Thoughts on a nation: America and Americans...

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With the recent WikiLeaks release of various confidential diplomatic cables, we Canadians are forced to ask ourselves, not for the first time, what is our view of our neighbour(s) to the South?  How do we think of America?  I was reading a recent NY Times article on the this topic and it got me thinking again.  What is my view of the good ol' U.S. of A.?

I think that there is a general distrust of America by the Canadian public.  And I think that I share in this distrust.  But how can one not feel this way?  We're talking about the most powerful nation - militarily speaking - in the history of human civilization.  No other group has had the ability for total destruction that this country wields over the world.  Furthermore, no other group has had the ability and desire to be involved in every aspect of human life around the globe - political and economic - that this country has.  Am I suspicious of those in power?  Yes, yes I am.

Perhaps I'm a little biased though.  Indeed I have read Noam Chomsky's, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance.  It scared the crap out of me.  Really, it did (and continues to).  How can one not be cautious around a nation that has been consistently at war (either overtly or covertly) at various places around the world for over the last half century?  The American political rhetoric that I hear on the news scares me.  It seems that America sees itself in the role of world police/protector.  This frightens me.  Am I biased in my view?  What is the line between being informed and being biased?  The historical record scares me.  I'm not sure that's a bias.

What about, as this article puts it, "Canada’s habitual inferiority complex vis-à-vis the U.S."?  I think there is plenty of truth here - at least in the popular media and popular sentiment.  Those with an inferiority complex tend to attack those to whom they feel inferior - by attacking others and bringing them down, they attempt to bring themselves up.  I think that many Canadians do that.  I think that I used to do that.  We attack their intelligence; we attack their 'culture' (calling them uncultured); we attack their manners; we attack and we attack.  Often it comes with an air of superiority and the implied 'like us': they aren't intelligent (like us); they aren't cultured (like us); they don't have manners (like us); they aren't welcomed world-wide (like us).  The adjective that I often hear preceding the word American(s) is 'ignorant'.  It's our Canadian catch-all attack of our neighbours to the South.

I confess, I used to be this way.  But I cannot carry on bashing Americans like that.  What changed?  I met, and became friends with, several Americans.  These people are funny, intelligent, caring, and hospitable people.  They are good neighbours; they are good people.  I was recently told that the small sampling of Americans that I know are not indicative of the greater American population.  I cannot speak to this since they are the only sampling that I have.  I can say that they give me hope for that giant nation to the South of us.  I watch American news and it often frightens me.  I have little stomach for American politics (it's a little to similar to 'reality television' for my liking).  I hear the rhetoric, I read about the foreign policy and I'm scared.  Yes, America (the gov't) scares me.  But for the sake of those Americans whom I know, those who impress me and give me a picture of what the American people are capable of, because of these people I have hope for America.

What's my view of America?  Well, that's a complicated question.

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