The Way We Are Now—Sigh!
"For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth with darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness."
—Ecclesiastes 6:4
"Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?"
—Ecclesiastes 8:4
"Our" President says that those of us who blame Islam for terrorism are as bad as terrorists. Thanks, Mr. President. Is this what you mean by "Born Again"?
He also says that anyone who blames Islam rather than "extremists" for "terrism" is unAmerican.
The Massachusetts Kennedys beat the Connecticut Bushes in at least one way. They did not make their very dumbest boy President.
The Wall Street Journal has declared that, historically, Islam has been better for business than Christianity.
Sorrows of Empire. A HIGH RANKING Afghan police official, in my town for a course, committed a rape. He could not be persuaded that he had done anything wrong. Also in the heart of Old Carolina: Parents of children in an elementary school class, comparing notes, became concerned about their children's lack of progress. Inquiry revealed that the teacher was spending most of her time coping with two Mexicans.
My Scalawag Senator Lindsey Graham not too long ago told the Mexicans that those of us who oppose the Bush/Kennedy illegal alien benefits bill are “bigots” who will be made to shut up. This statesman now presents himself as the patron of the putative wall on the southern border. Does this make him a bigot? Does this mean that he should be shut up?
Sanctuary City Mayor Guiliani came to town recently. He declared strongly for the border wall and other tough immigration measures and is making immigration control the sole theme of his pre-primary media ads. Does this make him a bigot? Does this mean that he should be shut up?
The only relevant question here is how many lies will the public gulp down?
Watch out for politicians who have just discovered how desirable is the wall. It would seem that they have settled on this talk as a way to quiet down the plebs until they can bring the amnesty back.
"If only Longstreet had . . . " (O. Henry)
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I don't think it is a good idea, usually, to treat any human writer in absolute terms, either as the best or the worst or to look at him from the perspective only of the misuse to which his works have been put. Augustine is a wonderful writer. He is one of those few writers whose presence you can almost smell within their prose. At times, his prose is as sinuous as Proust's. Yes, he is self-absorbed, and, no, he did not settle many questions definitively, and there are parts of the Civitas Dei I find hypocritical and even duplicitous, though one has to take into consideration what his world was going through. Augustine, in other words, is not Thomas. On the other hand, in bearing witness to his own time and his own character, he has brought carloads of people to the faith and inspired even larger numbers of he faithful. To deny him his significance would be like repudiating The Sun Also Rises simply because Hemingway turned into a lying stinker.
"Shared memory, as Mel Bradford pointed out, is an essentially paleoconservative apex. In the South, there is a shared memory of everything. Hell, the past isn’t even past yet. And I’m not talking about the Civil War. Just think of the gossiping in Steel Magnolias.
What all this amounts to is an American cultural identity, something absent among the Yanks, who care nothing about each other, much less a shared past. And, no, Mexicans are not a refuge for western civilization, and definitely not an apex."
All the same, the South, as many on this forum argue, IS different. Southern-specific memories are something many well-meaning northerners do not, and could never, share. We have some overlap, but I would hardly call the South a universal "place of refuge" for the disaffected.
Plus, as has already been stated, it will not be a land of refuge much longer. All the trends say that in the coming years you will see many more "ethnicities"--Puritan and otherwise--than you ever cared to see.
For my own part, I have seen many ethnicities. There aren't really that many that I *disliked* per se, but often I found they were diluted by the all-consuming American materialist machine. At any case there are some cultures that simply do not mix well with Anglo culture. This is definitely the case for the Latinos we encounter in urban areas: it is not real Latin American culture. More often they come up here and do everything they're not supposed to do back home. Dr. Trifkovic once said something to the effect of, "It is for their sake, too, that we must close off the leaky border."
RE:Wilson's original post. I agree that politicians are using the "fence" to garner support among we prolet. But the official amnesty that was defeated now reverts back to the unofficial amnesty (in place since IRCA '86). Once any one of these political whores is safely in office they will continue to do non-enforcement enforcement and continuing registration of illegals to vote till...well I won't bore with the predictable outworking.
re #51. Amen.
