we’ve heard lately from the geniuses of Wall and Bay streets. The successful routinely invoke the meritocratic bona fides of a system that tells them they are meritorious.
Still, North Americans exhibit a positively romantic attachment to the notion that Canada and the U.S are indeed meritocracies, societies that reward smarts and hard work. Meritocracy is an important part of Barack and Michelle Obama’s appeal; both frequently stress that they are poor scholarship students who have made good. People long forexamples of meritocracy in action because they are worried that their cherished dreams will not come true. Politics, pop culture, and self-help all sell assurances that we will succeed, but the demand for such assurances shows that we are really anxious about our prospects.
A 2008 Zogby poll on attitudes in the American workplace found that three-quarters of U.S. workers thought the American dream was less attainable than it had been eight years earlier. Another study on economic mobility, conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts in concert with lefty and righty think tanks, found that the American dream was alive and well – in Canada, France, and the Scandinavian countries, where citizens were twice as economically mobile as people in the United States or the United Kingdom. 20
You may recall from a few short pages ago that countries such as Canada and the Scandinavian nations scored better than the U.S. on international tests. Coincidence? I think not. More economic mobility means more resources at home and more incentive to do well. Less economic mobility means more fatalism and resignation on the part of poor students and more dreams of winning the class lotto the way people on TV and in movies do, through luck and pluck and looks and the kinds of talents one develops over the course of an inspirational montage.
In the United States, the middle class has been more rudely and vigorously screwed by its financial betters than it has in Canada, so it stands to reason that Canuck schools score better on average and that U.S. schools exhibit greater extremes. America has some of the world’s most highlyrespected schools, but they exist a world away from the under-funded, overcrowded ones that serve the students who most desperately need a good education. Even Dubya knew this was the big problem. Programs such as KIPP and Teach for America have made laudable efforts to improve impoverished schools. Some American school districts have also realized that class affects the classroom, and they are opting to modify their race-based integration policies to class-plus-race formulas.
But this isn’t just a question of cash; the U.S. does spend much more, if more unevenly, on education than we skinflint Canadians do. It’s also a cultural thing, a reflection of certain social attitudes, a side effect of our differing anti-intellectualisms. Canadian anti-intellectualism is not quite as vocal as the U.S. version, and there is a little more respect for education in the Great White North. Part of this is a result of something old: Canada’s Europeanism, much of which is a reaction against the mega-culture next door. Part of it is a result of something new: immigrants, who tend to push their kids to excel in school.
Canadians are generally more deferential than Americans, and therefore have more respect for those who succeed in the confines of established institutions. People are still mildly in favour of professors and science nerds, provided that they engage in wry self-deprecation. An intellectual cannot put on airs or come off like a swell. This is fatal in a land that loves to hack its tall poppies. So long as Canadian smarties act like secular monks, devoted to the greater good of research or their students, they’re fine. Not as good as hockey players, notas loathsome as politicians, Canuck brains are largely out of sight and out of mind until they magic up a Canadarm or some medical doohickey and win a Nobel Prize
Still, North Americans exhibit a positively romantic attachment to the notion that Canada and the U.S are indeed meritocracies, societies that reward smarts and hard work. Meritocracy is an important part of Barack and Michelle Obama’s appeal; both frequently stress that they are poor scholarship students who have made good. People long forexamples of meritocracy in action because they are worried that their cherished dreams will not come true. Politics, pop culture, and self-help all sell assurances that we will succeed, but the demand for such assurances shows that we are really anxious about our prospects.
A 2008 Zogby poll on attitudes in the American workplace found that three-quarters of U.S. workers thought the American dream was less attainable than it had been eight years earlier. Another study on economic mobility, conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts in concert with lefty and righty think tanks, found that the American dream was alive and well – in Canada, France, and the Scandinavian countries, where citizens were twice as economically mobile as people in the United States or the United Kingdom. 20
You may recall from a few short pages ago that countries such as Canada and the Scandinavian nations scored better than the U.S. on international tests. Coincidence? I think not. More economic mobility means more resources at home and more incentive to do well. Less economic mobility means more fatalism and resignation on the part of poor students and more dreams of winning the class lotto the way people on TV and in movies do, through luck and pluck and looks and the kinds of talents one develops over the course of an inspirational montage.
In the United States, the middle class has been more rudely and vigorously screwed by its financial betters than it has in Canada, so it stands to reason that Canuck schools score better on average and that U.S. schools exhibit greater extremes. America has some of the world’s most highlyrespected schools, but they exist a world away from the under-funded, overcrowded ones that serve the students who most desperately need a good education. Even Dubya knew this was the big problem. Programs such as KIPP and Teach for America have made laudable efforts to improve impoverished schools. Some American school districts have also realized that class affects the classroom, and they are opting to modify their race-based integration policies to class-plus-race formulas.
But this isn’t just a question of cash; the U.S. does spend much more, if more unevenly, on education than we skinflint Canadians do. It’s also a cultural thing, a reflection of certain social attitudes, a side effect of our differing anti-intellectualisms. Canadian anti-intellectualism is not quite as vocal as the U.S. version, and there is a little more respect for education in the Great White North. Part of this is a result of something old: Canada’s Europeanism, much of which is a reaction against the mega-culture next door. Part of it is a result of something new: immigrants, who tend to push their kids to excel in school.
Canadians are generally more deferential than Americans, and therefore have more respect for those who succeed in the confines of established institutions. People are still mildly in favour of professors and science nerds, provided that they engage in wry self-deprecation. An intellectual cannot put on airs or come off like a swell. This is fatal in a land that loves to hack its tall poppies. So long as Canadian smarties act like secular monks, devoted to the greater good of research or their students, they’re fine. Not as good as hockey players, notas loathsome as politicians, Canuck brains are largely out of sight and out of mind until they magic up a Canadarm or some medical doohickey and win a Nobel Prize
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