacities such as
common sense,
ethics,
intuition,
creativity, and
memory, for the sake of the common good, and he discusses the importance of unfettered language and practical democracy.
Reflections of a Siamese Twin
He expanded on these themes as they relate to Canada and its
history and
culture in
Reflections of a Siamese Twin. In this book, he coined the idea of Canada being a "soft" country, meaning not that the nation is weak, but that it is has a flexible and complex identity, as opposed to the unyielding or
monolithic identities of other states.
He argued that Canada's complex national identity is made up of the "triangular reality" of the three nations that compose it:
First Peoples,
francophones, and
anglophones. He emphasizes the willingness of these Canadian nations to compromise with one another, as opposed to resorting to open confrontations. In the same vein, he criticizes both those in the
Quebec separatist Montreal School for emphasizing the conflicts in Canadian history and the Orange Order and the Clear Grits traditionally seeking clear definitions of Canadian-ness and loyalty.
On Equilibrium
His next book,
On Equilibrium (
2001), is effectively the conclusion to his philosophical trilogy. It is about six qualities that all of us possess: Common Sense, Ethics, Imagination, Intuition, Memory, and Reason. He describes how these inner forces serve us, how we can use them to balance each other, and what happens when they are unbalanced such as when one is used in isolation such as when there is a "Dictatorship of Reason".
The Collapse of Globalism
In an article written for
Harper's magazine and published in the magazine's March
2004 issue under the title
The Collapse of Globalism and the Rebirth of Nationalism, he argued that the
globalist ideology was under attack by counter-movements. Saul rethought and developed this argument in
The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World (2005). Far from being an inevitable force, Saul argued that globalization is already breaking up into contradictory pieces and that citizens are reasserting their national interests in both positive and destructive ways.
John Saul is co-Chair of the new Institute for Canadian Citizenship. He is Patron and former president of the Canadian Centre of
International PEN. He is also Founder and Honorary Chair of French for the Future, Chair of the Advisory Board for the LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture series, and a Patron of
PLAN (a cutting edge organization tied to people with disabilities),
Engineers Without Borders (Canada), and the
Canadian Landmine Foundation. A Companion in the
Order of Canada (
1999), he is also
Chevalier in the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France (
1996). His 14 honorary degrees range from
McGill University and the
University of Ottawa to
Herzen State Pedagogical University in
St. Petersburg,
Russia.
Fiction
The Birds of Prey (1977)
Baraka (1983)
The Next Best Thing (1986)
The Paradise Eater (1988)
De si bons Américains (1994)
Non-fiction
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (1992)
The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense (1994)
The Unconscious Civilization (1995)
Le Citoyen dans un cul-de-sac?: Anatomie d'une société en crise (1996)
Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century (1997)
On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism (2001)
The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World (2005)
The John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture (2004)
Joseph Howe and the Battle for Freedom of Speech (2006)
*Italy's
Premio Letterario Internazionale, for
The Paradise Eater (1990)
*Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres de France (1996)
*Gordon Montador Award, for
The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
*Governor General's Literary Award for Non-fiction, for
The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
*Gordon Montador Award, for
Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1998)
*
Companion of the Order of Canada (1999)
*Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour(2004)
*
Interview with Mother Jones, 9 November 2005
* Interview with Stuart Jeffries
The prophet of anti-globalism, The Guardian, 9 June 2005
*
Good governance as the Key to Gross National Happiness, keynote speech by John Ralston Saul at Rethinking Development (GNH2) in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, June 23, 2005.
*
The Collapse of Globalism MP3, 11 June 2005
* Saul's
Australian Financial Review Essay:
The End of Globalism 20 February 2004
* Saul's
Harper's Magazine Essay:
The Collapse of Globalism March 2004 (index only, not full text)
*
Interview with Scott London,
Insight and Outlook December 2001
*
Full text and streaming audio and
another transcript of
Citizenship vs the Reigning Linear Trap, a public lecture given at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, 29 August 1999
*
Full text and streaming audio and
another transcript of
Globalisation and Democracy, a public lecture given at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, January 1999
*
French for the Future / Le Français Pour L'Avenir
*
The Annual LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium Lecture*
PEN Canada
