Found this interesting! I think liberal impulses on mass migration are actually artifacts of English speaking liberal opposition to the French Revolution and republican politics as a whole. Lord Acton writes in his essay on nationality that :
The combination of different nations in one State is as necessary a condition of civilised life as the combination of men in society. Inferior races are raised by living in political union with races intellectually superior. Exhausted and decaying nations are revived by the contact of a younger vitality. Nations in which the elements of organisation and the capacity for government have been lost, either through the demoralising influence of despotism, or the disintegrating action of democracy, are restored and educated anew under the discipline of a stronger and less corrupted race. This fertilising and regenerating process can only be obtained by living under one government. It is in the cauldron of the State that the fusion takes place by which the vigour, the knowledge, and the capacity of one portion of mankind may be communicated to another. Where political and national boundaries coincide, society ceases to advance, and nations relapse into a condition corresponding to that of men who renounce intercourse with their fellow-men. The difference between the two unites mankind not only by the benefits it confers on those who live together, but because it connects society either by a political or a national bond, gives to every people an interest in its neighbours, either because they are under the same government or because they are of the same race, and thus promotes the interests of humanity, of civilisation, and of religion."
Although written in 1862 the above sentiment still rules the highest echelons of American and European society. Large republican states in liberal eyes would inevitably descend into fanaticism or despotism unless there was this diversity inspired by Austria Hungary and the British Isles. This grain of thought which you see in Constant too (perhaps inspired by the Swiss as well as Britain) is transmitted through British then American empire into the general west. Combined with the mythology of the civil rights movement and finally the utopian post 1990s world of economic growth we see global migration the likes of which its progenitors such as Acton would have seen as insane. I suspect the English religious settlement was also a great inspiration with a patchwork of sects being more conducive to liberty than the dangerous collectivism of one dominant force.
Berlin writing after the war railed against utopian thought for the twin collective evils of Communism and Fascism. Acton had done the same thing 80 years later with nationalism and socialism being the evils descended from the republicanism of 1790's France. It is ironic that liberals own utopianism has led us to the point where the Jacobins have come again. To quote the inspiration for Berlin's book title "out of the crooked timber of humanity nothing straight was ever made."
Brilliant piece David. We are fortunate to have such thinkers as you in Canada.
In Alberta, the recent school strike action has lifted the veil on some immigration impacts people tended to ignore—political correctness, uncomfortable, whatever. In Calgary, the CBE reports nearly 1 in 3 K-12 students is learning English as an additional language. Little wonder teachers are weary. Bigger question- why did it take us so long to talk about this fact?
Our former PM, Trudeau, opened the door with his post-nation state nonsense. We need to be clearer about what we are as a nation- I prefer the patriot model, personally. But sadly, it’s all quite laden with partisanship and noise, now.
“became easier to deny the true volume of migratory flows and to downplay the intensity of the antagonisms arising therefrom.”
This sentence really struck a chord with me. It is frankly demoralizing how much the governments and media involved in covering up both the extent of immigration and the extent of the adverse outcomes. Then the constant lecturing on how actually it is a good thing.
If enough migration happens, in addition to the people’s and cultures of the West being destroyed, it won’t actually help the migrants either, since the country will just become the place they left.
In the face of all this, these governments are unwilling to stem the tide even a little bit.
Fukuyama’s thesis foundered on two things: the nature of Islam, which his teacher Samuel Huntington understood better; and the untimely advent of The Last Man, which was the eventuality Fukuyama warned about. The ruling classes of every western liberal democracy—especially Britain’s— were already displaying the characteristics when Fukuyama was writing his book. And one other thing at question: does the liberalism of the post war era have the internal resources in itself to defend against both Marxism and Islam?
In fairness, the UK government seems incapable of tying its own shoelaces in the years since it established an international treaty that codifies divine toe rights. This can only be solved by implementing Digital ID.
