Small town conservatives just wanna grill. Like you say, this provides them with a certain degree of protection ... Simple disinterest in anything the left has to say. OTOH, they go and support college sportsball, thereby supporting the very institution that despises them more than any other. Which in many ways is the ultimate failing of conservativism.
Another protection, which Kulak pointed out a while back, is that they have made themselves cringe. Redneck culture avoids cooptation by the liberal borg specifically because it gives liberals the ick.
It’s why the Borg goes after them when they are young. What they offer is just as cringe, but with the appearance of being the prestige values of society. It’s therefor appealing for those who want something deeper that sports ball fandom but without the discernment to know better. Which is why I’m so bent on getting frens into influential places in education.
It's weird. I grew up in the cold northern equivalent to the cultural wasteland you describe, and was equally disinterested in fishing, hockey etc. and therefore quite alienated. Yet my attitude towards the nice white ladies who attempted to foist gay liberalism on me was never anything but contemptuous.
Then again: strong family structure, parents who encouraged me to read and think for myself, and personality type go a long way.
I think the ratcheting effect comes mostly through girls. The nice white last appeals aren’t as obnoxious to them, and they already have all the awkward pressures of not being taken seriously because of their relatively diminished athletic potential. They also have more of an innate love of consensus. First the girls and the gay boys, then the beta orbiters and gammas, then pretty soon the normiecons start genuflecting and cucking (genucucking) to the new demographic force and proclaim that castrating boys was always a conservative value. Once a D1 coach endorses it, the change is final, and all is forgotten in favor of the next Pride tailgate.
"Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man" is the theme tag of a tv series called 7-Up (made by the former UK commercial channel Granada TV). It interviews a bunch of 7-year-olds in 1964, then follows them up in 1971, 1978 etc. It is very famous but maybe not so much in the US. It is a fantastic series, well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsL8nriAOs
When I was a teacher (in the late 70s) we used it a lot.
This is all well and good as far as it goes -- until you are the one getting grilled. Last week I was at the church in Arizpe, Sonora, and there is a shrine there dedicated to San Lorenzo, who allegedly quipped "Turn me over, I'm only half done" to his persecutors while they were barbecuing him. A BBQ grill is prominently on display as part of the shrine.
Not sure where I'm going with this other than to state my great affection for the Mexicans and their impish, macabre sense of humor. A wonderful country.
“I’m beginning to think you like Hitler more than football,” my dad said in disgust as I spent another afternoon watching WWII documentaries instead of playing football with him and my brother. “I can’t believe you’re my son.”
Thus I found myself at 13 adrift in the land of bayous. So I latched onto anything that was unlike the shallow conservatism that was obsessed with sports and toys (trucks!) and a SBC feel good faith that you’re not supposed to take too seriously.
I landed a coveted spot in Mr. R’s class where the brightest in the school got together and debated current events. Mr. R looked like a cross between Woodrow Wilson and Steve Jobs, had vaguely mentioned making enough in finance to retire in his 30s, and had decided that teaching was his vocation. Nothing about his appearance suggested leftist inclinations though the classroom had a ‘Free Tibet’ poster and another of that Viet monk self-immolating.
Since the debates were going nowhere in an environment where all of us agreed that 90s era Republicanism was best I decided to deliberately stake out the most radical left position on everything. And it was at that point that Mr. R was giving me restrained but definite “attaboys” after class and letting me borrow all the Chomsky, old Nation mags, and whatever was popular at that time.
It’s not an interesting story but that’s all it really took. I had no idea there was a dissident right at the time. One teacher could’ve saved me 10+ years of shitlibbery.
That’s what I mean. The future of the right (which is to say, of civilization) is sitting in a room waiting to be offered something more serious than Anime, and the only people interested in filling that need are warmed-over Bolsheviks. For once they’re right- we need to do better. In fact, I’d say let’s go all the way and become worthy.
You are on the mark with everything you said. I considered teaching, maybe I will get into it when I retire from my current career, but honestly, I don't think I can be around the kind of women that get into teaching.
Now as a California transplant to SC, I love it here. I see everything you are saying tho. Not the most cultured.
Sportsballers gonna sportsball, but The South has also offered us Faulkner, McCarthy, and Portis, among other greats. You gotta take what comes as you receive it.
