This thread is inspired by the hijack in the Pit thread about judge Littlejohn.
People have strong feelings about the issue, sure. But is there any factual evidence to support the claim that “The South” is somehow ‘worse’ than other (contemporaneous) regions- aside from imposed/given economic or natural environmental, and/or other local/legal/governmental/sociological/[(and/or)associated philosophical] constraints, that is?
What do you mean? Like, is it cursed? It tends to be hot, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for. I’m not fully understanding what your caveats mean.
The South is a hotbed of serious religious faith.
I can’t really tell any difference between rural areas in the Northern states and rural areas in the South.
My best friend’s parents are hard core, Fox-News-watching, Glenn Beck-believing fundamentalist Christians who live in… upstate New York.
On the other hand, the people I’ve met who lived in metro Dallas seemed like cosmopolitian, urbane people.
I live in the Northeast but I am born and bred Southern until it it turtles all the way down. There WAS something wrong with the South a long time ago. It was extremely hot and we had slaves (the North did too but they don’t mention that much these days). It was based on an agrarian economy with very rich people and extremely poor people. That doesn’t apply much these days though.
Which part of the South are you talking about? Dallas and Atlanta and Charlotte are hardly backwater areas in terms of anything and the general standard of living is high. New Orleans is unique to the U.S. and has recovered nicely for tourism post Katrina. The biggest natural gas strike in U.S. history and maybe the world is happening right now in Northwestern Louisiana producing millionaires by the truckload. People make fun of Arkansas but that is where the largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart, is headquartered and parts of it are rich and diverse. I could go on and on.
The South is doing quite well now compared to most of the nation. Air conditioning made it happen. Don’t get me wrong, there is still some seriously screwed up stuff in the South but it isn’t exactly like people from outside the region think and it is a great place. I would move back in a millisecond if I could.
Hookworms.
The south has worse health, lower income, lower education levels, more obesity, higher crime, more out of wedlock births, lower age of sexual activity and just about every other measure of “goodness”. They routinely elect complete nut jobs. Of course there is something wrong with them.
Well, you certainly HAVE been comprehensive! What is NOT excluded by your constraints?
and Yaws, don’t forget the Yaws.
Yes, hot would fall under ‘natural environmental conditions’. Maybe you personally think it is too hot; one can hardly blame that on anyone. It might as well be God’s decree.
South Carolina could use some help. SC still has plenty of extremely poor people in the rural areas of the state, though there are 11 other states (and D.C.) that have a greater percentage of impoverished. However, SC falls at, or damn near, the bottom of just about every state ranking metric there is. I would say that the state could significantly benefit from change in leadership, but that’s just not the way things seem to be done around here.
As far as the region goes, we are the fattest and our high school graduation rates are just abysmal. We do have some of the nicest, if a tad self-righteous, people in the country though. Gimmee some of that good, ole Southern hospitality and charm any day.
Natural environmental conditions. Unless it is a disease, in which case mankind may persecute it, within certain modern environmental constraints of course.
Which parts are not a result of ‘imposed/given economic constaints’?
The self-imposed parts.
You take care of yaws, and I’ll take care of mine.
Due to natural conditions, the southern half of the United States was open to slave based agriculture and the northern half was not. And mass slavery did create a screwed up mindset - people knew deep down that owning other people wasn’t a good thing but their economic livelihood depended on doing it. So you developed a culture based on self-deception. And some of it still exists - there are southerners today who will look you square in the eye and insist that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.
Speaking of which, the war itself was also a big factor. The South lost big time. Their economy was destroyed and that screwed up everything else - education, health services, infrastructure.
It’s all the sugar in their tea.
So did Germany in WWII, but they don’t keep claiming they fought for a worthy cause. They went on to build one of the strongest economies in the world.
Germany and Japan rebuilt with a lot of help from the US. The South got Reconstruction, possibly the most wrongly named thing in US History.
The point is to avoid blaming water for being wet. I don’t think nature can be ‘wrong’, so natural features, even if they are unpleasant or inhospitable, can’t fairly be treated as wrong. They are ‘a given’, see? I am not asking if it is cursed.
Only humans are capable of right and wrong, but again, insofar as they are reacting normally to their environment they can’t really be blamed. So, say it is hot in the South. Nothing to be done about that. Now say the heat causes people to move slowly. That is pretty natural too, no? From that perhaps it follows that people who have to work outside have a work ethic that is affected by the heat. Now we have moved into the realm of people’s beliefs and how they affect their behavior, the realm of right and wrong, but again in the case of the heat, people can’t really be blamed for predictable notions derived from that. For example, maybe Southerners overall just aren’t into jogging (I’m making this up). Why bother holding that against them when their environment is so hot and humid? Maybe they would jog more in a drier climate.
I don’t know precisely where to draw the line, but I hope that clears things up.