This is an important topic for understanding the contemporary world. Just a bibliographic note: for a closer look at the problem of unevenness in development in different parts of the world see "Globalization Via World Urbanization: The Crucial Phase" by Brian Spooner [anthropologist] in Globalization: The Crucial Phase edited by Brian Spooner, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology /University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015 and "The Great Migration" series at the New York Times by journalist Lydia Polgreen, starting with "Migration is Remaking Our World--and We Don't Yet Understand It" (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/opinion/migration-population-series.html )
Found this interesting! I think liberal impulses on mass migration are actually artifacts of English speaking liberal opposition to the French Revolution and republican politics as a whole. Lord Acton writes in his essay on nationality that :
The combination of different nations in one State is as necessary a condition of civilised life as the combination of men in society. Inferior races are raised by living in political union with races intellectually superior. Exhausted and decaying nations are revived by the contact of a younger vitality. Nations in which the elements of organisation and the capacity for government have been lost, either through the demoralising influence of despotism, or the disintegrating action of democracy, are restored and educated anew under the discipline of a stronger and less corrupted race. This fertilising and regenerating process can only be obtained by living under one government. It is in the cauldron of the State that the fusion takes place by which the vigour, the knowledge, and the capacity of one portion of mankind may be communicated to another. Where political and national boundaries coincide, society ceases to advance, and nations relapse into a condition corresponding to that of men who renounce intercourse with their fellow-men. The difference between the two unites mankind not only by the benefits it confers on those who live together, but because it connects society either by a political or a national bond, gives to every people an interest in its neighbours, either because they are under the same government or because they are of the same race, and thus promotes the interests of humanity, of civilisation, and of religion."
Although written in 1862 the above sentiment still rules the highest echelons of American and European society. Large republican states in liberal eyes would inevitably descend into fanaticism or despotism unless there was this diversity inspired by Austria Hungary and the British Isles. This grain of thought which you see in Constant too (perhaps inspired by the Swiss as well as Britain) is transmitted through British then American empire into the general west. Combined with the mythology of the civil rights movement and finally the utopian post 1990s world of economic growth we see global migration the likes of which its progenitors such as Acton would have seen as insane. I suspect the English religious settlement was also a great inspiration with a patchwork of sects being more conducive to liberty than the dangerous collectivism of one dominant force.
Berlin writing after the war railed against utopian thought for the twin collective evils of Communism and Fascism. Acton had done the same thing 80 years later with nationalism and socialism being the evils descended from the republicanism of 1790's France. It is ironic that liberals own utopianism has led us to the point where the Jacobins have come again. To quote the inspiration for Berlin's book title "out of the crooked timber of humanity nothing straight was ever made."
Brilliant piece David. We are fortunate to have such thinkers as you in Canada.
In Alberta, the recent school strike action has lifted the veil on some immigration impacts people tended to ignore—political correctness, uncomfortable, whatever. In Calgary, the CBE reports nearly 1 in 3 K-12 students is learning English as an additional language. Little wonder teachers are weary. Bigger question- why did it take us so long to talk about this fact?
Our former PM, Trudeau, opened the door with his post-nation state nonsense. We need to be clearer about what we are as a nation- I prefer the patriot model, personally. But sadly, it’s all quite laden with partisanship and noise, now.
Thanks for the courage to ask better questions.
“became easier to deny the true volume of migratory flows and to downplay the intensity of the antagonisms arising therefrom.”
This sentence really struck a chord with me. It is frankly demoralizing how much the governments and media involved in covering up both the extent of immigration and the extent of the adverse outcomes. Then the constant lecturing on how actually it is a good thing.
If enough migration happens, in addition to the people’s and cultures of the West being destroyed, it won’t actually help the migrants either, since the country will just become the place they left.
In the face of all this, these governments are unwilling to stem the tide even a little bit.
Fukuyama’s thesis foundered on two things: the nature of Islam, which his teacher Samuel Huntington understood better; and the untimely advent of The Last Man, which was the eventuality Fukuyama warned about. The ruling classes of every western liberal democracy—especially Britain’s— were already displaying the characteristics when Fukuyama was writing his book. And one other thing at question: does the liberalism of the post war era have the internal resources in itself to defend against both Marxism and Islam?
In fairness, the UK government seems incapable of tying its own shoelaces in the years since it established an international treaty that codifies divine toe rights. This can only be solved by implementing Digital ID.
This is an important topic for understanding the contemporary world. Just a bibliographic note: for a closer look at the problem of unevenness in development in different parts of the world see "Globalization Via World Urbanization: The Crucial Phase" by Brian Spooner [anthropologist] in Globalization: The Crucial Phase edited by Brian Spooner, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology /University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015 and "The Great Migration" series at the New York Times by journalist Lydia Polgreen, starting with "Migration is Remaking Our World--and We Don't Yet Understand It" (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/opinion/migration-population-series.html )