# Are Canadians kinder than Americans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 29, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106 "2006-01-29T19:40:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/1 "2006-01-29T19:40:48Z")
I just came across this editorial on the website of SF writer Spider Robinson – an American expatriate and naturalized Canuck (the editorial was posted just before the election, urging people to vote against the Conservatives) – [http://www.spiderrobinson.com/election2006.htm:](http://www.spiderrobinson.com/election2006.htm:) > [@](#): > > Do you know when I am most proud to be a Canadian? > > When I drive onto the Lion’s Gate Bridge, and cross the harbour into Vancouver. > > Why? Because during the hours I do my traveling, that ridiculous three lane bridge only has a single lane going my way. Four lanes of traffic must merge into one. There is always a jam. > > But there is never a problem. > > Without fail, all four lanes merge smoothly, correctly, fairly. Nobody cheats. Nobody tries to cut in. The rare few who do always bear American license plates. I don’t know about you, but that makes my heart sing, every single time. > > I grew up in the US, lived there for 25 years. Trust me: anywhere in that nation, the scenario I have just described is literally unimaginable. Every merge is a dogfight. It is not only a dog eat dog country, they are proud of that. For thirty years now, I have listened to Canadians trying to define what distinguishes them from Americans, and it always baffles me because it so simple. > > I can put it into a single word: kindness. > > We treat each other with marginally greater kindness than many other peoples do. I do not say with perfect kindness—I have spoken with a few of our oldest residents, you see. But on balance, we cut each other rather more slack than most humans. > > It’s a rural attitude, I think. If our neighbours want to have sex in a different manner than we do, we tend to mind our business. If they choose to put something different into their pipe than we do, we let it slide. We draw the line only at behaviour so weird it threatens us—we permit it to merely annoy or offend us. And we try not to annoy or offend ourselves. > > I think that is magnificent. I think that is the single most admirable achievement of the human race in the last century: to have produced a place where kindness is practiced. That is the source of our famous good manners, and our alleged boringness: we are kinder than anyone else I know. > > \ > > Americans say they believe, above all, in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I’m alive, I’m free, and I can do what makes me happy! Does that sound like a proud boast to you? It once did to me. It sounds childish to me now. Even oafish. > > Canadians say they believe in peace, order, and good government. Look at that first word. You’d have to define it for an American: most of them think it means “a state in which the fighting is out of earshot.” That second word you could not even define for them: they have no common referent. And the last two words will induce laughter of clinically dangerous intensity. > > Peace? We haven’t started a war with anybody since the Nazis. Order? Despite some of the most irritable minorities on earth we have never had a Civil War. And while I will be among the first and loudest to admit that we have never in our history had good government, we’ve come a lot closer than average. Our governments have certainly imprisoned vastly fewer of our own citizens than those of our neighbour to the south, healed infinitely more of our sick, helped many more of our poor. > > And sent fewer of our children off to kill or die. Hell, we’ve stopped a few squabbles. And cleaned up after others. Is this true? Is the most important difference between Yanks and Canucks a higher level of kindness in the latter? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/2 "2006-01-29T19:49:48Z")
Call it a hunch that thousands of native Cnadians who read that piece laughed at it and wondered what country he was talking about. Nobody idealizes Canada like a left-leaning Yank who’s grown to hate his former country. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/3 "2006-01-29T20:25:33Z")
Once you start saying there are national characteristics, you’re on dodgy ground. Nuff’ said. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/4 "2006-01-29T20:29:12Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Nobody idealizes Canada like a left-leaning Yank who’s grown to hate his former country. :rolleyes: _sigh_ Just from the above measured criticism, you think Robinson “hates” America? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/5 "2006-01-29T20:34:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :rolleyes: _sigh_ Just from the above measured criticism, you think Robinson “hates” America? Hate is a strong word. I prefer ‘doesn’t hold America as dear to his heart as the Lord would like him to’. I can’t comment as I don’t live in Canada and I haven’t visited. But that article did come across as pretty biased and defensive to me, he is constantly referring to americans as oafish, selfish and unwilling to cooperate. So even if it is true I’m not taking the words of the author for it. FTR I have lost count of the number of times people have kindly let me out in front of them in traffic. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/6 "2006-01-29T20:36:24Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Once you start saying there are national characteristics, you’re on dodgy ground. > Nuff’ said. Of course there are national characteristics. They might not hold true for every individual of a given nation, but they are very real. From _The Lion and the Unicorn_ by George Orwell – [http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e\_eye:](http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye:) > [@](#): > > Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another. Hitler’s June purge, for instance, could not have happened in England. And, as western peoples go, the English are very highly differentiated. There is a sort of back-handed admission of this in the dislike which nearly all foreigners feel for our national way of life. Few Europeans can endure living in England, and even Americans often feel more at home in Europe. > > When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning – all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle? > > But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person. > > And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/7 "2006-01-29T23:05:22Z")
There’s no way to measure national kindness in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/8 "2006-01-29T23:17:21Z")
I lived in Toronto for a year (early 90’s) and found the Canadians had a far greater sense of common respect and decency for their fellow human being. Cars waited to make a right turn when there were pedestrians, and even stopped at designated cross-walks. Pedestrians waited at red lights, even when there were no cars. People stood right and walked left on escalators. People said hello to me as I walked the streets. Oh, and there were about 40 or so murders in Toronto that year, an extended city of 5 million. That was the monthly total in US cities like Detroit or Philadelphia. I used to bring in tapes of the nightly news to watch with my co-workers over lunch, and they could not believe that all you got was a token human interest story at the end to counter 15-20 mins of horrible content. Much kinder, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/9 "2006-01-29T23:30:41Z")
I think there’s something to what Spider says. We do tend to be more polite. I don’t know if ‘kinder’ is the right word, though. Just more publically civil. I’m not sure Canadians are any more generous, or will go out of their way to help a neighbor any more than an American will - but our social customs are perhaps a little more genteel. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/10 "2006-01-29T23:31:40Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > FTR I have lost count of the number of times people have kindly let me out in front of them in traffic. I’m sure people wave you ahead of them all the time when driving in Bloomington, Indiana. But can you imagine that happening in the third largest city in the U.S.? In Indiana? I don’t think so. _Barbarian, who grew up in Montreal and spent six years in Vancouver before moving to Manhattan._ ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/11 "2006-01-29T23:49:35Z")
I know that people in many parts of Canada are polite. I also know that people in many parts of the U.S., particularly in the more populated parts of the Northeast are assholes. However, people in much of the U.S. are very polite. Most of the South tends to be strikingly polite to everyone including groups they may not like behind closed doors. Besides the South, people from rural areas all over the U.S. tend to be polite. I am from the Deep South and my family always comments on how polite people in rural Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are. I believe that rudeness is the exception geographically speaking in the U.S. If you break out a map and color the “rude” areas, it will be only a small part of land area concentrated on both coasts. Canada only has about 10% of the population of the U.S. and it is 2nd largest country in the world based on land area so I am not surprised it is known as a polite country but we have more polite people overall than Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/12 "2006-01-29T23:49:44Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > I’m not sure Canadians are any more generous, or will go out of their way to help a neighbor any more than an American will - but our social customs are perhaps a little more genteel. I was reading in December (no cite, no time to look for one) that Americans donate about three times more than Canadians to charity groups. Personally, I think Bill Gates and his fellow multi-millionaires skew that figure a bit in the favour of Americans. But Canucks also tend to rely on government taxes to pick up some