Who Cares Vs. Who Cares: the World’s Most Mediocre Wars

by Aaron Labaree

Mocking your neighbors is one of life’s simple pleasures, like throwing stones at the windows of an abandoned house or scorching bugs with a microscope. Such indulgences need not be taught; they’re instinctive. Mockery is a relaxed pastime. More demanding, but no less enjoyable, is hating your neighbor, wishing to see him defeated and humiliated at every opportunity, by you if possible, but by anyone if necessary.

Having contempt for others just because they are different from you—just because they are not you—is natural and healthy. But people always take it too far, and simple fun is regularly spoiled by slaughter, oppression, and war. Perhaps the most tragic and upsetting thing is their seeming arbitrariness, their pointlessness: one group massacring another because of the color of their skin or the shape of their face or because they believe in transubstantiation rather than consubstantiation.

Thankfully, the world is still home to rare feuds that do not involve murder or atrocious suffering—in fact, which just hardly matter at all—and the very arbitrariness and pointlessness of these feuds is what makes them enjoyable for outsiders to watch. Sometimes the two parties take the feud very seriously, in which case the fun is seeing how important it seems to them vs. how completely unimportant is appears to everyone else. Sometimes the two sides treat the feud more lightly, in which case we can observe and vicariously enjoy their non-lethal rivalry. The following are just a few of the world’s most benign rivalries, in descending order of harmlessness.

1. Czechs vs. Slovaks

Although you probably never stopped saying “Czechoslovakia,” they are two countries now, and while relations are generally friendly, there is a certain amount of friction between the two peoples. Following a standard pattern, the Czechs view their Eastern neighbors as ignorant bumpkins, while the Slovaks resent the wealthier Czechs, who they feel have always treated them, as one Slovakian friend of mine put it, like “their little brother.” He has described how his normally taciturn uncles can erupt into belligerent nationalism when he unwisely mentions his time in Prague or his admiration of Vaclav Havel.

2. Norway vs. Sweden

Norway became independent from Sweden in 1905, and Norwegians are still touchy about their history with their stronger neighbor. There was, after all, a brief war in 1814 after which Norway was forcibly unified with Sweden. One academic paper that touches on this rivalry notes: “ . . . The standard Norwegian image of Sweden associates [it] with a bureaucratic rationality . . . a centralised, authoritarian State, and an air of arrogant overbearance,” whereas “The standard Swedish image of the Norwegian is that of a rustic and unsophisticated fish-eater with lamentable manners and muddy boots.” As would seem to befit two Scandinavian countries, Norwegians and Swedes treat the rivalry with good humor. On a recent visit to his neighbor, however, King Harald of Norway did remark that he found it, “particularly pleasing when we beat Sweden on the sports field.”

3. Calgary vs. Edmonton

Hundreds of miles north of Montana, far from so much of the world’s madness—far from civil wars and suicide bombers, government hit squads and mall shooters—the Battle of Alberta rages. The term is usually used to refer to the fierce rivalry between the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames (hockey teams), although, according to Wikipedia, the feud goes back to when the two cities were competing for railroad routes, capital status, and oil wealth. The sides seem pretty evenly matched to an outside observer, although one partisan claims: “Edmonton always has the last laugh in the Battle of Alberta, but Calgary would kill Edmonton if it were the ‘Battle of the Greasiest Mullets’, or the ‘Battle of Ugliest Chicks’.” Just this month, Edmonton’s health services accused their counterparts in Calgary of fudging numbers in order to get more funding from the province. Officials in Calgary claim everything’s on the up-and-up, but an Edmonton health service spokesman commented darkly, “Calgary’s playing a funny little game . . . ” We can only hope cooler heads will prevail before this crisis spirals out of control.

