Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information.
-- Michael Scott, The Office
Canada is celebrating the bicentennial of the War of 1812 this year. All year. In 1812, the United States declared war on Britain for various stated reasons, none of which included conquering Canada. Then they promptly tried to conquer Canada (or what was then known as Upper and Lower Canada, to be specific). The British forces, allied Indian tribes and Canadian militia repelled several attacks by the US. Ten American armies invaded Canada. Ten armies were sent home.
Read all about it on Wikipedia. The article itself insists that the war was a tie or that all sides (except the Indians) won. It’s quite a little rah-rah piece if you’re an American, waxing poetic about great feats of the nascent American navy against those nasty British. The idea that the US would invade Canada for reasons as base as US expansionism is dismissed. Americans? Expand? Fie! The Americans had no interest in Canada at all, and were quite surprised to find themselves there! Sure Thomas Jefferson said that conquerig Canada was a mere matter of marching--but he was talking about a game of Risk. And I'm sure that if one of the reasons the US declared war was to snatch Canada while Britain was busy with Napolean, then the politicians at the time would have said so.
The Talk page that accompanies every Wikipedia article forbids any more discussion about who won the war. Not that that stops anyone; it's practically the only topic of conversation, and even when not being discussed directly is not far below the surface influencing everything. Mostly filled with outraged blustering Canadians and gormless Americans shocked--shocked--that anyone would accuse them of bias.
One outraged commentator insists that Wikipedia “is not a popularity contest.” Really? I beg to differ. That is exactly what Wikipedia is. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the first step to recovery is acceptance. Acceptance that, yes, Wikipedia is a popularity contest. Anyone (in principle) can change an article, so it stands to reason that, given equal zeal, the side with the greater numbers will eventually see the article they want to see.
And just about every wiki commentator swears up and down that he is not biased, and is just taking time out of his busy day as a Perfectly Objective Observer to correct bias he sees. Hogswash and Codswallop! We’re all biased. I’m biased. Do you think, if I were a Nepalese Buddhist monk, I’d be cruising the “Talk” page of the War of 1812 Wikipedia entry? I wouldn't be getting snippy right now if my (biased) Canadian nationalist sensibilities were not offended. The very fact that I am reading the piece at all means that I have some interest in the subject.
Yes, we’re all biased. But that's not the problem. The problem is when we refuse to admit as much.
Yes, we’re all biased. But that's not the problem. The problem is when we refuse to admit as much.
Wikipedia is a great place to learn about a Taylor series expansion or what a pancreas does. But head on over to controversial social, cultural or political topics and there's a roiling thunderstorm underneath that clean Wikipedia front, a subterranean world populated by folks with sensitivities as delicate as a desert orchid, and the zeal of a Jehovah Witness on speed.
And so, behind the scenes a the War of 1812 page, the arguments go on and on and on and on. And this is some relatively obscure war from 200 years ago. You should see the pages regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. Those articles are clenched up tighter than Rick Santorum’s buttcheeks at a Gay Parade, and it’s a real bunfight over in the Talk pages.
But you have to remember that this is the Era of the Internet; we live in a post-objective world and Rule 1 in the Post-Objective World is:
Not a bad definition really. I don’t think philosophers have managed all that much better as far as a workable definition of truth goes. After all, we say that a psychotic is suffering “delusions” based solely on the fact that he is experiencing a reality that is not shared by the consensus. Conversely, if nine out of ten people tell you that Fiddy Cent is flying around in a pink tutu and fairy wings, then the truth is that Fiddy Cent is flying around in a pink tutu and fairy wings. And the War of 1812 was a tie.
I've submitted an edit to the War of 1812 page (it, like most popular Wikipedia pages is locked, and you have to submit to some anonymous person somewhere to make a change) mentioning the results of a recent poll (where Canadians rate victory in the War of 1812 second only to universal health care as defining their national identity), and also pointing out that Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie released a popular song in Canada called "The White House Burned (The War of 1812)" that pokes fun at Amercian sensitivity on the outcome of the war. We'll fly that one up the flagpole and see who salutes, so to speak.
I’ll let you know how it goes:
Here’s the refrain the song:
And the white house burned, burned, burned.
But the Americans won't admit it,
It burned, burned, burned.
While the president ran and cried,
It burned, burned, burned.
And things were very historical,
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies (Wah-Wah-Wah)
In the war of 1812.
Anyways just in case you thought Wikipedia was bad, check out Cracked.com Terrifying Bastardizations of the Wikipedia Model just for lulz.
Edit: For clarification, I'm not suggesting that Canadians (or Upper Canada militia) burned Washington. My understanding is that the British Navy burned Washington, and there were probably as many Upper Canada militiamen involved as there were impressed American seamen, i.e. not many. I'm sure Three Dead Trolls knows this too.
