Anthropology: Canadians and the freaknation

[danaeris]

The hypothesis, as presented by a gentleman I met tonight at the DSSG Social.

Canadians compartmentalize their lives. The details of what goes on in the bedroom, or anywhere outside of the medium within which you interact with any given person, is none of their business nor something you would talk about with them. You don't hide it, but nor do you talk about it. So, it's not that you are in the closet. It's that you structure your life in an inherently compartmentalized fashion such that it will never be necessary to hide A from B, nor will A ever come up in conversation with B, unless someone asks a direct question.
The good news is that this enables frictionless interaction with people. The bad news is that it precludes the kind of integrated lifestyle I desire.

IF this is true, if Canadians really do tend to compartmentalize their lives the way this gentleman claimed, I can see how it would fit in with the Canadian personality.

1. Being pleasant and nice is paramount.


2. Discussing something controversial without consent (ie. out of context) is unpleasant and rude.


3. Take the above, and you can conclude that since some BDSM folk aren't into poly, being vocal about poly in front of BDSM folk is rude. Since some poly folk aren't comfortable with paganism, being vocal about being pagan around poly folk is rude


4. Therefore, to maximize niceness and pleasantness, one must structure one's life to avoid imposing unwanted overlaps upon others.

This leads to a society and culture with minimal friction and culture clash with regards to ethnicity, religion, politics, sexuality... anything remotely controversial.
It also precludes the rise of the Freaknation (not my webpage, but the server my email is hosted on). The idea that the tribes of geekdom, altsexdom, mystics, gamers, fans, goths, and reconstructionists, are all converging and coming together to form a strong subculture, a sort of Freak Nation.

Now, I'm not sure I believe this hypothesis about Canadians. But I have a number of problems with it.

1. There are still some legal barriers, and some intolerance. Unless I'm totally not understanding the methods of social change in Canada, acceptance cannot be achieved without people choosing to be out, and making themselves available to people to learn more about them. Nor can ignorance be addressed.


2. The idea of compartmentalizing my life to the point where I might be married to someone, but aside from permission, have them completely unconnected to aspects of my life (like say, a BDSM partner) just squicks me.


3. What the hell do these people TALK to each other about if they are so compartmentalized?


4. The idea of being good friends with someone who later turns out to be totally intolerant of one of my other compartments squicks me.


5. In general, the idea of being cut up into separate parts distresses me a great deal. I can't see it as anything but hiding. I don't WANT to live like that, constantly self-censoring.


6. I'm not sure I understand how it is possible to have a real friendship with someone to whom you are not mostly open to. I know that people do this, but I just can't imagine it. It boggles my mind.

Of course, I have been known to go in the opposite direction to negative effect. Wanting to have no interaction with "normal" people except for work leaves me
feeling rude, and disconnected from the local community, living in my own little bubble world.

In my little bubbleworld of freaks, I generally don't end up interacting with people in order to help influence their perceptions of freaks anyway, however.

My head is spinning from all these thoughts. My throat is sore, and it is past my bed time. However, I'm very much in the "formulating thoughts" stage of things. I'd be very interested in hearing people's opinions on any of the topics listed in here. I'm in part philosophizing to inform my personal philosophy, in part examining what may be something integral to Canadian social culture, and trying to understand where it comes from and how it affects things.

Comments

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

It would seem that a tribe of sorts could be formed of people who share the quality of "we can talk about anything we like with each other." This tribe might be non-compartmentalized (along certain dimensions, at least) with each other, but hold to the larger norms outside their own gatherings.

Certainly not the "We're here, we're _____, get used to it" kind of identity politics one gets in the states, but it would cut down on the isolation.

I'm not sure that what the guy describes is not closeting. At least, it's being in the closet, but having a welcome mat outside.

[yiab.livejournal.com]

In general, the idea of being cut up into separate parts distresses me a great deal. I can't see it as anything but hiding. I don't WANT to live like that, constantly self-censoring.

that's just part of it - there's no self-censorship involved. when you have that sort of compartmentalization as a regular part of you, there's no reason for you to have to self-censor. self-censorship implies that the idea of saying something has arisen and has to be consciously supressed, whereas in the compartmentalized mind it simply never arises.

another point about this is that if it doesn't come naturally to you, i wouldn't suggest compartmentalization, in fact it may not even be possible if it doesn't come naturally. in other words, if you want a compartmentalized social life, it is most helpful to also have a compartmentalized mind.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

The details of what goes on in the bedroom, or anywhere outside of the medium within which you interact with any given person, is none of their business nor something you would talk about with them. You don't hide it, but nor do you talk about it.... it will never be necessary to hide A from B, nor will A ever come up in conversation with B, unless someone asks a direct question.

I find this, at least for myself, to be very true. My preferences/interests never come up unless someone asks me a direct question about it. I always thought it was more of a personal quality rather than a Canadian quality, but who knows?

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

My husband says you speak of hockey.

In all seriousness, I empathize with you. I love interacting with people, but find that I develop few deep relationships because Americans do this compartmentalizing, too. It's a bit different- basically, they've just de-personalize things to a degree where it's easier to discuss them a little bit and then stick the rest away- but they still do it. There are people I've known who say they are my closest of friends, but will not speak with me of certain topics, and I do not understand where the closeness is in that.

It's a certain kind of madness and sterility that I do not agree with and that doesn't agree with me.

Do I think all Americans and Canadians do it? I suspect more Canadians do it than Americans, and possibly more Europeans as a cultural whole, but it's not something that's mandated, and I think it's soon to be declining.