Do you think there is something fundamentally and culturally different about the South that makes it distinct and hard to politically reconcile with other regions of the country? If so, is it something all of us watching American Idol together can’t solve?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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simple answer to a serious question… they lost the civil war, they’ve never gotten over it.
they’re slowly being assimilated and it makes them crazy…with the able assistance of limpbaugh, o’lielly, etal.
resistance is futile.
There is only one thing fundamentally and culturally different about the South as compared to the rest of the country. There are some who make political hay and entrepreneurial profit out of stoking the fires of memory of this. Latter-day Margaret Mitchells, one could charitably call them. It is the only region to have lost a war of its own choice and had federal troops occupy it for a decade. And the only part of the nation to have preachers call them to repentance after their defeat by focusing on the wrong sins. Dancing, liquor, evolution instead of racism, slavery, and lynching. (No one today is quite aware of how irreligious the ante-bellum South really was for all its Episcopal and Methodist and Baptist churches).
There are a lot of similarities with the rest of the country. The South is now ethnically and economically diverse in the way that California and Massachusetts are but Nebraska and the Dakotas are not. The economy today depends on the computer industry, pharmaceutical industry, telecommunications industry, automobile industry (including tires and auto parts). Gone is the South as the textile center of the world. Gone are most of the shipyards. Gone even is a lot of the tobacco farming. Cotton fields have become pastures, and around the New South cities pastures have become hobby horse farms.
Change is coming even in the South. The harbinger of that change is the appearance of folks like Kay Hagan, Mark Warner, Larry Kissell, Tom Pierello, and the emergence of folks like Jim Clyburn as power players in Congress. And it will eventually come to Alabama and Mississippi as the recovery of the economy gets underway, the FCC loosens the media grip of conservative broadcasting in rural areas, and country club Republicans desert the dittoheads and dominionists who are taking over the Republican Party. The trend data for the South (other than Arkansas–the Clinton backlash– and Louisiana — the Republican post-Katrina frameup of Louise Blanco) are towards the Democratic Party. North Carolina and Virginia Blue Dogs surprisingly supported the stimulus packages and are generally supportive of Obama; that reflects the change in the opinions of their constituents that make them less afraid of progressive stances.
Most folks in the South are less strident than the politicians and cultural figures that pose as representatives of the South. And some of the most irreconcilable Southern politicians are not even from the South — George Allen of Virginia (CA) and Sue Myrick of North Carolina (OH) for instance.
It actually is time to focus less on the irreconcilability of the South and to admit that there are some irreconcilable cultural issues among the various regions of California, in the intermountain West (Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho) and in the Plains (Kansas – the home of the Rev. Phelps – and Nebraska).
As for your last question, au contraire. Yes, we can.
I think there is something fundamentally and culturally different about the East Coast that makes it distinct and hard to politically reconcile with other regions of the country.
But not impossible to politically reconcile. Any more than any other part of the country is impossible to politically reconcile.
No doubt but that is not the question he asked.
I agree with the other commenters that there is something fundamentally different about the South and that it definitely goes back to the Civil War — in which the southern states were opposed to all the other states. The south has changed a great deal in recent decades. Many people in the south realize that the Civil War is over. However, there are quite a few that seem to think it’s still on. Beginning from Nixon’s southern strategy, They have done pretty well for themselves over the past 30-40 years, changing the emphasis from slavery to other issues such as religion, and attracted many allies throughout the country.
But all things must pass, and this one is now doing so before our very eyes.
Booman’s so called “serious question” (honestly, you think it was serious with that last sentence tacked on?) is one of the things he always does when things are slow around here – invite everyone to stereotype the south or other parts of the country.
He’s been doing it for years whenever it’s a slow night. I do not take him seriously when he mentions the south. I do not understand why anyone else would take this question seriously ESPECIALLY with that last sentence tacked on. But, as he well knows, mention the south and you will get a lot of comments.
Non-serious questions deserve non-serious answers. I stand by my answer. And truthfully I don’t know why you bothered to answer me as if this were supposed to be a serious conversation.
The south is fine, it’s the folks in Missouri that worry me.
Especially the northern part of Missouri. It’s so … rural. So like Iowa.
< shudder >
Really? And when was the last time I did that?
You do it all the time. You always have.
you’re in a mood. I can recall writing about the South before, but never as a way to pick up commenting activity. And I can’t recall the last time I wrote about the South except in the context of the primary battles, and then it was more focused on Appalachia than the South, and also on how I though Obama might do better than a lot of commentators were suggesting.
I recall an series of emails I had with Schaller about how I thought he was underestimating Obama’s strength in the South. I think I posted about some of those ideas at the time.
well, I’m in a good mood, if you’re concerned about my mood. How’s yours?