I'd love a debate between St. Augustine and Livy. I'd pay money to see that!
St. Augustine Was Horny the Other Was Livid.
Or so said the headlines in the morning paper. There was a heckler. (sid?)
sid, serious if you're not the cutest in so many ways, propositional guy i've ever met... i don't know what? ... tie me to an anthill and smear my ears with jam - (no, wait on second thought thank god that's just a saying.)
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Thanks Sid, your defence of Augustine was well put. And Dr. Fleming, I agree that Augustine was a great writer - I just think that he hijacked Christianity to a place more like the Old Testament rather than like Jesus and Paul. Fortunately, Aquinas opened the window and brought in some fresh air. But, Luther and Calvin slammed the window shut - Western culture needed more Erasmus and less Manicheism.
re#56. Tom, I don't agree at that St. Augustine took the Faith to a place more like the Old Testament. And he was one of chief opponents of Manichaeism; having once been a follower, he knew what was wrong with it. (By the way, sometimes I wonder if there is just a very slight trace of Manichaeism in St. John of the Cross, a Doctor of the Chuch and the supreme master, with St. Teresa, of Christian mysticism as he otherwise is.)
Allow me to say that some Christians have a very wrong view of the Old Testament, or of Judaism in general. Without referring to you at all, let me say:
1. To say "the Old Testament is the book of wrath and the New Testament is the book of love" is to be a Biblical illiterate. There's plenty of wrath in the New, plenty of love in the Old, including "love your enemies". For the supreme expression of the ethical ideal of the O.T., in my opinion, take a look at Job 31:1-40, though verses 38-40, because of a scribal error, might be out of their original order.
2. To say "The O.T. is the book of law, and the N.T. is the book of grace", or that Judaism is a works righteousness religion, is equally wrong. Check out the New Perspectives on Paul movement, and start with E. P. Sanders _Paul and Palestinian Judaism_ (1977). I have read that Sanders, now acclaimed in many circles, had trouble even getting published. After reading this and successive books by Sanders (_Jesus and Judaism_[1985], Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People_[1983]) I have wondered how classical Protestantism still can have any Biblical authority. (I'm sure nonetheless that Dr. Wolf will set me right about this!) As a Catholic, I have found myself wondering how a Protestant could take the position Sanders does and not come over to the 6th session of the Council of Trent. (I'm sure I'll be set right about this too!) By the way, his _The Historical Figure of Jesus_ (1993) is, in my opinion, the first scholarly attempt at a biography of Our Lord since Schweitzer shut down such efforts (Geschichte der Leben Jesu Forschung [1913] aka _The Quest For the Historical Jesus_).
The O.T. and Judaism give primacy to Grace. Israel's election is not merited de jure but given utterly by Grace. The Torah and The Tradition are free gifts from Almighty God. Paul was well aware of this; had Luther and Paul met, they would not have understood each other.
3. The O.T. has the Paschal Mystery as well (Exodus 1-20), the suffering servant (Isaiah), and abundant forgiveness (also Isaiah, and elsewhere), and the salvation of the gentiles. Our Lord himself was very familiar with Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Daniel -- the whole O.T. -- He being among other things a rabbi at the synagogue in Capernaum. He may, so some N.T. scholars speculate, have once been a student in the Pharisaic School. Even to understand His and Paul's message, one needs the O.T.
Put simply, the O.T. is the eyeglasses to put on to read the New.
4 Jews and Catholics highly value law and believe in merit de gratia.
Sid, thank you - I appreciate your knowledge and insight. I don't claim to be a biblical scholar or an historian, just a guy trying to make some sense of things. I agree that the O.T. is very valuable and needed as a base to Christianity. I also think that the Greco-Roman world had a lot of things figured out and are very important to Western Civilization. It just seems to me that the mind set that man is fallen, leads to Calvinism ... or Rouseau as a reaction. I am also a Catholic, but I would define Original Sin as perfectionism (trying to play God). Though I don't see Man as fallen, I believe he is much more than an animal and less than God. I think that the Puritans, Calvinists, etc try to purify and perfect people, and then that causes the reaction of misguided people to expect nothing from people ( that it's ok for them to act like an animal - Michael Vick). I also think that the South had more of the Roman sense of being noble - that it wasn't only a Christian sense of honor.
