Land of the Rude, Home of the Jerk
There must be some reason or reasons, why the Jerk has become the archetypal American character. Without going too deep into themysteries of social history, here is a little experiment that might stand in for several hundred pages of tedious social history. Herewith a little theoretical foundation for my continuing study of Jerkus americanus.
Try to think of a world populated by non-Jerks, the sort of people American novelists used to describe in the early 20th century, nice people, who could take it for granted that other people in their little corner of America would also be nice, considerate, and kind—or at least act that way. Think, for example, of the characters in The Magnificent Ambersons. Apart from the hero, Georgie Minafer, they treat each other with courtesy and respect. Of course each of them has his (or her) problems, but—again, apart from Georgie—but they do not deliberately offend their friends or even the servants or put themselves constantly on stage as the center of attention.
One characteristic of such people is that they do not cheat or take advantage of each other, because they know that in their little corner, whether a town of a few thousand or in a neighborhood or social niche in a large city, the cheater, whether in business, marriage, or poker, gets a bad reputation.
To hold your own or get ahead in such a society, you have to play by the rules, because otherwise, people—and people in little tribes and villages have long memories—will hold your peccadilloes against you. I spent several years in a South Carolina village of about 500 inhabitants, most of whom were related at least to the degree of second cousin. They never forgot a blessed thing, and people went to their graves knowing that everyone else still remembered the dark secrets of their past or the stupid things they had done in their teens.
Sometimes the treasured anecdote had to do with something serious, like the story—told breathlessly in secret on three separate occasions by someone who claimed to be the only one who knew the facts—that rich old Mr. Johnson, who had recently returned after an absence of nearly 50 years, was really the illegitimate son of a pillar of the Episcopal Church.
More often, the secret was something silly. When a new family moved in about 1960, their precocious and pretentious son went into Mr. Bob's grocery store and asked for "5 cents worth of your best bubblegum." If the poor fellow had not had the wisdom to leave town once he graduated from college, he would have gone to his grave not as Chatsworth Osbourne Jr., but only as Bubblegume—no last name.[i]
As principal of the local academy, I was soon privy to much of the town's gossip, but I could still be taken by surprise. One day, when I was taking the English teacher's class, I was explaining that part of Macbeth's problem was his excessive passion for his wife. "You all understand?" "Oh yes," said one of the girls, "Just like Jennie's mama and my uncle." Jennie turned red, got up and slapped the other girl—her first cousin, by the way--and I had to give up on Macbeth. Everyone knew the story, because Jennie's parents had left the village ten years earlier to escape the gossip.
Poor Jennie's mother should have known better than to carry on even a flirtation in a small town whose moral rules were determined by four institutions: The Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal churches. For all their doctrinal differences, mainline Protestant churches (in the South at least) were uniformly and adamantly opposed to adultery. If Jennie's mother had merely got a divorce and remarried, there would have been some difference of opinion, especially if the village had had a significant Catholic population. In some Muslim cultures, the mother might have been stoned to death for adultery, while her lover, by contrast, could take several wives and cheat on all of them.
In each case, custom sets the rules, and, as Pascal so wisely observed, "custom should be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just."[ii] If men and women only followed laws and customs they believed to be just, the result would be perpetual chaos and revolution. The moral customs of the village were, for the most part, Christian and Protestant, and, while they might have offended any Muslim who came to live there (none did), they provided a pattern of expectation for everyone. Those who played by the rules or did not get caught violating them, could get along; those who were caught cheating would suffer.
According to Robert Axelrod's Theory of Cooperation, most people can be expected to play life's little games by the rules, so long as they count on interacting in the future with the same people. But, if you are leaving town—or have even thought about leaving town—the incentives to cheat rise quickly. You can bounce a check, defraud a partner, abandon a wife and escape at least the social consequences by skipping off to greater Los Angeles.
Jerks are not tolerated in small-scale societies: they are talked about or driven into exile or sent to Coventry. But imagine if you constructed a city of 10 million people, most of them from out of town, who spend a good part of each day in the company of total strangers they will never see again. This city would not operate according to a single moral code, because it would include large numbers of Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Muslims, atheists and skeptics. There might be some common agreement against murder and theft but not on such large social issues as marriage, divorce, and abortion, much less on public drunkenness, proper behavior in public places, and the tone and volume of conversations in a restaurant.