I wholly agree. The South has nothing to envy when it comes to cultural impact. I just wish actual contemporary Southerners knew that and valued it, as opposed to refusing to read Tennessee Williams on principle out of loyalty to Vanderbilt.
I love H. L. Mencken and everything, but mocking the South as "The Sahara of the Bozart" was just being nasty. (With Mencken, nasty was part of the package; and is it really like Baltimore is Paris?) Artists in the South have always had to WORK HARDER. You can't cruise like Henry James in Boston.
Post War of Northern Aggression, the South has always struggled against the framing of ‘benighted land of backward pathologies.’ O’Connor spoke of it when she said that “I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it will be called realistic.” For my part, I attribute a lot of the ignorance of higher Southern culture to that very prejudice, reinforced daily through the modern mass media apparatus of the managerial state. I stand with the Southern Agrarians in asserting our uniqueness, and I write as I do not to belittle the people of SC or anywhere else in the South, but to recall them to their heritage.
Mencken hated everyone, which is understandable if one lives in Baltimore. Ta-Nehisi Coates was from there, and similarly came to hate the rest of the country for letting him grow up there.
I lived in Detroit for three years; it is the northernmost Southern city (thanks to Henry Ford and the mass migration of Black Southerners) and possesses many admirable Midwestern qualities. It isn't for pussies.
The best thing that may be said about Baltimore is that it isn't Washington DC. (I kid, a little; there is good seafood and Greek food there.)
I showed my class a documentary that featured the underwear bomber, the guy who was going to try to force a plane to crash on a flight to Detroit. I speculated that the information he’d gotten about that city in Nigeria may have been a bit out of date. In 2010, if a plane crashed into Detroit, it would be months before anyone noticed, and vigorous debate would ensue as to whether the smoking ruin had always been there or not. That’s if crackheads had been unable to strip the metal off the jet first. If anyone had survived, the city of government would be thrilled, as these would’ve been the first new residents in years.
What I like about you is that you leave no one off the hook.
Dunno that I can agree about the characterization of Thomas Frank as a "normie liberal," though. He's pretty dissident-left, at least compared to the likes of deep-state corporate stooges like Reich. Like Reagan, I guess the Democratic Party left Frank.
He is a super nice guy in person -- he maintains the appearance and demeanor of a straitlaced Midwestern accountant, which, in many ways, he is -- but he is absolutely vicious towards those who deserve viciousness.
Frens from the Right and the Left gotta get together. Many people are saying this.
Were I, like Terry A. Davis, made king by divine right, I would probably implement about 80% of what Frank would do of he were in charge of the economy.
I have lived in the Raleigh / Durham area since the early 90s. Calling it a Yankee colony isn't a bad description, but in my opinion it's trending more towards San Francisco. Every highway exit now has a sizeable beggar colony. Wake County is a "sanctuary county", so we're taking in "migrants" (we really should call them "invaders") at a frightening rate. Even here in my little hick town on the Eastern edge of Wake County, the public library is filled with trans propaganda. Check out this gem from "She Persisted: Rachel Levine" --
And Rachel was born transgender or trans for short. That means she was born with a boy body, but on the inside, in her mind and in her heart, she was a girl.
Can a teacher anywhere really get away with mentioning Evola, Dugan, or the like in a positive way? This would raise eyebrows with the staff of even a small town school.
I have said books on a shelf in my class, on offer to whomever might read them. I keep them there with a range of other philosophers’ work, including those I’ve mentioned. In addition, I have a very large selection of religious literature, including a set of Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers. I even have a collection of extremist manifestos called Voices of Terror, as well as stuff by Uncle Ted. If you want to understand the world, you have to read the people that influence it at the deepest level. And you have to read the people they hate.
My superiors respect me. I’ve never once presented anything in terms of “you should believe this.” I simply offer a broader range of material than most. The more clever among my students naturally seek the higher things, as is to be expected.
I meant a list of books that could be presented to students that present a counterpoint/counter narrative to the Leftist beliefs. Your example of Sowell's memoir as a counter to Coates' memoir would fit on such a list. But your former suggestion of books that have been banned by Leftists would too be interesting; probably will overlap.