Err, I wouldn't guess from th e comments, but wasn't this article about wether it is Islam or not that is terrorist? Or do i misread between the lines? To me what is implied is that, Islam is terrorist, and Bush is a traitor or something to suggest otherwise.
If that is what is meant , I find it utterly reprehensible, unsupportable, inflamatory, unnecessary, foolish.
Is it Ok to publish this kind of thing in Chronicles, and so obviously true to th e spirit of its editorial or readership, that it goes unchallenged?
"4 Jews and Catholics highly value law and believe in merit de gratia." -Sid
Seriously speaking for the moment, I (personally) prefer judaism (sort of like James v. Paul) but personally speaking again I prefer my judaism to have a peace-driven rather than a conquest driven shiloh or messiah or christ, like Jesus the Essene, later become in myth and/or reality as you like, Jesus Christ.
I suspect, I don't know - that christians don't mix it up enough...in easily enough accepting that it's an imperfect world and so are we all. Athens so to speak won them over there (in their/our religion) in wanting to 'understand' it all (or turn toward abstraction) before sort of accepting imperfect's perfect Here in this world, so to speak. jews on the other hand, I suspect - I don't know, tend to automatically accept chaos as the given and then decide to 'just DO something, anything is better', prior to then listening or learning... ? I place a high standard on the word 'know' ... so that's why I think here out loud without professing to 'know.'
The thing to know about the old testament is that it's myth (excellent and inspired literature for the most part) mostly and history very little. There was no Exodus ... there was no Solomon or David ... or Babylonian exile... the generous persian king cyrus liked some jews in his acquaintance and helped them to build a temple in terms of the resources he advanced. And even though in believing their own 'literature' - jews may have thought it was the 'second' one ... really it was the first, historically speaking. Whether that 'story' is true per se or not we don't know... but construction on that (first, not second temple in reality) dates to around 500 B.C.
That's really when any verifiable history acutally starts to begin, and so 'jewish' peoples aren't the very ancient or much older culture they themselves often tend to think of themselves as being.
All of civilization as opposed to mere culture is based on greek civilization and later what rome took from the greek and added to it of their own. The greeks for example are an actual ancient civilization which all subsequent civilizations of the west starting with Rome first, and then our own simply copied. As for our christian religion that was judaic influenced, as well as greek. Both judaism per se and islam per se are religions whose teaching themselves pit them against the christian or christianity, in ways that christians themselves by and large don't yet seem to appreciate.
One of the 'reasons' I like judaism as a religion is that it understands and teaches outright the limitations of human reason and that LAW and the Lord who dispensed the Law did so to make up for the inevitable limitations of human beings. That in itself is the equivalent of a 'fall' as a given, those limitations themselves. Whereas the Law and Lord or God are transcendant of our own experience, we cannot transcend our experience except if God (& His Laws/implicit) is willing. That is why there is both a belief that these laws are necessary and yet they cannot be lived up to, and so we cannot transcend except via the essentially arbitrary grace of God. Catholics are the same in this regard except they are assisted also by Christ and the holy spirit.
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Thank you Mr. Springer. I agree that Christians do not appreciate Greek civilization and that we've lost some of the Greeks' strengths. In my clumsy way, I'm trying to get at where the Puritan mindset comes from. I believe that Puritanism is at the heart of the Left and the neo-con Right. It seems to me that paleo-cons are much like the Jeffersonian Founders and that Puritans/Neo-cons/Empire builders took over the United States in 1865. I also feel much more akin with Southern Europe than with Northern Europe, even though I'm a native Minnesotan and a combination of German, Norwegian, and Scottish. I'm a Catholic, but I don't relate to the O.T. ... and am more comfortable with Roman law.
