0:07

Hello, and welcome to The

0:09

Political Orphanage, a home for

0:11

plucky misfits and problem solvers.

0:14

I'm your host, Andrew Heaton, and

0:17

I hail from a part of the country where

0:20

people take neighbors very seriously.

0:23

And I've always fancied that the

0:26

cultural import we place on

0:28

neighbors, the sinus as sanctus,

0:31

is a remnant of our

0:33

not-so-distant frontier days. When

0:35

you were out on the range, hours from

0:38

town, and your barn burned down,

0:40

or your wife got bitten by

0:42

a rattlesnake, or bitten by a

0:44

vampire, or by a venomous

0:46

bear or something, or your

0:48

water pump broke, I don't know, stuff that happened

0:50

on farms, you had to

0:52

rely on your nearest neighbor or

0:54

you'd die. And so,

0:57

there developed an unspoken emphasis

1:00

on knowing neighbors, treating

1:02

them well, watching their property, and

1:04

when they fell on hard times,

1:06

you'd help them, because neighbors

1:08

were your insurance policy. That

1:12

could be nonsense. I don't think it is, but

1:14

it could be nonsense. It could well be that

1:17

everywhere there are people, there are

1:19

neighbors, and they take them seriously. And it's,

1:22

everybody likes neighbors, and I'm

1:24

looking to project or monopolize some

1:26

societal virtue which anybody could lay

1:29

claim to. But let's

1:31

try a different take. Let's

1:33

try a different take in terms of circumstances

1:37

affecting society. Let's

1:40

say you grew up in a

1:42

stand-alone house with your own yard, in

1:45

a suburban neighborhood or a rural

1:47

area. You have neighbors, but

1:49

you don't share walls with them, and

1:51

they're reasonably far away, far enough away that

1:54

you can play music however loud you want,

1:56

you can watch movies in your living

1:58

room with a booming subwoofer. for really

2:01

enjoy those explosions, you can smoke cigars

2:03

in your bedroom, you can brew beer

2:05

in your garage, you can even

2:07

work with some explosives in your garage, no one

2:09

really cares. Growing up and

2:12

living in that environment where your

2:14

personal activities are to a great

2:16

extent buffered by space

2:19

from the people around you, I

2:22

think it would be understandable if you

2:24

had a suspicious attitude towards being told

2:26

what to do. If

2:29

someone came around and told you to turn your music

2:31

down when you knew nobody could hear it, or

2:33

not to smoke in your house even though you knew

2:35

nobody could smell it, and even if

2:37

you burned down your house it probably wouldn't burn

2:39

down any neighbors houses, you might rightly tell them,

2:42

hey that's none of your business, you're

2:44

putting your nose where it doesn't belong, I'm not

2:46

hurting anybody so you can leave me alone. Would

2:49

you not feel at some visceral

2:52

level that the homeowners

2:54

association or the city council or

2:56

the governor or any type of

2:58

authority that tried to intervene in

3:00

the affairs of your garage was

3:04

unnecessary and impropriety?

3:09

Conversely, I lived

3:11

in New York City for about five years,

3:14

and let me tell you, you need

3:17

some kind of association

3:19

or HOA or government

3:22

to interfere with what people are doing

3:24

in their own home when

3:26

those homes are sardine-like

3:28

apartment complexes. My

3:31

first apartment in New York City was above

3:33

a bodega, which if you're unfamiliar with it

3:35

is a gas station minus the gas, and

3:38

the apartment I was in had very,

3:40

very thin walls. I think if I

3:42

just popped a screwdriver into it,

3:44

it would have gone through to the other side,

3:47

and the other side was shared

3:49

by a struggling band that

3:52

would, and I'm not exaggerating here, kick

3:55

off their extremely loud band

3:57

parties three or four

4:00

nights a week, starting around

4:02

midnight and ending around 7 a.m. And

4:05

they did that every

4:07

single week for about eight months. So

4:10

every night for eight months, I

4:13

would go by around midnight and I'd

4:15

knock on their door and they'd open it and I'd go, hey,

4:17

it's me, Heaton, I live next door. Can

4:20

you guys please turn it down because I have to go to

4:22

work tomorrow morning and I need to get some sleep? And

4:25

every single time,

4:28

they would look at me with

4:30

genuine surprise and go, oh, yeah, of

4:33

course, yes, sorry, man, sorry. And then they would turn

4:35

down the volume for

4:38

two or three hours until they got high and forgot

4:40

and then they would start it up again. Now

4:42

it's been a long time since those

4:44

days living above a bodega and I've

4:46

had time to reflect on this and

4:49

think about what it's like when you're young

4:51

and you're new to the

4:53

big city and you're a creative

4:55

person. And so with a little

4:57

bit of experience behind me, I'm happy to report

5:00

that after several years

5:02

of those guys working

5:04

hard and in

5:06

difficult circumstances and creative

5:08

obscurity, after several years,

5:11

everyone from that band is

5:13

now dead and rightly

5:15

so. Because

5:18

when you are sharing walls with

5:20

multiple other people, your

5:22

volume level does affect them. If

5:25

you smoke cigarettes, it'll float down from

5:27

the ceiling into the apartment below and

5:29

make their clothes reek. And

5:32

if you're doing something that's potentially

5:34

dangerous or explosive or flammable in

5:36

your apartment, that is a

5:38

real danger not just to you, but to

5:40

the whole building because it could catch fire.

5:43

So if you're growing up in an apartment

5:46

complex, would you not very

5:49

understandably feel on some visceral

5:51

level that society

5:53

is something which is overlapping

5:55

and interlocking, that no man is an

5:58

island and it's a bit strange? stupid

6:00

and selfish to think you can just do whatever you

6:02

want all the time because it happens to be in

6:04

your home? Might

6:07

somebody from the suburbs and

6:09

somebody from a dense urban area feel

6:13

very differently on some primordial level

6:16

about where we ought to place the bright line between

6:19

individual freedom and community

6:21

good? In

6:23

a nutshell, that kind

6:25

of phenomenon, that kind of circumstantial

6:28

explanation for how people

6:30

approach the role of

6:32

society is what we're going

6:34

to talk about today, but in

6:36

a much richer and longer time frame.

6:39

And for a while, this was meant to be an hour-long

6:41

episode. I believe this tops out at two hours, so you

6:44

guys get a double today. My

6:46

guests and I are going to tackle the

6:49

distinct regional cultures of

6:51

the United States, which

6:53

arose and developed under very

6:55

different pretenses and origins and

6:58

very different circumstances to

7:00

inform their different understanding

7:03

of the role of government and individual

7:05

and society today. We

7:07

are basically going to take a two-hour

7:10

trip through America's

7:12

regional DNA. It

7:14

is a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed it.

7:16

You're really going to enjoy it, but

7:19

I do want to drop in a couple

7:21

of caveats before we go in. First, when

7:24

we start to talk about New England

7:26

was founded according to these ideals and

7:28

developed in these circumstances, which translates to

7:30

this worldview today, whereas Appalachia was

7:32

a very different group of people in

7:34

circumstances, so they think this today, I

7:38

think there's something to that. I

7:41

also think you can take it too far. As

7:44

in, broadly speaking, I

7:46

think there's something to our conversation today,

7:48

that there are flavors and veltechings to

7:50

America's regions and that there's something

7:52

to how that affects their polity.

7:55

But in a vague, very

7:58

general, messy kind of way. Because,

8:00

at some point, if you

8:02

get too granular and rigid

8:04

and confident in these assessments,

8:07

it ends up turning into a kind of

8:10

regional horoscope. Pisces

8:12

are hard-working, but fear reign, whereas

8:14

Capricorns are patient, but prickly. Or

8:17

it can get weirdly mythological. The

8:20

Hill people once sheltered forth, so they

8:22

are forever warriors, whereas the people of

8:24

the grotto are beloved by Frigga, so

8:26

they are by nature good weavers. At

8:29

some point, we go from broad

8:32

regional explanations to something which is

8:35

essentialist and

8:37

borderline mythological and fallacious.

8:42

So I partially believe the stuff that we're going

8:44

to talk about, but at some point

8:46

I start to get kind of squinty and

8:49

go, okay, now

8:51

it's a horoscope. But

8:54

I have yet to articulate where that

8:56

bright line is, so hopefully today's episode

8:58

can help flush that out. And patrons,

9:00

I very much welcome your comments today

9:02

in the comments section of the episode.

9:06

Because we had so much fun describing

9:08

all of the different cultures and how

9:10

they've interacted with each other, we

9:12

didn't have very much time for me to offer

9:14

pushback, which I would have done, but after two

9:17

hours he kept looking at his watch and then

9:19

asked me if he could leave, and we cut

9:21

that bit out of the bit. So anyway, I

9:24

would love to hear your thoughts on where you find

9:26

critiques and what we're going to talk about today. One

9:30

more caveat. We are

9:32

talking reductively about

9:35

large areas and broad

9:37

stereotypes, which means this

9:39

discussion is by nature reductive

9:43

and kind of offensive. So

9:45

there's two ways you could

9:47

approach that today. You can

9:49

get huffy and send me

9:51

angry emails and correct

9:54

me on what I am telling you right now

9:56

in advance. I do

9:58

not fully believe. and

10:00

acknowledge is inherently reductive and

10:03

overly broad. Or,

10:07

we can all roll up our sleeves and

10:10

jump into the mosh pit and

10:12

blow off some real regional grievances

10:15

which is what I'm excited to do. Jump

10:18

into that scrum and start swinging

10:20

at our fellow Americans just like

10:22

the Europeans do at football matches.

10:24

So, pick your course. But

10:27

to be clear, we're gonna say

10:29

some reductive things and only

10:31

send me angry letters if

10:33

you are a patron. patreon.com/Andrew

10:36

Heaton. If you're not a

10:38

patron, you send me an

10:40

angry message about how I have impugned the honor

10:43

and complexity of your region. I will

10:45

print it out and then I will shred it

10:47

and move on with my life. Patrons,

10:50

this doesn't apply to you. I read everything you send me.

10:52

Okay, this is a fun conversation.

10:54

This is a double episode, gang, and it's

10:57

worth it. So get ready for some awesome,

11:00

long-form discussion about America's

11:02

composite regions and the

11:04

DNA, the intellectual DNA,

11:06

which explains their root

11:08

differences and frictions. Let's

11:11

go! My

11:15

guest today is Rudyard William Lynch. He

11:17

is the host of the popular YouTube

11:19

channel What If Alt Hist. However, I'm

11:21

going to assume

11:24

that there's a portmanteau of What If Alt Hist.,

11:26

which is the roots of your YouTube channel. There's

11:29

lots of interesting videos on there. There's lots of interesting

11:31

content on there. I, myself, am

11:33

always attracted to big ideas and I'm

11:35

always attracted to ways to look

11:37

at the world to understand the world better. And

11:41

Rudyard and I hung out last week and

11:43

we got into a conversation about the

11:45

composite nations that compose

11:48

North America. So not the

11:50

states, but who are the underlying

11:53

groups culturally, ethnically, historically

11:55

that compose the country.

11:58

There's a rich... historical tradition of

12:00

this, I think most people that

12:03

are already kind of familiar with this theory

12:05

might know of Colin Woodard. He wrote a

12:07

book called The 11 Nations of

12:09

North America, or at least that was the basic

12:12

gist of it, was that there were sort of 11 groups

12:14

that comprised the North American

12:16

experience. I know that Rudyard

12:19

is very familiar with Joel

12:22

Burrough, am I saying that right? Who was a

12:24

1980s journalist as well as some others. So that's what we're

12:26

going to be talking about today. We're going to be talking

12:28

about these composite groups. Rudyard, hello, welcome.