Apart from the two I mentioned, which are pretty normie-friendly, I would recommend the following:
Christopher Caldwell- The Age of Entitlement
Raymond Wolters- The Burden of Brown
Paul Johnson- Modern Times
S.C. Gwynne- Rebel Yell
David Paul Kuhn- The Hardhat Riot
Thomas Fleming- The New Dealers’ War; The Illusion of Victory; A Disease in the Public Mind
These are all relatively recent books and are normie-friendly, while still offering a perspective very much outside of the neoliberal consensus about important historical periods. They will get kids asking the right questions.
I think some of this is just classic American anti-intellectualism. I grew up in NYC - the Bronx to be exact - and if I hadn't always scored into the "accelerated" classes and "specialized" high schools it would've been very similar. Even with the advanced everything looking back I wish I'd been taught by Jesuits. I knew a lot of kids who didn't have my luck and the difference was stark. This was of course before PC and the woke cultural revolution.
Oh, and Coates is a supreme dumbass grifter. Watched him say something idiotic about Israel/Palestine the other day. Something about he only has his "lens" and so he clearly understands the Palestinian situation cuz American racism. It was almost brilliant in its solipsistic glory.
Great article, wish there were such places as you speak of in Canada, but as I know of a few like them in France I'm hoping to move out there. Seems that people from South Carolina like many other Americans from conservative regions are wise, smart and instinctually see through the woke nonsense the left is troding out.
I appreciate the point about Conservative, Inc., but think lumping some 5 million people in SC alone into a narrow yet shallow caricature is no different than doing it to New York or Mexico or a race of people. It reminds me of the Hollywood strawman treatment of Southerners put forth for decades as a people without nuance. I appreciate the writing but don't recognize myself or the people I know in any of this. Hopefully, you have found a place you like better than SC as it seems you are a fantastic teacher, which we need desperately in the US.
I thought that my piece, while poking gentle fun at some of the mores of the people in SC, was affectionate and sympathetic. A central point of my essay was that not everyone is South Carolina is alike and that there are opportunities to encourage thoughtful culture among the people in place of the homogenization of mass media and the managerial system. I like South Carolina very much, and would love to live there again.
After living years in the bicoastal metros and abroad, my having a Southern accent has oft been taken as a sign of certain mental retardation. This has undoubtedly put a chip on my shoulder and thus, I might have clutched my pearls a bit much there:)
I like and appreciate the piece and your Substack quite a bit(I wouldn’t have commented otherwise). I will read again, checking my bias. Love the writing. Cheers
Objective, impartial, factual was hammered into us when I was at university doing pol-sci, econ, sociology and all the rest of it.
You hang your own opinions, beliefs and what not on the peg of your locker-door when changing into your work-clothes, was the ethic.
Present an idea as it presents and describes and defines itself, then scrutinise it: i.e. let the class scrutinise it and challenge their assertions and reflexive responses.
Anyone cleaving to an idea, claiming that said idea may not be challenged, picked apart and analysed demonstrates one thing and one thing only: their lack of faith in said idea.
Yes. I suspect the students in that teacher’s class were getting a hard dose of BLM propaganda on top of everything else and the dull-as-dishwater Coates book was the last straw for the poor kids.
It's all in the presentation. "Some thinkers think this, other thinkers think that" is, on the surface, neutral. Plausible deniability. But in an environment where "this" is the only thing on offer, any exposure to "that" can be powerful.
Exactly the method. It’s the cleverest ones who ask me about Guenon, etc. Rather than explain, I’ll usually just smile knowingly and say, “oh, that? You’re not ready for that yet.” They go straight to Wikipedia and straight down a rabbit hole. Then they ask about the book again
Dawkins and Hitchens were the big names when I was that age, Guenon would have blown my mind. Cool to hear that there are some kids showing an interest in this stuff.
Regarding the emphasis on sports in the south (and elsewhere) that you make slight mock of -- you do realize that regular physical activity is especially good for humans, don't you? Don't know that the so much can be said for regular bouts of talking -- and thinking about, and responding to, the words of other (i.e., reading).
I’m willing to take the position that talking and reading are in fact good for humans, controversial though that may be. As for sports, I’ve written extensively on the subject in several other essays. If the culture in SC led to a lifelong love of athleticism it would be one thing. However, the culture of fandom surrounding college sports instead inculcates an ethic of sedentary, voyeuristic consumerism. No one plays anything after college, which itself is only for a tiny number deemed worthy. I can’t tell you how many times someone has piously informed me that he “learned more on the football field than I ever did in class.” Said person will inevitably be obese and no longer able to perform even a semblance of what he did on that field. That’s what I’m against.