Imagine that you jammed hundreds of thousands of diverse into crowded subway cars. The result? The New York subway system, which has to be experienced to be believed. (I welcome anecdotes that I can rip off.)
Diversity breeds moral confusion, which is aggravated by the high population density that encourages a comfortable sense of anonymity. Anyone who has lived 50 or 60 years in North America can understand what has happened. As a student I used to go to various uninhabited barrier islands off the coast of South Carolina. My friends and I could bill a fire, set up tents or a lean-to, fish and swim and drink until we could not stand. At two o'clock in the morning, we would be bellowing out songs and urinating into the surf. A few years later, we would run into other parties, and one had to be a bit more careful about noise and exposure. But, despite differences of class and age, everyone shared a common sense of what was expected, and frictions were minimalized.
A decade later, when the island had been made a public beach run by the state, swimmers, fishermen, and boaters had to follow an elaborate code of rules to prevent them from interfering in each others' activities. The differing ethnic, religious, and social groups created frictions. Roistering college students came into conflict with church picnics, and Latinos, blacks, whites, and Asians soon discovered that other groups had different assumptions about public hygiene and behavior. Natural anarchy had given way to an informal community that, in the end, became so diverse and overpopulated that it required laws and armed policemen to enforce the laws.
People who live in border towns or have experience (from either side) of military occupations have often found cultural diversity confusing. American soldiers stationed in Europe in the 1950's have told me that when they got into a vituperative quarrel with young Frenchmen, the Americans would eventually throw a punch, much to the astonishment of the poor locals who thought they were engaged only in a war of words.
Jerks have always been with us, but one of several reasons why they are the dominant character in American society is precisely the density and diversity that has resulted from immigration, and every time a fight breaks out in Denny's, Burger King (just this week in Panama City Beach), or Chuck E Cheese (a fresh incident in Chicago yesterday), it means more laws, more cops. Here is the formula, for those of you who like nonmathematical subjects presented mathematically: Diversity + Density = Despotism.
[i] The real name is even stuffier than the name of the Warren Beatty character on the 1950s sitcom Dobie Gillis I have borrowed.
[ii] Pascal, Pensées, Sect. 5. 325.
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I agree. One correction: Warren Beatty was Milton Armitage in the Dobie Gillis cast. Steven Franken was Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. Franken's by far the better comedian.
Just as Nature abhors a vacuum in matters physical, so also in matters moral: When Custom retreats, Statute moves to fill the vacated place. This leads me to believe that the Left aims at dissolving custom, which rises upward from below, among the people, with intellectual-made law, formulated by deductive reason from an "ideal," in blithe indifference to human nature.
Speaking of those mob brawls at Denny's, Burger King and Chuck E. Cheese -- in each case, all participants were explosive-tempered blacks. Check the videos on You Tube if you don't believe me. If sucker-punching is a long black tradition (actually, it is), this, at least, is one tradition that should be made extinct -- or at least transported to prison. Jerks? My preferred term is "criminals."
I almost wish Seek had not pointed this out, not because it is not true and not because I have any fear of being branded a bigot, but because the fact that 90% of these incidents involve blacks undermines my argument a bit, though I do have wonderful material on whites behaving like complete Jerks, albeit less violently. There is also the repellant mixed race rumble a few days ago involving the white trash star of a reality show called something like Teenage Mothers. Criminals we have always and will always have with us. What is interesting about some of these incidents is not just the short fuse of the perpetrators but their arrogance. The black woman in her 20's, wearing a bikini, who terrorized a Burger King in Panama City, apparently walked in from the drive-through, where she had failed to receive satisfaction in getting her 3000 calories of fat and sugar, shouting, "I show them I am not playing around" and something about I get what I want. There you have the essence of the Jerk.
I have several times tried and failed to post a reply to my friend Ray. Yes, you are right both about Franken's funny character and the names. I had remembered, quite wrongly, that Franken replaced Beatty, which he did in a functional way, but Chatsworth was described as Milton's cousin.
To some degree, Jerkiness seems to be genetic. Case in point. Number one son is very selfish. Number two son is very selfless. Or maybe it's birth order.
The white girls in Denny's remind me of too many women here in Queens. Most young women here can not go more than two sentences without a curse or being rude to everyone around them, almost every second of the day. This is something I did not encounter on my few trips to the South.