12:30

Thank you so much for having me, Andrew.

12:33

I'm glad to be talking about this because

12:35

the thing I enjoy the

12:38

most in my channel is anthropology

12:40

and especially American anthropology. Great.

12:42

Well, then let's just kind of start at

12:44

the Northeast and work our way down. And

12:46

what I'm thinking is today we'll sort of

12:48

outline these various groups and then once we've

12:51

done that, I'll throw some counters at

12:53

you. So let's kick it off up

12:56

top Northeast, what Colin Woodard would call

12:58

Yankeedom, Yankees, but New England. Let's

13:00

talk about that for a minute. All

13:02

of these different American groups were established

13:04

by different diasporas from the British Isles,

13:07

which occurred during the colonial period. And

13:10

one of my favorite history books ever is

13:12

Albion Seed, which is a book written

13:15

by David Hackett Fisher to

13:17

outline these migrations. And the Yankees were

13:19

a single demographic who effectively

13:21

formed an ethno state in New England in

13:24

the first 200 years of the country. And

13:27

so this demographic were middle class

13:29

people from East Anglia and Eastern

13:31

England. They were people like harpenters,

13:33

like yeoman farmers, and they

13:36

were all religious fanatics. And that was the

13:38

unifying variable. And you weren't allowed to not

13:40

be part of the Puritan church in New

13:42

England. And so they all

13:44

moved together by a handful of preachers

13:46

over a 20 year period. The middle

13:48

class East Anglia people were the entire

13:50

population of New England who moved over

13:53

in this 20 year period because they

13:55

effectively cut off all immigration afterwards. That

13:58

was the entire demographic of New England. until

14:01

the middle of the 19th century when the

14:03

Irish and the Italians showed up. It was

14:05

a, it's a fanatical cult-like society. You had

14:07

to attend church for six hours a day.

14:09

There was a giant painted eye of God

14:11

that would stare you down. The way they

14:14

operated was that they had this very complex

14:16

legal code that was completely constrictive where if

14:18

you argued with your wife too loudly, you

14:20

could get, you would get fined for that.

14:22

If you were loitered and weren't constantly hustling,

14:25

you could get fined for that. It's a

14:27

society where they have

14:29

no concept of personal freedom,

14:32

but it's very constrictive. So it became one of

14:35

the wealthiest societies in the world, one of the

14:37

most technologically advanced, one of the best educated, because

14:39

it did maintain standards and those standards helped it

14:41

out a lot. This is a giant demographic group.

14:44

One of the biggest in America today, because they

14:46

would have 10 children and they'd have another 10

14:48

children. And so a couple, I'd say that 80,000,

14:50

100,000 people probably came over. Now they're a descendants

14:55

number in the tens of millions, stretching

14:57

out to Michigan, Utah, the

15:00

Pacific Northwest, across the entire Northern

15:02

tier of America. And that's who

15:05

the Yankees are. Yeah. I'm

15:07

glad you bring up the religious fervor, fervosity.

15:09

What is the word? Fervor. Thank you. The

15:11

religious fervor. Because I don't think you can

15:13

understate the effect of Calvinism on New England.

15:16

And I don't think it ever went away.

15:18

When I talk to my European friends, it's

15:20

fascinating to look at how they look at

15:22

America versus how we look at America. So

15:25

my European friends all view America as very

15:27

puritanical. And what they mean by that is

15:30

there are people that don't have sex till they get

15:32

married and are questioning of gays. That's what they mean

15:34

by that entirely. And I'm like, yes,

15:36

there is a traditionalist, religious

15:39

bent president in the United States in terms

15:41

of social mores that's not present in Europe

15:43

to a great extent. But when you

15:45

start looking at the worldview of

15:48

puritanical Yankees, I don't think

15:50

that's changed. Or let me

15:52

rephrase this. Let me drill down on this. The

15:54

worldview of how society opts to operate and the

15:56

role in society. Because you think about the

16:00

The Puritans that were up in New

16:02

England, the Yankees there were deeply

16:05

moralistic. They were

16:07

Calvinists that believed that being a

16:09

good person is determinant based on

16:11

what you believe and what you

16:13

say in public proclamations of faith.

16:16

This is a debate that was happening a very long time ago, the

16:18

British Isles, of the older Catholic

16:20

model, where the Catholic model in

16:22

Ireland was being a good person

16:25

is largely a

16:27

product of works and what

16:29

you are doing. And then

16:31

there was a newer, more

16:33

deinstitutionalized model of, no, it's a product of

16:35

faith. You cannot earn your way into heaven.

16:38

Salvation is not something that any person could ever

16:40

aspire to on their own merits. Therefore,

16:42

merits are not a part of the equation. What

16:45

determines whether you're a good person or not is

16:47

if you believe the right things. And

16:49

I don't think that went away in New England at all.

16:51

Yes. When I lived in

16:53

New York, which granted is not New England, but

16:55

is sort of historically allied with it culturally, if

16:58

I were looking at somebody from Oklahoma where I hail

17:00

from, who works

17:02

at a soup kitchen on weekends, donates a

17:05

lot of money to charity, takes

17:07

in kids as a

17:11

foster family, and thinks that homosexuality is a sin,

17:13

I would look at them and say, that is

17:15

a very good person who believes a bad thing.

17:17

My New England friends, to a large extent, would

17:19

go, no, they're a bad person. Yeah. Because I

17:21

believe and I say the right things. Then I'm

17:24

like, do you do charity? Again,

17:27

casting with a big brush, but it was there

17:29

was like a moralistic amount and there was this

17:31

like real sense and

17:33

that early puritanical colony of

17:36

utopianism, of we are we are leaving

17:38

the old corrupt world and we are

17:40

going to build a shining

17:43

city on a hill. We're going to build this utopian

17:46

settlement and we can do it

17:48

if we all get on the same page because it's selfish

17:50

if we're not on the same page. If we all get

17:52

on the same page and we give

17:54

the right tools to the right people,

17:57

we can socially engineer the perfect society.

18:00

That's really a great point, and I didn't

18:02

put every piece you had put together there.

18:04

You can see with Calvinism the prototype of

18:07

the modern left, where it's

18:09

this small group of anointed people who are part of

18:11

the saves, and they have to guide along the rest

18:13

of the world. And if you look

18:15

at the areas in UT that all the trends

18:17

that are very ardently

18:19

progressive today, it's areas of Yankee settlement.

18:22

Even in the West Coast, Portland, Oregon

18:24

is named after Portland, Maine. And they

18:26

nearly named it Boston. It was a

18:29

bunch of mass of

18:31

sailors. We can get into this later too, but

18:33

since we're talking about Yangingham, what

18:35

Colin Woodard would call the left coast, but the

18:37

West Coast from, I don't know. San Francisco

18:39

up. Yeah, I'd say Los Angeles

18:42

up, but all the way up

18:44

through British Columbia, all the way

18:46

to the base of Alaska, the

18:48

original groups that settled those pre-qualifying

18:50

statement were not talking about pre-Columbian

18:52

contact because they were woefully conquered

18:54

and destroyed and everything. The modern

18:57

continuity kicks off with Yankee

18:59

sailors and they go around the Tierra del Fuego

19:01

and they get there. And then the later secondary

19:03

wave is the people that take the hard way

19:06

across the middle of the country. But the ones

19:08

that kick off the party on the West Coast

19:10

are Yankees that come down from New England and

19:12

want to replicate New England. What do they do

19:14

when they get to Northern California? They start building

19:17

Berkeley and Stanford and other Ivy League type institutions

19:19

because they want to replicate the New England experience

19:21

of communitarian and utopian ideals.

19:23

One of the other things that I

19:25

think is built into that New England puritanical

19:28

experience is that because the

19:30

Protestants that came out of England and

19:32

in Scotland wanted to get rid of

19:35

the old institutional corruption, but also institutional

19:37

intermediary between God and man, and that

19:39

just you are going to read the

19:41

Bible and directly interpret the word of

19:43

God, that meant that there was a

19:45

huge emphasis on literacy. And so you

19:47

go back to like 1600, 1700,

19:49

I think fairly inarguably, New England was the most

19:54

literate society in the history of the world. And

19:57

I think that emphasis is still there. You look at like... the

20:00

first places in America that had universal

20:02

public education. Massachusetts is one of the

20:05

first places. There's a long-standing tradition of

20:07

literacy and education are really, really important

20:09

and that those initial values come out

20:11

of that puritanical, Adventist experience. Yes.

20:15

As of now, New England produces very

20:17

little, except universities. If you look at

20:19

the economy of New England, it's

20:22

dependent upon Harvard, it's dependent upon

20:24

Wellesley, it's dependent upon Brown. It's

20:26

completely driven off universities, as you said. Just

20:29

to give an example how Yankee culture works,

20:31

I spent a month in Massachusetts this last

20:33

year because I was speaking at a couple

20:35

conferences and I went to this town,

20:39

a rural town in Massachusetts and

20:41

there were a couple experiences that weirded me

20:43

out about the local culture. One is that

20:45

my friends and I, we went to a

20:47

local hotel to see if it was a

20:50

Sunday to see if the restaurant was open.

20:52

Everyone stared at us completely dumbfounded that we

20:54

had to ask if the restaurant was open.

20:56

I was thinking, how do I

20:58

know? Another time we were at a bar and

21:00

I had four friends with me. I asked this

21:02

guy, can you move over a seat to make

21:04

face for my friends? I was thinking, I'll buy

21:07

the guy a drink as basically a thank you.

21:09

Then he immediately said, I want you to know

21:11

how disrespectful that is. I'm a Marine and if

21:13

this wasn't Veterans Day, I'd beat your ass. I

21:16

wanted to buy him a drink. I said, hey,

21:18

can you move over a seat? Then the next

21:20

thing I was going to say was to buy

21:22

him a drink to say thanks. Then he almost

21:24

started a fight. I live in

21:27

Texas now. I'm from Pennsylvania, but

21:29

going to New England, there's this very strict

21:31

moral code of what is correct and incorrect

21:36

action. When I spent some

21:39

time up there, I was constantly off

21:42

about what the social code there was.

21:44

They Have a very rigid moral code,

21:46

which they believe as self-evidently superior to

21:48

the rest of America. There are many

21:51

benefits to this culture, such as education

21:53

rates. It was very prosperous, very industrious,

21:55

but in polls, it is by far

21:57

the least liked region of the world.

22:00

The of America California computing but

22:02

it is by far the least

22:04

like Region America by other Americans

22:06

to get. The rest of America

22:08

use the Yankees as arrogant, cold

22:10

and ah, Just not pleasant. Yeah,

22:12

you do. It was funny as of in preparation

22:14

for this. You. Know I've I've been reading

22:16

about these different groups of it was of watching

22:18

your videos rudyard as well as going through a

22:20

lot of college littered interviews. And.

22:23

The only group and the sits there it is

22:25

about eleven to fifteen groups of the course of

22:27

today free of time. Of. The only group that

22:29

I like skills or was yeah them. But I want

22:31

to clarify this. I've spot I've I've been to New

22:33

England three or four times. I've loved every time I've

22:36

gone. Yeah, I really like Boston. I think it's an

22:38

awesome city or I love the accent a better New

22:40

Hampshire. Couple times I've had a great time. I really

22:42

like it so I want to surf. I am what

22:44

I hate. I. Hate. New.

22:47

England's. Politicians.

22:49

I find politicians from New England.

22:52

To. Be the most. Smog.

22:54

This. Moralizing. Holier

22:56

than thou people that have

22:59

this inbuilt worldview. Our and.

