(no subject)

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Hat tip to allhatnocattle for reminding me of a post I'd written months ago and never posted.

A frequent topic of conversation I used to have with a friend was the differences in attitudes between the Canadian populace and the American towards our respective governments. Canada was described to me as a Father knows best land, one where we put far too much trust in our government. From my perspective it is Americans who don't trust enough. This seems to lead to the difficulties in accomplishing new strategies and systems. I liken it to raising a teenager. When you put trust in them they will do all they can to earn that trust, to show that it is not misplaced. They will enjoy the freedoms you are giving to them and not abuse it. When you watch every move this leads to resentment and acting out.


I know that the US faces some difficulties in adopting new methods, difficulties not always faced by other countries. But I think the biggest one is the lack of trust, and tied into that is the divisiveness between your political parties. The entire system is set up as us vs. them, there is so much rancor and conflict that it is no wonder no trust is shown by the people.

In a March 2011 poll, only 22% of Americans said they trusted their government, one of the lowest numbers in over 50 years. Of course this number is elevated due to economic uncertainties and due to the fact that people are dissatisfied with the way they see their country going.

In similar polls and focus groups in Canada while some distrust in the government was still shown, the largest levels of trust were shown in regulations. Canadians simply do not trust big business to keep our interests, rather than their own financial interests, in the forefront. We want the government heavily involved to protect us.

Studies have also shown that our national identity, of being nice, of being caring, of taking pride in our social achievements is what fosters that sense of trust. We want to know that people are taken care of, that we are ourselves, and our governments, on both a federal and provincial level have instituted polices and programs that give us that assurance. It is easy to trust when you are being given what you want. A criticism I heard on this was that what the government gives it can take away. I think this is false fear. Any party in power that tried to take away any program that has the support of the people would find themselves out of power fairly quickly.

America was founded on the pioneer image. The bootstraps way. And I think this has carried over into your national identity too. Your country was created out of conflict and desire for freedom. It is something so deeply ingrained in the national image that any overt interference in that freedom is automatically seen as negative and not to be trusted.

I am not claiming to understand the American attitudes towards government, in fact a lot of it still perplexes me. Nor am I saying that you should or can put more trust in your elected officials. But if you look at countries that have managed changes, and put programs into place that greatly benefited the populace at large you will find much more trust in the government than yours. Just like the teenager, our governments are living up to the trust we have placed in them.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Canada has one chief advantage over every other First World country-it's an energy exporter. Its second advantage has been being able to depend on economic and military security first from the British Empire and second from the USA. With such scenarios and also with a much longer tie with Europe Canada's culture wound up with the best elements of cultures on both sides of The PondTM and thus looks different from the USA. I'm generally wary of any statement relying on propaganda and mythology as describing the cultures of various societies, I think it's fair in fact to note the US penchant to conflict is exaggerated while US desires for freedom also tend to be rather exaggerated and narrow in tone, purpose, and intention.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, and I am looking at it as an outsider.

I don't know what us being an energy exporter or relying on others for security has to do with the trust we place in our government though. Expand on that?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

For one thing being an energy exporter means in itself greater prosperity, and prosperity means that government is trusted more than in times of economic slowdowns or turmoil when blaming the government is an easy, if not always truthful, means of scapegoating one thing for a general issue. While relying on others for security means less need to have things like a large standing army where the government's more negative side has more time to come out in the open.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand how either point you made addresses her post.



Canadian trust of the government precedes our ability to export energy. Being a major energy exporter is a fairly recent thing going back some 20-25yrs, all the way to the mid 1980's.

And this is also beneficial only regionally. Alberta and NFLD with oil and Quebec with HydroElectric exports. A province that is a net energy user like Ontario doesn't benefit directly from oil exported from Alberta, nor is any of that oil under Federal jurisdiction.

Canada actually buys (almost) all the oil we use from the USA. We export raw oil. We import it back processed.




As for you point about military... I think it was 60yrs ago the last time our military was thought of for defence. We Canadians default position is that we are not about to be attacked, therefore defence isn't necessary, even after the paranoia that followed 9/11. USA of course has always felt different, even before 9/11. I think you feel we are a poor defenceless burden on fortress America. It's bizarre.

But we don't trust our government more because we "rely" on USA to defend us from gorgons and other monsters. We don't trust the gov't more because they don't don't have this revolving door of wars to screw up, embarrass us and become scandals. We have scandals regardless of the size of our military, some even militarily related. Like, do we hand over POW's to the Afghani police even when we know they'll be tortured?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Canada had the British Empire to rely on long before it relied on the USA. Mother Albion was holding your hands and always there for you and you guys were good servants of the Crown from the 19th Century onwards. You guys were plenty good in the world wars and are by no means defenseless, but let's be real: anyone invading North America will go for the USA before they go for Mexico or you guys, we're the ones with the biggest population and bet army.

