Joe Carter at First Thoughts has written a post on the idea of localism, and how it ties into patriotism.
In his post on Local Color, Jody includes the epiphanic observation that American literature has entailed a “substitution of geography for heroes in our moral vocabulary.”
“…we don’t have many heroic types in American literature. What we have instead is heroic geography. The Virginian, the Down Easterner, the Texas Ranger, the cowboy, the Hoosier, the hillbilly, the Okie. These are tropes that serve the moral function filled in other cultures and other literatures primarily by heroes. And these geographical tropes survive well into our own era of indistinguishable shopping malls from Maine to California.”
Why did the collective literary imagination take this turn? I may be completely wrong about this but I think it may have something to do with our country’s democratization of civic virtues.
Prior to the modern age most literary heroes exemplified the martial virtues of the warrior (courage, honor, duty) or the theological virtues of the saints (kindness, generosity, faithfulness). They were the virtues of the elite, whether militarily, politically, or spiritually. But in the post-Civil War era, America needed to reconnect with the virtues of the citizen. Not surprisingly, American literature appears to have revived (albeit unconsciously) the citizen virtues of ancient Rome.
The ideal virtues of the Via Romana—which included such characteristics as comitas (humor), frugalitas (frugalness), industria (industriousness), severitas (sternness)—were qualities needed to conquer and civilize regional peoples under one Roman Republic.
But whereas in Rome these virtues were embodied in mytho-theological constructs (e.g., Veritas, the goddess of truth), in America we associate them with the geographic regions (e.g., the frugality of the New Englanders). The individual Roman citizen could associate himself with the virtues of the gods—even gods they did not give their full allegiance—simply because they were Romans. Similarly, Americans can associate themselves with virtues of regions in which they do not live because they share a common connection of Americanness.
Rufus and I talked a little about this idea when he interviewed me. I love the stubbornness of the New Englander, the brashness of the New Yorker, the combativeness of the Southerner, the stoicism of the Midwesterner, and the swagger of the Texan. And believe it or not, I love the flakiness of the Californian.
At least today I do.
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Joe’s posts always have something interesting.
Back in the day, Joe’s posts over at EO helped to shape my political thinking, even when I disagreed. That’s where my famous patented kill-you-with-exhaustion-by-the-shear-length-of-my-point-by-point-rebuttals evolved. It was also possible to face off against some of the micro-celebrities of the Left’s blogosphere, circa ’04 and ’05. Things have ballooned out since then, to the point it really isn’t possible to do that now.
What’s so interesting about the American Left is that they are so anti-American, while being so consummately American. Who else, but Americans, could have figured out how to turn radical European chic into the commercial kitsch of pop culture of the 1960s? The torrent of merchandising–from tie-dye to lava lamps–was born from a million entrepreneurs creating a cottage industry. Good or bad, we Americans know how to turn anything into a business.
Its funny but the more of America I see the more I fall in love with her. The trip across Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisianna, Texas, Oklahoma, Texas again, New Mexico, Arizona and California was another revelation to me. I loved Mobile Bay and the hills of Alabama, the woods of Mississippi, the fields of Northern Louisianna, the wood lands of Texas, and the plains after Dallas, Fort Sill and The Witchita Mountain Wild Life Refuge where our history and heritage lives on, The Staked Plains of Texas, the ranches, the endless land and the huge sky, the desert of New Mexico and that crazy mountain drive all the way into Albaquerque, Flagstaff Arizona where the smell of mountain pines still lingers in my memory, and the Mojave Desert with its moonscape and mystery, and here, SoCal…..
As an Alabamian I have to ask, what was your favourite part of our Grand State?
All I really got to see was the area around Interstate 10. Mobile Bay was beautiful and Mobile and its old Antebellum mansions were gorgeaous.
You missed alot.
A-LOT!