Niceness

Sometimes I'm just plain floored because I think that yes, we do live in different worlds and have different mindsets, and I always try to be careful in the sense that people often make mistakes in assuming their "norm" is *the* norm. Some things though are seeing the glass as half full as opposed to half empty. And reading and rereading what you have to say, while there are some cultural differences, I still think it is mostly a different way of seeing the glass.

I haven't ever lived in the States for any length of time and there's only so much you can ever know about another country without having lived there, but the comments Americans living in Canada make, is that Canadians are nicer, and less aggressive, less apt to judge people by their bank accounts.

I have no particular experience to say that that is true or not true. I think Canadians are a lot more worldly in their mind-sets. Americans seem very insular and not given to seeing much beyond their borders or interests, and with an unfortunate tendency to assume the rest of the world wants what they think we should want.

Canada, on the whole, is a very politically correct nation. By politically correct, I mean that generally (there are always exceptions) we are agreed that race, religion and prejudice and hate speech are not things we want in our country. We are generally agreed that each human being has an intrinsic value, and that belief in turn is what gives rise to our social programs, such as national health care.

We work less than Americans, and pay more taxes. We don't wig out about prayer said in our government or our schools. but the nature of that prayer has evolved, mostly without much conflict, into general themes of peace, rather than focusing on that which divides people.

We also want less. We don't believe that the rights of the individual automatically take precedence over the good of society. Which isn't to say at all that we don't have bigots and racists and crime problems. We have less of them than the US, but every country in the western world has less crime than the US.

Some of these things various governments instituted long before the general population was ready for them and caused a lot of vicious debate but you see, I don't see "elitism" as a dirty word. I want people in government who are smarter than I am. I don't want someone who knows no more than me there. And as years have passed, a lot of the things the vast majority of people thought they were against, have grown to be a valued part of our society. Canada had bitter arguments about multiculturalism in the 70s and 80s, and now the children of those most enraged at the time, are learning second and third languages and participating in multicultural events and have friends of many cultures.

On the other hand, people's opinions and view of their society are often formed by their circle of acquaintances, which can skew one's impression of one's country. And I'm not entirely confident that my own view isn't skewed by my circle of acquaintances, which consists in large measure of immigrants from European countries, academics and artists, with hardly a right-winger among them. I tend to think the right-wingers are the aberration, not the norm.

Of course you will find right wingers (by Canadian standards. Our right wingers would probably be considered left wingers in the US) in rural communities or in fundamentalist churches. A lot of that is a matter of education and exposure. Bible schools are not exactly educational. But mostly it is the older generation that has found it difficult to adjust, and their time has passed, for good and ill. The children and the children's children are not the grandparents.

And I am shocked - jaw-droppingly shocked - when I run into someone who makes racists or homophobic comments. People like that are not part of my norm. But the government has also tried hard over the years to educate people against racism and racist "jokes", so I think that even among racists, people here are careful before they said anything like that.

It's not that I believe that for example, there are no racists, but rather that it has become unacceptable for hate-filled comments to be spoken. People assume racists are uneducated, stupid even. I'm cool with that. I don't believe in that kind of freedom of speech. Just by not feeling as free to speak hate, by realizing that chances are good that if you open your mouth, you are as likely as not to be told that your hate is unacceptable, hate-filled people are less likely to open their mouths. Which in turn has an impact on society as a whole.

Among educated people, or artists for example, they are as likely as not to take pride in their second-hand clothes and the small "footprint" their houses leave. It's not that there aren't people who are money or status conscious and building monster houses that are a crying shame to look at, but they are the new-money, no education people. Even they change eventually, when they are trying to get into old money clubs and realize that old money doesn't live conspicuously any more, and that old money is actually concerned about the rest of the world.

And it's not that no Canadian kid ever calls another a "fag" or a "retard" but bullying, when I was in school, was not taken seriously at all. It is now. It isn't perfect, but the more it is hammered into young minds that it isn't acceptable, the more it becomes as you say, the new "cool" but I don't see a good thing being the "new cool" being a bad thing in any way. That's how you get people to do good things. It's no different from the anti-smoking campaign, which succeeded largely in getting kids to think smoking wasn't cool. The health issue alone is never going to stop a kid from smoking if it is considered cool.