I'd much appreciate your thoughts.
Dear Tom Abts,
Please allow me to butt into your conversation. I agree with your last statement, #61. Clyde Wilson talks about this topic, and you may wish to comb through what he has written (online or printed) and wait for him to broach this topic again in his column here.
I certainly think there is a thread running from Puritanism to Unitarianism to Yankee capitalism to neo-marxism (ie, neoliberalism/neoconservatism).
What I see is an egoistical arrogance and a disdain for consequences of one's acts on others. As Puritans, they imagined themselves God's Chosen, and took for themselves names like "Shamgar" and "Jeshophat," rejecting 1500 years of adopting names from saints. Their "shining city on a hill," wasn't America but themselves. They had become group self-worshippers so that rejecting orthodox religion in favor of Unitarianism was easy.
When religion died, there were no longer bounds to preying on others to make a buck. They made war on the Union so they could make the South their own plantation. When they caught a whiff of Socialism brewing in Europe, they realized that it would allow them to centralize government further than they already had to make government the vindictive guardian of their personal fortunes.
The Yankee nation was dead by 1953, when the last heir to the Puritans (Cabot-Lodge) lost to Kennedy, a descendant of the despised Irish. But the contagion didn't die. The new Puritans, the neos, still hold to self-righteous moralizing and arrogant disregard for the real consequences to their political actions.
PcH, thank you for your comments - I hope everyone "butts" in, this blog attracts a lot knowledgable/insightful people. I've read much of Prof. Wilson writings over the years and am thankful for his perspective and that he shares it so eloquently. I believe that his foreword to Belloc's CHARLES I and his book about Pettigrew point to a Northern European Puritanism that carried over to New England and not the South. I'm just wondering if that Puritanism is a result of the Reformation and rooted in Augustine. I'd appreciate any help.
"In my clumsy way, I’m trying to get at where the Puritan mindset comes from. I believe that Puritanism is at the heart of the Left and the neo-con Right." -Tom Abts
I envy your backround. So right off the bat, at least on that level, you pass the envy test. Puritans are no fun. And fun lasts, so one can infer puritans are young and like adolescents in the process of change. The notion of a transcendant God also beyond this totality tends to stoke the premature spiritual ambitions of so-called puritans. Like adolescents (and we all remember that) they want to snap their fingers and 'be there' ... Or worse, as you've noticed the 'ambition' itself, especially if thwarted - then wants to get 'there' by hook or by crook as the crow flies = how a. hamilton would 'do' life. But that's where we're all still at or confined (even if folks like me and you are Also elsewhere) since he 'won' for a couple hundrend years.
Soon the pendulum then will begin to slowly, inevitably swing in the other direction... and it will be the same dictum - to be 'there' or be square.
dig, man? So in that regard since jerusalem made popular the notion of a transcendant God - who may or may not be - (it's a matter of faith) - it's a jerusalem victory in that narrow regard - rather than an athen's victory - or Only looking for God or the divine right here in the sky above tall grass ones you love etc. I'm a sucker when it comes to endorphin release, the brain's natural painkillers - and so I go for both, being of and/or the divine and often simultaneously. If there's even something more than that (*humorously* speaking), brother, i'm covered - i BELIEVE. But here in the world thought is important too, just like belief has its place. Both.
better perhaps to make questions you wish answered as specific as you'd like. it's flattering of you to ask me. I don't mind being the shell answer man - seriously - It's probably a good idea if you want to speak to someone not only wanting to be totally honest...actually able to be...within the context of my own imperfections. What does that mean? I notice i'm rather honest especially relatively speaking compared to others here in the world today and so i infer that means somehow i can be? As T. French has said about something else 'simple, yes. Easy (yes for me but apparently not for those around me), except French appropriately said no, not so easy.'
Fun is perennial like the grass. The grass is the closest thing one can get to infinity in this world (assuming one has a hankering for infinity?) -?- Walk on it barefoot, lay down upon it. Or one misses the point. (Youthful) puritans, sadly would be avoiding that part of it.
