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From: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: definitions of culture
Message-ID: <860@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Feb-87 15:40:21 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.860
Posted: Mon Feb 23 15:40:21 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Feb-87 01:13:36 EST
References: <192@fornax.uucp>
Reply-To: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis)
Distribution: can
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science
Lines: 26

A number of sociologists (notably Edgar Friedenberg) have pointed out that
Canadians are in general more willing to accept collective needs than
Americans (Friedenberg is an American immigrant, and he doesn't like it too
much). 

As an example, consider that many Canadian enterprises are owned by the
Crown whereas their U.S. counterparts are privately owned (I doubt that
any government would attempt to privatise the CBC or AECL, for example). 
Health care for profit is another example of something that would have
real difficulty making serious inroads in Canada. As yet another example,
consider the state of credit unions and cooperatives in Canada vs their 
state in the U.S.

Therefore, the stereotypical Canadian prefers collective institutions,
whereas the stereotypical American believes in unfettered individualism.

But...in the U.S., the notion of diversity is positively frowned upon. They
fought a Civil War where we waged a referendum campaign, for example. They
find bilingualism frightening whereas we find it a fact of life (please, no
flames on this subject: there are still of course extremists in each
solitude). They have a melting pot whereas we have a Secretary of State for
Multiculturalism. In fact, from that point of view, Americans prefer to be
all alike, whereas Canadians are unfettered individualists (or at least
believers in communities of communities).

I'm not trying to make a point here; it's just a curious paradox.