What sparked the original impetus was remarking to myself (I often remark to myself, and try not to do it out loud in front of other people) that if Canadians and Americans --both historically White Anglospheric countries--have been historically different enough from each other to require separate nations, what about the differences among the current denizens of the Balkan States of America?
The founding colonists of the Original Thirteen were, as John Jay noted in The Federalist Papers, quite homogeneous; almost all descended from England. Yet they morphed from Englishmen into Americans, a new native identity. And only 80+ years later, the mitosis into Yankees and Southerners erupted in a bloody slaughter. As archetypal psychologist James Hillman pointed out, any group that names itself as "United" anything is trying hard to resist a deeper drive to fracture.
I have begun to think of the fractious groups in the increasingly unUnited States as incubating new native identities as well. Taking every group now resident within our borders --such as they are-- and calling them "Americans" really stretches the meaning of the term to the breaking point.
Nancy Pelosi recently pronounced that with the arrival of every new foreigner (my term, not hers) we actually become "more American." The logic of that mindset is that when there are no more actual Americans and the territory is occupied by foreigners entirely, America will have fulfilled its destiny as a Blank Slate "creedal nation" by being Nowhere and Everywhere.
There are certainly far more differences between Blacks and Whites in the US than there are between White Canadians and White Americans. Or than there were between Yankees and Southerners. The Latino Nation now invading us even speaks another language. And both Blacks and Latinos, as groups, define themselves historically by opposition to the Whites, whom both groups see as oppressive tyrants. Not a recipe for success. But, IMHO, a recipe for future separate countries. And that is how I have begun to see "us."
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5 comments:
Insightful content as usual.
I would quibble with you on one point, however, but only because I think it relates to a lot of the intellectual terrain that you frequent.
I think that, even as recently as the 1970s, the evidence suggested that the cultural divide between Yankees and Southerners was, in fact, larger than the one between black and white America at large. This is an argument taken up by Jim Goad in "The Redneck Manifesto," but it received an even fuller treatment (and all the academically-necessary sociological data) in "The Enduring South" by John Reed.
It also makes sense from a historical perspective, the agrarian whites of the Old South were ideologically committed to their way of life in a way that the Old South blacks weren't. And so their long-term opposition to the ideals of the industrialized, Puritan North seems like it would have been more earnest. The ex-Confederate had far more reasons to resist assimilation than the ex-slave. That's my take on it anyway.
I think that's an important distinction for a modern-day pro-Westerner to make because, in many ways, the Old South was far more Western European than the Yankee North. This is an argument taken up at some length by Richard M. Weaver in his essays "The Tennessee Agrarians" and "The Older Religiousness in the South." Weaver explicitly argues that the North represented a deviation from the ideals and practices of ancient Christendom whereas the Old South represented a New World continuation of them.
I apologize for cramming so much bibliography into this comment.
The bottom line is this: equalism and liberalism are the purview of the Yankee and most blacks have come to adopt his ideologies. The Southerner tends more towards respect for authority, hierarchy, and tradition and finds himself at odds with both groups.
As a Southerner educated by Yankees, I can attest to this tension.
Just like the Yankee rubbed the Southerners' noses in defeat during Reconstruction after the Civil War, equalist ideologues are rubbing the noses of reactionaries in defeat after the Culture Wars of post-1960s America.
So, yes, on the level of basic hardware, the Yankee and the Southerner are more similar to one another than they are to the blacks. But their worldviews and cultures have always been at great odds with one another and continue to be so today (although the Gramscian Long March through the Insitutions is looking to finish the retrograde ideals of the South once and for all).
Good points, Calen. I remember reading a bit about the Southern agrarians. And if Reconstruction was as disastrous as I suspect it was, that was reason enough for the Southern states to institute segregation and Jim Crow.
One of my takes on the current battle is that it does indeed replicate, on a larger and somewhat less regional scale, the original North/South split we had from Day One. The book Albion's Seed traces it back to the differences between the Brits who settled different regions of America.
Just pulled up Albion's Seed on Amazon. I'll have to check that one out. Thank you.
Nice to meet a new commentator on the blog, Calen! As a Yankee with Southerner blood, I've always had sympathy for the Old South. People I know who have watched "Gone with the Wind" say, "Thank goodness such an evil culture was destroyed!" I say, "Sure, the evil was destroyed, but so was the good, and more evil came of the destruction."
-Sean
I appreciate the welcome!
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