Canadian Editorial: It's not our fault we're morally superior to U.S.

Toronto Star ^ | 12/8/02 | Richard Gwyn

[P-Marlowe]

It's not our fault we're morally superior to U.S.

RICHARD GWYN

Without intending to — his effect was actually the exact opposite of his intent — Deputy Prime Minister John Manley was praising Canadians lavishly the other day when he scolded them for harbouring a feeling of "moral superiority" toward Americans.

In fact, he's largely right in his description. Not that Canadians are morally superior to Americans, or to anyone. Our principal superior quality is that we are a lot luckier than anyone else — lots of natural wealth, lots of space, no enemies, no superpower or colonial responsibilities. (Calling the U.S. president a "moron" is, to get that out of the way early, utterly moronic.)

But a fair number of Canadians do feel morally superior to Americans. Manley, who has a distinctly schoolmasterly tone whenever pronouncing on this topic — earlier he called Canadians "immature" in their attitudes toward Americans — said this was "a sign of our insecurity."

In his diagnosis, he is dead wrong. Doubly dead wrong.

First, for Canadians to feel this way, even if wholly unjustified, is a sign of national self-confidence. It makes us unique in the world.

Lots of others resent Americans, envy them, wish they'd get out of their faces. Some people hate Americans. Many others love them. Lots of people both love them and hate them.

Only Canadians, though, dare to feel morally superior to them.

It's quite challenging to understand why we should be so bold. My own guess is it's because we feel we are better North Americans than they are; that is, we jointly possess most of the essential attributes of being a North American — optimism, love of freedom, a sense of limitless possibilities — but, in addition, have done a better job of being a collective, of having a sense of solidarity.

However you parse all of that, a lot of Canadians feel in no way inferior to Americans, even while immensely admiring their energy, their competitiveness, their boldness, their patriotism.

The big exception to this rule is the right-wing, neo-cons who want Canadians to become as indistinguishable as possible from Americans (two-tier medicine and the rest).

If all of this is good for us — certainly a lot better than our traditional, self-deprecatory foot-shuffling — it's also good for Americans.

They are absolutely certain they are superior to everyone else. Americans absorb with their mothers' milk a conviction that they are an exceptional nation, a city on the hill, a light unto others.

And then at the very moment when all of these presumptions do seem close to being confirmed — America as today's Rome — there comes from the distant, frigid north, a voice saying, "No. We're better."

What's so terrible about that? Is Manley saying that Americans cannot stand to be challenged, that they would collapse into self-doubt if another people say steadily, insistently, that the American way isn't necessarily the absolute best way?

A legitimate source of concern to worrywarts like Manley is that there should be a rise in anti-Americanism in Canada at a time when Americans are so patriotic and so likely to take offence.

Except that anti-Americanism is on the decline in Canada. As it should be.

A huge international poll on attitudes toward the U.S. was released days ago in Washington. In most countries there has been a distinct deterioration in the U.S. image since the last comparable poll, in 1999/2000 or before the attacks on New York.

In Italy, support for the U.S. has dropped from 76 per cent to 70 per cent, in Germany from 78 per cent to 61 per cent, in Britain from 83 per cent to 75 per cent. In Muslim states — unsurprisingly — support has plummeted, down to 10 per cent in Pakistan.

Canada is one of the very few exceptions. Here, the U.S.' favourable image has inched up, from 71 per cent to 72 per cent.

This doesn't mean anti-American stupidities don't exist here. But specific examples are difficult to find. Often, they are merely criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, which, even if unjustified, are perfectly proper to make, in contrast to boneheaded generalities about the American way of life.

Back to the main point. Quite a few Canadians do feel morally superior to Americans. If that nettles some Americans, good — it might help them to understand how the rest of the world feels about Americans' overwhelming presumption of superiority to everyone and everything.

As a bonus, it's good for Canadians to feel cocky in a thoroughly un-Canadian way.

---

Richard Gwyn appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at gwynR@sympatico.ca.

[SES1066]

Only Canadians, though, dare to feel morally superior to them.

So what is moral superiority anyway? In classical Christianity it focuses on the resisting of great temptations and overcoming evil. What great temptations and what great evils have the Canadians faced recently? When there are no challanges to your existence, when there is great internal prosperity and when there is minimal internal unrest, it is easy to say one is superior but without the challenge the claim to moral superiority appears to be meaningless.