Oh, as for the OT... i like genesis... which essentially says transcendant god or no-transcendant god love the ground you walk upon and accept your own limitations or things will get worse, inevitably. [Perhaps we're different in that regard] - there's an UNKNOWABLE G-d I could love... call me crazy? There are so many powers greater than myself - i tend to prefer that one. ? To each his own.
Fun is good practice for joy (often includes it) ... and you know what the sages of old used to say - nope, can't get to heaven unless we pass the angel of joy.
________________
Tom Abts,
You have read some of Wilson that I haven't (yet).
My priest is an Augustinian who doesn't like Puritans; I'll ask him what he thinks.
Tom, I'm Xian or Christian (catholic) ... all our jewish friends and relatives, were made to realize that...
"My priest is an Augustinian who doesn’t like Puritans; I’ll ask him what he thinks." -PcH
Quick question what does PcH mean? does it mean you -PcH-, albeit catholic are working for the pharmaceutical industry? I kid. (Humor.) Hope it wasn't a dumb question, it probably was-
_________________
"I’m just wondering if that Puritanism is a result of the Reformation and rooted in Augustine."
Tom, Puritanism is by definition the result of the Calvinist Reformation. I have argued above that the Reformers took what they wanted from Augustine, and that Augustine would not have approved of the Reformers.
I'll take a look again at Weber's _The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism_ (written to refute Marx), and see if the Reformers developed their social ethics from any Augustinianism. My guess is, no.
tom - the scum who 'answers' you in the form of sid ... has no talent for life.
the poetic observation: 'teach us to care and not to care.' - all i could do was indicate via sharing i care... as for the other all i can do, is NOT care.
you'll find for the most part in this world... scum is scum... sadly.
What about Lutherans? A few days ago I went to a funeral at an Evangelical Lutheran Chuch - I don't mean to be disrespectful, but everywhere in the church lobby was information about their global mission. The deceased was the father of an old friend of mine (not known for his warm relationships with his children). But during the service, a stranger got up and talked about how the deceased had helped pay his mortgage, got him on his feet, etc. Now, I'm not slamming acts of charity, but I found it interesting that this cold fish of a father whose kids felt unloved, was this great man of charity. Isn't that out of the Puritan's playbook?
Into this fray I will jump with supposition, theories and hypotheses that I have cobbled together over the years, beginning with a glance some years back, about thirty, at a demographic map of France that showed a correlative between the Protestant sections of France, mostly Calvinist and the socialist areas of the 19th century.
My mind then jumped to Prussia to which many of these French Calvinist Protestants fled and to the "evangelische Amtskirche" of Germany which is a hybrid of Lutheran and Calvinist churches.
From there, it was no big leap to Hegel, who, although he was well on his way to Deism, was essentially a Calvinist and understood Providence's mechanism for predestining the unfolding universe to be the dialectic: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Marx, a left-wing Hegelian, essentially did away with Providence but kept the mechanism of the dialectic and even embraced historische Notwendigkeit (historical necessity), believing as a secularized Calvinist, as it were, that society was inexorably unfolding toward and into a communist condition with dialectical materialism as its means. Hegel still proclaimed that Consciousness (God in some) form preceded being (that which the Consciousness made evident of itself. Marx stood Hegel on his head and proclaimed that being (matter) preceded consciousness. Hegel still embraced Kant's "Platonic" dichotomy of Wirklichkeit (reality in the noumen) versus Realität (reality in the phenomenon). Marx, of course, said that there is only Realität and not Wirklichkeit. This is reflected in Brecht's famous line, "Zuerst das Brot, und erst dann die Moral." (First bread and only then morality.) It is also reflected in the East German motto, "der real-existierrende Sozialismus" (Socialism based on the "concrete real') rather than a Utopian socialism. There is, nevertheless, an objective correlative to Marx and Calvinism through Hegel, Marx's inversion of Hegel notwithstanding.
