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Confirmed User
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: midwest side, yo
Posts: 4,728
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whee! this is fun!
Quote:
"Americans are dumb:" a myth to live by for smug Canadians
Posted by Smug Canadian, 12/12/01 at 11:04:06 PM.
Being told that "Americans are stupid" was definitely one stream in the ocean of bad jokes that we hear growing up, right down there with such regional snipes like Ukrainian, Newfie, Upper Canada, Quebecers or Albertan jokes. Just depends where you're from. Americans, then, provide some unity for our country when people need to feel superior to someone. I know I've repeated my own share of bad car plug-in stories about Yanks, but who can blame me for not knowing any better. I was raised in the myth that they are dense. (Unfortunate, but not nearly as bad as being dragged around by my parents to flag burnings and learn nothing but an anti-culture.)
It's true that not just Canadians like to make fun of Americans, but there is the key difference of us being their neighbors. (And no, I will not spell words Canadian i.e. neighbours. I did previously but no more. This tradition is better off dead.) We know more about America than the rest of the world. Closely connected to that is that we owe them more as well. Our country may seem like a shining light to foreigners (or at least we think it is) but never forget how much of that is reflected glory from Uncle Sam. We have our valuable contributions to the U.S. as well, but that doesn't nearly change our position of being the follower.
There is nothing wrong with being the follower. It is a position played by a majority of the members of any given set. It is an easy thing to be, compared to being a leader. The United States has made some pretty bad mistakes, but that's what happens when you lead. The interesting thing is that they have so far been very good at repairing the damage and improving. Canada has a much more inconsistent performance in this area; we have periods where we coast on the relative safety of our massive natural resources and American protection. Remember this when you criticize the dumb American president: the people who work for him have to invent the future for their country in outrageously complex situations. We can always drift in their exhaust when we don't feel like keeping pace.
The general disdain that Canadians feel for Americans is approximately made up of two parts ignorance and one part jealousy. Someone has to be king of the hill, they are them, and those lower on the hill are seldom appreciative of that position. It's easy to recall how spittingly unfair life felt when an older sibling got to do stuff you didn't. When you're older you learn that's just part of the deal, and life can't work any other way. You see this same interaction played out in Quebec vs. Canada, DOJ/Oracle/Sun vs. Microsoft, name your pair. Plenty of Canadians are stuck in that perpetual childish stage, refusing to acknowledge simple facts about the other side or talk to actual Americans. (Hey, that sounds like Quebec!)
A quick survey of reality informs me that Americans, on average, probably aren't that dumb. If you don't believe me, perhaps when you visited the USA mall and stopped at the Full Serve gas station, you didn't encounter the top of American civilzation. Here's a positive example: there are more cancer doctors in one specialized hospital in New York than in all of Canada. It's in these kind of things that America really kicks our ass. Never mind Hollywood movies or the space shuttle: their universities, their companies, their society - there's a lot of leaders there. Plenty of dogs, sure, but still more cream than we can understand.
It would be pretty tough to get a lot of Canadians to acknowledge these simple facts. But what I'll say next could get a bottle of Molson Ex chucked at my head in most of Canada. Maybe, the reason they are so much smarter than us is that their system of government actually encourages that to happen. What a disgusting thought, eh? Maybe their constitution actually is a pretty extraordinary document that has held together a new kind of nation, despite being run by human beings - human beings of the same type of meat that seem to go so horribly bad in many other countries. The guys that founded America were obviously quite brilliant; it's not easy to write documents that keep the business running when you've been dead for generations.
People love to criticize Salesman America, but I believe it is their cold businesslike approach to every aspect of their nation, from the Constitution, to passing laws, to running their military, that has been fundamental to their success. As a businessperson, you discover a world that is filled with facts that rub against each other, and in the friction you hope to discover a profit. It sounds straightforward, but discovering what the facts really are is the trick. You've seen the brain teaser
that sticks
two words together in
in such a way that you don't notice. The same brain fooling trickery is everywhere as you attempt to uncover as many facts as possible. You quickly develop a healthy suspicion of all information, and you bolt pieces onto your mental construction of reality only with the most trusted parts you can find. Nonsense, half truths, and outright lies have to be identified and terminated like so much Taliban in a hideout. If you decide not to reject the bullshit, you instead have to create an elaborate pile of apologetics to explain the contradictions that rapidly appear.
This is closer to the Canadian Way, and I fear that is not an ideal way to run a country. For religion, it's their core competency and is their only hope for survival. For a country, there are better approaches, as in: the more facts the better - and nobody should ever be afraid to discuss them. But that's another story, for another day soon.
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