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Grudge-Making, Preemptive Peacemaking and Really Nice Canadians By Garry P. Bailey, Ph.D.
Another, almost contradictory cultural view of Canadians is that they are cold towards strangers. I can see the truth of the statement but, unless they are engaged in an act of ‘niceness,’ Canadians are not normally oriented to waving and saying hello to everyone they pass on the street. It is much more typical in Canada for people to connect primarily with others they know and not be motivated at every turn to meet new people. However, it is quite common for strangers in Canada to engage in light conversation with one another on pragmatic matters such as weather or current events. In the church context, however, Canadians tend to give visitors a very warm welcome with detailed conversation in ways that are quite contrary to the prevailing cultural view. Recently, I went to my Canadian homeland and visited Waterloo, Ontario to help Great Lakes Bible College go through a study of Conflict and Communication. I was interested in and impressed with the insights of my compatriots, especially since Canadians are often thought of as ‘nice’ but ‘cold.’ During my visit to GLBC, I was interested in the viewpoints of Canadians about their conflict experiences. And as it turns out, Canadians do experience the coldness of conflict. But they are also very nice and warm people in a uniquely Canadian way. I have seen situations where strangers who are in need get extra mile help from Canadian people. The reputation of being cold in these situations couldn’t be further from the truth. And I know that Canadian church members have opened their homes to strangers for overnight stays or have helped people fix their automobiles. For meeting many various needs, Canadian churches are stocked with warm hearted folks. Being warm and inviting in a place that is often seen as cold in temperature and in culture does not, however, insulate Canadians from conflict. People who characteristically have deep and solid friendships with people still wrestle with conflict. One type of recurring conflict is the holding of grudges. This is not just a Canadian phenomenon. It is a common way that people mishandle conflicts. It short changes the efforts some people may make to process conflict in a healthy way. During our study of Conflict and Communication in Waterloo we observed that grudges are often a result of misinformation. And the conclusion we reached after reflecting on the problem was to recommend that in response to Grudge-Making, people should use Preemptive Peacemaking. To prevent grudges, good conflict managers will make sure that people involved in this kind of conflict have more and better information about the issues and perspectives of all sides of the problem. Misinformation is common when people assume that others have the same set of information. Preemptive Peacemaking is a process of making sure people are on the same page about the details of a conflict event. So, yes the Canadians are really nice. And they (or we) still have conflicts to work through like every human being. We all deal with conflict and I think Preemptive Peacemaking is a great idea for anyone concerned about managing conflict effectively, especially among those who might choose to hold a grudge.
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Several media depictions of Canadians show them to be really ‘nice.’