I only say this about the women here because it is so much sadder to see a woman cursing in public.
Alex, it's that way here in Florida too (not really the South). They particularly love the F-word. It sounds so disgusting coming out of a young girl's mouth. For some reason, that sound of that word really carries over a long distance too.
Excellent point about anonymity as the perfect cover for jerkiness. Why not dress like a slob and have a foul mouth in public when you'll be lucky to grace your presence with those around you ever again? As far as this relates to further jerkism, a major change over the course of my life is the willingness of adults (if they can be called that) to either curse or make lewd comments around children or in the case of parents, even curse at their own kids.
I remember in one of your books you said that suburbs were the worst of both of the city and the countryside - a place just big enough to give yourself enough cover of anonymity to be a jerk without consequences.
Bruce, I agree, it just saddens me to see a girl cursing, I do not expect any better from the men around here.
A few years back in a required management course, the old professor was trying to show that being ethical had a place in the world at one time, a girl jumped in and said how she was going to "be the biggest ----- ( I can't even bring myself to repeat it) in the room because I don't care how I get ahead". It was so sad to see her and the nods of approval from the rest of the class.
"Just as Nature abhors a vacuum in matters physical, so also in matters moral: When Custom retreats, Statute moves to fill the vacated place... intellectual-made law, formulated by deductive reason from an “ideal,” in blithe indifference to human nature.
Mr. Pinkerton,
Oh, T'is true, T'is true!
Dr Fleming, I am surprised you havent brought up this lesser form of Jerkiness yet - the fatty who will wear a bikini top in public or a mini skirt which makes one think of the old 'banana peel on a watermelon' analogy.
Customs valued and enforced, even in the toughest of situation, do mitigate the actions of jerks.
This past weekend, we had, in Winnfield, Louisiana, Uncle Earl's Hog Dog Festival, a festival in which dogs - usually yellow-mouthed curs, Catahoula curs or some similar breed - bay, either as an individual dog or as a team of two, a large feral bore hog, freshly caught in the neighboring piny woods. A dog get maximum points of thirty, if he can bay and hold by motion and stare and not by biting a hog for three minutes.
For nearly five days, camped around the arena, with kids, husbands and wives, lovers and dogs of all sorts with lots of puppies for sale, is an army of rednecks, roughnecks and woods folk, swapping stories, some lies and some true, cooking around campfires and bragging on dogs. Where one going to find a jerk or two, they would be there; however, a friend of mine who is a deputy and who has been assigned over the years to the event, has told me that there is never any real trouble there.
To gather at the Hog Dog Festival is to gather at a neutral ground in which the unwritten rules are respected. The only thing written is a poster board at the entrance to the arena itself. It says no alcohol (there is plenty on the outside); no cursing (there is likely plenty on the outside) and no cameras including cell phones. Cameras and cell phones are not allowed for two reasons: they do not want someone taking a picture of the rare incident in which a dog bites a hog or a hog gores a dog; and the sound or flash can distract a dog and cause him to lose points.
In my years of attendance, I have rarely experienced someone breaking the rules. Once I experience a little girl bringing her newly bought puppy, very small, in the the arena area. Non-competing dogs are not allowed directly in the area because they can distract the competing dogs. A big man leaned down, complemented the little girl on her puppy and then told her the puppy could not be brought in and explained why, but that he knew a nice lady who ran a booth who would keep the dog while she came in. In this one incident, there were several opportunities for a jerk to appear; but he did not.
Almost every year, the Hog Dog Festival closes with a Sunday service in the arena. Most years, the evangelist who preaches is one well known in these climes. His name is Jack Daniels. Among most of those attending, his spirit is well known before his voice is heard.
This event, long embedded in habit, custom and tradition, indeed suggests that where the social order is written on men's hearts, even if it is merely that of a hog dog festival, jerks do not abound.
"became so diverse and overpopulated that it required laws and armed policemen to enforce the laws."
I once heard a lawyer from Texas tell me that he was surprised to see signs on the walls of our nations Supreme Court building that read, "No Spitting on the Walls" He said as a man with some experience with tobacco --both chewing and smoking tobacco -- the thought of spitting on court room walls never occurred to him until he read that sign. His name was Richard 'Racehorse' Haynes.
To Mr. Maxwell I say "All in due time." I have already written about 100 pp and not even taken up many basic aspects. This little piece comes from the Introduction. Still no word from any publishers, htough the proposal, it is true, has only been circulating for less than two months..
