The idea of political unity - or belonging - contains its own opposite, because a political community can never guarantee the equal status of all its members. The price of belonging is an entrenched social stratification and hierarchy within the political unit itself. In Lived Fictions, John Grant explores the ways in which we imagine political unity can be achieved. The Canadian notion of progressive politics and social cohesion generates a collective commitment to imagining how society is structured. These political imaginaries - the citizen-state, the market economy, charters of rights, and so forth - are the lived fictions that bind us together. They orient our sense of national identity and shape our understanding of political legitimacy, responsibility, and action. Grant also persuasively details why the project of political unity must fail: it distorts our lived experiences and allows harmful relations of inequality and domination to take root. Canada promises unity through democratic politics, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, a welfare state that protects the vulnerable, and a multicultural approach to cultural relations.

This book documents the historical failure of these promises and elaborates the kinds of institutional and intellectual changes needed to overcome our lived fictions.