Here's Where We Get Canadian: English-Canadian Nationalism and Popular Culture

Abstract

don't wrote Robertson Davies. You are part of Canada, and that's that. (1) These words carry the weight of received wisdom. are habitually portrayed as diffident about their country and unassertive in their nationalism. Insofar as do love runs the conventional thinking, they tend not to show it. Few deny that Canadian nationalism has existed in a variety of forms. (2) But observers are prone to contrast Canadian patriotism with other, more vociferous varieties--particularly the brand. We are thus left with the image of the fiercely patriotic blinding the world with fireworks, while the timorous Canadian hides whatever light she has under a bushel. On occasion, the comparative perspective is abandoned, replaced by some more absolute statement about Canadian modesty. The result is the same: an image of as retiring, unassertive, and diffident. We want to offer an impressionistic challenge to this of diffidence. (3) are in the throes, not simply of a change in the nature of their nationalism (for there have been many of those), but a shift in its style of expression. (4) It is now better understood as noisy and assertive, even bellicose, and surprisingly analogous to the manner of patriotic expression with which it is traditionally contrasted. This paper inserts into an academic milieu an observation that has begun to surface in popular contexts. For instance, Will Ferguson's amusing Why I Hate complains that Canadians are the second-loudest people on earth, (5) while the newly assertive nationalism was recently discussed in Marketing Magazine as well as in articles in the Globe and Mail and Maclean's. (6) Demonstrating the predominance of loud nationalism in Canada is our central goal, but we also want to work towards a substantive analysis of that nationalism. The of diffidence, we argue, remains intrinsic to many manifestations of loud nationalism. It works as a justificatory device allowing to differentiate themselves from nationalists, even as they deploy a suspiciously American style of patriotism. So the myth remains present even as it is subverted. Most of the paper is concerned with establishing the of diffidence and offering an array of evidence, drawn mostly from Canadian popular culture, which demonstrates its obsolescence and sheds some light on the paradoxes of Canada's loud nationalism. We make some attempt at causal explanation as well--admittedly more in the way of speculations for future work than developed theses. The new patriotism, we hint, may be rooted more in anxiety than any coherent affirmation. Rather than revealing a new confidence in Canadian history, institutions, or shared projects, it is perhaps better understood as a reaction to fundamental challenges to the integrity of the Canadian state. So there may be little save anxious silence at the eye of the nationalist hurricane. As well, fundamental shifts in the relationships between institutions and society may also offer an explanation: the relative decline of state institutions as transmitters of culture and identity, in favor of commodified expressions of these goods, may be affecting the tone and content of Canadian nationalism. But these claims are secondary to our argument. The main purpose here is to critically re-assess the assumptions given in the of diffidence. These assumptions are explored below. The Myth of Canadian Diffidence The basic insight of the myth is given in Donald Smiley's remark that almost all English have at some time felt embarrassed by [Canada's] deficiencies in the ritual manifestations of nationhood [and] the absence of the characteristic manifestations of national self-expression so common elsewhere. (7) Nationalism, of course, requires some sense of the nature of the in-group to be celebrated, and the out-group which defines its borders. …