John Ralston Saul Ideas Quotations

There is no need to search for global solutions, apart from an absolute necessity to destroy the idea that such things exist.

In the humanist ideal, the mainstream is where interesting debate, the generating of new ideas and creativity take place. In rational society this mainstream is considered uncontrollable and is therefore made marginal. The centre ground is occupied instead by structures and courtiers.

Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. It is either an intellectual undertaking or it is little more than a resource-rich vacuum lying in the buffer zone just north of a great empire.

Now listen to the first three aims of the corporatist movement in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s. These were developed by the people who went on to become part of the Fascist experience: (1) shift power directly to economic and social interest groups; (2) push entrepreneurial initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies; (3) obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest -- that is, challenge the idea of the public interest. This sounds like the official program of most contemporary Western governments.