23:01

Elizabeth Warren's Agree: it's. More so

23:03

because we grew up. Eight miles away from

23:06

each other. Granted, I'm younger, but like we grew up

23:08

in the same area my family as the same amount

23:10

of Native American blood, although we didn't make a career

23:12

out of it, And. I got no,

23:14

she's I think of a bib epitomise as that.

23:17

And and this idea that will the government's good

23:19

because we all vote for it kind of. Granted,

23:21

it's a two party duopoly and also we jury

23:23

rigged hell out of it. But. I

23:25

it it is the community coming

23:28

together. And we can.

23:30

Develop. Utopia if we just all get

23:32

on board and give the tools to the

23:35

right people who are people that went to

23:37

one of seven colleges. And if we

23:39

just given that it it. but it's it's it's. A

23:42

God just time. but politicians, listeners. I'm not talking

23:44

about you, I'm talking about the people you keep

23:46

electing. For some reason I see like. simultaneously.

23:49

all the moral smugness of puritans and

23:52

the practical workability of communism i just

23:54

i'm the it is it is not

23:56

i ate as an alien block to

23:59

me that know of my own intellectual

24:02

or cultural lineage descends from at

24:04

all. Every

24:06

other place, I'm kind of like, oh, I can see bits and

24:08

pieces, but the New England worldview of

24:11

how society works, I think is probably the

24:13

most communitarian and European,

24:16

and the least frontier, the least

24:18

individualistic of anywhere in America. To summarize

24:20

Andrew points, if you're listening from Rhode

24:23

Island, I want you to know that

24:25

he loads you. And he thinks that

24:27

you are representative of the politicians you

24:29

elected. Passing

24:31

by that joke, the

24:34

thing that annoys me the most about Yankee

24:36

Line is the intellectuals, because they think that

24:38

they're basically anointed by God

24:40

to save everyone. And

24:42

when we were talking last week, we both read one,

24:44

there are like four or five books that cover this

24:46

topic, and one of them is American

24:49

Nations by Colin Woodard. And Colin

24:51

Woodard's from Portland, Maine. And his

24:53

story of American history,

24:55

I frankly don't like

24:57

Colin Woodard's book, although I have taken a

24:59

significant amount from it, because in my opinion,

25:02

a lot of it comes across as Yankee

25:04

propaganda. Because the way he writes

25:06

it, I'm from Pennsylvania, which is Pennsylvania

25:09

and the greater Midwest, because as a

25:11

Pennsylvania, I see a lot more cultural

25:13

similarity with the Midwest than the rest

25:15

of the Northeast. It's a

25:18

very important part of America's history. He

25:20

treats Pennsylvania and the greater Midwest as

25:22

if it doesn't matter at all. He

25:24

says he literally just writes it in

25:26

as if they were Germans. And

25:29

then he treats the South as

25:31

basically savage and barbaric. He never

25:33

writes anything positive about the South.

25:36

He treats all of their institutions

25:38

as negative, which is something I

25:40

see a lot from people in

25:42

New England or New York or stuff. And growing

25:44

up in Pennsylvania, we were more sympathetic

25:46

to the South than we were to the the

25:49

rest of the Northeast. Or at least depends

25:51

where you are in Pennsylvania. Central Pennsylvania is

25:54

more looking

25:56

to the Midwest and the South, and

25:58

Philadelphia is more... to the northeast.

26:01

New England wrote the history of America so

26:03

that New England is the only important area

26:06

where the reason that the

26:08

Mayflower, and this was really big in World

26:11

War II era histories, if you read World

26:13

War II era histories they'll say the origin

26:15

of the American character is the Yankee because

26:17

the Yankees met in the public school system,

26:19

they wrote the histories so that they were

26:21

the creators of the American character. But

26:24

if you look at Albee and Seed, the book

26:26

I talked about, there were four different migrations from

26:28

the British Isles occurring in the colonial

26:30

period that all had roughly equal importance with

26:32

the Yankees being one of them. Yeah, I

26:34

have a couple of things to unpack there.

26:36

I mean, I do think New England has

26:38

been extremely important to the formation of the

26:41

United States and isn't part of the American

26:43

identity. So I'm not in any way writing

26:45

it off as small or

26:47

unimportant, but a lot of the

26:49

American mythology has been disproportionately using

26:51

New England as a touchdown. We're

26:53

taught very early in American public school, at least in

26:56

Oklahoma where I'm from, that the Puritans

26:58

came to America and they were the ones

27:00

that got the party started because of religious

27:02

freedom and it kind of goes into this

27:06

American exceptionalism model. But you

27:08

start reading history and you're like, James,

27:10

is it James Smith that married Pocahontas?

27:12

Yeah. Like John Smith. Excuse me, John

27:14

Smith predates the Puritans. The

27:17

kickoff for the British is in Virginia, and

27:20

Virginia has nothing to do with the religious

27:22

experience. Virginia is about hiking, but Virginia is

27:24

about money. And they're the first people to

27:27

come over and Virginia, Thanksgiving doesn't become a

27:29

national holiday and the United States tell what,

27:31

like World War II? Yeah, yeah.

27:33

It was a regional one. No

27:36

one in Ohio would have known about Thanksgiving

27:38

in the type of Abraham Lincoln. That was

27:40

not a- Ohio did have Yankees, though, like

27:42

up by Cleveland. Okay. So

27:44

it was a Yankee holiday, right? Yeah. And like

27:46

in a beloved American holiday, I'm glad we have it.

27:49

Good, again, I want to emphasize this, New England, I

27:51

hate most of your politicians. I don't hate you.

27:53

There's lots of good things about that. But

27:56

I also want to say real quick, though, I

27:58

do think the phenomenon you're doing describing of

28:00

that kind of high-handed looking down at

28:02

other regions, there is a whole

28:05

cottage industry amongst academics, some of whom I'm friends with

28:07

and I've had on the show, and the

28:10

narrative always goes like this. There's

28:13

two basic groups in America, and I'm

28:15

saying this completely objectively, I have no

28:17

dog in this fight. One of the groups

28:20

really prizes intelligence, rationalism,

28:22

and altruism, and the other group

28:25

is, I want to be very polite

28:27

here, an honor-based

28:30

culture that doesn't enjoy

28:32

thinking, and it's important to

28:35

me, both of these groups, one

28:37

of the groups is sort of the

28:39

natural leaders of society

28:41

and should be in charge. And the other

28:43

group we need them to are kind of

28:45

like the frontline people that get shot because

28:47

they're dumb. I

28:49

happen to be from the

28:51

former, like I've met these people many

28:54

times, and I can see, when

28:56

I bring them on, like blisters, I can hear the

28:58

eyes roll, whether or not a part of that particular

29:00

group. So, head out of the bag, I'm familiar with

29:02

Colin Woodard, I've not read his book in its entirety

29:04

so I can't speak to whether or not he is

29:06

hailing from this, we're all slightly better

29:08

than all of you model, but- He's one of the

29:11

biggest people in it. Is it? Okay.

29:14

He like fits the definition of it. Yeah. I've

29:16

read the whole thing. Turn

29:18

our attention south a little bit then to

29:22

what Colin Woodard would call New Netherlands. Yeah.

29:25

New York City. So, New York City

29:27

historically, I think by any map is

29:29

not New England, it's considered Atlantic. Fun

29:31

fact, New York City, the greater New

29:33

York City metropolitan area has a bigger

29:36

population than 38 US states,

29:38

which is mind blowing. Down more than

29:40

half the country is smaller than just

29:42

New York City. So, New York City

29:44

has always had a big population, even

29:46

though we're talking about one city, it

29:49

very much can be its own cultural city state

29:51

phenomenon, it doesn't have to be an appendage of

29:53

New England or an appendage of the mid-Atlantic. So,

29:56

Colin Woodard would call that the New Netherlands

29:58

because it starts out New Amsterdam before

30:01

it becomes New York. What do you

30:03

see as the features of that culturally

30:05

that define the New Netherlands experience, the

30:07

New York experience? There are three regions

30:09

of America in which the original Anglo

30:11

settlers got depopulated by later immigrants. Those

30:13

are Greater New York City, the Upper

30:15

Midwest, and California.

30:18

In New York City, it was settled by

30:21

the Dutch, and it was pretty unimportant in

30:23

the colonial period actually, where it was one

30:25

of the least populated parts of the American

30:27

Northeast. And then it got really big through

30:29

industrialization and the Erie Canal. And the native

30:31

Dutch don't exist

30:33

demographically in New York anymore. Van

30:37

Buren was the last Dutch, any

30:39

note in the American experience. There

30:41

are little Dutch capsules

30:43

in Wisconsin, in Iowa, in Michigan.

30:45

But the Dutch did establish what the

30:48

culture for New York would be, because

30:50

New York's culture is all about

30:52

making a lot of money. And New

30:54

York effectively acts like a city state,

30:57

like Singapore. It exists to funnel creativity

30:59

across the Atlantic into the rest

31:01

of America. And so New York

31:03

is constantly doing demographic turnovers. It's

31:06

had periods of Irish, Italian, Jewish,

31:08

Puerto Rican, Bangladeshi, probably

31:11

African groups now. It's this

31:14

vortex of creativity that

31:16

exists as a

31:18

way to basically channel

31:21

stuff from outside America to America, and

31:23

then disperse it across America. And if you

31:25

read an account of what people would

31:27

think about New York in the 18th

31:29

century, it would be a lot of

31:31

similar things to today of they're

31:34

completely materialistic, they're

31:36

incredibly disagreeable. It's

31:38

really fast. They talk really fast. Tocqueville talks

31:40

about that, if not mistaken. He's like, dad,

31:43

they talk really fast. They want to make

31:45

money. Yes, they talk really fast. It's ethnically

31:47

very diverse. And even though the individual people

31:49

has got replaced, that spirit of New York

31:51

has stayed the same since the 1600s. Yeah,

31:55

I think like, whereas New England

31:57

always had a moralistic communitarian bent

32:00

to it. We've got to be on the same team

32:02

and we can make the shining city on a hill

32:04

and your individual behavior is a part of that, so

32:06

get on board. New York, New

32:09

York, New Netherlands, that experience I think has

32:11

always been much more of a global

32:14

port city. It's

32:19

always been a part of global trade. It's always

32:21

been a part of a broader international community. Trade

32:24

has been a big part of it. Materialism

32:26

in terms of just go out and succeed

32:28

and make money. One of the

32:30

conversations I have when I'm getting to know people sometimes

32:33

is what is the currency where you're

32:35

from? What is important where you're from? In DC,

32:39

money is not the most important social currency.

32:41

Proximity to power is. People ask, what do

32:43

you do for a living? Who do you

32:45

work for is a very keen question there.

32:48

You get assessed in the pecking order based on your

32:50

proximity to power. New York

32:52

City, I think, is the place where

32:54

just straight up affluence speaks the loudest

32:57

of any place I've ever been. Everybody wants money,

32:59

by the way. There's no part of the country or

33:02

the world for that matter that doesn't not

33:04

care about money or that

33:06

doesn't care about money. The

33:10

sense of money is kind of good at

33:12

it and of itself. The other thing I'd

33:14

add in is I think New England has

33:16

that puritanical core to it. I think that

33:18

New York has always been a lot more

33:21

cynical, a lot more practical, where you

33:23

look at like, I have

33:25

a few friends tangentially that have been both in

33:27

big business in New York and have been in

33:29

local government in New York, and

33:32

it is a much more brazen, cynical environment than

33:34

much of the rest of the country where I

33:37

want to do this thing with the ex-department. Okay,

33:39

well, you know you're going to have to give

33:41

something to the sanitation department. By the way, the

33:43

sanitation department's in the pocket of the mob, so

33:45

they're going to want their cut too. The

33:48

way they look at it is not that it's corruption,

33:50

it's just look, this is how the world works everywhere.

