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OK, I hoisted a few after work and managed to come up with a coherent explanation of the base political differences in this country. Then, I had a couple more and forgot the very best parts.
DUers love to rant on about rural vs. urban as the dividing line. WRONG. The dividing line is whether the cultural groups living there were intrinsically community oriented or aristocratic, from Colonial times on. Let me explain...
Liberal/Progressive ideas sprout in the Northeast. Agriculture in the olden days here was always small landowners, farming subsistence crops for themselves and their surrounding communities. Farmer Brown was not Farmer Green's competitor, he was his neighbor. Think about barn raisings, everyone pitching in to help with harvest, strong commitment to the township in the form of participatory democracy. Within the community, there are some better off than others, but for the most part everyone is on a pretty level field. Innovation flourishes in any climate where individuals are not beholden to their betters, and the historical base for American (Yankee) Ingenuity has always been these regions.
The bastion of social conservatism (and fiscal too, to a more limited extent), is the Old South. Now, most people correctly assess Slavery and It's Legacy as the root of the trend, but I figure it's just the most vile and blatant manifestation. The root is the original plantation system's Aristocratic aspirations. Culture dominated by a relative few large landholders, intensely farming crops of little intrinsic worth to themselves or the community (tobacco, cotton) but worth serious money when exported. Coronel Gray's neighbor plantation down the river was first and foremost a competitor, for resources and market. Small farmers are often operating at the pleasure of the Big Family in the county, better off than the slaves, but certainly never allowed to become a risk to the gentry. The plantation system created an upper class who's economic status guaranteed their political aspirations, which were inevitably "don't rock the boat."
Urban centers, up until the Industrial Revolution, were defined by the rural communities around them. Areas of cash cropping had towns bent on commerce, commodities going out and finished goods going in. Think brokers, traders, bankers and shippers - professions where adhering to a set of hard and fast rules result in success, risk is calculated and money is really just an Idea. This gives rise to a class mentality that appreciated materialism and, well, a conservative view of the world. Don't rock the boat.
Towns were the main goal was to manufacture goods that the community needed - smithys, wagonwrights, shipbuilders and the like - ended up fostering innovation and individuality, since a better three-prong widget splitter would generate more sales and more income. With this attitude, you begin to see the seeds of industry, etc, and a pragmatic view of a changing world lacking in cultures that prefer to not rock the boat.
Finally, communities drove religion. Really. The firebrand abolitionists in the north were Godly men and women, reading from the same book that gave the Aristocracy of the South it's sense of entitlement over lesser people. The differing views of Faith come not from the bishop or the synod, but from what the town decides the preacher will talk about. Trust me on this one. Whenever a congregation receives a new pastor, there is an amazing norming process by which the old biddy's that actually run the church mould said pastor into the likeness of the old biddy's idea of pastorness.
And then comes heavy industry, cultural migrations and TV, and everything spun around in the blender.
OK, pretty buzzed up, rambling without direction. Carry on without me.
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