If Paul Harvey and Nick Osmond-Jones Walked into a Meeting on "Wokery"

My take on this Quillette interview.

If Paul Harvey and Nick Osmond-Jones Walked into a Meeting on "Wokery"

My take on this Quillette interview.

Land Acknowledgements and Other Wokery in Canada's Public Service: Nick Osmond-Jones Quillette

Imagine Paul Harvey—smooth voice, a bit ominous—walking into a modern Canadian government office, looking around, and saying, "Well, isn't this just what I was talking about?" He might not use the word "woke" (probably wasn't in his vocabulary), but he'd definitely nod along to Nick Osmond-Jones’s observations on land acknowledgements and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the public service. It's almost eerie how Harvey's old radio piece, If I Were the Devil, foreshadows the cultural scene Osmond-Jones describes today.

The Slow Erosion of Values

Harvey's devil was no flashy, cloven-hoofed villain; he was more like a bureaucrat, nibbling away at the edges of what we thought was solid—bit by bit, until the centre couldn't hold. Harvey warned about societal values being chipped away, inch by inch, under the guise of progress. Enter the land acknowledgement at your average government meeting: what starts as a noble idea—recognizing Indigenous presence and history—becomes a divisive ritual that risks emphasizing differences over commonality. Instead of fostering unity, it subtly draws lines between those who are perceived as having an inherent right to belong and those who do not. It makes some people feel like true stakeholders while others, regardless of their long-standing contributions, are left feeling like uninvited guests. You start to get that weird feeling in the room—not unity, but separation.

The Trojan Horse of DEI

Osmond-Jones writes about how these DEI initiatives and acknowledgments arrived under the guise of inclusivity but ultimately brought unintended consequences that deepened divisions. According to him, instead of encouraging neutrality and shared values, they’ve tilted workplaces towards a kind of moral grandstanding—a place where politics isn’t just talked about but preached, and not from a neutral pulpit either. Conservatives need not apply—or, at the very least, keep their heads down. And isn’t that exactly what Harvey’s devil would do? Whisper softly, "You are righteous, and they are wrong," until everyone is separated into neat little identity boxes, and people forget they’re all supposed to be rowing in the same boat.

The Devil's Genius

There’s a genius to Harvey’s devil, you know. He doesn’t start by smashing things. He starts by shifting the meaning of good and evil—just a little bit. In If I Were the Devil, the goal is confusion—get everyone to lose track of what’s up and what’s down. Osmond-Jones describes land acknowledgements as often doing just that. Instead of making everyone feel included, they risk setting up a permanent distinction: some are rightful, rooted owners of the land, while others remain eternal outsiders, no matter how many generations they’ve lived here. The devil’s in the details, indeed—it's the kind of framing that chips away at the idea of a shared national identity.

Rituals That Divide

Osmond-Jones’s criticism isn’t really about denying history. It’s about what happens when gestures like these, initially meant to honour, become ritualistic to the point where they divide rather than unite. It’s the kind of slow-burn erosion Harvey warned about—a reshaping of the collective understanding of belonging. And this erosion doesn’t arrive with a bang; it walks in with a polite smile, maybe even with a good intention, but with consequences that subtly start pushing us away from one another.

Losing the Plot

So, what’s the takeaway here? Are we really so naive as to believe that moral clarity is self-sustaining, that unity takes care of itself? Harvey would laugh—not because it’s funny, but because it’s just so predictably human to lose the plot this way. We start with a good thing—acknowledging our history, trying to be inclusive—and then forget to keep asking, Is this still doing what we wanted it to do? Instead, we end up with land acknowledgements as a kind of moral theatre and workplaces that celebrate diversity, but only if it comes in a pre-approved ideological package.

Where Are We Headed?

The devil in Harvey’s piece didn’t just want chaos. He wanted people to do his work for him, to genuinely believe that by fostering division, they were creating something better. Osmond-Jones seems to be pointing out that, in a way, that’s where we’re headed—with rituals that emphasize differences, initiatives that can make belonging conditional, and public spaces where neutrality has been traded for moral high ground.

A Call to Action

Maybe it's time to pause and ask ourselves if all these symbolic gestures are really building the kind of society we want—or if, as Harvey might argue, we’re being subtly played by forces that thrive on division, not unity. We should actively reassess these practices, ensure they are fostering genuine inclusion, and make changes where they fall short. Let’s be deliberate in creating a society that emphasizes unity and shared purpose over divisive symbolism. It’s a quiet question, but it could make all the difference: Is the devil in the details, or are we letting him in the front door, mistaking him for progress?