33:52

It's just that we're being honest about it and

33:54

it's just the cost of doing business. The cost of

33:57

doing business is somebody's got to eat and somebody

33:59

that's going to be a good got some power here is

34:01

going to get a cut either through

34:03

largesse or through a bribe or something.

34:06

And it's just how it works. And I

34:08

think that that is more pronounced in New

34:10

York City. Yes. And I think

34:12

it kind of like explains a bit about Donald Trump. I

34:14

think that we look at a lot of like what

34:17

comes off as corruption, like he

34:19

was in that environment where like, look, you got to pay

34:22

off the manager. That's just like, he's going to take a

34:24

bribe and this is how this is done. If you want

34:26

to go buy that building and you want to get a

34:28

building permit, you got to bribe the guy. It's just cost

34:30

of doing business. Definitely. I think

34:32

that's pretty accurate assessment in New York

34:35

City. To move further down the East

34:37

Coast, the next group is the one

34:39

that I'm from and where I grew

34:41

up in. And people always forget where

34:43

if you look at Quaker, Pennsylvania, I

34:45

think of the big four Albion seed

34:48

cultures, and I do have some

34:50

bias here. I think it's the most important because

34:52

when you look at Quaker, Pennsylvania, and for

34:54

frame of reference, the Quakers were a group

34:56

from the northwest of England. When I took

34:58

a DNA test, my family's from this exact

35:00

part of England, they moved. My mom's side's

35:02

from Nebraska, so they moved to Pennsylvania and

35:04

they kept migrating west with the frontier. I

35:07

also grew up a Quaker and the way Quaker services

35:09

work is you sit in a room and you meditate

35:11

for an hour. And if you feel the will of

35:13

God move through you, you stand up and speak. And

35:16

Quaker, Pennsylvania, was an anarcho-capitalist society.

35:18

And it's weird to think about

35:21

this with religious fanatics, but

35:23

the Quakers were very capitalist and very

35:25

industrial. The Rust Belt in

35:27

both England and America was established

35:29

around Quaker areas where the people

35:31

from the English Rust Belt populated

35:34

the American Rust Belt and the

35:36

place that industrialized first in America

35:38

was Pennsylvania. And the Quakers

35:40

also founded the American and the British banking

35:42

system because if you didn't pay your debts

35:44

in the Quaker church, you were ostracized immediately.

35:47

They had incredibly high social trust. So

35:49

the influences you see in America from

35:52

the Quakers are they developed the idea

35:54

of multiculturalism where they're the only group

35:56

open immigration where they had lots of

35:58

immigrants from Germany and Scotland. in the

36:01

rest of England and they developed

36:03

the capitalist core. If you

36:05

think about middle America culture of just

36:08

people in small towns who are just trying to live

36:10

their life and not bother

36:12

other people, that comes from the

36:15

Quaker, Pennsylvania culture that eventually

36:18

formed the Midwest. And

36:20

they also formed the idea of

36:22

religious freedom. Them and Rhode Island

36:24

were the only American colony with

36:26

religious freedom. And they developed our

36:28

concept of freedom that if

36:31

you don't bother me, I'm not going to

36:33

bother you. Or pluralism. Yes. So this was

36:35

a deeply pluralistic society. So whereas like New

36:37

England is a, initially,

36:40

English puritanical ethnostate,

36:43

New Amsterdam is a global

36:45

port city. The

36:47

foundry, the Midlands, whatever

36:49

we want to call it, Pennsylvania, kind

36:51

of through Ohio going West. Yeah. That

36:53

the modern Rust Belt is

36:56

a much more open society in that

36:58

they are religiously pluralistic. They're open to

37:00

immigration. The Midlands has a, it has

37:04

a communitarian ideal to it of the

37:06

group is important, but it

37:08

doesn't have nearly as much faith in

37:10

top down governmental approaches as New England.

37:12

New England has a, the

37:15

government is society. Society is important. Therefore, these

37:17

are both good. Just make sure the right

37:20

people are in power. Whereas I think the

37:22

Midlands has a, community is really important, but

37:24

that community might be your church or it

37:26

might be your business or something

37:29

like that. So it's not a lookout

37:31

for number one individualistic society, but

37:33

it's also kind of skeptical of

37:35

power. Yes. The great

37:37

disadvantage of the Midlands culture is

37:39

it will always prioritize social stability

37:42

for progress. Where

37:45

in the 19th century, Philadelphia was called

37:47

the Great American City, because Philadelphia had

37:50

less immigrants than the other cities in

37:52

the North. Because in Philadelphia, they didn't

37:54

want more immigrants because it would lower

37:57

wages for the local people. And

37:59

Philadelphia, Philadelphia used to be the most populous and

38:01

important city in America and it lost that to New

38:03

York because New York was always

38:05

on top of each innovation. In

38:08

Quaker culture, and I grew

38:10

up hearing this in church, as an employer you

38:12

have a duty to your community and employees. And

38:15

so if you do various get

38:17

quick rich schemes, that's literally a sin in

38:19

the church. And so

38:21

it turned Philadelphia into a backwater

38:23

as all the industries left the

38:25

area because of that social ideal.

38:27

Pennsylvania is called the Keystone State

38:29

because that pluralist society

38:32

allowed coordination between New England

38:34

and the South. And in every era of

38:36

American history, every issue, New England and the

38:38

South are at odds. In the middle states

38:41

determine who wins in that conflict. So the

38:43

middle states will be the arbitrators between New

38:45

England and the South. The

38:47

problem with that entire society is

38:50

that it's very parochial, very

38:52

locally focused. Where I grew up in

38:54

Pennsylvania, almost everyone was from Pennsylvania. No

38:57

one thought about New England, no one

38:59

thought about DC or New York. And

39:02

let's paint the map a little bit more here.

39:04

So we talked about Yankidom. And

39:07

most of the American experience is populations

39:09

moving from East to West. So

39:12

Yankidom is New England, but then

39:14

it scrolls over into Michigan, maybe

39:17

into Wisconsin and that part, but there's also

39:19

a Nordic population we'll talk about in a

39:21

minute. And then also the quote unquote left

39:23

coast. So this is sort of like, this

39:25

isn't all the western states, this is the

39:27

coastal part of the western states. Like you

39:29

look at like Oregon, Portland

39:32

West, very, very blue, very,

39:34

very communitarian. I love Portland

39:36

and it feels to me like I'm

39:38

visiting Scandinavia. But I'm told by everybody

39:40

in Oregon that if you go East, you're immediately

39:43

in Idaho. Basically

39:45

the range there, so it's almost like two different

39:47

states. So Yankidom is the

39:50

northeast and then it kind of moves west

39:52

parallel and it does the left coast. Where

39:55

is the mid-west? So the mid-west is Pennsylvania. Is

39:57

it Pennsylvania? And then it just goes across to

39:59

Ohio? Pennsylvania straight west to

40:01

out by Nebraska. And

40:04

I'm a Midlander. One

40:06

of my ancestors is Matt Anthony

40:08

Wayne, and he's from Pennsylvania. And

40:12

the reason that's the case is that

40:15

my ancestors migrated west every generation of

40:17

Pennsylvania out to Nebraska. And

40:20

the Midlands established the culture

40:22

of middle America. And

40:25

standard American culture is a

40:27

combination of Yankee, Midlands,

40:30

and German influence. So if you think

40:32

about the most normie American,

40:35

that is western Pennsylvania, western

40:37

New York, and Ohio. Okay,

40:40

so we've got with Midlands,

40:43

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska,

40:45

a little bit of

40:49

Oklahoma, so basically it starts in Pennsylvania and

40:51

Ohio and it goes west and turns into

40:53

the Great Plains states. Yes, 40 degrees north.

40:56

And I relate to a lot of this because I

40:59

would add another part of this culture is being conflict

41:01

diverse. Yeah, not wanting to make waves.

41:03

I'm sure everybody listening to this program can tell

41:06

you that their state is actually two to five

41:08

different states and can tell you exactly where those

41:10

breakdowns are. Rhode Island. Yeah, but

41:12

yeah, like in Oklahoma, the northwest part

41:14

of Oklahoma sounds like this to me.

41:17

Like the Panhandle and like Woodward County

41:19

where the Heaton family seat is, is

41:22

very much gentle plains farmers

41:24

in small communities that talk quietly

41:26

and do not want to talk

41:28

people about politics or religion because

41:30

those are contentious issues and we

41:33

prize everybody being

41:35

happy. Everybody just stay happy

41:37

and let's not make waves and if there's

41:39

something bad going on, let's

41:41

quietly deal with it ideally anonymously because we

41:43

don't want to have any conflict here. Yes.

41:47

Like would you put Minnesota in there? I

41:50

think there are similarities. There are similarities

41:52

and the thing is this isn't like

41:54

Europe where there's a very strict liming

41:56

France and Italy. These groups blur

41:58

together and the Where you dry

42:00

the lines to a certain degree is arbitrary,

42:02

where Pennsylvania is clearly not

42:05

part of the Midwest, but there's a

42:07

lot of very Midwestern cultural traits. Is

42:10

Texas part of the South, the Great Plains,

42:12

or the Southwest? And the answer is yes.

42:16

And my right-hand man, the guy who manages my

42:19

business side, he's a Yankee, and he says that

42:21

to me where he says, Rudyard, you'll do things

42:23

without doing them. Like if you want to say

42:25

something, you won't say it directly. It's

42:28

exactly what you describe. And that's just the

42:30

culture I grew up in. And in Pennsylvania,

42:32

there's an attitude of, I'll call it don't

42:34

leave the farm, but that's not what it

42:36

actually is. It's you should be practical, you

42:38

should mind your own business, don't get too

42:40

carried away, stay down to

42:43

earth and practical on all

42:45

things. And I think that's a culture that would

42:47

probably go out to Oklahoma. Very much so. My

42:50

Uncle Dan is comedically

42:52

practical. Like he is amusingly practical, where

42:54

when I was probably in middle school,

42:56

I don't think I could drive yet.

42:59

We were visiting our Uncle Dan,

43:01

Karen, the cousins, and

43:03

we're in the car and we're driving

43:05

back from Blockbuster. And

43:07

Uncle Dan is looking at me in the mirror and he goes,

43:10

do you know some people

43:13

buy movies? And

43:16

I was like, what? And he's like, they'll

43:18

buy them and keep them at

43:20

their house. And I was like, I have

43:22

watched Back to the Future 3 50 times. Like

43:25

yes, of course. And he's like, no, I'm not explaining it.

43:28

They OK, they they've already seen

43:30

the movie and they

43:33

know the plot, but they'll buy it

43:35

anyway. And like from Uncle Dan, this

43:37

was just like you watch it one time and you're

43:39

done. Yes. And like then you

43:41

go milk a cow. And like like for him, having

43:43

a film you watch Ad Nausea was insane. Yes.

43:46

Growing up in I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and

43:49

I moved to Los Angeles and there were so many

43:51

cultural traits. I'm not as hard as Uncle Dan, but

43:53

there are certain traits where I'll see things in Los

43:55

Angeles. And I think, why are you doing that? I

43:59

imagine. therapy for influencers.

44:01

That's probably a business in Los Angeles. Sure

44:03

it is. Or plant, I

44:06

don't know, gardening spirituality where

44:09

you whisper Buddhist words to

44:11

your plant. That's like a

44:13

California thing. And I'd look at that and I'd think, what

44:16

is that for? So Midlands is, in

44:19

its infancy, the kind of ethos

44:21

to it, it is pluralistic, it

44:24

is about stability, it is

44:26

conflict averse, it is pro-community

44:29

but a little bit skeptical of

44:31

government. Something like that. Yeah. So

44:34

that is great. It's also, it sounds to me,

44:36

like much more moderate as opposed to being partisan

44:38

extreme. And as you say, it ends up being

44:40

the swing vote between the South and the North.