I would have shaved my head if that had been cool when I was a kid. (I realize it may be cool now but it sure wasn't when I was a teenager.)

Yes, I expect things are a bit different in California and looks, if you are an actress, are obviously going to be more important because of the nature of the profession. A writer needs a laptop, an actor needs looks - in addition to acting ability of course.

I'm not sure what you mean that there's no segregation by race but by cultural choices. Could you elaborate?

As to swearing and things like kids swearing nowadays, dropping the F-bomb, when people say now publicly words they would never have dared think, I think it's liberating. I think it's a far cry from the air kisses society matrons give each other while they rip each other to shreds behind their backs.

The same moms who in the 50s would never have thought the f-word, are also the same moms who thought blacks were good for servants, the same moms who supported segregation, the same moms who would have disowned their children for marrying outside their race. I'd way rather they let lose with an f-bomb.

I'm way more in favor of the moms who march in peace rallies and disrupt the neighborhood by bringing attention to injustice. I'm all in favour of people who catch cops on videos doing bad things instead of the 1950s way of thinking that the cops were always right.

Life was not anything more than superficially pretty for white middle class people in the days gone by. The days gone by are not the good-old-days for most other people.

When you say you are looked at differently because your car isn't washed or your waistline isn't like Barbies - well I have no doubt that there are people like that, but some of it might also be your own self-consciousness. I have about ten years on you, and I know I was more self-conscious at your age than I am now.

One thing I did notice on our recent road trip, was the large number of brand spanking new trucks and SUVs - jaw droppingly expensive, and all shiny and washed, guzzling gas like there is no tomorrow, even in the smallest one-horse towns. Saw no evidence at all of people taking the gas problem seriously. You don't see much of that here. Having a gas-guzzling, bad for the environment vehicle is embarrassing. The looks you get here are not those of admiration but of disapproval.

I'm totally okay about people doing nice things because they want to look nice even if they aren't nice people. I'd rather they were nice people but if they can't be nice because they are nice, I'm all in favor of them being nice because otherwise they get the nasty looks they've subjected others to for years.

In spite of our freezing cold winters, I gave up wearing a fur coat years ago, due to dirty looks. I should say I never wanted a fur coat to begin with but it was a gift from my husband so I wore it for a while. As someone who experiences -40 degree temperatures fairly regularly, I can say that there is no man made fabric that will keep you warm in that. It is not a matter of vanity or fashion.

However, I now only wear it to walk the dogs and sometimes if it is very cold and I have to drive many miles, I stick it in the van in case my vehicle breaks down and I have to walk or stay there the night. But I don't wear it. People wearing furs do not get admiring looks here, I can tell you. And it's really not quite fair unless the people who started the whole anti-fur movement actually live in the sort of godforsaken cold people here live in for months at a time. Every homeless person in Canada ought to have a fur coat by law. They ought to be as cheap as borscht here, as necessary as bread. (I am no fan of winter.)

I feel bad about our old van, because it is so big but my husband can no longer get into a lower vehicle. But we have only one vehicle, not two. Even so, I'm keeping an eye out for a vehicle that can hold the dogs and my husband that is less bad on gas and the environment.

And I'm mostly amazed, given how incredibly hard life is, that people we love die, sometimes terribly, and people who loved them still find enough hope in them to go on. I am moved to tears when strangers go out of their way to protect another stranger in trouble. I am moved to tears by people who are ordinary, every day people who perform every day acts of mercy and grace, going forward in hope, even when we have no direct current word from God, no visions of angels to comfort us on our darkest nights, nothing but something that may be shadows seen through a glass darkly, that people are still capable of love, of putting their lives at risk for other people, even people who have seen nothing or little of that same grace and love in their own lives.

I am so impressed by how good people are.

Layla