Sibling countries bashing each other is common the world over. Is the nature of the bashing such that it is making claims of some sort of collectivist nature? And to what degree does a claim made during some kind of rivalry make something accurate or true?
Australians often like to claim New Zealanders have sexual relations with sheep when they engage in good old fashioned country bashing. I would hazard a guess that stunningly few New Zealanders have ever fucked a sheep, though I would assume a handful have and what's more I'd assume the same to be true of Australia too. But it's clearly not like the claim has any sort of merit as it applies to the general population.
I don't have deep experience with Canada, so I would be interested to be pointed in the direction of anything that would indicate that collectivism was more prevalent in Canada than Individualism.
I have a hard time buying it. I'm from NZ and I've always felt we are much closer to Canada than the US. I've also lived in Australia for a couple of years. Aus and NZ are completely similar along certain dimensions and really different along other ones. But I would venture to say that they're both heavy into Individualism. As is the States and from what I have seen of Canada I assumed I would feel quite at home there.
Comparing my experience with Japan over the last 10 years, which is heavily collectivist, I just can't bring myself to the conclusion that personality wise and the types of things that come out of Canadians mouths about how one should conduct oneself in society is closer to that of the Japanese than it is to that of Americans.
Australians often like to claim New Zealanders have sexual relations with sheep when they engage in good old fashioned country bashing. I would hazard a guess that stunningly few New Zealanders have ever fucked a sheep, though I would assume a handful have and what's more I'd assume the same to be true of Australia too. But it's clearly not like the claim has any sort of merit as it applies to the general population.
I don't have deep experience with Canada, so I would be interested to be pointed in the direction of anything that would indicate that collectivism was more prevalent in Canada than Individualism.
I have a hard time buying it. I'm from NZ and I've always felt we are much closer to Canada than the US. I've also lived in Australia for a couple of years. Aus and NZ are completely similar along certain dimensions and really different along other ones. But I would venture to say that they're both heavy into Individualism. As is the States and from what I have seen of Canada I assumed I would feel quite at home there.
Comparing my experience with Japan over the last 10 years, which is heavily collectivist, I just can't bring myself to the conclusion that personality wise and the types of things that come out of Canadians mouths about how one should conduct oneself in society is closer to that of the Japanese than it is to that of Americans.