44:42

It's the kingmaker because it is much more moderate

44:45

and pendulous in its positions. Okay. What do you

44:47

want to talk about next? Would

44:49

you prefer to go to Nordic America or to the South? Why

44:51

don't we go South? I'm thinking we'll do this,

44:54

we'll go clockwise. So let's go South

44:56

now. So on your map,

44:58

you have it called Cavalier and

45:01

Colin Woodard would call it Tidewater. What

45:03

area is that? This is

45:05

Virginia. Maryland was historically it,

45:07

but Maryland has been eaten up by DC.

45:11

And Virginia was the state with the

45:13

largest diaspora of any state in America.

45:15

And so Virginians popped into the entire

45:17

upper South. They went out to Kentucky,

45:19

they went out to Missouri, they

45:21

went out to Texas, Tennessee. And

45:23

it's hard to map between the

45:25

Scots-Irish area and the Tidewater area

45:28

because they just mix so much.

45:30

And so this is an issue I've had where

45:32

I marked two areas of their settlement as being

45:34

an extension of that culture, which I said is

45:37

around Louisville, Kentucky and central

45:39

Missouri. But in some ways

45:41

it's arbitrary. The way I imagine it

45:43

is we have a space colony

45:46

and conservatives form one

45:48

space colony, progresses from another space

45:50

colony. They gain total power of

45:52

their colony. 400 years later, they're

45:55

a completely different society. And that's what

45:57

happened with the Cavaliers and the Yankees.

46:00

where one of my favorite historical authors, Wieland DeWitt

46:02

Baldwin, said you could say America is a side

46:04

effect of the English Civil War. The

46:07

parliamentarians of the Yankees were one faction

46:09

in the English Civil War, and the

46:11

Cavaliers or the royalists were

46:13

another faction. And each had a time when

46:15

they were in power, and when that one

46:18

faction was in power, the other

46:20

side fled England to populate America to get

46:22

rid of political, to

46:25

avoid political repression. And so the Yankees moved

46:27

in the 1620s to 1640s to avoid political

46:29

repression against

46:31

their religion by the royalists. The

46:33

royalists, after the parliamentarians won the

46:36

English Civil War, spoilers, they fled

46:38

to Virginia, and it was the

46:41

second sons of South English nobility, where

46:43

the first son can inherit, the second

46:45

son has to do something, and their

46:47

goal was to reestablish nobility in the

46:49

American South. They came from the southwest

46:51

of England, and the southwest of England

46:54

is the origin culture for the South of America.

46:57

So when you imagine traits like gentility,

47:00

honor, charm, a pre-established

47:05

status hierarchy, a rural

47:07

culture, that's all the southwest of England. The

47:09

people in that area talk like pirates. America

47:11

is such an open big country that they

47:14

couldn't get whites to work as their peasants.

47:16

To be a lord, you have to be

47:18

able to work for you. And what happened

47:20

in America was the whites who

47:22

immigrated from that area said, sorry, we're not doing

47:24

this. And they started importing blacks. And so that's

47:27

the origin of slavery in America. And one of

47:29

the things David Hackett Fisher said is he said,

47:32

the culture of slavery predates slavery

47:34

itself, and the slaves were brought

47:36

in to fit the pre-established

47:39

Southern culture. Because

47:41

this Tidewater Cavalier

47:43

area, and Cavalier, we're using

47:45

that as an English Civil

47:47

War term. They work Cavalier.

47:49

From Wellian Puritanical Republicans, we're

47:51

all up in New England,

47:55

supported the revolutionaries of the English Civil

47:57

War. Whereas the old let's

48:00

stick with the aristocracy, let's stick with the...

48:02

Yes. That was this

48:04

part. And the people that formed this

48:06

part of the American South were second

48:09

and third sons. And what they were

48:11

looking to do was, I can't inherit

48:13

the earldom of Shrewsbury because my brother's

48:15

going to get that. But what I can do

48:17

is I can move to Virginia

48:21

and I can have a thousand acre farm.

48:23

I can build it a state and it's

48:25

going to have livery and it's going to

48:27

have a crest and I am going to

48:29

reproduce this old semi-feudal, baronial

48:31

manner and I will be the head

48:33

of that manner. And this

48:36

gets turned in the American experience, I think,

48:38

it's like it does have the enlightenment, even

48:40

though... Yes. I

48:42

find this a fairly repulsive part of the American experience.

48:44

It does have the enlightenment in the sense that, at

48:46

least in the minds of these people, there's

48:49

a sense of no bless oblige. And

48:52

we need to have a hierarchy and

48:54

we need to have the old

48:59

Greek city state where there is

49:01

democracy for the elite and

49:04

there will be a much larger servant slave

49:06

class that will not participate because they are

49:08

incapable of it. But for those of us

49:10

that are in the elite, we do have

49:12

an obligation to take care of our inferiors

49:14

and... Yes. But it's this

49:17

attempt to basically import European feudalism and then

49:19

kind of infuse it with some veneer

49:22

of the enlightenment. Yes.

49:24

The flaw in this system, as Andrew was teasing

49:26

out, are self-evident. The reason it's very easy to

49:28

find the flaws of this system, but I don't

49:30

think a lot of Americans could immediately see the

49:32

flaws in the Yankee system, is

49:34

because it's from a very older social order.

49:37

And I really loved Andrew's point where these

49:39

people... Slavery was abolished

49:41

from the Middle Ages and slavery was

49:43

getting started again in the early modern

49:45

period and the justification actually came from

49:47

the Renaissance. The ancient Greeks and Romans

49:49

had a better society than us, they

49:51

owned slaves. Thus we need to start

49:53

owning slaves to have a better society.

49:56

And it was in opposition to the

49:58

previous Christian anti-slavery society. But... The

50:00

flaws in the system are evident where the

50:02

South has the worst human development index stats

50:05

of almost of anywhere in America for

50:07

all of American history. The worst poverty,

50:10

the worst education, the highest

50:12

obesity are all in the South. And

50:14

so the flaws are self-evident. And the

50:16

South only industrialized in the last 60

50:19

years. But to

50:21

put a fine point on it, Andrew

50:23

and I both moved to Texas for

50:25

a reason. We're in the diaspora of

50:27

the Cavalier area, where I see Cavalier

50:30

place names everywhere in Texas, where

50:32

I like living in Texas. It's

50:34

really cool here. And not cool.

50:36

It's very hot. The culture is

50:38

pleasant. The good side of this

50:42

is that it doesn't get involved in

50:44

whatever. New England's will pick up on

50:46

whatever trend or fad is popular in

50:48

the rest of the world. And then

50:50

they'll immediately start try to do it

50:52

without critical thought. The South is more conservative.

50:54

And so in eras of history in which

50:56

the new fads are dumb, the South will

50:59

be better in an era in which the

51:01

new fads are useful. New England's will do

51:03

better or the Yankees will do better. And

51:05

in our current era, the reason the South,

51:08

the growth of the South has been absolutely stupendous

51:10

over the last 60 years is because

51:13

the latest fad being socialism

51:15

that actively degraded the functioning of the

51:18

societies and the economies in the South

51:20

by not doing that became popular. And

51:23

one of the points that people

51:25

often struggle with is dividing

51:27

Virginia from the Deep South because there are

51:29

some very similar, there are some similarities. Well,

51:32

they both had slavery. Yes. They both had

51:34

an aristocratic soldier. They were very defining of

51:37

the South historically. The difference

51:39

in the Deep South, which is Georgia,

51:42

Alabama, Mississippi, parts of

51:44

Texas, is that they weren't aristocrats.

51:46

There was no concept of aristocratic

51:49

noblesse oblige. And that concept in

51:51

Virginia created George Washington. It created

51:53

Thomas Jefferson. It created Robert E. Lee. And

51:56

there is Roe, all those guys. There's no

51:58

equivalent There

52:00

are very few important Americans from

52:02

Alabama, Mississippi, etc. And

52:05

Virginia was a two-thirds white, one-third

52:07

black. The Deep South was 80% black. And

52:11

the area around Charleston was one of the

52:13

wealthiest places in America, but it was just

52:15

an entirely black coastline with a handful of

52:17

whites. And it wasn't until

52:20

the last century that the Deep South

52:22

became majority white because half

52:25

of all the blacks immigrated to California or the

52:27

northern states. The culture of

52:29

the Deep South, it doesn't have a

52:31

parallel in any European society, which is

52:33

the case of the other Eastern American

52:35

cultures. It was healed from Barbados originally.

52:37

Right, because most of American migration is

52:39

east to west. But the Deep

52:42

South actually is from south to north because if

52:44

we were to get into the minds

52:47

of people living in 1550 or British people

52:49

in 1600, the wealthy populated part of

52:56

the British Empire and the Americas is

52:58

the Caribbean. Yeah, it's the West Indies.

53:00

That's where all of the money is.

53:02

That's where all of the both the

53:04

British colonists and the slaves are. And

53:07

the American seaboard is a much more

53:09

sparsely populated thing. And

53:11

so the way, if I'm understanding you correctly,

53:15

the difference between the Deep South and

53:17

Tidewater slash Cavalier is that

53:20

Tidewater is this re-microwave baronage. It's

53:22

a bunch of second and third

53:25

sons cosplaying as dukes. Whereas

53:27

the Deep South is nouveau

53:29

rich plantation owners from Barbados

53:31

just coming up and go,

53:34

yes, we figured out how to squeeze all the labor out of black

53:36

people. And they're not claiming to

53:38

be, I'm wealthy because I

53:40

am descended from Charlemagne. They're wealthy because they

53:42

own a bunch of people and they own

53:44

a bunch of land. Yes. And

53:47

they're moving back. They have so much money

53:49

that they're moving back to England where they're

53:51

reviled because there's

53:54

no finishing school element to this. This

53:56

is just, I went down there, I made

53:58

my fortune, I made a lot of money. It's self-evident

54:00

that because I made my fortune, I deserve it.

54:02

And the people that I owned were inferior to

54:04

me. Otherwise why wouldn't they own me? Yes, that's

54:06

a great way of putting it. And

54:10

this shift occurred because Barbados used to

54:12

be tobacco agriculture and Virginia agreed tobacco.

54:15

The Deep South grew cotton and

54:18

rice and indigo. And

54:20

Barbados in a 10 year period went from 80%

54:22

white to like 2% white because tobacco stopped

54:25

being the big crop and tobacco could be

54:28

local small farmers like Virginia. Then

54:30

sugar came in. You will die if you

54:32

are a white person trying to

54:35

grow sugar in the Caribbean. If you're a black

54:37

person, you will also die, but you'll survive for

54:39

a few weeks longer. And

54:41

so there was- Because of the mosquitoes and the

54:44

heat? What is the- It's

54:46

mostly disease where there's a great book

54:48

about this called Mosquito Empires. And

54:50

the reason the Caribbean became majority

54:52

black is something I don't know

54:55

is actually as many whites immigrated

54:57

to the Caribbean as North America

54:59

over the 16 and 1700s. Just

55:02

all the whites in the Caribbean died of disease.

55:04

Really? Fascinating. There was

55:06

literally like an 80% mortality rate. Yeah. I

55:09

mean, like we're living in the year of our

55:11

Lord 2024 and I'm here in Austin, Texas and

55:13

I can get mosquitoes in December. Like there's literally

55:15

no part of the year. It's great because we

55:17

all get to wear t-shirts all year round into

55:19

our 50s. What a glorious

55:21

climate. One of the downsides of said

55:24

climate is there are always mosquitoes. You

55:26

can always get mosquito bites in Texas.

