Are Southerners basically third worlders?
It is a question I often ask myself, and one which I try to approach from a multitude of different angles. It's also one which, after many years of pondering it, I think can be responded to with a basic "Yes, I think they basically are". But why?
My reasoning is very simple: Not only are Southerners in the USA particularly brutal, just like 3rd worlders are, in the sense that they value strength over intellect and weapons over compromise (not to mention prison over hospitals), but the other thing that makes the Southerners seem so dreadfully "third world-esque" is the fact that, just like their culture seems so lacking in intellect, so too does it seem very lacking in just plain old imagination.
American southerners are very peculiar people to me because they actually, in some respects, are even more unimaginative, generally speaking, than most actual 3rd worlders - from, say, Kenya, or Venezuela -- tend to be. One thing people don't understand about the 3rd world culture is that, one big reason it's so terrible, is because it has no idea how to get outside of itself, or to even imagine a world outside of itself. It is literally that poor. It's like you're in a room with no windows, no computer, and no books. You don't even realize you're in a prison, basically.
The Deep South isn't as bad as Kenya, but it's pretty close, it's 3rd world as far as I see it, and there are a few reasons I say this. For starters, let's examine what, in terms of culture, tends to "sell" in the Deep South. Guess what it usually is? I'll tell you: Only stuff that the Southerners feel represents them and theirs. Southerners are literally the only group in the entire country, and perhaps the entire developed world, who are so obsessed with their own mirror reflection, in terms of the media they want to take in. Southerners have their own exclusive country music, their own movie genre that they obsess over collectively (the Western, ironically), and they also have their own sense of fashion. They all seem obsessed with the exact same handful of things.
Believe it or not but, globally speaking, and especially in terms of the developed First world, all of these traits are pretty god damn rare. Most people in developed countries, in the 21st century, have their own culture, sure, but they tend to not be obsessed with it, and oftentimes, they tend to hardly even pay any attention at all to it, in terms of media. People from Washington State, in the Pacific Northwest, don't obsess, endlessly, over only digging musicians that come from Washington State, and sing songs about the Northwest. Generally speaking, people from France and Spain , et cetera, are the exact same way. No one in those places cares to only hear about the place they're from, in every single thing they do.
Again, I stress: This is the sign of a 3rd world mindset, because the disease of the 3rd world mind is that it is literally so poor that it cannot travel, even imaginatively, outside of itself. England, for example, gave the English language highly imaginative fantasy stories like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter -- and then even bands like the Beatles-- because England was forward, and progressive. England saw far outside of itself. Notice what the South did with rock and roll, however, once it was handed back to them, by the English, as I always say: They debuted Lynyrd Skynrd, a band that talks endlessly of the South, and then they even created a genre called "southern rock".
French people write rock music, Italians write it, and so do Mexicans write tons of it. Yet no one hsa ever coined the phrase "Mexican rock" as though it's an actual separate genre. Even the English rock acts do not refer to their music as "English rock". Everyone who writes rock music does it for the same reason: They want to be globalized, and they want to fly on airplanes all around the world, playing rock songs. They want to escape imaginary borders and flags. They want to be accepted on a global worldwide, scale. Not just in the "South".
In fact, for all the crap that North Americans talk of the Latin Americans, the folks down below Texas in countries like Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and so forth, are able to extend their worldview shockingly far, in comparison to most N. Americans, but especially in comparison to Southerners. People in Peru are distinctly aware that there is a world outside of Peru. They don't expect, nor even want, to hear only about Peru, in every single song they listen to. They don't care to only watch television programs set in Peru. Southerners from the States do want all of this.