[David1]

I will definitly be sending this guy an e-mail replying to that nonsense of an editorial. All freepers should likewise send an e-mail to this guy.

[albertabound]

What is wrong about feeling good about yourself and your country, it is the constant comparison of Canadian virtuosity to that of America that pisses me off. Note that Gwynn is an expat englishman writing out of the center of the universe... Toronto, the liberal capital of the world.Bah Humbug.

[freebilly]

I might feel morally superior to Canadians, but why would I ever even think of them...?

[P-Marlowe]

Canada is now a country that claims free speech, but just try to say anything that isn't complimentary to homosexuals and they will throw you in Jail.

They claim freedom of relilgion, but forbid Christians from telling lost souls that they are "sinners."

They claim to respect life, yet they harbor murderers so that they need not go back to the US to face trial because they just might have to pay the ultimate price for the ultimate crime.

Maybe we should be the barbarians that they tnink we are and just run a couple of hundred Marines into downtown Toronto. I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that these "morally superior" people would surrender faster than the French in WWII.

[albertabound]

I have e-mailed this dork as well.

[Lancey Howard]

The big exception to this rule is the right-wing, neo-cons who want Canadians to become as indistinguishable as possible from Americans (two-tier medicine and the rest).

There it is.
The writer is a socialist, left-wing scumbag. (Yawn)

See you around,
LH

[AM2000]

Only Canadians, though, dare to feel morally superior to them.

Gwynn is a moron. He's never heard of the French, has he?

[wretchard]

There is another country that is as "lucky" as Canada -- lots of natural wealth, lots of space, no enemies, no superpower or colonial responsibilities -- in fact, it calls itself the Lucky Country. That country is Australia.

And perhaps because they, like the Americans, also began as exiles: as the England's scum in the largest penal colony in history, Australians laugh at themselves. They do not share the sense of ineffable moral superiority of which Canadians are so naturally possessed. All they really ask out of life is their barbie, their punt at the TAB and their freedom.

For freedom is the exile's and the convict's dream. It is the price of the barbie and it is what blows through the grass in every cricket pitch on which an Australian plays. The simple Australian would rather have it and die than lose it and live. And when the Aussie fights beside America, you may ask yourselves, dear Canadians, how morally inferior the Digger is.

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled
"Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me?"

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
"Whose is that jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"
"You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me".

Up jumped the swagman, leapt into the billabong,
"You'll never catch me alive," said he,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by the billabong,
"Who'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me".

[KneelBeforeZod]

why make this guy believe that the rivalry that is in canadians heads exists? most canadians are proud of the rivalry that 99% of people in the US aren't even aware of.

[hinckley buzzard]

There is, of course, another group whch feels morally superior to Americans. A certain band of raghead terrorists. This fool puts Canadians in interesting company.

[rwfromkansas]

This is a nice point to bring up in the column I am writing for the campus paper about the poll showing growing anti-Americanism. The rest of the world thinks we look down on them, but here Canadians look down on us and that is why they hate us.

[AM2000]

Heck, 99% of American's aren't even (actively) aware of Canada. And why should we be...

[albertabound]

Well, you just might have missed the mark on that comment, we have our share of A-holes in the media just like you, but you are wrong to think we are cowards or surrrender monkeys.However,on second thought,a brigade of Alberta volunteers could probably be mustered for a full fledged Toronto invasion provided Ottawa was also on the hitlist.

[Main Street]

Time to dust this off.....

An old 1974 #4 record of a news column, Recorded by the late Canadian radio personality, Byron McGregor....


-THE AMERICANS!-

AMERICA: THE GOOD NEIGHBOR

"This Canadian thinks it's time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and least appreciated people on all of the earth.

Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on it's remaining debts to the United States.

When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This Spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.

The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build it's own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles.

You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times - and safely home again.

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at! Even their draft-dodgers are not pursured and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come of this with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those.

Stand proud, America!"

[1rudeboy]

Heck, I'll allow almost anyone to feel morally superior to us. As long as they understand that, if it wasn't for us, they'd be picking cabbage for the Soviets.

[wunderkind54]

A note to Canadiens feeling this way: More power to you!! What you don't seem to realize is that most of Americans don't give a darn what you think. Go start a club with the French, if you must, and collaborate. This kind of thinking tends to bore me!

[Davis]

Here is an good essay on this subject.

http://www.atrentino.com/ConningDEC.html

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