Edit: For clarification, I'm not suggesting that Canadians (or Upper Canada militia) burned Washington. My understanding is that the British Navy burned Washington, and there were probably as many Upper Canada militiamen involved as there were impressed American seamen, i.e. not many. I'm sure Three Dead Trolls knows this too.
Think of what would happen if the Americans actually did conquer Upper / Lower Canada: "We've freed the poor north from the evil clutches of British imperialism! They too will now have the right to bear arms! Except against us! Huzzah!"
ReplyDeleteAs that paraphrased saying goes, history is always dictated by the victors. Too bad they're often too self-righteous to admit that they're too often meddling in the affairs of other sovereign nations.
Growing up in small town Western Canada, the only Canadian history I learned was about the Plains of Abraham rugby match, Louis Reil's bad haircut, and the hillarious antics of the Black Donnelleys. But the various monuments I chanced upon in the Niagara Region a few years ago were a testimony to the various skirmishes on Canadian soil from that war. Very real.
ReplyDeleteBut as Canadians we also forget that Toronto (York) was burned aswell (in 1813 ?). I'm sure some people would just as soon have seen it stay that way.
Cheers !
Having gone to high school in two countries, by a fluke, I ended up taking American history twice (once in Canada, once in the US) and Canadian history never. I consider myself blessed in that regard. Any history reading I've done since has been Egyptian, Roman, or Medieval. I like lots of blood with my history, thank you very much. Chopping off of heads and all that.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the United States had any particularly impressive accomplishments in the War of 1812, but I don't see how the nation of Canada did, either. Fifty years earlier Britain conquered New France (with the 13 colonies' help), and fifty years later Britain declared Canada a self-governing dominion. No one who fought in the 1812 war would live to attain anything like Canadian citizenship, or called themselves "Canadian" as a statement of nationality. How can national identity be gained from some other nation's actions?
ReplyDeleteI suppose, Psduo, you could make the same argument about the Revolutionary War of 1776, or the Boston Tea Party, which were undertaken by a nation that did not exist. Up until the Americans succeeded in their desire for independence, they were a British colony rebeling aginast the British Empire. Things that hapen before a nation exists influence the existence o that nation. In the case of Upper and Lower Canada, repelling repeated determined American invasions (there had actually been many more undetermined invasions of Canada before and since) was instrumental, and continues to be instrumetnal in the national identity.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that claiming this small victory drives Americans to distraction is just an added bonus. It's pitifully petty of us really.
Rebellion against Britain clearly delineates between America and Britain. Also, there was Continental government at least since 1781 and arguably since 1774 or 1765 (during or before the Revolution). I am aware of no such delineations of unique identity Canada (the Canadas) possessed prior to their 1841 unification, long after the War of 1812 had ended.
ReplyDeleteAs for the other American invasions of Canada, it was the Americans who distinguished between Britons and Canadians and sought to liberate the latter from the former. It was the residents of Canada who denied such a distinction in resistance to independence.
Maybe it's reasonable to derive domestic patriotic feeling from the actions of your jurisdictional predecessors, but it is largely a foreign and counter-intuitive concept from an American perspective.
I mean no disrespect, but the more natural (lazy?) conclusion is that Canadian identity arises from doing what others want -- refusing British rule when France said so, then refusing independence from Britain because Britain said so, then accepting independence because it would please (appease) the Americans in a way the Britain wanted. Even on more modern issues (WW2, Kyoto, Afghanistan, Iraq) Canada seems always to side with international sentiment (though, on Iraq that international sentiment went against the UK and US). Is there some exception I'm not thinking of, where Canada defied it's peers and parents? Or are Canadians the meek who will inherit the Earth?
I don't know that you can make the claim that the US wasn't a country during the Revolution. The US colonies had joint committees and governmental procedures dating back to the 1760s, and specifically established the Continental Congress and Continental Army in 1775. I don't think that Canada had it's own united government, military, and self-identification as a nation until the 1840s or later. At the time of their respective wars, their claims to nationhood were very different.
ReplyDeleteAll true. The War of 1812 is a part of Candain mythology. Myth has two meanings. The first is "false." As in "myth versus fact." The other implies a system of belief. Despite the fact that, for al intents and purposes, it was the British that repelled the American invasion, it is a conerstone of Canadian identity that "we" repulsed the invasion. The "Canadian" militia had a limited role. They were effective, particularly in certain battles, but their presence did not really dictate the outcome of the war. And the "Canadian" militia was primarily made up of Loyalists who did not perceive themselces as Canadian, but of citizens of the Empire.
ReplyDeleteThe War itself did germinate, more than any other event, a sense of self-identification and of "Canada" so that part of the myth is more based in fact than the "militia myth."
Interestingly, the US had a similar "militia myth" and the War of 1812, as much as it supported that myth in "Canada," dispelled it in the US. The US militia (primarily from Kentucky, I believe) did not perform as well as expected, particularlly early in the War, and after the war, the US, politicaly, was more sympathetic o the idea of a standing regular army.