Regarding sports during the 'younger years' and the modern phenomena of blobbing thereafter, keep in mind that up until very recently, getting to the age of 40 and then dying was the course of average human life cycle. Being at the top of your individual mental and physical form before then was necessary in order to be able to reproduce and then raise the next generation into their young adulthood. So, you could say that the flurry of youthful physical activity and the ensuing relaxation into sedentary, voyeuristic consumerism are really the result of the naturally-evolved human phenotype -- something fruitless to be against (i.e., you can't argue against Mother Nature).
I agree talking and reading are in fact good for humans, but too much of it can detract from other, more critical aspects of living. Too much of it, in fact, is also sedentary, voyeuristic consumerism.
The typical human in the past didn't die at 40 in the sense you mean. Life expectancy numbers for the past factor in large amounts of infant mortality. Once one made it past childhood, one had a good chance of reaching old age as we understand it, barring disease or violence. Obesity and physical inactivity are modern phenomena, as is fandom. One can be both literate and physically active, like Julius Caesar; the problem in our society is not one versus the other, but that the vast majority of people choose neither.
Small town conservatives just wanna grill. Like you say, this provides them with a certain degree of protection ... Simple disinterest in anything the left has to say. OTOH, they go and support college sportsball, thereby supporting the very institution that despises them more than any other. Which in many ways is the ultimate failing of conservativism.
Another protection, which Kulak pointed out a while back, is that they have made themselves cringe. Redneck culture avoids cooptation by the liberal borg specifically because it gives liberals the ick.
It’s why the Borg goes after them when they are young. What they offer is just as cringe, but with the appearance of being the prestige values of society. It’s therefor appealing for those who want something deeper that sports ball fandom but without the discernment to know better. Which is why I’m so bent on getting frens into influential places in education.
It's weird. I grew up in the cold northern equivalent to the cultural wasteland you describe, and was equally disinterested in fishing, hockey etc. and therefore quite alienated. Yet my attitude towards the nice white ladies who attempted to foist gay liberalism on me was never anything but contemptuous.
Then again: strong family structure, parents who encouraged me to read and think for myself, and personality type go a long way.
I think the ratcheting effect comes mostly through girls. The nice white last appeals aren’t as obnoxious to them, and they already have all the awkward pressures of not being taken seriously because of their relatively diminished athletic potential. They also have more of an innate love of consensus. First the girls and the gay boys, then the beta orbiters and gammas, then pretty soon the normiecons start genuflecting and cucking (genucucking) to the new demographic force and proclaim that castrating boys was always a conservative value. Once a D1 coach endorses it, the change is final, and all is forgotten in favor of the next Pride tailgate.
And that dynamic lasts right up until a pack of young, irreverent boys decides to break the ratchet.
"Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man" is the theme tag of a tv series called 7-Up (made by the former UK commercial channel Granada TV). It interviews a bunch of 7-year-olds in 1964, then follows them up in 1971, 1978 etc. It is very famous but maybe not so much in the US. It is a fantastic series, well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsL8nriAOs
When I was a teacher (in the late 70s) we used it a lot.
"Small town conservatives just wanna grill. "
This is all well and good as far as it goes -- until you are the one getting grilled. Last week I was at the church in Arizpe, Sonora, and there is a shrine there dedicated to San Lorenzo, who allegedly quipped "Turn me over, I'm only half done" to his persecutors while they were barbecuing him. A BBQ grill is prominently on display as part of the shrine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lawrence
Not sure where I'm going with this other than to state my great affection for the Mexicans and their impish, macabre sense of humor. A wonderful country.
“I’m beginning to think you like Hitler more than football,” my dad said in disgust as I spent another afternoon watching WWII documentaries instead of playing football with him and my brother. “I can’t believe you’re my son.”
Thus I found myself at 13 adrift in the land of bayous. So I latched onto anything that was unlike the shallow conservatism that was obsessed with sports and toys (trucks!) and a SBC feel good faith that you’re not supposed to take too seriously.
