Quote:
Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker
No...
Two things: first, I wish I could be a cunt around people who annoy me. But I can't. It's just not in me.
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Erm...did you really just suggest that I'm a cunt for laughing at South Americans who corner you at a party and hold forth in earnest on the topic of the proper meaning of "America"? If so, then I don't think you know the proper meaning of said c-word.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker
Second, no... our connection with the U.S. is stronger. I just meant... O.K, let me just say what I actually think so it's clear and can't be misinterpreted: Canada isn't a "thing". It's a political arrangement. The THING is NL/Maritimes/New England, TO/Great Lakes US/Eastern Seaboard, Prairies/Prairies. B.C./Washington. We have stronger connections to the portions of America below us than we do to each other.
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That's not true at all. We've gone over this before on this board.
Ontario has very little connection to New York or Michigan, save perhaps for economically with the car industry. They feel completely different. They are cut off from us by the water. Toronto does not feel or look even the slightest bit like Buffalo or Detroit, Chicago or Cleveland, etc. Not in the slightest.
Quebec and New York/Vermont? 'Nuff said. The borders are real cultural and social demarcations, they aren't just arbitrary lines in the sand.
You have a greater case for the similarity between the rural Prairies and North Dakota, etc. As for BC and Washngton, I've heard impassioned arguments both for and against cultural similarities. Same for Atlantic Canada and New England.
But this notion of greater vertical affinities than horizontal ones for Canada vis-a-vis the U.S. is overblown. It's a cute notion that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Any Canadian in Toronto is going to feel a more immediate affinity with someone in Vancouver in terms of shared culture and history than he will with someone from Detroit. In spite of how much we are influenced by the U.S., we really are oriented horizontally.
Having said that, I see no evidence anywhere that Canadians are more open to the notion of America as the New World than America as the United States. We speak the same language as the people immediately south of us, and have shared a lot of mass media culture for a good century or more, so we've taken their use of "America" on board. I don't see it changing.