My basic opinion, in fact, is that the American southerners are basically like insulated "common" Americans -- many Americans are insulated,in some way, after all -- but without all the benefits: Someone from New York or California is often convinced that the US is the best, just like a patriotic Kentucky boy, but at least someone in NY or Cali is experiencing an incredibly vibrant area, literally brimming over with all sorts of interesting things. The Southerner is instead living in an impoverished area, very much like a Peruvian or a Colombian-- make no mistake about it -- and yet,a t the same time, he is still convinced it's the best place ever, and he feels he has no reason to look anywhere else. He hates the liberal north, so he can't go there, but he also hates the entire world outside the USA, too. Get what I mean? It's like a Mexican sitting in Mexico thinking they're in the best country in the world. It's not just ignorant, it's also pretty dangerous, cause it simply isn't true! If Mexico believed that about itself, which I can assure you, she does not, it would be very bad, because Mexico would never wind up improving. Instead, Mexicans are always looking abroad, in both media and reality and music, and this will lead to Mexico improving, instead of declining. The Deep South states simply don't do this. Again, just look at their standard media. It's painfully obvious that these people are dreadfully insulated.
Southerners are filled with all sorts of arrogance that, in a large way, they never earned the right to have. It's like they're drinking north country lemonade , thinking it's their own, but it ain't. It also probably doesn't help that many of them seem to be convinced that Texas has something to do with them, which it most definitely does not. Texas is still a bit in the past, yea yea, but make no mistake about it: She is, and has been, slipping liberal in many shocking ways. I predict that Texas will eventually be another type of California or New York, and soon: It will wind up a permanent blue state. Many people seem to think Texas is the "south". It is not. At all. For example, many Texans appreciate country music, and there is a big country scene there, but then, too, there are also many other very vibrant music scenes there as well. I know a dozen people who have moved to Texas. I've never heard of anyone moving to Georgia, or Tennessee. Ever in my life. Texas also hosts the SXSW events for music.
When you're hosting events like that, where peole come from al over the states and the world to hang around in your city, it's a pretty good indicator you're about to tip Democratic blue, permanently and fast. Then too, consider that other famous resident of Texas, from a little town called Abbott: His name was Willie Nelson...and he's basically the biggest liberal that country music has ever seen. Put him up against the real Deep South country artists and there's no comparison. Willie Nelson has collaborated with Snoop Dogg. You ain't gonna get that from some cowboy artist raised in Georgia or Mississippi. Those guys are all, instead, totally insulated...in their own little Deep South world. I say it all the time: Brad Paisley, from West Virginia, and Charlie Daniels, from North Carolina, literally have no widespread hopes at all, like Willie Nelson did and still does. They don't even seem to want to have widespread hopes; they are entirely content, it would seem, with just a Deep South fanbase.
People all over the USA Recognize Willie Nelson. Ask them about Charlie Daniels or Brad Paisley...no one has a clue who you're talking about, outside the South. This is a sign that the South has literally collapsed in on itself, in a way that is, shockingly, even worse than it used to be. Look at Elvis Presley, for example, born in Mississippi. In the 1950s, he obviously had nation wide and then global range. But nothing about Elvis's music seems "distinctly" southern to anyone. The South was not Elvis Presley's sole topic of singing. The South was not literally smeared over every one of his songs. With Charlie Daniels and Brad Paisley, it most definitely is. These artists are incomprehensible outside of the South. And again, they 'think' that this is a good thing, and what they should be aiming for.
What's particularly strange about white southern culture versus, say, the blacks, is that the blacks now seem oddly ahead of the Southerners in many respects. In fact, they have seemed ahead of them for quite awhile now. Consider, in the first place, that blacks are all politically liberal, which is a sign of being first world and developed, and then also consider that black southerners tend to know tons of black northerners, and they also tend to make music that, though it is often filled with regional obsessions, still manages to go global, regardless. Blacks are not filled with any of that same, asinine arrogance that has so destroyed the Southern white man, and left him crippled: They look outside their own house, all the time, and they take influence and inspiration from outside, often. The "southern white" simply refuses to do this ... and as a result, he is being totally left in the dust. Just like a 3rd worlder would be...
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