What the two Roberts are illustrating is my central point that diversity causes a breakdown in the codes of manners and morals. It is not simply a case of better behaved people falling down to a lower level but of the erosion of standards on all sides. I am reminded of a story told by Ralph Abernathy, when a publisher's reader complained he had not put any stories of brutal oppression by whites into his autobiography (written by a writer well known to many of our readers). Abernathy thought about it then told the story of how a redneck in a grocery story, meaning well, had asked him to finish his coke. I don;t know about now but there was a time when colored people were fastidious about these things and he refused. The redneck was offended and started to bully the boy until the storekeeper (white) told him to leave the boy alone, his daddy was the preacher, and they were good people. The story illustrates both the collision of two codes but also the way in which decent people of different races and cultures can show kindness to each other.
Mr. Peters,
An excellent story. To gather at the Hog Dog Festival is to gather at a neutral ground in which the unwritten rules are respected."
This is quite similar to the local, lenten, friday fish fry put on in my local community by Knights of Columbus. Folks from all walks of life and beliefs come, most enjoy, some attend Stations of the Cross afterwards, some do not, it is just what is done during Lent. Years ago when the Lutheran Church burned to the ground, the Catholics offered their parish hall until they could rebuild. The Papists did not wait for direction from Rome, and this must have impressed them. Members of both parishes are often seen at the fish fries conversing. Catholic children often attend Baptist bean feeds with their friends, although rarely make the altar call. I have always found it easier to love or hate my enemies and/or friends when I know who they are. It is harder when I don't know them at all.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a college professor of my acquaintance. For the umpteenth time, I explained to him the societal problems of what Dr. Fleming calls Diversity + Density = Despotism. He (still) doesn't understand what I am talking about.
The professor went into his usual rant about "racist white Southerners amd Tea Party conservatives who won't accept a black man as president." By the way, he is a Massachusetts Yankee transplanted in Tennessee.
Dr. Fleming,
I had forgotten that Chatsworth was Milton's cousin. Dobie Gillis is my favorite sitcom, perhaps not just of my youth but of all the sitcoms I've seen--not as many as many others have. If you had cited a character from, say, Leave It to Beaver, or Father Knows Best, I wouldn't have bothered.
"Our enemies are a traditionless and homeless race; from the time of Cromwell to the present moment, they have been disturbers of the peace of the world."
President Jefferson Davis, 1862
Slightly O/T: In addition to your Jerks book, which I will gladly pre-order as soon as you've acquired a publisher, I hope you will be the one to 'do the deed' of writing a critical history of the pro-life movement and its many problems. Such a work is solely needed, and I think youre the best man to do it.
Mr. David B. @16, What does the professor teach anyway? History?
#18. With thanks of course to Robert Peters.
Ray, I cheated and looked it up because I had a vague sense that they were related. I have not seen the show since I was a kid. My father hated it because it was about teenagers, but I clearly remember the characters, the father who was a combat veteran, "World War II, the big one," the lovely and cynical Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld), the nerdy girl Zelda who was convinced that Dobie would fall for her by the force of propinquity (strangely, she ended up a Lesbian), the teacher who greeted his students as "my little barbarians,".... it is strange how much I remember. My wife has gone to see her mother for 8 nights. Perhaps I can find the show on netflix.
To DM, #19. While I could never spend the time to write the history of a largely useless and wrongheaded movement, I shall continue to write a few essays on its most fundamental mistake. Is it too late, do you think, to do something on "40 Days for Life"? I don't like to hurt the feelings of good people, even when they are doing harm.
#20. The professor teaches Geography. He doesn't know history very well.
I will definitely buy Dr. Flemings book of Jerkus Americanus. Just from the columns, the book would make a great contribution in understanding the coming of the hoodie nation. Theodore Dalrymple has done a pretty good job of covering Jerkus Britannicus with his rather enlightening tomes. It is really sad to see the almost mirror descent into ugliness and mediocrity.
Dr. Fleming:
Be careful about publicly criticizing "diversity". I am regularly branded a racist merely for pointing out the fact (easily confirmed by government data) that American black culture is dysfunctional. Never mind that I have never felt or advocated hatred toward black people, never mind that I have never said nor do I believe black people to be inferior to any other kind of people -- any public criticism of "diversity" or "multiculturalism" inevitably brings forth droves of accusers, each trembling with righteous anger, each all too ready to crucify me as a Klansman.