On the American side of the house, the Puritans of New England embraced, in my opinion a heresy, namely that they could create, in microcosm in a Puritan community, the kingdom of God on this Earth through law and custom enforced by the congregation and its pastors. The real role of the Church has been to inform a society but never to become the polity of that society or to genuflect to the polity of that society. The Puritans demanded both: that they be the polity and that all, even the strangers among them, genuflect to them. The friction point of the Puritan worldview and that of a more liberal Christianity is found in Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. At that time, the Hudson Valley was Dutch and outside the realm of the Purtians. Ichabod (God forsaken - irony), the Puritan schoolmaster (note he who teachers others to become like him) becomes the vector of the Puritan pathogen in the Dutch community. (This is, in my opinion, what the story is really about.)
Overtime, the New Englanders spilled across the Hudson and demographically overran the Old Midwest - Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. This caused a shift in the cultural fault line of America. The West, having been settled primarily by Southerners, especially along the Ohio, had at one time a natural affinity to the South. By the 1840's, this had shifted: New Englanders were dominant in the region.
There emerged within New England Puritanism an ancient heresy: Arianism! The Christ was dethroned as the I Am which He claimed to be and made a demi-god. This phenomenon is called, of course, Unitarianism. Once the Christ is dethroned, the way is open to rapid secularization. St. Paul tells us not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by and in the Christ. The Unitarian/transcendentalist disciples of secularized Puritanism who claim that they, their faction and the collective would be the transforming agent and not the Christ. Thus, these messianic but secularized Puritans spread the commons and its collective across the northern part of the United States; yet, they retained their belief that they were the "reality" to be emulated and to be, if necessary, imposed on others by force. They merely had to wait for a political faction/party to take what had been an isolated town phenomenon and make it a national phenomenon. They would find it in the Republican Party and in Lincoln. One notes the irony how much Lincoln resembled Irving's description of Ichabod. Lincoln, particularly in the cult of death, became for these secular Puritans the new messiah.
What does this have to do with Marx and the Germans? It relates two ways. The transcendentalists of New England were heavily influenced by German Romanticisms, particularly the Protestant current of that movement. Marx actually became an advocate of the Union cause. By the end of the war (Dr. Wilson can correct this percentage if I have remembered it incorrectly), one in four Union soldiers were Germans, many of whom had left Germany after the failed revolution and unification and had brought both their juxtaposed nationalist and socialist ideals to America. They would be well rewarded for their service to the Union through the Homestead Act. (Again, Dr. Wilson can probably give more accurate insight here.)
Thus as the two currents of secularized Puritanism merged in the 1960's, one via Marx and the other via the Unitarians, the perfect storm thereof fell upon America and has scattered ever since!
That is both a very rough outline and also my story; and I'm stickin' to it!
That should have read "1860's"!!!
"Now, I’m not slamming acts of charity, but I found it interesting that this cold fish of a father whose kids felt unloved, was this great man of charity. Isn’t that out of the Puritan’s playbook?" - Tom Abts
Tom you're hopeless. what's the i.q.? -not being able to differentiate between the personal and the public and what they mean...
possibly you sought my help in that regard. doubt i can help.
we'll have the i.q. tests, like mensa for you to take... have them double checked by another independent source is recommended so no one thinks it was rigged.
if you're 'smart' - tie me to an anthill and smear my ears with jam... ouvh.
-blesses
p.s. you probably screw better than I (I hope.)
Thank you Mr. Peters, you filled in a lot the gaps. What about the current cultures of Spain and Italy?
Mr. Springer, I still enjoy your comments - I don't mind appearing dull if it leads to lively and free-wheeling discussions. Also, I try to combine theoretical with personal ... whether it's religious, ethnic, geographical,etc. For example, I don't see heavy-duty tattooing and piercing in Southern Europe like I do in Northern Europe. I think that such self-abuse is a reaction to Puritanism.
Tom Abts,
Here is what my pastor says:
Dear Mr. Peter,
Nearly 1/4 of Union soldiers, were foreign not "German."
