ere’s a brain fart, and critical studies dissertation-seekers take note. It’s been years since I’ve been in a Canadian studies seminar, but some questions keep nagging at me. With NAFTA as a fact of life for over a decade, and the advent of Reform Tories under pathetic wannabe-Bush Harper notwithstanding, Canada and the States seem to continue to drift apart. Even though Canadian society has never been as politically conservative as it is now (it has a federal government run ostensibly by fossil-fuel mad Texas Republicans), it still somehow manages to withstand the pull of the American cultural hegemony. There have been tons of books written about how Americans differ from Canadians, socially, culturally, and politically. Relatively few have really explained the underlying reasons why. At the risk of fatally overgeneralising two undeniably complex and diverse societies, here’s my quick, non-scientific, politically incorrect two-bit theory.

hat happens when you “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and welcome “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore”? You bet you know what’s going to happen. It probably has to do with the fact that America had originally been settled largely by religious fanatics who have been kicked out of Britain or Europe for their religious intolerance or radicalism (e.g., the Puritans), or by the most impoverished immigrants seeking a better life (e.g., the Irish in the 1840s, southern and eastern Europeans in the 1880s onward), or by illiterate slaves from Africa, or by indentured servants from throughout Europe, or by anybody willing to make some money. (After all, the American revolution began as a revolt against taxation, which arguably continues to this day and may partially explain America’s much-celebrated entrepreneurial spirit.) From the Puritans and the Baptists on down to the Dutch Calvinists and the Mormons of the 19th Century, all these motley bunch of folks are not exactly the most sophisticated or decadent of folks. Remember the Scarlet Letter? Design and good taste were far from the minds of these people. Needless to say, serious scientitifc, aesthetic, and intellectual discourses were far from the minds of most of its inhabitants, and they remain so to this day. This may explain why Americans are more religious / superstitious than any advanced, developed society. This may explain the pervasive strain of anti-intellectualism that never seems to be completely extinguished (e.g., Al Gore’s, and perhaps Adlai Stevenson's, problem of having a quintessentially American public perception of his being ‘too smart’ and smug for the presidency, the fact that Roe v. Wade continues to be a controversial electoral campaign issue after thirty some odd years, the inexplicable enthusiasm for torture and capital punishment, and how someone like G. W. Bush can possibly be elected in a modern, developed society).

hile the land of endless Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, and Maclean's isn’t ostensibly a bastion of sophistication and culture, Canada's strain of anti-intellectualism has never been as violently virulent as it is in the States. It was originally settled largely by Anglican Loyalists and various Scots trying to placate and cohabitate with a French-speaking Catholic society inorganically conjoined to them. Relatively speaking, it never did have a sense of ‘Manifest Destiny.’ Even from the very beginning, and in stark contrast to rebellious America, most Canadians did not believe that God was on their side. From the beginning until now, Canadian national myths often convey a nobility of failure through brave but futile attempts: Lord Franklin, Terry Fox, Louis Riel, and perhaps the Edmund Fitzgerald? People just want to get by and survive the winters. To some extent, their uneasy and fragile confederation depended upon a degree of tolerance for a plurality of views (at least French Catholic and English Anglican) and cultures for its survival. The various remaining ad hoc collection of territories that make up what is now Canada never began as settlements of people dedicated to creating God's Dominion on earth (that archaic but loaded term notwitstanding). There never was a Canadian equivalent to Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Maryland, Pennsylvania, or Utah. Even though the founding fathers of America had a plurality of views, the people who favoured a theocracy never left. Ever since Richard Hofstadter's seminal Anti-Intellectualism in American Life exploded in the 1960s on through the recent screeds by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and the update provided by Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason, many cannot but feel convinced that anti-intellectualism and anti-secular-humanism is such as inextricably ingrained part of the American DNA as the proverbial apple pie. Look, if you live in red state America, and if you’re asking too much questions, especially the most important ones, you’re basically in for a lot of trouble, heartache, or even worse. Ubiquitous in American talk-radio, mainstream punditry, and any current Republican discourse, the pejorative phrase "liberal elite" seems to mean anybody who's literate, decently educated, well-informed, and acts accordingly. This frightening attitude has somehow been equated with patriotism, which seems to entail not just conformity, but also actively fighting the values of those effete, arrogant, often urban, and ultimately subversive "elite." Americans simply cannot accept the concept of an atheist, intellectual patriot. I may be digressing a bit, but ultimately, the enduring and overbearing dominance of religious faith in America shapes the sensibilities and perspectives that differentiate their society from the rest of the developed world (e.g., Monica Lewinsky and Eliot Spitzer, reproductive rights, access to contraceptives, stem cell research, constitutional and legislative ban on homosexual marriages would mostly be non-issues elsewhere). This characteristic hit home recently when reactionary Pope Benedict visited America, where he remains a relevant and influential public figure, in stark contrast to the indifference (if not outright hostility) toward the Vatican that seems to prevail in most of post-war Europe. (Did he even visit Canada? I don't remember.)

Can you locate the (revised) Jesusland?

more subtle theory of the difference between Americans and Canadians may have to do with the fact that the dominant cultural strain in Canada has been largely coloured by the Scottish, while the stew in America has been flavoured more by the Irish. The cultural bifurcation of those two Celtic societies seems to be reflected in the two North American societies and their respective cultural antecedents. Take a quick guess off the top of your head, “Which is the more romantic, heroic people? Americans or Canadians?” Chances are we know what the answer is most likely to be regardless of who (whether American or Canadian or neither) is answering. Now ask yourself, “Who’s more romantic: the Irish or the Scottish?” See where I am going? Yes, I know it’s inappropriate to generalise entire races, but consider these queries. We can take it further. Think how much more popular St. Patrick's Day is in America than it is in Canada. Does it seem that every other bar in Boston or Chicago claims to be an 'Irish pub'? Why is it that the Irish and Americans drink "whiskey", and the Scots and Canadians drink "whisky"? Why did the idiosyncratic Scottish sport of curling gain prominence in Canada but not in the States? Has anyone also noticed that street names in major Canadian towns from Nova Scotia to British Columbia sound more Scottish than those in Scotland? What's with all the Scottish names attached to Canadian Universities like Dalhousie and McGill? Due to the Highland Clearances, Cape Breton still somehow feels like Scotland transplanted in North America. According to How the Scots invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman, the exploration, building, and governing of British North America, from the earliest explorers and trappers working in the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company, to the ascendancy of Glasgow-born John A. MacDonald and Perth-born Alexander Mackenzie as the independent Confederation's first two Prime Ministers, was really more of a Scottish affair rather than an English or French one. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were colonised by Scots even before the 1707 Act of Union [with England]. Finally, even though the two societies share the Gaelic heritage, the Scots historically tend to be less religious than the Irish. Edinburgh was the centre of 18th Century Enlightment, whereas a woman still cannot obtain an abortion in Dublin today. One can argue that this is reflected in the bifurcation between Canadians and Americans in terms of religious observance. But that’s a brain fart for another day.

21 April 2008