The Canadian polity's not as pacifistic as you make it sound here, and you missed my point entirely.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Lankers is right. Unless an army shows up in North America shouting "We will have your frozen tundra!" then they'll come after the US first since we're the biggest boy on the block. Canada might have it's own military but it still gets a lot of protection by osmosis from the US military.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

They'll come after you because you would be the target. The only reason we need protection is because of our proximity to the US.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

They stand between us and the Cubans. They protect us from getting Cuban style free dentistry.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nonsense, and it has nothing to do with what I was actually talking about. I'd love to discuss that with you but so long as you're referring to Che Guevara and his ilk instead that's not what's happening here.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Ah, the old Canadian tradition of blaming America for your problems.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone in Canada believes in the Red Dawn scenario for one second. So let's arm ourselves to the teeth to defend a highly unlikely, highly unreasonable situation? Canadians are just not that paranoid or gullible. So this great favour you think USA is doing for us, defending us from Russians and Cubans, isn't much of a favour at all.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Still not addressing my actual point and using a strawman argument of your own. Which is fine and all but it's not what I was actually talking about. My actual point is that Canada is an energy exporter and its government is historically more beneficial than ours has tended to be, while its army is a lesser burden and absent our own army's history of firing on civilians. Thus, government is a positive good while here government has been both bringer of good and bringer of evil. Being an energy exporter also means that the government's coercive hand is lesser in Canada than it is here while its positive elements are far stronger.

Now, if you're willing to address these points instead of the strawman here....

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I might note, too, that this also owes much to the different nature of state-building in the USA and Canada, as far as attitudes to government. In the USA the nature of state-building has generally had a more sinister edge, regardless of its targets, while in Canada the formation of the Dominion and Confederation were unambiguously positive steps, steps that brought a greater peace and prosperity both. Relative to US history Canadian history is a much less bloody and straightforward history of growing size and prosperity, which is in itself an origin of different attitudes.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

Isn't Norway an energy exporter?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I have no idea.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

To clarify-the statement on propaganda and mythology refers to an idea that US culture is violent and combative beyond the norm for states of this time and other times. This is not exactly true or straightforward and it owes itself more to a great big lie than any actual truth in terms of how the states in question operate. If anything the US stereotype would be fear of making hard decisions and compromising to absolutely absurd extremes to avoid making such decisions.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Norway is an energy exporter too.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

A frequent topic of conversation I used to have with a friend was the differences in attitudes between the Canadian populace and the American towards our respective governments. Canada was described to me as a Father knows best land, one where we put far too much trust in our government.

I don't know if that's true for the prairie provinces. And I know this isn't scientific by any means, but when I hung out in IRC political channels, there were more than a handful of Canadian libertarian types, who ranted constantly about their government before Harper took over (in fact, one of the channel participants became a political appointee when Harper won, which I thought scary since he was placed in Native American Affairs and considering the things he put into the open channel about his real thoughts about the natives? Scary stuff. ) I have a lot of cousins that live in Western Canada and they're pretty much like American conservatives (well up to a point--- they clearly like their health care system and take tremendous pride in it as Canadians and think Americans are backwoods hicks, ironic huh?)

But on the other side of that coin, most of the Canadian family I visited were either in Ontario or Quebec, and they have served in Canadian forces around the world, and have no beefs with the government. As for all the complaints about long waits in their health care system? They just laugh and laugh at what conservatives here in the United States have to say about *their* system (e.g.I have an aunt that's been on dialysis most of her life), one cousin is a hematologist in Toronto and has 2 Ph.Ds (and I've never heard him complain about the low pay or how horrible Canadian medical schools were).

But a more fundamental level, I guess you're asking why is Canadian attitudes so different, i.e. the lack of trust? I think *some* of that could perhaps be that quite a bit of British loyalists fled to Canada after the Revolutionary War. I don't know if the British government still encouraged settlements in Canada the way they had done in the colonies via land grants (that's why the French weren't able to get any of their citizens to settle in any great numbers because of that [and that's a guess on my part]. Scot - Germans were a huge component of the American colonies, and they absolutely resented authority for a lot of reasons [the people that settled in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia and eventually moved west were form the southern areas of Scotland, and even the Scot kings had a hard time controlling them). I would recommend the series Appalachia - A History of Mountains and People (http://appalachiafilm.org/filmmakers) to get a sense of that. I would also recommend The Cousin's Wars. (http://books.google.com/books?id=-tsir90xfo4C&pg=PA634&lpg=PA634&dq=cousins+america+puritans+book&source=bl&ots=ybBD19HVqr&sig=bd4OtGRwhQSuoFNK6SItw7oyxV0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ewUCT9rkKMXj0QGthLWnBA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=cousins%20america%20puritans%20book&f=false) Big ass book, but worth reading ;)

I hope this wasn't *TOO* rambling ;)

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

I think underlankers's comments are spot-on. Canada did not have a violent armed revolution to throw off British rule, thus Canada never developed the knee-jerk hatred of government that pervaded America's founding generation and forever tainted our view of law and government.