I landed a coveted spot in Mr. R’s class where the brightest in the school got together and debated current events. Mr. R looked like a cross between Woodrow Wilson and Steve Jobs, had vaguely mentioned making enough in finance to retire in his 30s, and had decided that teaching was his vocation. Nothing about his appearance suggested leftist inclinations though the classroom had a ‘Free Tibet’ poster and another of that Viet monk self-immolating.
Since the debates were going nowhere in an environment where all of us agreed that 90s era Republicanism was best I decided to deliberately stake out the most radical left position on everything. And it was at that point that Mr. R was giving me restrained but definite “attaboys” after class and letting me borrow all the Chomsky, old Nation mags, and whatever was popular at that time.
It’s not an interesting story but that’s all it really took. I had no idea there was a dissident right at the time. One teacher could’ve saved me 10+ years of shitlibbery.
That’s what I mean. The future of the right (which is to say, of civilization) is sitting in a room waiting to be offered something more serious than Anime, and the only people interested in filling that need are warmed-over Bolsheviks. For once they’re right- we need to do better. In fact, I’d say let’s go all the way and become worthy.
You are on the mark with everything you said. I considered teaching, maybe I will get into it when I retire from my current career, but honestly, I don't think I can be around the kind of women that get into teaching.
Now as a California transplant to SC, I love it here. I see everything you are saying tho. Not the most cultured.
Sportsballers gonna sportsball, but The South has also offered us Faulkner, McCarthy, and Portis, among other greats. You gotta take what comes as you receive it.
I wholly agree. The South has nothing to envy when it comes to cultural impact. I just wish actual contemporary Southerners knew that and valued it, as opposed to refusing to read Tennessee Williams on principle out of loyalty to Vanderbilt.
I love H. L. Mencken and everything, but mocking the South as "The Sahara of the Bozart" was just being nasty. (With Mencken, nasty was part of the package; and is it really like Baltimore is Paris?) Artists in the South have always had to WORK HARDER. You can't cruise like Henry James in Boston.
Post War of Northern Aggression, the South has always struggled against the framing of ‘benighted land of backward pathologies.’ O’Connor spoke of it when she said that “I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it will be called realistic.” For my part, I attribute a lot of the ignorance of higher Southern culture to that very prejudice, reinforced daily through the modern mass media apparatus of the managerial state. I stand with the Southern Agrarians in asserting our uniqueness, and I write as I do not to belittle the people of SC or anywhere else in the South, but to recall them to their heritage.
Mencken hated everyone, which is understandable if one lives in Baltimore. Ta-Nehisi Coates was from there, and similarly came to hate the rest of the country for letting him grow up there.
I lived in Detroit for three years; it is the northernmost Southern city (thanks to Henry Ford and the mass migration of Black Southerners) and possesses many admirable Midwestern qualities. It isn't for pussies.
The best thing that may be said about Baltimore is that it isn't Washington DC. (I kid, a little; there is good seafood and Greek food there.)
I showed my class a documentary that featured the underwear bomber, the guy who was going to try to force a plane to crash on a flight to Detroit. I speculated that the information he’d gotten about that city in Nigeria may have been a bit out of date. In 2010, if a plane crashed into Detroit, it would be months before anyone noticed, and vigorous debate would ensue as to whether the smoking ruin had always been there or not. That’s if crackheads had been unable to strip the metal off the jet first. If anyone had survived, the city of government would be thrilled, as these would’ve been the first new residents in years.
Really great piece, sir.
Makes me happy to finally have landed in the profession (as many friends and family tell me - "FINALLY, you're a teacher!").
Congratulations. The fire rises.
What I like about you is that you leave no one off the hook.
Dunno that I can agree about the characterization of Thomas Frank as a "normie liberal," though. He's pretty dissident-left, at least compared to the likes of deep-state corporate stooges like Reich. Like Reagan, I guess the Democratic Party left Frank.
I actually kind of like Frank. I only say normie because they’ll still publish him in mainstream outlets.
He is a super nice guy in person -- he maintains the appearance and demeanor of a straitlaced Midwestern accountant, which, in many ways, he is -- but he is absolutely vicious towards those who deserve viciousness.
Frens from the Right and the Left gotta get together. Many people are saying this.
Were I, like Terry A. Davis, made king by divine right, I would probably implement about 80% of what Frank would do of he were in charge of the economy.
