Stereotyping Cuts Both Ways
So often, Southerners are admonished to avoid stereotyping people. That’s a nice way for them to say, “quit being such intolerant bigots.” Let’s take a look at the other side of stereotyping - that is, stereotyping ourselves by saying, “this is what a ‘True Southerner’ is.”
Here is a quote from a rabidly anti-Southern web site that is quoting from a book that purportedly takes a pro-Southern view:
Chronicles magazine, in the March 1989 issue, has an article by Grady McWhiney titled, “The Celtic Heritage of the Old South” (McWhiney 1989). The article is introduced with a drawing of a man somewhat horizontal, pouring what I assume is beer into his mouth with some of it running down his face onto the ground. He is in a field with a couple cows looking on. McWhiney starts his article by stating his view that Southerner and Northerners are culturally divided and “such cultural disharmony has divided the South from the North for more than three hundred years.” McWhiney believes the South was settled by various Celtic groups and the North from the English lowlands resulting in “fundamental and lasting divisions” and eventually, he explains, the American Civil War (McWhiney 1989, Chronicles, p. 12) .
McWhiney explains what Celtic culture is by contrasting it to what he feels is English culture. Often he contrasts two paired groups, that of Celts and Southerners versus that of English and Yankees (McWhiney 1989, Chronicles, p. 13).
Unlike Yankees and Englishmen, who were compulsive plowers and often obsessed with agricultural improvements, Celts and Southerners, cultivated crops reluctantly and haphazardly.
Celts and Southerners, whose values were more agrarian than those of Englishmen and Yankees, wasted more time, rarely read or wrote, consumed more liquor and tobacco, and were less concerned with the useful and material.
McWhiney characterizes Celts and Southerners as a pastoral group that likes gambling, drinking, “raucous music,” dancing, hunting, fishing, horse and dog racing. The Celts and Southerners lack ambition, are lazy, and avoid work because they are not materialistic. If these qualities do not sound good, McWhiney becomes a multiculturalist and says they are good in the values of Celtic civilization. The English and Yankees are repeatedly described as censorious and intolerant of Celtic culture. However, McWhiney wishes the reader to know that “when outsiders supply the discipline and constancy, Celts are capable of mighty achievements as British history has shown” (McWhiney 1989, Chronicles, p. 15) With friends like this, who needs enemies?
How often have we, as Southerners, embraced our Celtic heritage lock, stock, and barrel without understanding that people and cultures change over time? Yes, many of our ancestors came here from Scotland, and yes, there is almost always a factual basis for stereotypes of groups of people, but there is more to it than that.
People and cultures are influenced and changed by their surroundings. Dixie is very different from Scotland. The weather is different, the terrain is different, the government is different, the religious environment is different, the economic system is different, etc. The early Celts were Pagans - I am a Bible-believing Born-again Baptist. That is a very fundamental difference that has a huge effect on just about every part of life. The economic system here in America presents individuals an incredible opportunity that simply was not available in the Scottish Highlands of a couple centuries ago. We could go on and on with examples.
We need to be very careful about claiming to have a “Celtic culture” or any other type of culture. We have a Southern culture - and there is a huge variation in what constitutes that. As much as I dislike it, the “Redneck” has as much claim on being “Southern” as the Southern Gentleman. I have seen Southerners boasting about having “the finest whiskey” and loving to party, and listening to nothing but country music. I cannot deny their claim to being true Southerners, but they are very different from me - a non-drinker who prefers a church fellowship to wild parties, and enjoys classical music.
We need to remember that while we here at Confederate Colonel hold the Southern Gentleman, as exemplified by Robert E. Lee, as the pinnacle of Southern Culture, there are others who legitimately claim something very different as being “Southern culture”.
Before agreeing that we embrace “Southern culture”, we need to understand exactly what the other person means by “Southern culture”. Don’t fall into the trap of having to defend a Southern culture that does not reflect you.