Source: Facebook

http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-cultural-differences-between-Canadians-and-Americans/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1AN ANSWER THAT YOU WON’T LIKE: PRIVILEGE NOT CHOICE

Humans justify. Justification is necessary for adaptation, and we are very good at justification.

Canada is the world’s most privileged country, so Canadians can justify unprecedented luxuries.

Imagine, anywhere else in the world, a country of that size, with so few people, with that many natural resources, that did not have to defend that territory and resources from constant incursion by neighboring powers.

Ukraine and Siberia are two modern examples. Ukraine has roughly the same population, is rich in resources, and has been the victim of perpetual struggle for self determination from Mongols, Poland, Austria, Russia, the USSR, and now Russia again. Siberia is currently being occupied by Chinese intent on doing exactly what Russia did to Ukraine: fill it with people then justify taking it by force.

Canadians have the best of all worlds: a benevolent global empire on their border that cannot tolerate any instability in, or invasion of, Canada; oceans for all other borders; and therefore near immunity from the high cost of self defense, and the necessity of nationalism.

Canada and Australia, like the UK are for all strategic intents and purposes, islands, that like the UK, rely upon island-people-ethics: no fear of outsiders. Little fear of conquest. Little conflict over territory. No conflict over sovereignty.

Having never experienced the divisiveness of slavery, Canadians have never experienced the problem of internal race conflict. Slavery is the defining issue of american history and race and culture conflict remain unresolved and un-resolvable. The immateriality of french divisiveness versus american urban and rural divisiveness, causes less conflict in Canada but is equally as damaging, since it again causes multiculturalism that harms the center and west.

The data says that Canada is more conservative than the states, and that the only thing that forces Canadian policy differences is the french voting block. The french immigrants to Quebec were, unlike the Anglo immigrants to the other provinces, from the lower classes. So those class, religion, culture, family structure, and language differences, of course skew the country a bit as well. Unlike Canada, USA’s demographic blocks are not isolated but intermingled as horizontal bands reflecting the cultures that immigrated at different latitudes of the east coast. (See the “Nine Nations Of North America”.)

Now, Canadians tend to look at this strategic privilege as a product of their high mindedness, but nothing could be further from the truth. Cultural differences and Political policy in all countries reflect that which people are ABLE TO implement as policy, and ABLE adopt as cultural preference. People prefer luxuries that they CAN possess. They CAN possess them for strategic, not cultural or political reasons.

But as soon as Canada reaches the level of cultural competition that is present in the states, North and South Italy, France, Germany, and the UK, west and east Ukraine, West and east Russia, Tibet, Mongolia and china, conflict over cultural competition will increase there as well, and the long run of Canadian privilege to treat multiculturalism as a ‘good’ rather than as a profitable luxury in small doses, will end as it is ending in the rest of the world.

Islands have the highest trust cultures for a reason. They can afford to. They are able to. Because homogeneity allows for political and cultural homogeneity. And homogeneity reduces political, economic, cultural conflict, and turns class differences into virtues because tolerance for redistribution increases with homogeneity of kinship.

Canada is importing to its ‘island’ the promise of low-trust, high conflict, authoritarian polities, and thereby ending its island luxury.

(So that is why we americans tend to see cultural self-congratulation of Canadians as the prancing and preening of spoiled children whose safety and luxury Americans pay for.)