Colin Woodard: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America [2011]
Woddard's take on Trump victory
https://medium.com/s/balkanized-america/the-american-nations...
The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
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Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#32It's interesting to see how canned phrases to represent certain concepts can become nonsensical when put together : > The Deep South was established by English slave lords from Barbados and was styled as a West Indies-style slave society, Woodard notes. It has a very rigid social structure and fights against government regulation that threatens individual liberty. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and So…
Thinking about who has the vote back when the USA became independent, I think of those lords as being close in character and power to dark age European kings, and I mentally map their slaves to feudal serfs.[0] My cynical reading is that describes an attitude of “if you let someone else tell you what to do that makes you a peasant, so when we do it it’s fine because we do it to peasants, but when other people do some…
> who has the vote
Years ago I saw a book on the history of extending the franchise in the US. One story stuck with me. In some early close vote to extend franchise to those (white males) with wealth but not land, one proponent described his decision as something vaguely like "If I thought for a moment, that the US would every be anything but an agrarian nation, I would of course share my colleagues concerns, and oppose this measure. But thankfully...". Franchise extension by misjudgement. I wonder if that's a pattern?
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#33I had always divided the US into four separate countries but Woodard's theory of 11 isn't so far off.
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#34I don't know for you, but all images were 404 in this article for me.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170905210806/https://www.busin...
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#35There's a really interesting discussion of this on the Cracked Podcast: https://www.earwolf.com/episode/the-11-nations-of-america...
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#36American state boundaries clearly do not reflect these national regions. Federal states have boundaries that either serve to unite separate territories or to administer a united territory. It has probably a source of strength in the US, that states are either much too small or contain multiple different areas in them, since it fosters a broader, national US identity rather than an identity as a New Netherlander or a…
Switzerland seems to be doing OK as a counterexample. Its cantons have a high level of self-government and a history as independent states and cultures. Yet Switzerland is a prosperous country with a strong national identity and minimal talk of secession by the cantons.
Smaller countries are far less likely to suffer from secessionist or identitarian agitations, especially small and wealthy countries like Switzerland. Comparison to Switzerland and similar countries is not instructive.
This is especially true for language. Linguistic division within countries is often a source of tension, even in smaller countries. In larger countries, it is almost assuredly going to lead to tension, especially so during times of hardship. This is why the United States must remain an English speaking country. Major regional linguistic differences would quickly fuel secessionist energy in the US, given how much diversity already exists even with relative linguistic homogeneity.
Just to harp on the language point a bit more: language is the soil in which culture grows, and a unified culture is critical for any functioning entity, whether that be a family, a corporation, a club, or a country.
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#37It's interesting to see how canned phrases to represent certain concepts can become nonsensical when put together : > The Deep South was established by English slave lords from Barbados and was styled as a West Indies-style slave society, Woodard notes. It has a very rigid social structure and fights against government regulation that threatens individual liberty. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and So…
The author is obviously only taking about white people there. You’d have a different culture representing black folks. (I’d love to see if white culture is even dominate there or only concentrated in those with power).
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#38Colin Woodard: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America [2011] Woddard's take on Trump victory https://medium.com/s/balkanized-america/the-american-nations...
How a elite betrayed its people..
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#39American state boundaries clearly do not reflect these national regions. Federal states have boundaries that either serve to unite separate territories or to administer a united territory. It has probably a source of strength in the US, that states are either much too small or contain multiple different areas in them, since it fosters a broader, national US identity rather than an identity as a New Netherlander or a…
What do you mean by “weakness as a federal state”?
In terms of division of power between states and federal, the Canadian federal government has much more power than the US federal government.
After I learned more about it, I was quite surprised at the level of autonomy that US states have.
Re: The eleven nations of the United States and their cultures
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The definition of freedom depends on what you value, and what you value varies with time and place. Were sweatshop workers in New York City free? Ranch hand employees out west? Chinese railroad workers in the USA? Are starving workers freer than well fed slaves? Theres a big push underway now to get rid of all American civil rights in favor of security theater, will we be free once we eliminate the Bill of Rights? Ki…
> Theres a big push underway now to get rid of all American civil rights in favor of security theater Huh?
4th amendment, 2nd amendment. You really don’t see this?