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Why does George Grant advance two distinct criticisms of modernity and how are they related?
Over the course of his career, Canadian philosopher George Grant advances two distinct lines of criticism against modernity: in one he criticizes modernity as ‘technological’ and in the other he criticizes the modern understanding of the human as free and historical. Technology, Grant argues, means that knowing and making have become “co-penetrated” so that non-instrumental forms of knowing (e.g. contemplation) are marginalized or erased. The human understood as free and historical means that there can be no absolute morality which binds us and there is no reason for us to love justice. While Grant makes efforts to relate these two lines of criticism, it is not immediately clear what that relation is or if there is an overall unity to his corpus. It is my contention that both of these lines of criticism aim at the same thing: they both aim to articulate the “primal affirmation” underlying modernity, i.e. what fundamental thought underlies modernity and what it says about the human and the world. Grant’s purpose is to identify this “primal affirmation” so he can refuse it his assent. This approach is inspired by the Christian mystic Simone Weil and her idea of “waiting on God,” which means, in brief, not seeking out God but withholding unqualified love from everything else so that God can present himself to us.