55:28

Yeah. Pennsylvania or Philadelphia is as far

55:31

south as you can go without malaria

55:33

or yellow fever. And

55:35

Philadelphia would briefly have like a phase

55:37

of malaria and yellow fever. And

55:39

it was shocking because everyone thought, oh my God, we're

55:42

in the safe area. But in the

55:44

south and in the Caribbean, it was totally normal

55:46

for two thirds of the white people who showed

55:48

up to just die of disease in the first

55:50

six months. So I have never lived in the

55:52

south. The closest I've lived and wanted in Texas.

55:54

Well, okay. Sure. From

55:57

where I'm at in modern America. view

56:00

Texas as its own thing. And it's allied

56:02

with the South, but I don't... When you're

56:05

traveling abroad as a Texan, you don't

56:07

go, I'm from the South, you say

56:09

I'm from Texas. Especially Austin, like Houston,

56:11

or if you're out by Louisiana, it's

56:14

more Southern. But where we are now, it's Austin as

56:16

Austin. So noting that, yes, Texas was a part of

56:18

the Confederacy. I mean, it's the size of France, I

56:20

just kind of view it as its own thing. I've

56:23

never lived in the deep South, I've never lived in

56:26

Tidewater. I did live in Washington, DC, which wonderfully

56:28

described by some very funny pundit as

56:31

northern warmth and manners coupled with

56:33

Southern efficiency. Washington,

56:36

DC is more Northern than Pennsylvania

56:38

is. Now it is. It used to be.

56:40

I mean, like really, within living memory, into the 60s, it was the

56:43

Southern, it was the top of the South, not

56:45

when I was there instantly. So me never

56:48

having lived in Tidewater or in the deep

56:50

South, I do not

56:52

know the differences between these two in a modern capacity. If

56:54

we were to go back weirdly to like 1700, I could

56:56

spot the difference, which is cosplaying

56:59

second sons pretending to be

57:01

Dukes and nouveau rich who

57:03

own giant sugar plantations, just

57:05

making ungodly amounts of money.

57:07

How do these translate today? How are

57:10

they culturally different today? So the deep

57:12

South is just significantly blacker, where in

57:14

the colonial period, the deep South was

57:16

like 80% black and Virginia was two

57:18

thirds black. And those demographic factors still

57:20

exist today. The Northern,

57:22

the deep South is, it's just

57:24

the penultimate South. There's no way you

57:26

can think Georgia, South

57:28

Carolina are not Southern. Virginia, Kentucky,

57:30

people argue about it. And so

57:32

in the Tidewater South, you run

57:34

into the question, is this the

57:37

South? And Tidewater culture

57:39

is more muted than the deep

57:41

South is. And Tidewater culture is

57:43

taking a huge hit by a

57:45

combination of mixing with

57:47

the Scots, Irish and DC. Yeah. Because

57:49

Baltimore, I mean, like Maryland would have

57:51

gone for the Confederacy. Yes. It was

57:53

close enough to Washington DC that Lincoln

57:56

was sending a fleet to Baltimore and

57:58

went, we're going to burn the city to the ground and let... should

58:00

join the union. But culturally, Maryland

58:02

was a slave-owning state,

58:05

but the proximity to D.C. forced it into the

58:07

northern orbit. And then you look at like,

58:09

you brought up Robert E. Lee a minute

58:11

ago, you can see his estate from D.C.

58:13

You could almost throw a frisbee

58:16

from it. But having

58:18

a big biggest

58:21

source of federal funding in the

58:24

country right next to Tidewater,

58:26

that is going to have effect. Because now you're

58:28

having people coming in to work for the federal

58:30

government who are going to live in all of

58:32

those neighboring Virginia counties. And so it's kind of

58:34

getting sucked into the D.C.

58:36

orbit. Going back to the

58:39

founding groups of these, and when we say

58:41

about the founding groups, obviously the South is

58:43

predominantly of African

58:46

slaves. So I'm

58:48

not demographically dismissing them, but the people

58:50

in power were not African slaves. So

58:52

when we're looking at the people in

58:54

power that are establishing the kickoff culture

58:56

and the founding elements,

58:59

I would assume the South would be very

59:01

pro-government. The South is cavalier,

59:04

as you point out. It's on the side of the royalists

59:06

and the king during the English Civil War. And

59:08

it is a much

59:10

more establishment, aristocratic friendly,

59:13

deference to authority, deference to tradition, deference

59:16

to social hierarchy. It's a deferential culture.

59:19

Why is it so hostile to government?

59:21

Because I would think that that deference

59:23

would translate. Because the American government was

59:25

established by Yankees, where if you look

59:27

at the government bureaucracy and the executive

59:29

branch, it was all founded by New

59:31

England, the Yankees. Yankees became

59:34

the bureaucracy of the business of

59:36

government. And so everything the government

59:38

did effectively became a Yankee endeavor,

59:40

and the South has to hate

59:42

everything the Yankees do. And

59:45

there is slavery involved in this,

59:47

where a big factor was the

59:50

Civil War got

59:53

mixed up with states rights. And so saying

59:55

you wanted to have slavery, it

59:58

got mixed up with state identities, and I

1:00:00

think that that's another factor there. So

1:00:03

if you are living the

1:00:05

Tidewater dream, you have

1:00:07

a 40,000 acre estate, you've got field

1:00:09

hands and all that, you

1:00:11

know that the singular threat to your wealth

1:00:14

is somebody outlawing slavery, and that's going to

1:00:16

be the government. And so what you want

1:00:18

to do is have a kind of like,

1:00:22

like basically a feudalist state. You would

1:00:24

rather America function as a feudalism where,

1:00:26

look, I am the king of my

1:00:28

little domain, take me to hell alone,

1:00:30

and the government is a sort of

1:00:32

outside emperor, very well- Finalized deal with.

1:00:35

Yes. Okay. And

1:00:37

how does that translate today? Like, because again,

1:00:39

it's still very skeptical of government authority. Perhaps

1:00:42

somebody a little bit more progressive and cynical

1:00:44

than myself would say that the antipathy towards

1:00:46

taxes is the same thing, that that part

1:00:48

of the country is just pro-aristocrat and wants

1:00:51

to leave money in the hands of the

1:00:53

elite. One of the things I find interesting

1:00:55

is the conservatism of Pennsylvania is very different

1:00:57

from the conservatism of the Deep South, where

1:00:59

I grew up, 10% of the population were

1:01:02

a libertarian party. And-

1:01:04

Really? Yeah, yeah. Wow. Like,

1:01:07

not for the whole state, but like- In my

1:01:09

county, 10% of the population were

1:01:11

card-carrying libertarians. Wow. Yes. Huge

1:01:14

and unknown travels to America. Yes. And

1:01:16

that's what the culture is. There's two guys at Adennii's

1:01:18

arguing with each other very loudly to the point that

1:01:20

no one wants to associate with them, but having 10%

1:01:22

a lot. Yeah. I mean, I

1:01:24

assumption when you meet someone's dad is they'll be a libertarian.

1:01:27

So that was kind of the culture. And if you look

1:01:29

at the Rust Belt, they

1:01:31

tend to be economically libertarian,

1:01:33

but abortion just turns off

1:01:35

the Rust Belt. And so a reason

1:01:38

the red wave didn't happen in 2022

1:01:40

was Roe v. Wade pissed off

1:01:42

the Rust Belt. And if you

1:01:44

look at the South, it's very socially conservative. And

1:01:48

the culture in the Deep South especially, because it

1:01:50

was 20% white, every single white person

1:01:53

had to own a gun and constantly be a

1:01:55

part of a militia to keep the blacks down.

1:01:58

And so that was a major story. subconscious fear

1:02:00

in the South for centuries was the blacks

1:02:02

will rise up and kill us. Yes. For

1:02:05

good reason. Yeah. I mean,

1:02:07

you had like, you had Thomas Jefferson writing about how evil slavery was, but

1:02:10

he would say like, we can't free these people

1:02:12

because they'll murder us for what we did to

1:02:14

them. Yeah. Part

1:02:16

of his reasoning was he would be pleasantly surprised to

1:02:18

learn that black Americans went, we want

1:02:20

to be a part of this experience too, as

1:02:23

opposed to murder everybody in black agents. Also

1:02:25

do you think there was a scenario where that

1:02:27

happened? Just look at Haiti, where in Haiti, the

1:02:29

slaves did rise up and kill the masters

1:02:31

and you had a giant Yankee army forcibly occupy

1:02:34

the South and that

1:02:36

created incentive structure that didn't occur. But

1:02:39

if you look at the districts for the

1:02:41

most war hawkish people, it's all the deep

1:02:43

South. All of the politicians who

1:02:45

want to start a war with Iran are

1:02:47

from South Carolina, Alabama, those

1:02:49

States. Why do you think of it as a military

1:02:52

bent to that part? Because it was the old

1:02:54

Marshall. Yeah. I mean,

1:02:56

partly the South's culture is Marshall due to

1:02:58

the Scots-Irish and the English nobility. But

1:03:00

also, as I said before, every white man had

1:03:02

to own a gun and be part of a

1:03:05

militia to keep blacks down. And the

1:03:07

South was a geographic based culture. And

1:03:09

what that means is in New England

1:03:11

or in the Midlands, you

1:03:13

succeed by building a factory, which

1:03:17

is technological development inside the society.

1:03:19

In the South, the South was an

1:03:22

incredibly rural society and it was until

1:03:24

like a few years around and it

1:03:26

was almost an interior mercantilist state within

1:03:28

the United States of low development,

1:03:30

agricultural in the South, but it's manufactured in the

1:03:32

North and exporting from the North. Yes.

1:03:35

And what you did with that is

1:03:38

you had to conquer more territory to get

1:03:40

wealth. And so before the Civil War, the

1:03:43

South wanted to ... The

1:03:45

Southern states were constantly pushing for

1:03:47

this. At the time of

1:03:49

the Mexican-American War, the Southern days wanted to chop

1:03:51

off another top third of Mexico because

1:03:54

their goal was we're going to make fillet

1:03:56

with slaves and more Southern states. They put

1:03:58

golden arc. I mean, you'd PQ Buds. Yucatan.

1:04:01

You can see maps of

1:04:03

these southern Lordlings who wanted

1:04:06

to just keep going west

1:04:08

and south and their thinking

1:04:10

was eventually the south and

1:04:12

America by proxy will go from

1:04:15

Kansas all the way to the base of

1:04:17

Mexico and possibly Costa Rica. We'll need that

1:04:20

Panama Canal too. So they were planning to

1:04:22

just going down and pushing. Do you know

1:04:24

William Walker? No. He was this guy and

1:04:26

20 of his buddies took

1:04:28

over Nicaragua in the 1850s. Whereas if these 20

1:04:32

American dudes got guns in literally

1:04:34

launched a coup, have read about

1:04:36

him, disease control of Nicaragua. And

1:04:39

the depressing thing for the Nicaraguan

1:04:41

nation is the reason he lost

1:04:43

had nothing to do with Nicaragua.

1:04:45

William Vanderbilt, a New York like

1:04:48

financier, he didn't like this

1:04:50

because he owns the shipping

1:04:52

company for Nicaragua and

1:04:54

he didn't want to lose control of the shipping company.