The Diversity Police are everywhere, ever on the alert for the slightest sign of counterrevolutionary tendencies, splittist thought, or failure to adhere to the social and political agenda of scientific multiculturalism. Rally to the Rainbow Banner, comrades! Roundly criticize those who deviate from Martin Luther King Thought!
This is a vital subject because it gets at the American national character, and character is fundamental, for peoples as well as persons. The subject deserves a writer of Dr. Fleming's insight, great learning, and wide travels.
I wonder if population density in itself means much? Are there not densely populated countries where civility has not been killed off?
I am still inclined to think that we can find the roots of the American Jerk in the 19th century. Southern writings are full of observations of the pushy and materialist Yankee (meaning a certain type of New Englander). Fenimore Cooper describes the rifraff from the east who swarmed into his native New York region in the same terms. Ichabod Crane as the first Jerk in American literature? Nineteenth century descriptions of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago indicate the Jerk in full flower.
We might be able to distinguish among immigrant groups which contributed to American civilisation and those which contributed toward Jerkery. American television and movies invariably depict the Jerk as a rural, usually Southern, character, and the urbanite as urbane. In my humble observatiion, this is the opposite of the truth. Jerkery is an urban phenomenon. Rural people, even if crude and unpolished, have a certain dignity and manners.
What is central here is manners. There is no civilisation without manners---brilliantly defined by George Garrett as recognition of our common humanity and dependence on God. If I am right about that, then we are witnessing the loss of civilisation in America. Civilisation has material symbols but it is essentially spiritual. This result was perhaps inevitable in a country where the materialistic has long excluded the spiritual.
Prof. Wilson has made several excellent points, which deserve a detailed response at some point. Here I shall be brief. It is true that some cultures adjust well to high population density, but they must either develop rather rigid conventions of manners or impose strict laws. Density per se does not create this phenomenon, but it does exert pressure. And, when the pressure of high density is aggravated by diversity, the ratio of Jerks per 100 rises.
Cooper and Irving did indeed identify certain qualities in the Yankee character that are very Jerk-like, but let us recall that the Jerk has always been with us, though not in the same numbers as today. Did I, in an earlier post, give La Bruyère's portrait of Gnathon? It is a brilliant depiction of a Jerk. Your more general point about the differing qualities of immigrant groups is very good, but I would state it this way. Every human group, even Yankees, have certain general qualities which, if tempered by manners and a sense of decency, can find a positive expression but if left untended or depraved produce the ugly ethnic stereotype. An excellent thought experiment could be devised, in which we would briefly describe several negative ethnic and regional stereotypes--the Frenchman, the German, the Jew, the Southern Italian, the Yankee, the Charlestonian. We might then turn the stereotype upside down and view it from that group's perspective. We could then say roughly that Estonians, while possessed of certain strong qualities, tended, when bad, to produce a certain style of Jerkitude.
In a valuable article on ethnic stereotypes long ago in Chronicles, Steven Goldberg argued that stereotypes exist for a reason but, while gentiles would describe Jews as pushy, they saw themselves as enterprising. So, a basically neutral or even good quality, left unchecked by better qualities, can be offensive.
In a week, I'll try to put up a section from the next chapter, entitled "The Taxonomy of the Jerk," in which I sketch a definition that turns out to be something like the negation of George Garret's definition of manners. (What essay are you thinking of, by the way? I want to steal from it.) The object there will be first to get at the essential quality of the Jerk and then to sketch out some varieties. To anticipate slightly, I distinguish between the boor (in rustic terms the yokel) who does not know how to behave and thus exasperates people with different and better manners, and the lout, which I am defining as someone who does not know how to behave and will never know because he does not care how other people think or feel.