Terry A. Davis with a cat: https://twitter.com/awesomekling/status/1293107044535369729
It is my unsupported belief that they are God's messengers. I definitely know God wants me to get out of bed no later than 6:30 AM.
I have lived in the Raleigh / Durham area since the early 90s. Calling it a Yankee colony isn't a bad description, but in my opinion it's trending more towards San Francisco. Every highway exit now has a sizeable beggar colony. Wake County is a "sanctuary county", so we're taking in "migrants" (we really should call them "invaders") at a frightening rate. Even here in my little hick town on the Eastern edge of Wake County, the public library is filled with trans propaganda. Check out this gem from "She Persisted: Rachel Levine" --
And Rachel was born transgender or trans for short. That means she was born with a boy body, but on the inside, in her mind and in her heart, she was a girl.
Sometimes I think that if they weren't melting down the statues they would spontaneously combust out of anger anyway.
Can a teacher anywhere really get away with mentioning Evola, Dugan, or the like in a positive way? This would raise eyebrows with the staff of even a small town school.
I have said books on a shelf in my class, on offer to whomever might read them. I keep them there with a range of other philosophers’ work, including those I’ve mentioned. In addition, I have a very large selection of religious literature, including a set of Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers. I even have a collection of extremist manifestos called Voices of Terror, as well as stuff by Uncle Ted. If you want to understand the world, you have to read the people that influence it at the deepest level. And you have to read the people they hate.
Props to you. I do not disagree, but am surprised you have not gotten hard pushback.
My superiors respect me. I’ve never once presented anything in terms of “you should believe this.” I simply offer a broader range of material than most. The more clever among my students naturally seek the higher things, as is to be expected.
Do you know of a book list counterbalancing the Leftist banned books™️?
Do you mean the books leftists want banned or books by leftists that leftists think are banned?
I meant a list of books that could be presented to students that present a counterpoint/counter narrative to the Leftist beliefs. Your example of Sowell's memoir as a counter to Coates' memoir would fit on such a list. But your former suggestion of books that have been banned by Leftists would too be interesting; probably will overlap.
Apart from the two I mentioned, which are pretty normie-friendly, I would recommend the following:
Christopher Caldwell- The Age of Entitlement
Raymond Wolters- The Burden of Brown
Paul Johnson- Modern Times
S.C. Gwynne- Rebel Yell
David Paul Kuhn- The Hardhat Riot
Thomas Fleming- The New Dealers’ War; The Illusion of Victory; A Disease in the Public Mind
These are all relatively recent books and are normie-friendly, while still offering a perspective very much outside of the neoliberal consensus about important historical periods. They will get kids asking the right questions.
This is so spot on - I used to live in South Carolina, and it is just as you describe.
I think some of this is just classic American anti-intellectualism. I grew up in NYC - the Bronx to be exact - and if I hadn't always scored into the "accelerated" classes and "specialized" high schools it would've been very similar. Even with the advanced everything looking back I wish I'd been taught by Jesuits. I knew a lot of kids who didn't have my luck and the difference was stark. This was of course before PC and the woke cultural revolution.
Oh, and Coates is a supreme dumbass grifter. Watched him say something idiotic about Israel/Palestine the other day. Something about he only has his "lens" and so he clearly understands the Palestinian situation cuz American racism. It was almost brilliant in its solipsistic glory.
The phenomenon is by no means limited to the South, nor my prescription.
I don't know much about the American South, so I will just say: elegant and amusing prose, as usual.
Great article, wish there were such places as you speak of in Canada, but as I know of a few like them in France I'm hoping to move out there. Seems that people from South Carolina like many other Americans from conservative regions are wise, smart and instinctually see through the woke nonsense the left is troding out.
I appreciate the point about Conservative, Inc., but think lumping some 5 million people in SC alone into a narrow yet shallow caricature is no different than doing it to New York or Mexico or a race of people. It reminds me of the Hollywood strawman treatment of Southerners put forth for decades as a people without nuance. I appreciate the writing but don't recognize myself or the people I know in any of this. Hopefully, you have found a place you like better than SC as it seems you are a fantastic teacher, which we need desperately in the US.