According to Bell I. Wiley, the numbers are: 200,000 Germans, 150,000 Irish, 45,000 English, 15,000 Canadians. Also, the typical European recruit was poor and uneducated and had nothing but an unknown future at stake; arguments about ideology (including Hegelianism, Calvinism, Marxism, socialism) seldom apply.
The high number of foreign recruits attests to the unpopularity of Lincoln's war and his onslaught against the American genius of freedom. The war also began the subsequent flood of Irishmen and others, thereby creating the Celtic-Italian uniqueness of the Northeast today.
Some trivia on Midwestern settlement: New England nationalists such as Madison Grant claim to have dominated the settlement of the Midwest, but give little reliable evidence beyond a few scattered colonies. The dialects of the lower Midwest and the Far West have a phonemic structure very much like the South's, but the phonemic structure of the Great Lakes region is a transition between the lower Midwest and the Northeast. The evidence from dialects suggests that Southerners dominated the Lower Midwest and Far West, and the Northeast (especially the Midatlantic states) the Upper Midwest. (For example, Michiganians say "WiscAnsin" and Chicagoans say "ChicAGGo" and their speech sounds nasal to the majority of the country: their phonemic structure shows strong Northeastern influence.)
Sorry, Mr. Peters; I forgot the 's' in your name above.
Dear Mr. Springer,
PcH are my initials and an acronym for a place near which I was born. The little 'c' is a little touch of style. Thanks for asking.
Broadly speaking, the Midwest was first settled by Southerners and people from the Middle States. New Englanders came late, except for a few isolated areas like northern Ohio abd scattered individuals. From about 1848, as cities like Chicago and Detroit took off, New Englanders and German immigrants came in larger numbers. It was this demograpic change that allowed Lincoln to carry the Midwest and win election---there were still just as many Democrats but they were now outnumbered. Almost all the mountain men and explorers of the Rockies were Southerners.
The Pacific received settlers from many quarters, but the first Senator from California was born in Mississippi and the first Senator from Oregon was born in North Carolina. It should be pointed out that the New England latecomers to the Midwest as usual put on airs and looked down on the original settlers as backward "hoosiers." It should also be pointed out that settlers from New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey disliked the "Yankees" and their ways as much as did Southerners.
Dear Dr. Wilson,
Thanks for restating that.
I guess the point I was trying to make is that the South is not the exceptional part of the USA, but the essential part. New England is exceptionalist, as we all agree here. Ole Virginny mothered the whole country but up there.
I wish there was more work available using the evidence from dialects, but for most, linguistics is a foreign language. I find this little tool fascinating, and I put it out here to see how it may fit with good history.
The phoneme is a very basic linguistic concept and probably the most important, so it is an easy way to trace where a dialect came from. The basic change from east to west is the simplification of vowels, including the loss of diphthongs. The lower Midwest obeys Southern phonemic rules, but with that simplification. The Far West is most like the lower Midwest, but even less nasal and less staccato -- and so more like the South.
When California formally approved the secession of southern California (it was to be called Colorado) in 1859, one reason was that the people then were predominantly Southern, whereas the the north was predominantly Midwestern (although with a sizable Southern minority). For example, one of the reasons given in an initial petition for the secession was that they spoke a different language. Presumably, that was Southern. That means the dialect region of the South stretched West all the way from Texas through the Confederate Territory of Arizona to the Pacific.
No wonder Lincoln quashed southern California's secession and right away made up a new Federal territory with its name, "Colorado."
Old ranching families of California still sound a bit like west Texas. And southern California natives (not the fruits, nuts, and Orange County money-fiends that moved there after WWII) speak with a rounder sound than the northern. I figure southern California would sound like west Texas today if there was no great movement West to the suburbs in the 20th century. Choice of words out West are still more like the South than the Northeast. For example, they say "pin" instead of "pen" and have always used the word "cute."