I am not going into the definition and classification of such types as the braggart, the anecdotalist, the busybody, the poseur, et al, but I will point to one type: the Wiseguy, that is, the person with the childish attitude of "I know something you don't know," when what he knows is the circumference of Venus measured in millimeters and the other person has a PhD in astronomy. All professional liberals suffer from this. They know that the Battle of New Orleans was a victory without consequences, that George Washington wore wooden teeth, that people in the 18th century were permitted to bathe only once a year, that Thomas Jefferson raped or seduced a slave woman who bore him children, etc etc. It is a type I always run into at parties, the businessman who thinks himself an intellectual because he sends money to NPR. Last Christmas, I met one of these at a party. He had heard that two years ago we had done a Summer School on the Crusades, and he knew that the Crusades were one long orgy of raping and pillaging the peaceful Muslims. I listened politely, confining myself to asking a few questions, but when he told me of the monstrosity of the First Crusade in trying to wrest Constantinople from the Ottoman Turks who had built the city, I did have to give him a brief history lesson--delivered with a smile lubricated by much of my friend Mark Beesley's excellent wine.
I was reminded of this type just this morning when I picked up a copy of Breakfast of Champions that had been floating around the house. I could never stand Vonnegut, his sloppy style, his melodrama, his self-importance, but reading the first few pages was like listening to a community college lecture on diversity. White people bad, nonwhite people good was about what it came down to. And, see, Vonnegut knows what he is talking about because...he majored in chemistry? He studied anthropology but couldn't get his thesis accepted? What, exactly gives such an ignoramus the right to sneer at his and our ancestors? Western man is greedy? Indeed, but unlike what other subspecies of Homo avaritiosus? What, I mean to say, a Jerk!
"I distinguish between the boor (in rustic terms the yokel) who does not know how to behave and thus exasperates people with different and better manners, and the lout, which I am defining as someone who does not know how to behave and will never know because he does not care how other people think or feel."
Dr. Fleming,
I think you should add a third category that was described by Socrates as the sophisticated/moron or Sophomore Jerk. The conservative movement has been flooded with them.
1) The Yokel Jerk: The person who does not know but might want to learn. (still has the capacity to blush and feel shame however slight.)
2)The Lout Jerk: The person who does not know and does not care that he does not know. (shameless types, politicians, talking heads, spin doctors, etc.)
3) The Sophomore Jerk: The person who thinks he knows but does not know. (Mostly composed of young and energetic (sometimes intelligent) types lead by a few adults who refuse to grow up -- writers for National Review, The Weekly Standard, First Things etc.. )
Dr. Fleming, George Garrett's essay is "Southern Literature Here and Now" in our book WHY THE SOUTH WILL SURVIVE. It is also printed in one of his essay collections.
Dr. Fleming,
In all of this discussion of jerkitude, I keep coming across a type of jerk that has not been mentioned. For lack of better term, I will call this person the ignorant jerk. The ignorant jerk is someone who sees themselves as above learning the basic skills that any man should possess. This person thinks only people below their intelligence and social status should know how to change oil or break pads, install a ceiling fan, paddle a canoe, or even turn on the oven in their own kitchen. This is not to say that people who cannot do these things are necessarily jerks; they may never have learned. The difference is that the ignorant jerk scoffs at people who even want to attain this knowledge or have an inquisitive interest in the way that things work.
"[H]is sloppy style, his melodrama, his self-importance" . . . that's our Kurt (Jr.--wouldn't want to inadvertently slander his father). A consummate literary Jerk, which I say despite remembering liking the ridiculousness of The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater when they were relatively new. By the time of his first big hit, Slaughterhouse Five, he'd lost his charm (?) for me, and all the Jerky qualities Dr. Fleming scores him for overpowered what little humor he had left. I tried to like him enough later to review several of his later books sympathetically, but I now feel sheepish in confessing that I did.
Having just (finally!) read Cooper's The Pioneers, an excellent portrait of life on the frontier when Cooperstown, the author's birthplace, was it, I am happy to second Dr. Wilson's observation that, indeed, the Jerk was on the literary record of the early republic, though Cooper gives almost all of the kind benefit of the doubt (they COULD do better) because he is a true delineator of character. (So far in my reading of both authors, however, I prefer Simms to Cooper for deep characterization.)
Ray,
I do not know Simms but I have read enough of Cooper to know Natty Bumppo and Natty was no Jerk! I also know you and so should probably acquaint myself with some of Simms.
The Jerks in Cooper tend to be displaced Yankees. There is an incredible white trash Yankee family in the Chainbearer (the sequel to Satanstoe). They can justify theft, squatting, lying, and murder on Scriptural grounds. The truth is that they hate all their superiors in wealth, breeding, social position, and education. Satanstoe, by the way, which I have not read in nearly 30 years, is far and away Cooper's best, but the two novels taken together reflect Cooper's concern, expressed more overtly in The American Democrat, that property rights are not safe in a democracy where Yankee trash can vote. He had direct experience.