I thought that my piece, while poking gentle fun at some of the mores of the people in SC, was affectionate and sympathetic. A central point of my essay was that not everyone is South Carolina is alike and that there are opportunities to encourage thoughtful culture among the people in place of the homogenization of mass media and the managerial system. I like South Carolina very much, and would love to live there again.
After living years in the bicoastal metros and abroad, my having a Southern accent has oft been taken as a sign of certain mental retardation. This has undoubtedly put a chip on my shoulder and thus, I might have clutched my pearls a bit much there:)
I like and appreciate the piece and your Substack quite a bit(I wouldn’t have commented otherwise). I will read again, checking my bias. Love the writing. Cheers
Objective, impartial, factual was hammered into us when I was at university doing pol-sci, econ, sociology and all the rest of it.
You hang your own opinions, beliefs and what not on the peg of your locker-door when changing into your work-clothes, was the ethic.
Present an idea as it presents and describes and defines itself, then scrutinise it: i.e. let the class scrutinise it and challenge their assertions and reflexive responses.
Anyone cleaving to an idea, claiming that said idea may not be challenged, picked apart and analysed demonstrates one thing and one thing only: their lack of faith in said idea.
Yes. I suspect the students in that teacher’s class were getting a hard dose of BLM propaganda on top of everything else and the dull-as-dishwater Coates book was the last straw for the poor kids.
It's all in the presentation. "Some thinkers think this, other thinkers think that" is, on the surface, neutral. Plausible deniability. But in an environment where "this" is the only thing on offer, any exposure to "that" can be powerful.
Exactly the method. It’s the cleverest ones who ask me about Guenon, etc. Rather than explain, I’ll usually just smile knowingly and say, “oh, that? You’re not ready for that yet.” They go straight to Wikipedia and straight down a rabbit hole. Then they ask about the book again
Dawkins and Hitchens were the big names when I was that age, Guenon would have blown my mind. Cool to hear that there are some kids showing an interest in this stuff.
They can’t know it’s out there until it’s made available to them, and it won’t be available unless we make it so, as with Dawkins et al.
Regarding the emphasis on sports in the south (and elsewhere) that you make slight mock of -- you do realize that regular physical activity is especially good for humans, don't you? Don't know that the so much can be said for regular bouts of talking -- and thinking about, and responding to, the words of other (i.e., reading).
I’m willing to take the position that talking and reading are in fact good for humans, controversial though that may be. As for sports, I’ve written extensively on the subject in several other essays. If the culture in SC led to a lifelong love of athleticism it would be one thing. However, the culture of fandom surrounding college sports instead inculcates an ethic of sedentary, voyeuristic consumerism. No one plays anything after college, which itself is only for a tiny number deemed worthy. I can’t tell you how many times someone has piously informed me that he “learned more on the football field than I ever did in class.” Said person will inevitably be obese and no longer able to perform even a semblance of what he did on that field. That’s what I’m against.
Regarding sports during the 'younger years' and the modern phenomena of blobbing thereafter, keep in mind that up until very recently, getting to the age of 40 and then dying was the course of average human life cycle. Being at the top of your individual mental and physical form before then was necessary in order to be able to reproduce and then raise the next generation into their young adulthood. So, you could say that the flurry of youthful physical activity and the ensuing relaxation into sedentary, voyeuristic consumerism are really the result of the naturally-evolved human phenotype -- something fruitless to be against (i.e., you can't argue against Mother Nature).
I agree talking and reading are in fact good for humans, but too much of it can detract from other, more critical aspects of living. Too much of it, in fact, is also sedentary, voyeuristic consumerism.
The typical human in the past didn't die at 40 in the sense you mean. Life expectancy numbers for the past factor in large amounts of infant mortality. Once one made it past childhood, one had a good chance of reaching old age as we understand it, barring disease or violence. Obesity and physical inactivity are modern phenomena, as is fandom. One can be both literate and physically active, like Julius Caesar; the problem in our society is not one versus the other, but that the vast majority of people choose neither.
https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/08/conversation-old-age-is-not-a-modern-phenomenon.php
Back to the age of 40 as a death and decline marker: I didn't immediately remember to point out that there really is something deeply biochemically significant about this age. For references, see https://larryturner.substack.com/p/40-years-old-and-burning-down-the
Good points. Although when I say "average", I really mean "average". Thanks for that link -- is interesting article.