1:04:56

So he hired mercenaries to drive them out. But

1:04:59

there are a lot of timelines where

1:05:01

Nicaragua or the Yucatan where the Yucatan

1:05:03

appealed to join Yucatan. Yucatan is the

1:05:06

bottom part of Mexico. I lived there

1:05:08

for six months and they

1:05:10

appealed to join America in the 1840s because

1:05:13

they had a white ruling class who were

1:05:16

scared of the majority Maya populations. The ruling

1:05:18

class that- No, that there was like a

1:05:20

push to join the United States as a

1:05:22

state? Because the Yucatan was independent from the

1:05:24

rest of Mexico at the time and they

1:05:26

set papers, hey, we'd like to become an

1:05:28

American state. Because the ruling class of the

1:05:30

Yucatan were all these white Spanish landowners. And

1:05:32

they thought, if we join a country of

1:05:34

white American landowners, we can keep our lands

1:05:36

and keep the native Maya population down. So

1:05:38

they were looking to the South going, hey,

1:05:41

are you all a bunch of white dudes

1:05:43

that have a ton of land and a

1:05:45

bunch of poor people that work for you

1:05:47

and they're nominally slaves or not. They're basically

1:05:49

slaves. We would love to get in

1:05:51

on that and have an affend us from an

1:05:53

uprising. And what happened was the Northern States didn't

1:05:56

want that because at the time America, it was

1:05:58

a tit for tat. where every state,

1:06:01

the south or the north, added they had to

1:06:03

add another. Right, so this Missouri Conference, right? Yeah,

1:06:05

yeah. It's like, all right, you guys get a

1:06:07

slave state, but we get a non-slave state. This

1:06:09

is fascinating by the way. So there was a

1:06:12

period where, like, if you were to talk to

1:06:14

people in the deep south, they're like, why can't

1:06:16

we just let Mexico join America? It'd be great

1:06:18

if there were more Mexicans in America. These goddamn

1:06:20

Yankees always stopping us from having more Mexicans in

1:06:22

our country. The factor that

1:06:24

changed is they wanted to add the Yucatan

1:06:27

and Baja California to America. Those

1:06:29

were very, very close. And then for both

1:06:31

of them, the north was like, not gonna

1:06:33

happen. They knew those had become

1:06:35

slave states. And the deciding factor that changed

1:06:38

is almost all of Mexico was

1:06:40

unpopulated in that time period.

1:06:43

So the entire, in the same way

1:06:45

that the western US was all Native

1:06:47

Americans, northern Mexico and the Yucatan were

1:06:49

all Native Americans too. So when the

1:06:51

south wanted to conquer these areas, they

1:06:53

were conquering areas which they saw as

1:06:55

Native Americans who they would replace, not

1:06:58

areas that were populated by Mexicans. We're

1:07:00

gonna break our clock format for a

1:07:02

minute just because we've been spending a

1:07:04

lot of time talking to English populations,

1:07:06

talking of English populations. So let's

1:07:09

now switch to Greater Appalachia. Yes. Appalachia

1:07:13

today, I think would be what, West

1:07:15

Virginia and Kentucky, and basically south

1:07:18

adjacent mountainous regions. That

1:07:21

would be, but Greater Appalachia is much larger than

1:07:23

that. And again, these groups all go from east

1:07:25

to west. So what all is Greater Appalachia? Geographically,

1:07:27

and what does it mean? Greater

1:07:30

Appalachia is country music America.

1:07:33

When people, where people talk like

1:07:35

they do in country songs is

1:07:37

Appalachia. It started in the eastern

1:07:39

Appalachian Mountains and it went west

1:07:41

out to Texas, Kansas, Kentucky,

1:07:44

Tennessee. Oklahoma, because I'd say like Northwest

1:07:46

Oklahoma is very much Midlands based on

1:07:48

what we talked about today. But

1:07:51

kind of Oklahoma City going east and

1:07:53

south is definitely Greater Appalachia

1:07:55

culture. Yes, and it came from the

1:07:58

Scots-Irish and the Scots-Irish. Irish,

1:08:01

Irish. My family lived in Ireland,

1:08:03

and the Northern Irish were people

1:08:05

from the Scottish-English borderland who

1:08:08

depopulated Northern Ireland. They kicked the native

1:08:10

Irish off Ireland, moved them to West

1:08:13

Ireland. They transplanted a bunch of Protestants

1:08:15

to Ireland to try to colonize Ireland

1:08:17

as a Protestant part of the world.

1:08:19

The goal was to genocide the native

1:08:21

Irish like the Native Americans, but that

1:08:23

didn't work. What happened, though, was these

1:08:26

Scottish Protestants in Northern Ireland, they were

1:08:28

in deep poverty because this all existed

1:08:30

to benefit the English landowners who owned

1:08:32

the land. And then they

1:08:34

integrated to America afterwards, and they went

1:08:36

to Philadelphia first, and the Quakers kicked

1:08:39

them out. So they populated

1:08:41

an entire area from Southern

1:08:43

Pennsylvania all the way to Georgia. And

1:08:46

if you drive across Pennsylvania, as I've

1:08:48

done several times, the cultural

1:08:50

difference is so stark. In a

1:08:52

10-mile difference, you'll see these quaint

1:08:54

Midwestern towns where everyone talks like

1:08:56

me, and then 10 miles

1:08:58

south, everyone talks

1:09:00

like a Southerner. There's Mountain Dew

1:09:02

everywhere, Monster Truck, Mr. Pibb. Exactly.

1:09:04

NASCAR. Yes. You

1:09:07

go from hamburgers to barbecue over a

1:09:10

10-mile period, and Pittsburgh

1:09:12

is part of that Midwestern culture

1:09:14

immediately south of Pittsburgh as Appalachia.

1:09:16

I'm Irish, and so I have

1:09:18

a tremendous amount of cultural similarities

1:09:20

with the Scots-Irish, even though they

1:09:22

hate each other. And the

1:09:25

culture is very honor-based, where when I

1:09:27

grew up, my father said, the only

1:09:29

thing that matters in life is honor.

1:09:31

Honor-based culture is developed in warrior societies

1:09:34

where you have to

1:09:36

prove that you're a badass to everyone, so

1:09:38

they don't mess with you. Where if you're

1:09:41

just such a powerful, important guy, and your

1:09:43

sense of pride is so strong, no one

1:09:45

will mess with you. It's always this warrior

1:09:47

culture, and we talked before about Yankees treating

1:09:49

it, saying it's barbaric, and it

1:09:51

is barbaric, but America also needs

1:09:54

some barbarism so we don't become Canada.

1:10:00

Malcolm Gladwell talks about this. This is also,

1:10:02

it does dovetail with the whole like,

1:10:04

you know, there's a smart society and a dumb society that

1:10:07

I mentioned earlier that a lot of academics do. I hear

1:10:09

the same trope come up for them, but to

1:10:11

explore the trope a bit, the idea would

1:10:13

be that if you are a landed

1:10:16

agricultural society, you have some

1:10:18

recourse to law or army.

1:10:21

Whereas if you were a border society like

1:10:23

the Scots, like some of

1:10:25

the most fierce raiders in history are right

1:10:28

around the lowland Scots area. We're getting really

1:10:30

deep into history this episode. When we're talking

1:10:32

about Scottish history, everybody talks about the Highlanders

1:10:34

as fierce warriors. The people living in the

1:10:37

lowlands that were raiding cattle across the border

1:10:39

were some of the fiercest horse people in

1:10:41

the world. But if you're on either side

1:10:43

of the border where the military is

1:10:45

usually going over to France or something

1:10:47

and like, yeah, I'm going to send

1:10:50

them to the hinterlands just to guard

1:10:52

cattle, you have to guard the cattle

1:10:54

on your own. It's a mobile property, which means that

1:10:56

like if your neighbor comes and takes your farm, you

1:10:58

can go to the courthouse and go, that guy pushed

1:11:00

me off my land with a gun. I want you

1:11:02

to come push them out. And they look at the

1:11:04

contracts and go, oh, okay, it is your land. But

1:11:06

if you steal your cattle, the cattle

1:11:08

is not there anymore. So you have to be able to

1:11:10

defend your cattle and you have to have enough of a

1:11:12

deterrence to show that you should not come get my cattle

1:11:14

because we'll kill you. And so

1:11:17

this greater Appalachia is Ulster

1:11:19

Scots or Northern Irish, how we want to say, Protestants

1:11:21

that are sent to Ireland. I think that there's also

1:11:23

a significant amount of just Scots

1:11:26

that come over from the

1:11:28

clearances in Britain where they're Highlanders. The English

1:11:30

have decided that you're no longer going to

1:11:32

be a croft around your land because we

1:11:34

can make more money from sheep. And so

1:11:36

the Scots in mass start coming over to

1:11:39

America a little bit later than the English.

1:11:41

And they end up going

1:11:43

to these mountainous areas where

1:11:45

they can be sheep herders. They

1:11:48

can't own slaves or I should say it's not

1:11:50

economically advantageous to do it because it's real difficult

1:11:52

to grow cotton in the mountains. You

1:11:54

want to have flat plains for that. So you're

1:11:57

going to have people that are fur trappers and.

1:12:00

that are doing things like as a family

1:12:02

unit as opposed to big plantation style economic

1:12:04

models and you're going to have people that

1:12:06

are living in the hills that are kind

1:12:08

of out with the laws, a little bit

1:12:10

more banditry, a little bit more outlawry. And

1:12:13

I would think also that there would be

1:12:15

a very deep skepticism of government there because

1:12:17

whereas the New Englanders are going, this is

1:12:19

our government. We came over here to establish our

1:12:21

own government and therefore the government is us. It's

1:12:23

good. The Scots-Irish are coming

1:12:26

over going, we've been oppressed by these

1:12:28

fucking feudal people for the last 10,000

1:12:30

years. It's always rich

1:12:32

people and they always tell us that it's not

1:12:34

for their benefit. It's because God put them in

1:12:36

charge. The government is full of lies. What we

1:12:38

want is the government to stay the hell away

1:12:41

from us and we will work this out as

1:12:43

clans. It'll be me and my cousins and we'll

1:12:45

go rough up those dudes, but we'll work it

1:12:47

out, leave us alone. And we'll have

1:12:49

family units and clans and that'll be our thing.

1:12:52

One of my friends worked for the

1:12:54

libertarian party and he mapped a narco

1:12:56

capitalist and it very closely matched Appalachia

1:12:58

or the greater Appalachia region. The

1:13:01

culture of honor where if someone kills your

1:13:03

brother, you have to kill them back. And

1:13:05

so you'd have these clan feuds across Appalachia.

1:13:07

I think the Hatfields and the McCoy's are

1:13:10

an example of that. Appalachia is

1:13:12

one of the poorest regions in America

1:13:14

and people talk a lot about disparities

1:13:16

between races. People don't talk about the

1:13:18

income disparity between the Scots-Irish of

1:13:21

West Virginia or Arkansas and then

1:13:23

Yankees, which are truly vast. And

1:13:27

it's a very decentralized society where the

1:13:29

saying went, if I

1:13:31

can see the smokestack, my neighbor's smokestack,

1:13:33

things are getting too crowded. And

1:13:36

so is this incredibly rural

1:13:39

herding society where the Scots-Irish didn't really

1:13:41

farm. They'd have herds of pigs and cows

1:13:43

and live off that. Right. Yeah,

1:13:45

they're herders and also they are for good

1:13:48

reason because for again, about 10,000 years,

1:13:51

the authorities were always just rich people

1:13:53

stealing your money. And for most of

1:13:55

human history, I mean,

1:13:57

I'm not going to say all, but most of human history, The

1:14:00

government is at best a protection racket. Yes.