PS to Ray. Last night, at your recommendation, I finally watched King's Row. It is a beautiful American movie of the best type. A little sentimental, a little over-the-top in its goofily optimistic ending, but wonderful. Reagan steals the film, though the smaller parts are all good--Claude Rains, Charles Coburn. Bob Cummings was, I think, miscast and comes across as a bit too prissy, but he was more than good enough. I have never liked Ann Sheridan, but she was perfect here. The rest of you will be able to read Ray Olson's article on this film in an upcoming issue of the magazine.
To MD. The ignorant Jerk has many forms, both the educated man who despises all practical knowledge and the uneducated person who prides himself on practical knowledge but disdains book learning (I used to know a farmer with a low IQ who always derided me for having "book sense" but not common sense. His common sense led him and his brothers to triple the amount of pesticide and herbicide recommended by the county agent. You can imagine what they died of.) I have no practical knowledge of how to fix anything. What is more, I know myself well enough not even to wish for such knowledge. My father was a marine engineer but would not or could not lift a finger to check a spark plug. I admire without a drop of envy my friends who have acquired these skills. Ward Sterrett, our former art director, has spent years redoing one of the oldest houses in this part of Illinois. It is beautiful. He has an artist's eye with the practical sense of a skilled craftsman. He is now doing some work on my tottering mansion, though when he first came to see the house, his recommendation was two words: "Gut it." That is a bit extreme,and we are going to take the English conservative approach of muddling through.
"There is an incredible white trash Yankee family in the Chainbearer (the sequel to Satanstoe). They can justify theft, squatting, lying, and murder on Scriptural grounds. The truth is that they hate all their superiors in wealth, breeding, social position, and education."
I think they later moved to Kansas and got in to the funeral protest businss but am not for sure.
Robert,
He is probably referring to William Gilmore Simms, an author that I have wanted to explore myself for a long time. Both Dr. Wilson and Dr. Fleming have praised his novels of the Old South on these pages, only way I know of him at all. Dr. Wilson also had some essays about Simms in Defending Dixie. I have made futile searches at my local libraries for his books, of which he wrote many. Although there are copies of a few of his novels at the big downtown library here, they are only available with special permission and not to be checked out. And I've priced them on Amazon, but they are way out of my range, at least the last time I checked.
Yes, that is the fellow. I am close to a University Library and intend to look him up. The small Junior College in town has some of Clyde Wilson's books or those he edited, Why the South Will Survive, Defending Dixie and perhaps another. I should get the college a subsciption to Chronicles too but I fear that would probably be more trouble than it would be worth. Thank you for the information.
Gilmore Simms, indeed. Try Katharine Walton and Woodcraft. I recently reread Yemasssee, which I had found to be thin on the first reading but I thoroughly enjoyed this time. Try Abe books. I just checked Katharine Walton and found hardback copies from $10-20. Amazon is often quite bad for second hand older books. I have looked for older works of classical archaeology and found copies at Amazon for $150 + and at Abe for around $30. It is the difference between buying and not buying. The best bargains around today are the hardback set of Wodehouse for about $20 a volume. I got tired of reading anthologies and cheap paperbacks of PGW--seemed inappropriate.
Speaking of books, I'll finish off Tocqueville in a week, but I wonder if I should go back to something I did a few years ago, a very brief diary, listing books being read and giving a brief opinion. For example, I have recently read a novel of Julian McClaren-Ross (the original of X Trapnel), a biography of Andre Chenier and a volume of his verse, a book on the origins of Scottish Freemasonry, a book on the poisoning scandal under Louis XIV, Balzac's Les Chouans, two Wodehouse and two Ngaio Marsh novels, and am currently working on Guizot's History of France, Trollope's La Vendee, and a book on the evolution of the French language. Would a book diary be too egotistical or would it help?
Robert, that's a good idea; for some reason I didn't even think of trying to find Simms in one of the many local college libraries here. Maybe that will do the trick.
Dr. Fleming, thanks for the tip about Abe, I haven't tried them, and I'm happy to know they are more affordable. I've found that the older a book is, the harder it is to buy reasonably off of Amazon, and in the case of picking up books recommended from Chronicles, I am sometimes searching for neglected or long-out-of-print titles. A delightful counter-example was my recent discovery at a used book store of a beautiful hardback copy of G.A. Henty's "With Lee in Virginia." Picked it up for just a few dollars.
