The Elusive WASP

WASPs are White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I think of WASPs as the silent cogs that make the engine run. They’re the kids you sat beside in school with plain white-bread surnames like Peterson and Cunningham and Farnsworth and Taylor. They’re the sort of people that dominated Toronto in the days of “Toronto the Good.” Today, they’re kind of invisible in Toronto’s ethnic tapestry but they’re the silent engine that makes the city work. Despite its multiculturalism and the fact that it’s today about 75% non-WASP, Toronto is still at its essence a very WASP city – its WASPs that laid the foundation for what is today an orderly, diverse, and prosperous global city.

WASPs come in all socio-economic classes but they do share certain characteristics. WASPs don’t flaunt their wealth, and if they do harbour it they’re humble about it; they won’t say irritating things like "I’ll challenge you with my wallet", as a Jewish housemate of ours was fond of saying. It's not uncommon for a WASP with a hefty trust fund to drive a modest car.

WASPs don’t have strong ties to extended families. Nor do they see themselves as belonging to an "ethnic group." As such, they are not clannish, nor do they feel a sense of “group solidarity” to a subgroup - their ties are to the nation-state foremost. As such, they have a greater sense of civic duty, civic responsibility, civic activism. WASPs give to philanthropic causes – indeed, they have a genuine compassion for fellow humanity, something that is lacking among “lesser” groups.

WASPs are obsessed with structure, order, and cleanliness. WASPs like schedules and timelines. WASPs are law-abiding, and like neat suburbs and are obsessive about keeping a tidy house, and a green, trim lawn.

If one can quibble about, it is the fact that the WASP is a little boring and mundane, not nearly as loud or egregious as his distant Mediterranean cousins. The WASP is guarded and reserved, private and generally not prone to exhibiting a wide, open, sincere smile. Indeed, the WASP is a repressed - he feels guilt in hedonistic pleasures, does not share the “joie de vivre” of his French peers, and harbours a definite work-oriented mentality. And while the WASP enjoys making money, he does not obsess over it. The ideal pleasure for a WASP is a cottage in the quiet of coutry.

But WASP is not prone to dogma or superstition, preferring a practical, rational approach. And the WASP is open-minded and tolerant, among his more admirable traits. He likes open dialogue, and a civil, reasoned discussion. He is fair in his interactions, never quick to judge. He will not hate simply hate someone for who he is or the caste he belongs to; it is his behaviour that is the prime factor in his judgement, and so long as he works hard, obeys the law, pays taxes, and assimilates certain WASP-esque qualities, the WASP will show his respect.

The more I think about it, the more I think I’m really a WASP in disguise. I believe I share more common qualities with WASPs than I do my own people, for Sri Lankan Tamils in many ways are the anti-WASPs - clannish, dogmatic, disorderly, superstitious... qualities I don't find appealing.

I think the WASP ethos is admirable, and so too does much of the world, for the overwhelming tide of humanity is moving towards WASP and WASP-derivative nations – England, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand... Mind you, it could be that the dynamic dragon economies of the xenophobic Far East will never open their borders to the swarthy hordes, and the oil-rich sheikhdoms of the Arab Gulf treat even “lesser” Muslims from Bangladesh and Pakistan like crap (I know of many people that have done the double-migration - Subcontinent -> Middle East -> Canada). Continental Europe isn’t too kind to its coloured immigrants, and Latin America is a non-entity.

So if the overwhelming mass of humanity would immigrate to these five nations if given the choice, is this not an indictment of cultural relativism, and implicit admission of the superiority WASP values and WASP-based societies?