My actual words: invite everyone to stereotype the south or other parts of the country.
You regularly make statements in front page posts and/or in comments that are stereotypes about other parts of the country or that will automatically bring out of the woodwork all kinds of commenters that like to make comments stereotying certain parts of the country. You’re right I do not know you’re state of mind when you do it. I shouldn’t have said you do it to attract comments. Although in this particular case … the only point of this post is to get people to comment right?
You are forgetting all the other times we’ve had discussions about your habit of stereotyping?
That’s ok. Maybe it’s your mood 😉
There’s a difference between historical and cultural specificity, and stereotyping. Just in order to avoid stereotyping, we are not required to pretend that everything in the world is the same as everything else. Especially in a political context (this is a political blog, yes?) every county, every zip code has its peculiar political profile, which is very much connected with its culture and history, as complex as they are.
First time here in the comments, but a long time reader – nice to be here! The subject matter drew me in…I’ve lived in the south for a good number of years now.
Dada has it, in part, correct. The sting of losing any major ‘event’ will cause resentment. I’ve heard a lot of comments spawning from that over the years.
What has been interesting to me is that Southerners claim to be very independent. Of course, they might be, but no more so than a farmer in Nebraska who is miles away from a hospital or grocery store, or a South Dakotan facing a fierce winter.
In spite of the feeling of being independent, it is odd that two of the most revered institutions in the South are 1)the Military and 2)the Church, both of which are essentially un-independent and require a lack of independence to be members of.
I was very surprised to find Obama supporters among my neighbors, friends and co-workers. Bush has done a lot to open people’s eyes.
Being friendly with those who know that they and I are on opposite political tracks, NOT being afraid to speak up in disagreement with them (in a friendly but firm way) and, yes, talking about American Idol or football or food, all help break down the barriers and mis-conceptions about the ‘evil Yankees’.
It’s a long road to breaking those barriers, but not impossible.
In the meantime, nationally, you take the notion of bipartisanship only to a certain level and then you go ahead and do what’s right. Obama has learned lessons about this and people in the South slowly will get over their regional notions as they see good change, and, as we continue to point out that the change that has benefited them was done by people with their best interests in mind, be they from the North or South.
Welcome yossarian! Stop by the Cafe/Lounge sometime and say hello.
Welcome! As another yankee in The South™ I found it very surprising to see how very much they identify with being southerners. Forty years of living in Ohio and I never thought of myself as a northerner, or a midwesterner. They have an inordinate (to me) amount of pride and they are very sensitive to the way southerners are portrayed in the media. It has taken my 7 years to feel even a small amount of comfort around native southerners. I am always the outsider.
Run a Google on a map of broadband access Here’s just one at random:
Some of that (ND, rural Nevada) is a function of population. But Look at the red states–Mississippi, hunks of Georgia and Alabama, west Texas, Oklakoma, Kansas–places where AM radio rules, and easy,convenient access to a more balanced information system is just not there.
Yes, there’s a culture of independence in the South, but there’s also low funding for education and low access go truly “fair and balanced” information. The correlation is there.
where did you get this map?
One of the wireless companies–it’s not the ONLY source of broadband, but it’s a safe assumption that where there are no good cell towers there isn’t much cable either.
There’s a ton of research that relates access to broadband to the way people see information. I work with such research as a mentor to grad students in ed tech. It’s not fooproof, but it does say a lot.
Objective data says that US religiosity is strongest in the South and religiosity correlates with social and other aspects of conservatism. So does allegiance to white supremacy (that’s not about prejudice — it’s about a racial system that define who gets the goodies.) The South simply has more of those two variables than other regions.
But it is clearly getting more homogenized. Oddly, the way to move the South is to encourage prosperity and education for its kids. How’s that for some nasty policies to inflict on people?
No, WHY you get them–due to your race and heritage, or due to how hard you worked on Tuesday.
Yes, the South is different. Slavery and Jim Crow made it different. Southern culture was morally corrupted by the Peculiar Institution and its long aftermath. Southern culture was also intellectually corrupted. Facts won’t support hysterical and violent hatred of African American people. One has to move into and inhabit a bizarre fantasy world in order to sustain a hatred of that intensity. Science and scholarship and knowledge don’t comport easily with bizarre fantasies.
The South lived a racist nightmare for a long time. (More deeply, more intensely, more flat out crazily than other parts of the country, though others were affected, too.) The region is only now beginning to emerge from that nightmare. The emergence is not yet complete.
I was going to give a one word answer to this question:
slavery
Yes, I agree and as a part of that nightmare, the South has what I call a devotion to control. Like the man (men) on the hill who controlled the workers in the textile mill, the teachers in the school, the ministers in the church, the small people in the society at large.