And for my part, I am always keen to get your opinions of books, and they do influence what I buy and read. I say, do the diary. It would be very helpful.
"Would a book diary be too egotistical or would it help?"
Dr. Fleming,
PUULLLEASE. Of course it would be helpful. If for no other reason as a useful filter of what is worthy of ones limited time and what is not. Scottish Freemasonry? What could be more interesting to the English Caholic? Trollope’s La Vendee ? He who hasn't taken sides on Vandee is "fit for only treasons, strategems and spoils, ... MARK THE ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE VENDEE!"
O course we would enjoy the diary. I wish Dr. Wilson would do one as well.
I second the motion (or is it third it?) concerning Dr. Fleming's book list with brief recommendations. Book recommendations are one of the crown jewels of the magazine and the website, whether they are overtly suggested or simply picked up from a mention in an article or a posting. I encourage Professor Wilson to do likewise.
I look forward to the conclusion of DeTocqueville and await with great anticipation later today of the arrival on my porch of the first volume of Chronicles of the South: The Beaux Arts; the second volume will follow shortly behind it!
Such lists coming from reliable sources are not in the least egotistical but instead are helpful and desirable fruits for the many life-long learners here who otherwise have to wade through our cultural cesspool on a daily basis.
If I can belabor this point - I owe my deep appreciation of Walker Percy to Chronicles Magazine, which I began to read about the time that Percy's "The Thanatos Syndrome" was published; while this might be considered one of his lesser efforts it still towered over most of the drivel that occupied adjoining spots in the bookstores. Without the confidence that reading Percy would be time well-spent I'm not sure when or if I would have discovered him.
TJF: "Diversity breeds moral confusion, which is aggravated by the high population density that encourages a comfortable sense of anonymity."
TJF: "Density per se does not create this phenomenon, but it does exert pressure. And, when the pressure of high density is aggravated by diversity, the ratio of Jerks per 100 rises."
I agree with both of these statements. It seems that the more dense a population becomes, the more uncivil people become, especially when density is combined with diversity, as people lose any sense of being grounded in organic communities. New Jersey, for instance, as the stereotype for obnoxious behavior and has the highest population density of any state in the US (1,200 / sq. mile) and is quite diverse (NY transplants and many immigrant communities).
The UN predicts that the current world population (6+ billion) could be around 10 billion by 2050, which will result in higher population densities, more diversity (if current immigration patterns persist), and, according to Fleming's formula (Diversity + Density = Despotism), more despotism.
Mr. Colin, #43
You spoke well. One of the reactions against false religion is the adulation of youth and the consequent worship of sex appeal that surrounds us. It is not a vile thing in itself (afterall what man does not admire the beauty of a real woman?) but it can quickly become so when the consequent disrespect for our elders is coupled along with it.
It is hard to say how much has been lost, just in the last fifity years, from the conservative mind and imagination as a result of this "living forever" delusion. All the more reason for our elders to post their respective reactions to different books they have read, enjoyed or put down from boredom, nonsense or both.
TJF: "Would a book diary be too egotistical or would it help?"
I will add my vote in favor of the book diary. The book recommendations and discussions here and at rockfordinstitute.org are a very valuable resource.
While the subject of reading lists is on the table....do you have any plans, Dr. Fleming, to expand the Autodidact's Reading List?
Thank you.
http://www.utoronto.ca/ethnicstudies/Putnam.pdf
With regards to diversity causing jerkishness (and acknowledging that I'm sure most here are already aware of the following), the above is a link to Dr. Robert Putnam's study of diversity, which (to the liberal doctor's horror) demonstrated that people living in diverse communities tend to "withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television."
They also exhibit:
Toddard,
Canada should revoke this man's passport and put him in the same cell with Dr. Trifkovic!!
Remember, Robert - Diversity Is Our Strength© (reality notwithstanding).
Thanks to S.L. Toddard. To Mr. Taylor, the answer is yes, but I need prodding. If people will request certain areas of the reading list to develop, I shall gladly do it piece by piece. The list I put up was developed mostly with a small 1-12 school in mind.
I'll post the book diary both here and on the TRI Humane Learning site.