August 2, 2006
Scots and Parsimony Posted by Fredric Smoler at 10:25 AM EST Fred Schwarz wrote, in re the comic stereotype of Scots and parsimony, “At the time, I had no idea that Scots were supposed to be stingy, so this made no sense to me. I wonder how many Americans today are aware enough of this stereotype to appreciate a joke about it.” Well, the stereotype was certainly around when I was a boy—I was born in 1951—and I heard jokes about it, some told by Americans of Scottish descent. One thing about this stereotype was that it existed in the context of another, non-comic stereotype, which was that Scots were disciplined, industrious, intelligent (“canny”), possessed of great probity, particularly good at war and civil engineering, but good at lots of things.
A note on this: having spent a lot of time in the U.K. since 1981, I was amazed to discover that modern British stereotypes of the Scots apparently included none of the above virtues, and the stereotype about thriftiness was barely remembered—and when it was, it was considered Victorian. On the basis of what is admittedly a small sample, Scots were instead depicted as scroungers living off the welfare state, feckless complainers (“whinging Scots”), and possessed of various other vices. Jokes about Scots involved sheep and, to a lesser extent, Calvinism. When I told people that in America the stereotype, to the extent that one about Scots survived, was that Scots were admirable—I stressed the business about industriousness and probity—my assurances were met with open incredulity. When I explained that to the best of my knowledge this American stereotype was shared by Canadians, people speculated that Scots with these qualities may all have emigrated.
I once had a similar experience when sailing in Long Island Sound with the high school’s Norwegian AFS student. Passing a Swedish yacht, he began to curse loudly, and I then discovered that Scandinavians, indistinguishable and admirable in the stereotypes I grew up with, could in fact detest one another. To that one Norwegian, anyway, Swedes were sanctimonious, overpaid, and arrogant, Finns were dangerous and bloodthirsty, and Danes were bibulous good time Charlies.
But Fred Schwarz’s remark made me think, and my guess is that he is correct: I rather doubt that a number of ethnic stereotypes very much alive in my youth are even known to my undergraduates, or to my younger colleagues (when an Iranian-descended colleague told several Scots-and-sheep jokes to a Scottish colleague, the jokes were immediately understood if not much appreciated by the Scot, but met with incomprehension by a number of other listeners.) Ethnic jokes were very much a feature of my childhood, and I heard them at home and, to a lesser degree, in school, but I hear almost none now. I would posit several reasons for this. The civil rights movement and subsequent changes in the culture may have made ethnic jokes unfashionable, but broader changes in the culture may be more important. I heard a lot of these jokes growing up because my father, who told jokes, grew up in Chicago and New York, which means he was raised in an environment where ethnic groups were residentially segregated and did not go in for much intermarriage. Ethnicity was the basis for local politics and seemed to explain a lot of electoral and other behavior. There has been a vast increase in exogamy (people marrying outside the group) in the United States over my lifetime, a collapse of at least some ethnic residential segregation, and a weakening of many once-distinct subcultures. America remains more melting pot than salad bowl, and consciousness of ethnicity (rather than race), while very high among some academics, seems lower in the workplace. Some ethnic jokes were funny in part because they represented apparently plausible generalizations, which seemed to explain some things. Some ethnic jokes simply ascribed undesired traits to rivals—stupidity, lubriciousness, etc.—but others pointed to observable differences. Those generalizations are now less plausible, indeed seem to explain nothing, so the jokes have almost disappeared.
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