of the slack in the social safety net, while Americans prefer church groups. Seriously, I can barely remember the last time I saw a religious person in Canada referred to as a community leader, while it seems that every time a drunk runs over a pedestrian, American preachers arrive on a chorus of angel wings to support the financially-strapped family. **phungi** makes the excellent point of murder rates. Toronto is a city of six million, give or take, and it only took one shooting to make handgun control become a _national issue_ during the election campaign. There are more murders every year in my current home than in Canada. That has a profound effect on your psyche. Here’s a scenario. You’re a drunk-off-your-ass girl of 18, walking 20 blocks home from a bar through the city’s downtown core at 3:30 in the morning. _Do you feel safe?_ Do your parents worry about you? In my home and native land, teenage girls do this week after week and never think twice about it. And they’ve got no reason to worry either. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/13 "2006-01-30T03:52:56Z")
What that editorial tells me most is that Canadians’ famous superiority complex can be bought wholesale by their immigrants as well as their native born citizens. I have spent a bit of time in Canada, and have met many Canadians while traveling abroad. I have never had the impression that they were “kinder” than most people; more socially liberal, yes, which I guess explains some of the author’s examples. And while legalizing marijuana and gay marriage are indeed in some ways “kind” things, that doesn’t make Canadians particularly kind on a personal level, at least not in my experience. Not that they’re necessarily _unkind_, either…though I will admit I’ve heard so many anti-American comments from Canadians abroad that I kind of avoid them when I see a Maple Leaf coming my way. > [@](#): > > Americans say they believe, above all, in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I’m alive, I’m free, and I can do what makes me happy! Does that sound like a proud boast to you? It once did to me. It sounds childish to me now. Even oafish. > > Canadians say they believe in peace, order, and good government. Look at that first word. You’d have to define it for an American: most of them think it means “a state in which the fighting is out of earshot.” That second word you could not even define for them: they have no common referent. And the last two words will induce laughter of clinically dangerous intensity. Even if you accept that Canadians are a bit more polite, a bit less agressive than Americans, the author seriously weakens himself with this part. What’s so “oafish” and “childish” about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Ask a peasant in North Korea or the Sudan, someone for whom these three things are daily challenged, if these things are so childish. And yeah, Americans know nothing about peace, order, and good goverment. :rolleyes: Incredible arrogance. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/14 "2006-01-30T04:42:40Z")
I’m unconvinced that Canadians are unusually kind. Politeness isn’t kindness - or it’s a small subset of kindness, at best. It also depends on your context. Canadians might be a bit more polite in anonymous circumstances, such as traffic. In person, though, Americans are the kindest, most genteel people I’ve ever met. And in terms of anonymous politeness, Americans may not be up to Canadian standards but they’re WAYYYY ahead of other countries. Americans will line up at a McDonald’s; German tourists will knock you and your grandmother over to get ahead of you. **Barbarian,** a nitpick; the City of Toronto has a population of 2.5 million. When you hear about gun violence and the murder rate, those discussions are almost always limited to the City of Toronto and its population. For whatever reason, nobody seems to add up the rate for the entire metropolitan area to track it that way, even though that would make a lot more sense, especially if you included cities like Markham, Mississauga, etc. that are geographically the same uninterrupted urban area. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/15 "2006-01-30T04:47:43Z")
I wanted to add one more point: Spider Robinson has long been a jackass. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/16 "2006-01-30T05:23:09Z")