There's a funny thing about the word "Coke." I remember my grandmother arguing with my father because he called it "Pop." She said that was just something "those people from Iowa" said. Sometime around the 1980s, the word "soda" was introduced. School teachers insisted we use that since "not every soft drink was Coka-Cola." Then restaurants started getting smart-alecky and said "We have Pepsi here. Would you like that instead." The result is that people became schizophrenic. If you were normal, they would say "Coke." If they thought you were a pedant, they would say "soda." The result is that on map of "Coke" here: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3331/1734/1600/Popsodacoke.1.gif , the far Southwest weakly says "soda." I think it's only pale yellow because people think survey-takers are officious: they tell them "soda," then go to McDonald's and ask for a "coke."
Anyway, many Southerners seem to know that many of them moved out West after the war. They are always surprised when I tell them that they founded it.
Overtime, the New Englanders spilled across the Hudson and demographically overran the Old Midwest - Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. This caused a shift in the cultural fault line of America. The West, having been settled primarily by Southerners, especially along the Ohio, had at one time a natural affinity to the South. By the 1840’s, this had shifted: New Englanders were dominant in the region.
Could someone knowledgeable about the history culture of Wisconsin and the "political" attitudes of the people there write more on this?
"demographically overran the Old Midwest"
That didn't happen. Madison Grant was wrong. Clyde Wilson is righter.
Grant had the typical New England arrogance---only New Englanders count as Americans. Settling the West doesn't happen unless New Englanders are doing it. Thus, while brave Southern men were conquering and settling the wilderness, Thoreau's little frog pond at Boston became the supposed symbol of American independence and outdoor life. And Parkman's work on New Englanders on the Oregon Trail, which makes only a small and dull part of the story of westward settlement, becomes the supposed great work on pioneering. Grant's work is
a late product in a long long line of writings about New Englanders' racial superiority to other Americans.
Hope I livened up the debate... sorry tom abts... whoever else i ranked out - didn't seem to bother you all too much, admirably...
we all possess more than we'd like to realize (fortunately), the other side of human nature.
regards,
PcH, if you're still watching this discussion, do you know where the boundary between the proposed Southern California state of Colorado and the rest of California would have run? Are there any internet resources about this proposed state?
Allen Wilson,
Online there may be something in a California SCV camp newsletter. I am not sure.
As for the boundaries, I am going solely by memory so I apologize for being sketchy.
The first time I saw a map was by accident as an undergrad wandering around the state government records section of the library. I pulled out a book that held the details of everything. I love maps, so I studied it, and made photocopies that I have probably lost. More recently, I found a book on eBay by a professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo called _California in the War for Southern Independence_. I think I ran across another map since then, in which case it was from an internet search.
The traditional boundary between north and south are the Tehachapis, and if you have been there, that makes perfect sense. The original proposal was to cut the state off there, curving the border in the mountains south of the San Joaquin Valley (where they have WBS battle enactments at Fort Tejon), and then up along the valley's southeastern rim to include San Luis Obispo County on the west (and I think Inyo County was included on the back side, in the east). This is the map that is in the above named book. However, it is not the final one agreed to. San Luis Obispo objected to being connected to the proposed territory only on its southern edge. The boundary approved is simpler: the northern boundaries of San Luis Obispo, modern Kern and the gigantic San Berdoo Cos (I think) -- a straight line. (By the way, at 8,000 feet up in remote mountains of San Bernardino Co was a famous Confederate hideout: Holcomb Valley. Some of their old log cabins are still there.)
The proposal was to cut off the southern part as a territory and there were special provisions put in advance for its admission as a state.
In case anyone is following the above by mentally tracing with a finger, I should have said "...then up along the valley's southWESTERN rim..."
Thank you, PcH. I had wondered about Southern California for some time. It seemed to me a logical assumption that if Arizona territory had been settled by Southerners, then, since they had already gone that far west, they also would have crossed the Colorado and continued to the west coast. Now we all know.
You're welcome.
It's too bad things have changed just a wee little bit out there since then. Damn Yankees took over...