Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice
...next time there's a disaster anywhere in the world, who is going to be the first to respond with volunteers, medical staff and money? I don't think the US is as bad as some Canadians make it out to be, which is surprising because I suspect you know us best.
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Honestly, this is kind of a silly and pointless rhetorical question, as I suspect that the answer is most likely "any number of the first-world nations".
In my experience, there are not great differences between Canada and the US, but the few differences tend to produce some exaggerated gaps in thinking and ideology. Most significantly, I think it is fair to say that the feelings that create the perception of Americans as brash and arrogant patriots, and Canadians as insecure and aloof likely stem from general tendencies of the citizens on both sides of the border. On the one hand, the virtuousness of American pride appears to the outside world as arrogance, and this same sense of patriotism also interprets Canadian responses as an inferiority complex.
On the contrary, I am starting to believe that a Canadian cultural distinction might be our moderation in all things that makes this one of the best places in the world to live, but also simultaneously produces a familiar sense that we are far from perfect. I think this is most clearly on display in an Olympic year—in every Olympic games, the media and the general population tend to resent the fact that we are not a more successfully competitive sporting nation. A common refrain in the media these days is the fairly disappointing lack of gold medals for Canada in these Olympics, but I sometimes wonder if the reason for that has a lot to do with a generally less insatiable pursuit of being the best. It seems to me that Canada—as a whole nation—is very good at getting a great many things right, but is not the best at much of any one thing.