I don’t normally go with ad hominems, but since in this case it’s Spider’s opinion that he’s spouting, I’d have to say, “consider the source.” I’ve never been impressed by anything he says in the way of political or social commentary, so I just tend to discount him. That urge was magnified when I heard him speak once - “self-aggrandizing twit” came to mind as a descriptor. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/17 "2006-01-30T05:59:39Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Americans will line up at a McDonald’s; German tourists will knock you and your grandmother over to get ahead of you. Things like lining up to be served are cultural things. It might seem rude to us that someone walks in front of us in line\*, but it doesn’t mean that we are kinder because we aren’t willing to stand up for ourselves. Try lining up with a bunch of Yemenis. It seems they would trample their own grandmother to be first, but they are some of the nicest people you’d ever meet. It just doesn’t occur to them that lining up has any benefit, I guess. Lots of cultures are like this. \*Regarding queuing: I’ve learned that as Canadians we have a proud heritage. Gordie Howe taught us how to use our elbows properly and it’s a Canadian’s God given right to do so, damnit! As most ‘furiners’ tend to be shorter than us (in the third world at least) a well placed elbow in the back of their neck moves them quite satisfactorily out of the way. And even with Europeans who tend to be as tall or taller, well, if you’ve ever seen Europeans play sports, it doesn’t take much for them to end up on the ground as if they’ve been poleaxed while looking pleadingly towards the ref. Elbows can also pre-emptively block potential queue jumpers if used quickly enough. Raise your hand as if you are swatting a fly. As you bring your hand down rotate your elbow up and backwards quickly and firmly. You’d be surprised how far you can launch the glasses off someone’s head given proper timing and contact. Claim that there was a fly (there always is a fly in the third world. It is issued to you once you land), you were sorry, and make sure you fake a southern US accent. It doesn’t have to be a good imitation of the accent because foreigners can’t tell us apart anyways for the most part (what? Americans put Canadian flags on their bags when travelling overseas to avoid trouble. Canadians put US flags on our bags when travelling overseas so we can act any way we like! You didn’t know that? :dubious: 😃 ). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/18 "2006-01-30T06:04:07Z")
I’ve experienced the Lions Gate jam several times after getting off the ferry and what he said is certainly true. But it isn’t because Canadians are any kinder, Its because Canadians are more likely to act like sheep. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I came to that conclusion several months ago. I had been taking a route home every day through a construction zone. At one point there was a T intersection where my road allowed alternating access from the lateral road. It worked very well and I admired my society. Then one day I decided to take an alternate route that led me to the same intersection but from the lateral road. I was behind about 5 cars. After arriving I noticed that we weren’t moving yet the cross traffic was moving forward bumper to bumper. This continued for several minutes. Frustrated and angry, with my rusty 1984 3/4 ton pickup, I pulled out into the empty adjacent lane drove up to the intersection and nosed into the traffic. As I looked back in the mirror I noticed that the proper merging pattern was restored. We may appear kinder than Americans but the difference is very superficial. ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/19 "2006-01-30T06:16:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is this true? Is the most important difference between Yanks and Canucks a higher level of kindness in the latter? My personal experience has been, yes, Canadians are kinder, but that doesn’t mean that Americans _aren’t_ kind. I have traveled cross-country a few times, stopping and working here and there along the way, and Americans–especially in the Midwest–have been very kind and friendly toward me. In New England, I found people to be more polite than they were kind. My Connecticut friend put it this way, “If you’re on fire, I’ll put you out, but otherwise, please don’t talk to me,” and that pretty much sums up my experience with New Englanders. I grew up in the West, and there, we chat with strangers while we’re in line at the supermarket. If someone looks lost, we stop and ask if we can help. We actually know our neighbors. I found British Columbians have that same outgoing friendliness, but that they take it to the next level. For example, I would NEVER invite a perfect stranger to my home for dinner and a good night’s sleep, but I found Canadians opening their hearts and homes to us everywhere we went. I loved British Columbia so much that I nearly married so that I could remain there. The people are the warmest and most friendly of any place I’ve traveled. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106/20 "2006-01-30T06:23:16Z")
Kindness and politeness are not neccesarily the same thing. Don’t mistake sweet words for kindness. Someone can be kind while putting a bullet in your head, or do you the greatest unkindness by telling you what you want to hear. Americans from the Deep South have a long tradition of politeness, a certain gentility and charm. We take great pride in this, just as we take pride in our local cuisine, our accents, our beautiful women, and our cultures. But although Southerners may be _polite_, I would hesitate to characterize us as _kind_. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-canadians-kinder-than-americans/342106.md?page=2)