4. Brookline, Mass. vs. Newton, Mass.

Like these other pairs of rivals, Brookline and Newton appear similar from the outside: both are affluent and professional, both have good school systems, many temples, and progressive political tendencies. But residents of Brookline have a certain verve, a certain self-awareness, a certain intellectual curiosity that the inhabitants of their larger neighboring town lack. Newtonites tend to be self-satisfied and entitled, and at the same time, sheltered and provincial. Newtonites will tell you that Brooklinians are flaky and pretentious, pretending to be Boston residents while in fact they just inhabit an inferior suburb. Newtonites will tell you this, but they are liars. [Full disclosure: the author is of Brooklinian descent.]

As a country, we Americans have no petty feuds with other nations to enjoy, because as everyone likes to say, we are the world’s only superpower. Or, it could be said, we take ourselves too seriously. Even when we had a real rival in Russia, the prospect of total mutual annihilation put a damper on the jokes and cheerleading. Of course there’s Canada—but to be a real rivalry, scorn and resentment need to go both ways, and many Americans probably couldn’t even find Canada on a map. The French get to mock the Belgians to their hearts’ content because there’s so little at stake.

We don’t have that luxury. There are plenty of people in this country who think everyone who speaks Arabic is an Islamofascist who wants to establish a caliphate in Cleveland. Someday our relations with the rest of the world may improve, and when it does, perhaps our bygone war on terror will be amusing. Until then, there’s always Newton.

Comments

[Rekha]

Great article! I really enjoyed the wit and light-heartedness of Mr. Labaree's writing.

Mr. Labaree is correct in his observations that America unlike, say, France, England, and Germany has not entered a grudge match with another nation. But, America has had bitter and deadly regional rivalries that, in their current form, are as mealy-mouthed as the national and municipal rivalries Mr. Labaree identifies (with the exception, perhaps, of Brookline v. Newton. Die Newton Scum!).

I'm referring to, of course, the 21st century edition of North v. South: Blue State v. Red State.

The current sibling split has occurred over the somewhat lower-stakes issues of cultural and social attitudes rather than the nineteenth-century high-stakes issue of abolishing the enslavement of human beings for profit. "Blue Staters," overall, tend to be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-big business, and anti-NRA, whereas "Red Staters" tend to favor restrictions on individual freedoms -- with the exception of arming themselves to the teeth -- and against regulating the private sector that threatens their livelihoods, leaving them with the paranoid need to arm themselves to the teeth.

While the depth of these political differences is up for debate, the mid-term elections decisively turned the tide in the Blue States' favor thereby making any sass back from the Red States merely a feeble attempt to recover the last shreds of dignity no doubt buried in their collective front yard, littered with rusting hulks of stripped down '82 Chevy Impalas currently providing shelter to a family of rabid badgers.

Just saying.

Signed,

A Blue State Babe

[Picasso]

Babe (the blue stater-not the pig) is quick to echo overscripted pablum just as a tuning fork immediatly responds to the stimuli of a specific note. She underlines, rather than combats, the divisiveness that exists in this world. Of all God's creatures, babe would gain most by a bit of diversity.

[jimmydean]

Picasso, I'm afraid diversity training would not work with the babe. An old saying has it ....... "Never try and teach a pig to sing: it's a waste of time, and it annoys the pig."

[frances]

this is a fabulous article. It actually identifies an important reality -- that mocking and having contempt for others simply because they are different from you are inherently human pleasures and are not necessarily evil. Why is it that these feelings cannot be sustained just as feelings but somehow demand enactment? Why must the Other be eliminated rather than tolerated as less than, stupider,or whatever?

[Sage]

When Farmer Hoggett won Babe as a raffle prize, he had no idea just how much the piglet's open mind and big heart would affect the lives of everyone, animal and human alike, on the farm. The dogs, the sheep, the ducks, all the animals grew to accept him and he loved them back, crumbling barriers that had stood for years. Now, this rekha rosa, aka the bluestatebabe is just the opposite. Confronting, sneering, & showing contempt for those different than her. Just takes some folks longer to grow up than others. Then again, some never learn.

[You know who]

Ummm, did anyone notice the sarcasm in the original piece? Perhaps continuing that joshing might actually be the point of the response -- given its obvious and indulgent stereotyping? Just a suggestion, y'all.