You may have watched the most recent episodes of “Emily in Paris,” but did you catch the recent Toronto Star op-ed “Jason in Toronto”?

“Emily in Paris” is a Netflix series, several years old, about an American fashion consultant who takes dreary old Paris and Rome by storm. It is a series whose treatment of first-world problems (and the American around whom they revolve) could lead you to think that Carrie Bradshaw (of Sex in the City) understood the engines of capitalism perspicuously when she candidly remarked: “I like my money right where I can see it: hanging in my closet.”

Likewise, the op-ed “Jason in Toronto” is a new intervention in the print media of an already colonized landscape by American philosopher Jason Stanley whose condescending treatment of “Canadians” could lead you to think that Donald Trump is in fact correct when he claims that deep down “the people of Canada” really, truly, want to be part of the United States.

In other words, “Jason in Toronto” is the latest manifestation of a form of American academic imperialism that disaster fascism has exacerbated, a form of American imperialism about which I have written posts (e.g., here and here) in the past, a form of imperialism that is extended deeper into Canada every time a Canadian university deigns to “pilfer and plunder” academics from the US.

That’s right: today Jason published an op-ed in the Toronto Star that offers his expertise on Canadians and their relationship to American fascism–expertise about what “Canadians” think, what they do, and how they perceive their relationship to the US–that he has accumulated over the long four or five months that he has lived here (give or take several weeks absence for trips to Ukraine, etc.).

The op-ed is intended to chastise Canadians about their “naivete” with respect to American fascism. Not surprisingly, however, the op-ed seems to say more about Jason Stanley, the American in Canada, than it does about Canadians in general and what they may or may not understand about American fascism in particular.

Why would a philosopher who likely has a relatively homogeneous circle of acquaintances, friends, and colleagues draw the conclusion that his perceptions represent the views of people in Canada at large? (Answer: because that is what Americans tend to do.) Does Jason Stanley read or listen to the views, arguments, and perspectives of anyone outside of his circle or even outside of his own office? He expresses exasperation and bewilderment that he has heard “Canadians” who “hope their children might attend university in the U.S.” Who are these “Canadians”? The privileged philosophy faculty members of the University of Toronto who, themselves, do not hire philosophers with a degree from a Canadian university?

Indeed, I have repeatedly pointed out this form of (prestige) bias in Canadian hiring. Other Canadian philosophers have too, as a long thread of comments at Daily Nous demonstrates. Jason Stanley seems not to have paid any attention to our criticism in this regard.

In the earlier posts, I variously pointed out ways in which American imperialism operates outside of and beyond the recognized seat of American power, that is, the state. The “Jason in Toronto” op-ed is a specter of what is on the horizon.