The champions of the little guy, the unions, have had a tremendous struggle in the South fighting these forces of social control. They still do; that’s one reason why change is coming so slowly to our friends in this region.
Education will help and so will the internet. But reich wing radio and those apostles of hate on TV are a constant brake on the chances for change in this part of our world. Hopefully, prosperity will melt a lot of the old time religious and military fervor but it might take quite a while before good times reach the backwaters of West Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi. And, now, with a depression looming over all of us, I am not exactly sanguine about the growth of progressive movements south of that old Mason-Dixon line.
hhmmmnn. yeah. control. it’s sort of a theme, isn’t it? friend of mine (a female woman person) opened a small store in a southern state. she’s now back here in the North. She says that the hatred and rage she encountered as a woman in charge of a small, inconsequential space, really freaked her out. I bet it’s part and parcel, as it were, of the whole ‘control’ thing.
I think the attitudes that make the South different originated some 150 years before the Civil War and stem from the plantation economy and it’s choice of slave labor.
To keep costs low plantations became as economically self sufficient as possible, relying on government only for recapturing slaves and discouraging bandits.
Under those circumstances taxes became seen as payment of protection money rather than an investment in civilization.
To keep their children from endangering the family livelihood any sympathy with the slaves had to be prevented at an early age because the methods used to maintain the slave based economy were and are still regarded as heinous crimes in most parts of the world: corporal punishment, kidnapping, forceful separation of children from their parents, lynching. What is taught at ages 3, 4, or 5 tends to stay with you. I have noticed that many Southerners and those falling under their influence through migration or the military still regard sympathy or respect for African Americans as a serious mental defect.
I believe the stress on gracious hospitality also has a plantation class genesis, since in an isolated rural setting a visitor who can be relied on to return favors received would be an invaluable source of entertainment, social reinforcement and possible spouses for the children.
Depends. Where in the South are you talking about? Do you mean the Virginia South or Louisiana South? The South’s politics change pretty radically from state to state. Hell, the South’s politics change pretty radically from town to town.
During the election, I emphasized three states: Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.* We won two and came pretty close in the third. Those are the “New South,” with the big, fast-growing liberal cities anchoring increasingly-liberal suburbs. The rest is nowhere close to being within reach for us.
If you’re in Charlotte or Atlanta, well, hell, the South is plenty liberal, more so than much of the North. You still have some of the racist garbage, but there’s plenty of that in the North, too.
But if you’re in Shreveport, it’s as stupid and fucked up as it was fifty years ago (and fifty years from now it’ll probably be just as stupid and fucked up as it is today).
*Note: I don’t include Florida, as Florida is its own little planet. Anybody who’s lived there should know what I mean.
Better late than never, a response. You are right about Florida. It comes in patches, from eclectic, cosmo Miami (that isn’t waiting for the Historicos to get their Republican pay-off any more) to redneck Jacksonville. Many people have moved there from the rust belt,and they are afraid the problems will follow. It may be in patches the most racist area of the country, simply due to fear and ignorance because the oldsters move into areas where bunches of people don’t speak English, and they haven’t been used to that before.
I’ve lived in Texas for about 13 years now. Not proud of it, just a fact of my existence. Or penance. Take your pick.
Slavery is too easy. The real question is, “how does the institution of slavery change a culture and a people, and why does it do so?”
Bonus points if you bring up torture and its impact on those who are forced to interact with those who torture on a daily basis. Double bonus points if you can work in the Jewish experience for the thousand or so years after they were freed from Egyptian enslavement.
Digby had a post up in Nopvember that touched on this.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/whining-for-honor-by-digby-paul-waldman.html
Scroll down a bit and read about the book “Southern Honor” by Bertram Wyatt, and then read the quotes Digby pulled from another piece she’d found that parallels the Wyatt book.
I don’t see stereotyping in this; rather I see particular behaviors sourced to cultural dogma and custom. And I see many of these customs now being easily exploited by a political propaganda effort from the right that celebrates ignorance and xenophobia.
Don’t include my part of the ‘South’ in your opinion of the south. Draw a line a little east of Houston, extend it to Dallas to the Oklahoma line. I wouldn’t live there on a bet. You can throw in most of the Panhandle area and parts of west Texas as well. Come to my town of Corpus Christi and you will find one of the friendliest cities in the country, as you would also find in Austin, San Antonio and especially the Rio Grande Valley. Don’t be an asshole and you’ll get along just fine. As for what’s wrong with the rest of what I consider ‘The South’, lack of decent education, fundamentalist religious interferrence in almost every aspect of daily life and inbreeding could be the culprits.