Perhaps more importantly, Canada was never cursed with race slavery as the economic and cultural basis of an entire section of the country and did not suffer a horrific civil war before it ended. (There was slavery in Canada, mainly of Native Americans and the poor souls brought up north by the United Empire Loyalists, but it never got to the level of its southern neighbor and was outlawed a generation earlier.) As much modern anti-government sentiment in America descends directly from the Old Confederacy and the loathing of Yankee interference, y'all have been spared that.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Well I kind of touched on the first issue myself, in the OP. But apparently that is all just mythology.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Er...I don't get how it's mythology? o.O

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

As per underlankers original comment.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Ohh ok...sorry, I'm a bit slow on the uptake this week. Took eight Sudafed yesterday and four so far today. Do they sell replacement sinuses in Canada?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The that US culture is uniquely violent or combative. US tradition is more that of continual compromises and *avoiding* violence as much as is possible than embracing it. This tradition began with the Founding Fathers and found its great proponents in people like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, and has been one that has continued through US politics into the modern day. US culture as a whole also tends to actually *demean* violence and to denigrate both it and what war actually means in practice as opposed to accepting them overtly and proudly, hence the continual use of Newspeak in US politics as far as wars. The USA has also tended to have for every instance of frontier violence or mob violence people who invariably and loudly condemn it and ultimately make it shameful and no longer acceptable.

Of course in the mythology that passes for US history this tends to be glanced over quite a fair bit. And what violence does appear tends to be presented selectively, just as violent crime nowadays is presented in a fashion more than somewhat skewed.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The mythology I referred to is the idea that states are definable by traits like "more violent/more pacific." There is reality to it, but the reasons aren't that living south of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence leads to more argumentative people and living north of it leads to less. I apologize for the misunderstanding caused by that comment.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Historically, Upper Canada (Ontario) was pretty much empty in 1774... except for natives, French trappers and traders. Loyalists pretty much made up the first settlements of Kingston, York (Toronto) and Niagara. Which might explain a huge cultural shift of 235years or aprox.ly 8 generations (give or take).

But I (a complete armchair amateur in these matters) would expect a far greater cultural divide given this much cultural evolution. From what I know of our history, the divide was pretty great up until WW2, when Canada exercised some independence from mother Britain and entered the war with our own declaration. Around that time our primary trading partner shifted from UK to USA.

I'm not sure this cultural division on trusting or not-trusting the government stems from that far back. Not to 1776 anyway. It stands to reason that it would be a more recent phenomena then that.

I think one of the most mesmerizing factors in society is mass media. Before cable we didn't share much mass media. We never saw Walter Cronkite in Toronto until the late 1970's. Therefore I would attribute this American distrust stemming from all the shit that went down in the 1960's. JFK. Malcolm X. MLK. RFK. VietNam. Kent State. Nixon. Watergate.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The USA's always disliked a strong central government, in sections of the elite (usually the conservative element in the South) and in the population at large (which likes paying taxes even less than the rest of the world does). Too, minorities in the USA have had.....ambiguous at best....experiences with the US government which has primarily been an evil, treacherous thing to them in a fashion that's statist and approved of by said section of the elite that disapproved even of the government's existence elsewhere. The US government has also had a rather uneven relationship with US citizenry, the US Army's tradition of firing on US civilians is ancient, going all the way back to George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion, while the Canadian government and army both have been indisputably far more positive forces, and the one big rebellion and Indian War saw nothing of the sustained horror that went into the US Civil War.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

There are a lot more cultural differences between Canada and USA then just trust.

Take the word "curiosity" and google it's definition. You will find every American dictionary sheds this word in a negative light. They insist it's akin to being "nosy". Curiosity killed the cat, donchaknow?

But then find the same definition in a nice British or Canadian dictionary.
http://dictionary.canadaspace.com/definition/curiosity/

This explains why when you travel Europe, they show genuine interest asking us tourists some personal questions, where Americans come off as cold, or just don't seem to have any interest about the stranger in their midst. It's practically a whole genre of Hollywood movies, where if Rambo came wandering into a Canadian small town, the reception would be entirely different.

I'm not putting off Americans here. I'm just saying that although our accents are similar, there's an whole unseen cultural difference, often quite subtle. But it does make a difference.

But where it stems from is hard to pinpoint. Is it really because USA is a republic who's independence was birthed from revolutionary treason? That seems historically plausible, but does it really make sense in anthropology? I think the differences are probably more recent. I would suggest that the media of the last 50years has had tremendous influence shaping this divide. But I don't know.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

It's practically a whole genre of Hollywood movies, where if Rambo came wandering into a Canadian small town, the reception would be entirely different.

Yeah, I'm sure small town Canadian cops LOVE having rough looking drifters roaming around their towns.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

It's not what we like or don't like. It's how we handle situations. Asking 5 questions isn't an invasion of privacy. Especially when it's framed in genuine interest.

(BTW, First Blood was filmed in Canada)

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Your faith in redneck Canadian cops is inspiring.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely. But like I said, I wrote this months ago, after multiple conversations with someone about Canadians being too trusting of our government. So I was just addressing that point.