Are Rednecks More American Than You?

Paul Waldman doesn't much care for romanticising the American south:

Southerners are always taking offense at people who supposedly look down on them, but to someone who was raised in the Northeast, the idea that southerners are inherently more "real," and more American, than the rest of us is deeply insulting.

Of course this is part of a whole complex of stereotypes about what and who is really American. And nobody embraces them more than the liberal northeastern elitists in the media. As far as they're concerned, the South is more American than the Northeast or the West, small towns are more American than big cities, country music is more American than folk or jazz or hip-hop, NASCAR is more American than basketball, and so on. The fact that those media Brahmins themselves don't live in small towns or listen to country music or watch NASCAR is precisely what feeds their idealized view of what a "real" American is, and what his beliefs and tastes are.

Kevin Drum agrees:

Amen to that. I can't begin to tell you how tired I am of the South's victim complex. Five of our last seven presidents have been from the South and the other two have been from the Southwest — and the reason, as near as I can tell, is that most Southerners just flatly refuse to vote for anyone who comes from north of the Mason-Dixon Line. And yet, somehow, it's the rest of us who are supposedly intolerant of Southern culture. Feh.

Even when one sets aside the odd notion that California is a southwestern state rather than, as Larison rightly says, a pacific one, this is unpersuasive stuff.

There are two different strands to what, for want of a better word one may have to term "elite" coverage of the south and southern culture. On the one hand, yes, there's a sense that the NASCAR-racing, tobacco-chewing, pick-up truck driving, moustached American male is, for all his faults, at least "authentic". But this leads to coverage in, say, The New York Times, that treats him as some sort of colourful and exotic member of some rare and peculiar tribe: in other words, the NYT is comfortable patronising the American southerner.

This co-exists with an odd fawning towards foreign countries. The sense that American culture is a hopelessly lost cause beats strongest, it seems to me at least, in the elite universities of the north-east and on the pages of, yes, the New York Times. Time and time again one reads pieces disparaging American illiteracy or the decline of American cinema or decrying this or that part of American life. They do things differently in europe; they do things better. America is a cultural desert by comparison with the effortless sophistication and abundance of continental europe. You know the sort of thing.

In fairness, this is not confined to the pages of the New York press. It reaches absurd levels in commerce too: thus, for some reason, "European-style" kitchen cabinets or countertops are, naturally, much better than their common-as-muck American counterparts.  That's just one randomly plucked example of course and I have no idea how a "european style" kitchen cabinet might differ from any other type of cupboard, let alone how it is superior to the rustic simplicity of the good ol' american cabinet.

Still, the notion that the South is a different, more "authentic" America is not entirely without merit. By which I mean to say that, from a foreigner's perspective the south and the Appalachian states of Kentucky and West Virginia are  much less familiar and  demonstrably more, well, foreign than either New England or California which, culturally speaking, are much less alien environments for foreigners than either Appalachia or the Deep South.

That's partly - but only partly - explained by the movies. The first-time visitor to New York City - or, rather, Manhattan - feels less alien there than in just about any place on earth. Countless films and TV programmes have briefed the visitor on how, at the most basic level, to get around the city. You know, for instance, that it's the subway not the metro and a cab not a taxi. You arrive with an idea of New York and equipped with all manner of cultural reference points.

Similarly foreigners visiting Washington or Boston will frequently tell you how surprised they are by how "european" those cities seem or feel. They're American, of course, but less distinctively so than people imagine before they visit. Now it's true that to some extent this represents the increasingly homogenous nature of urban life across the western world, but it's also the case that north-eastern cities still tend to look east for their cultural heritage, not south or west.

People growing up in Connecticut or Maryland aren't any the less American for this; but, again from a foreigner's perspective, what one might term Redneck America is if you like hyper-American in as much as it's clearly a different kind of Americanism from the America of the Ivy League and Washington. when a european travels through Tennessee or goes to Alabama he knows he's in a very different place. It does feel different - and uniquely American.

To take a couple of Waldman's examples: jazz is one of the US's great contributions to world culture. But it's no longer a purely American art form. Jazz works in Paris or Rome or a dozen other cities around the world where no-one would raise an eyebrow at its presence. It just feels right, suiting the city and its mood. The same can not be said of country music which remains a genuinely American genre.

Equally, basketball is, as the American national team keeps discovering, increasingly an international game. What began as an American sport has become a global game. This has not happened to NASCAR. so here too one may say that, yes, in fact NASCAR is a more American sport than basketball just as country music is, these days, more American than jazz in as much as jazz is enjoyed and played around the world and not confined within American borders. Jazz and basketball are great American success stories; but their success waters down their intrinsic Americanness as the become internationalised, just as, say, soccer ceased long ago to be a British sport.

So, yes, the south is more American, or at least more foreign, than other parts of the country if by that you mean that there's a culture and a mentality in the south that one does not find elsewhere. It's uniquely American and would not, I think, ever be confused for anywhere else which is why, mind you, it is simultaneouly patronised and envied for its self-sufficient culture.
 

Comments

[Ruck]

Your argument seems wrongheaded to me. It seems that when you define "Americanism" you are essentially using it as a descriptive term for the elements of the US that are most distinct from other countries, while Drum and Waldman are obviously not. I think that they are talking about Americanism as a sort of normative standard that defines the political, economic, and social conversations that the American people have in the public and private sphere. Drum and Waldman are irritated precisely by the conflation of these two uses of the word, because it suggests that the basic core of American society (which is in turn celebrated and pandered to) is defined by a group that is more and more a fringe element with views that are at odds with many of the political and social objectives of the majority. I think you'd agree that defining the average person from a country by the elements that make that society most distinct is a quite flawed bit of reasoning, especially in and age where urban living in the western world is pretty homogeneous. Essentially, you seem to be defining societies by their narrow stereotypes, which is self-evidently inaccurate and can be a major impediment to efforts to change the negative qualities that underpin those stereotypes.

[Julien]

It's ironic that jazz is seen as more international, east-coast, etc., as it originated in the South (as did rock and roll). Of course, jazz was born in New Orleans, and has thus always been urban and cosmopolitan rather than rural.

As a Scot you might be interested to know (or perhaps you already know) that a very large influence on the South's distinctive culture was the large number of Ulster Scots and Highlanders displaced by clearances who populated the Southern states in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

[Robert Geilfuss]

You're right, but only because the way you define "American" makes it hard not to be. It seems strange that you'd define what's most ideally "American" as what is most different from the rest of Western civilization. Come on Alex, we're not that bad. That's like me defining St. Andrews (where I'm matriculating next year from good old Milwaukee)as the most Scottish town because it more destinctly not in America than, say, Dundee.

[Toby]

Alex gets it right. It's refreshing to read an article about American identity that is so free of the political correctness we get today. In fact, it's sad that there are those in our society who decry even the idea of an American identity.

[Robert Pitt]

I live in a small town in the south and people down here are a little different from up north, they are a hole lot more polite and friendly them they are up north. I alos think they are true Americans