I wrote a book thirty years ago about the three questions posed by the great Rabbi Hillel more than two thousand years ago: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
asserted
who → write → me
I have returned to those questions on countless occasions since, and found in them a solace and a discipline.
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I → return → solace
They go together; that is their genius.
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that → go → ?
The first insists on the legitimacy, even the inevitability, of self-interest — it is, after all, the first question.
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it → insist → interest
Every country has the right to pursue its own interests, and the words “Canada first” cause me no pain at all.
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words → have → pain
Sir Wilfrid Laurier was fond of saying “Canada first, Canada last, and Canada always,” and his fellow citizens expected no less of him, or of anyone else who is Prime Minister.
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who → say → anyone
The second question insists, just as firmly, that self-interest can never be the whole of the matter.
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interest → insist → matter
It is one thing to act with a clear-eyed realism about one’s own advantage; it is quite another to glorify that advantage as if nothing else existed.
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nothing → act → advantage
This is the problem at the heart of exceptionalism, or, as President Trump has expressed it “Only America First,” or as I call it the OAF principle.
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I → express → it
From the beginning of organized societies, human beings have discovered they are inescapably social as well as individual — John Donne’s island that is also a part of the main — and societies and countries that refuse this truth never find the balance that both a healthy private life and a workable public policy require.
When self-interest is pursued without limit it curdles first into pure selfishness and then, in its pathological form, into malignant narcissism.
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it → organize → narcissism
I am not trained in psychiatry, but, like most people, I think I know it when I see it: the bully who will not listen, who seeks only his own way, who uses his strength for his own enrichment.
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who → train → enrichment
When someone of this type seizes the power of a great state, the harm is multiplied a millionfold.
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harm → seize → state
This was the pathology that international law, the United Nations and wise statecraft have all been seeking to control and resist.
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law → seek → that
The second question is about all those ways, in our personal lives, in our families, communities, and in our world, that we have been seeking to protect mutual well being and security.
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we → seek → being
When my book was first published many decades ago a friend asked why not change the order of the questions.
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friend → publish → questions
Regimes that are based on suppressing individual rights and freedoms are rightly called oppressive.
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that → base → rights
What are they oppressing?
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they → oppress → What
The third question — “if not now, when?” — is one we are also tempted to evade.
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we → tempt → ?
Not deciding is so often dressed up as prudence, as “strategic patience,” as keeping our options open; but the fine phrase frequently conceals nothing more than inertia and the hope that problems will go away.
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problems → decide → inertia
Pragmatism is never to be despised in getting to action.
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Pragmatism → despise → action
If it doesn’t work, try something else.
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it → work → something
Do not be so afraid of failure that you lose the courage to act.
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you → lose → courage
Do not let perfectionism get in the way.
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perfectionism → let → way
We are at a unique and difficult moment in our national journey, a journey in what I have called a “ruptured world.”
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I → call → what
We are seeing on a daily basis how difficult, erratic, and, yes, malevolent, the leadership of the United States has become.
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leadership → see → States
The layoffs and the closure announced in Hamilton this week are only the beginning of what will be exceptionally difficult for workers, their families, and communities hit by firings, closures and layoffs that have been directly caused by personal decisions of the President of the United States.
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that → announce → States
Donald Trump wants to impoverish our country.
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Trump → want → country
He has said so, and he is doing so.
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he → say → ?
Faced with these cruel and entirely unnecessary decisions, Prime Minister Carney has, since assuming office, correctly understood that Canadians have to stay strong and clear in our response.
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Canadians → face → response
He wants the provinces to get rid of the barriers to interprovincial trade and he is right.
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he → want → trade
We have our own protectionist barriers and they are costing us jobs.
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they → have → jobs
He also wants to pursue national projects that will make a difference, and he thinks Canada has no choice but to rebuild our defence and military capacity in the face of global threats which now also coming from a neighbour that was once our friend and ally.
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that → want → neighbour
We cannot meet these threats alone, they will require closer co-operation with our allies in Europe, the Asia Pacific, Africa and the Americas.
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they → meet → Europe
We also have to keep trying to stabilize the relationship with the Trump Administration without caving.
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We → have → Administration
That is easier said than done, but it is too important to allow ourselves the luxury of anger, because surely we have all learned by now that it is not really possible to be smart and angry at the same time.
Mr. Carney also believes that more focused efforts to extend our trade and security relationships need to happen.
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efforts → say → relationships
He is discovering that the ship of state is a big freighter that only turns slowly, but he is serious about both the domestic and global agenda.
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he → discover → agenda
Marshall McLuhan reminded us many years ago that we tend to look at life through the rear view mirror.
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we → remind → mirror
It is hard to break this habit, but break it we must.
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we → break → it
The world we are in is very different from what it was only two years ago, and that pace will only increase.
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pace → increase → ?
This can bewilder and worry us, but fretting, like nostalgia, is not a strategy.
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fretting → bewilder → nostalgia
The Aporia