1:14:03

It is a mob style protection racket, but

1:14:05

there's a crown in it so we can all pretend

1:14:07

it's ordained by God. But it's really a bunch of

1:14:09

thugs that are coming by your house going, give us

1:14:11

some of your money and we promise to protect you

1:14:13

from other thugs. And that's the whole deal. And

1:14:16

the folks that are moving in here are the

1:14:19

impoverished perder people from Britain. They're not

1:14:21

the landed gentry. They're

1:14:23

not even pretending to be landed gentry. They

1:14:25

are the poor people that were living in

1:14:28

the, what would you call the,

1:14:30

not the moors like

1:14:32

the marches. They're looking around the

1:14:34

borders, that area that is along

1:14:36

borders and is therefore not very safe where

1:14:38

you have to be dependent on yourself for

1:14:41

safety. Yes. You have to

1:14:43

work things out one on one with your neighbors as opposed to

1:14:45

appealing to an authority. And the authorities

1:14:47

are usually corrupt and oppressive

1:14:49

and exploitative. And so there's a deep

1:14:51

distrust of authority there. The thing I

1:14:53

like the most about culture is it

1:14:55

keeps it real, where I've

1:14:57

lived in Canada and Canada

1:15:00

is such an absurdly agreeable

1:15:02

culture. Appalachia is

1:15:04

kind of that exemplified,

1:15:06

I'm going to live in a cabin and do

1:15:08

my own thing. You can piss off and fight

1:15:11

you if you try to interfere with my stuff.

1:15:13

Agreed. Okay. And

1:15:15

that would extend like kind of

1:15:18

an arc from Kentucky

1:15:20

and Tennessee and

1:15:22

West Virginia, all the

1:15:24

way kind of Southwest down into

1:15:26

Texas. Yes. Yeah. And

1:15:29

if I, this is an argument that's controversial.

1:15:31

I personally do believe the Civil War was

1:15:34

about slavery. And the reason I say

1:15:36

that is if you graph a map of slave owning

1:15:38

areas to support for the Confederacy, it's

1:15:40

the same thing where the parts of

1:15:42

Appalachia, which didn't own slaves supported the

1:15:44

union. Right. And West Virginia

1:15:46

is completely off of Virginia. Exactly. Eastern Tennessee.

1:15:48

A mountainous area where nobody owns slaves. Yeah.

1:15:51

A bunch of poor white people that are

1:15:53

suspicious of the aristocrats down South. Yes.

1:15:57

And Appalachia is part of the South

1:15:59

yet. It's not where I grew up

1:16:01

in a state near West Virginia, and

1:16:04

it's unclear if West Virginia is part of the South

1:16:07

because it is kind

1:16:09

of Southern, but it has

1:16:12

lots of traits you don't see in the rest

1:16:14

of the South. And that's why I call it

1:16:16

the cowboy country music South. You've

1:16:19

got like the plantation South, and you've

1:16:21

got like cowboy hat South. And

1:16:23

Appalachia is cowboy hat South.

1:16:26

Yes, plantation South was majority

1:16:28

black, and there were

1:16:31

basically no black people in Appalachia. It

1:16:34

was all white. Right. Okay.

1:16:37

Well then let's turn our attention to a couple of

1:16:39

other places in the South, Southern Florida. I

1:16:41

think one of the great coups of the United

1:16:43

States that we don't celebrate is that the capital

1:16:45

of Latin America isn't in Latin America. It's in

1:16:47

Florida, Miami. Hats off to you Floridians,

1:16:49

Miami is the capital of Latin America, and it's located

1:16:51

in Latin America. You

1:16:54

go down to Miami, that's the

1:16:56

only part of America I've ever been in where

1:16:58

I felt guilty speaking English, where I would go

1:17:00

into a place and they'd talk to me, and

1:17:02

I'd be like, Los

1:17:04

Siento, mi espanolos mado, but that

1:17:07

was very much the dominant culture

1:17:09

down there. Is this a late in

1:17:11

the game Cuban exiles

1:17:13

from the Castro regime? Is

1:17:15

this remnants of the Spanish colonists that

1:17:17

are there that get taken over by

1:17:20

Jackson or whoever? What group is

1:17:22

down there or what groups are down there? It's

1:17:24

ironic, the three most populous states

1:17:26

in America, Florida, California, and Texas,

1:17:28

they got as big as they

1:17:31

did because they were

1:17:33

uninhabitable before. That

1:17:36

happened with Florida, where Florida had almost,

1:17:38

or the Northern Panhandle of Florida, that's

1:17:40

part of the South. The

1:17:43

peninsula of Florida, that

1:17:46

was all swamplands, and the longest war

1:17:48

in American history was in Afghanistan or

1:17:50

Iraq. It was against the seminal natives

1:17:52

of Florida. We fought them for 30

1:17:54

years, but it was alligators and

1:17:57

swampland and that stuff into the mid-

1:18:00

into the mid-20th century. And I see

1:18:03

a lot of cultural similarities between California

1:18:05

and Florida because they were both populated

1:18:07

in the post-World War II era. And

1:18:09

I call California imperial American culture.

1:18:12

Like, what's the culture in Orlando? What's the

1:18:14

culture in St. Petersburg? I don't

1:18:16

know. It's, um... Well,

1:18:19

Florida's an interesting state in

1:18:21

that within the microcosm of

1:18:23

Florida, the further south you go, the

1:18:25

further north you go. Yeah, so like

1:18:27

the northern part of Florida is the

1:18:29

deep south. It is Georgia, it is

1:18:31

the Florida panhandle. But you go south

1:18:33

in Florida and you now

1:18:35

get to these colonies from Ohio,

1:18:38

the Midwest, and colonies from New

1:18:40

England and New York that retired down there. And

1:18:43

then you go even further south and now you

1:18:45

go south again where you're hitting Cuba. Yes. I

1:18:47

put central Florida

1:18:49

in the same bracket as California,

1:18:51

although it was populated from the

1:18:54

north because it's a culture disconnected

1:18:56

from the previous cultures and

1:18:58

it's a very modern society. The

1:19:01

bottom of Florida is just Latin America.

1:19:03

And I agree with Andrew's point that wealthy

1:19:06

Latin Americans, they do business in Miami,

1:19:08

they shop in Miami, they have houses

1:19:11

there to escape once their

1:19:13

dictatorship fails. It's a lot more

1:19:15

stable in Miami than in, you

1:19:17

know, Venezuela. Yes. And

1:19:19

that happened in the 1960s

1:19:22

where when Castro seized power,

1:19:24

the Cuban elite fled across

1:19:26

the straits to Miami. And

1:19:29

that community was predominantly upper class and

1:19:31

it was business owners in Cuba. And

1:19:34

so they had these pre-established skills. They

1:19:36

rose to power and turned Miami into

1:19:39

an economic base. And Miami

1:19:41

is the only place in Latin America

1:19:43

with stable property rights. And

1:19:45

so the Latinization of Miami is something

1:19:47

which has occurred in the last 60

1:19:49

years. Okay.

1:19:51

Now, we're

1:19:54

rapidly getting outside of my even

1:19:57

peripheral knowledge of cultural groups now. Miami,

1:20:00

but I really don't know Miami very well. Would

1:20:02

we put Miami and the Cuban exiles

1:20:05

in a different cultural category than the

1:20:07

old Spanish communities we would find today

1:20:09

around like the southern Texas border up

1:20:11

through New Mexico? Yes. The

1:20:14

Spanish empire had significantly more cultural diversity

1:20:16

inside of it than the British empire

1:20:19

in America in the 13 colonies. I've

1:20:21

lived in Peru and Mexico. Those

1:20:24

countries are incredibly different from each other.

1:20:27

In America, all these regional cultures

1:20:29

were different. In Latin

1:20:31

America, what occurred was the elite

1:20:33

was all ethnically exactly the same.

1:20:35

If you were wealthy in Mexico

1:20:37

City or Lima, your culture was

1:20:39

the same, but the natives

1:20:42

in Peru were an entirely

1:20:44

different civilization from those in Mexico.

1:20:47

Places like Argentina were all white.

1:20:49

Dominican Republic was black. The Spanish

1:20:52

empire had these massive differences. Even

1:20:54

inside Mexico, Mexico was a much

1:20:56

more culturally distinct country

1:20:58

than America. You brought up ...

1:21:00

I just went down to the Yucatan a couple years

1:21:03

ago, was amazed to discover Mayans are still around. Yes.

1:21:06

Because I thought the Mayans were destroyed

1:21:08

the same time the Aztec empire was. Yes.

1:21:11

The Aztecs were an empire. They're not around anymore.

1:21:13

There's like seven to 20 million Mayans still around

1:21:15

today. They're an ethnic group. They have a language.

1:21:17

They were conquered by the Spanish and integrated into

1:21:19

Mexico to some extent, but they're still around. The

1:21:23

Yucatan has a different cultural base to it

1:21:25

than other parts of Mexico, which I'm totally

1:21:27

unfamiliar with. Millions of people still speak the

1:21:29

Aztec language being the Jual. That

1:21:33

Mexican culture is very different from

1:21:35

the culture you see in Miami,

1:21:37

where the Miami culture is this

1:21:39

elutination ... I call it

1:21:41

the islands, or Joe Garo calls it the islands,

1:21:44

of all of this random people

1:21:46

who showed up from the

1:21:48

neighboring seas. For example, lots of

1:21:51

all the Latin music is based

1:21:53

out of Miami, and that includes

1:21:55

Spanish singers. Julio Iglesias, he's Spanish,

1:21:57

like from the country of Spain.

1:22:00

Enrique Iglesias is half Spanish, half

1:22:02

Filipino. Shakira lives in

1:22:04

Miami. She's from Colombia. Regaton

1:22:08

is based out of Miami. The culture

1:22:10

in Miami is this, there's the Spanish

1:22:12

base. Then beneath that,

1:22:14

you throw in Brazilians, you throw in

1:22:16

Puerto Ricans, you throw in Spaniards, you

1:22:19

throw in Venezuelans, where it's this sea-based

1:22:21

culture rather than the Mexican culture of

1:22:23

the Southwest. Got it. Okay. The sea

1:22:26

base makes a lot of sense. It's

1:22:28

islands. Whereas if we're going

1:22:30

into today El Paso in

1:22:32

Texas, El Paso has always been,

1:22:35

has deep cultural ties to Northern Mexico,

1:22:37

and that's much more like haddle,

1:22:40

railroads, big open plains, a

1:22:42

hacienda, cowboy hat, and I

1:22:44

speak Spanish. It's a different

1:22:46

element of sea-based culture there.

1:22:50

A Woodard in his book would call that

1:22:52

area El Norte. And he would say that

1:22:55

historically within Mexican history, the Northern part

1:22:57

of Mexico, even not even talking about

1:22:59

America, but just the Northern part of

1:23:01

Mexico has always been considered more entrepreneurial

1:23:04

as the Southern part of Mexico. And he

1:23:07

would say that that kind of extends

1:23:09

from Northern Mexico up through the Southern

1:23:11

borders of Texas, parts of

1:23:13

Arizona, and it kind of climbs up through

1:23:15

New Mexico and even hits the very bottom

1:23:17

of Colorado. Like Puebla Indians

1:23:19

and things like that. And there's

1:23:21

a community in New Mexico that still

1:23:24

speak Spanish and speak

1:23:27

Spanish because they were a literal Spanish colony.

1:23:29

They were Mexican. They'll tell you that

1:23:31

today if you talk to them, that they're, no, we're

1:23:33

from this one region of Spain. And so that's the

1:23:35

kind of El Norte Spanish

1:23:38

Americana Mexican

1:23:40

American culture. Yes. Another

1:23:43

important difference is that Mexico is 50% European,

1:23:45

50% Native, and

1:23:48

the culture of the Spanish Caribbean is

1:23:50

80% European with basically no Native and

1:23:53

some Black. And so it's also

1:23:55

a completely different ethnic makeup. So it's sort of

1:23:57

like how like Argentina, for example, as I understand

1:23:59

it, Argentina. Argentina was much more European

1:24:01

colony as opposed to like Chile,

1:24:03

which was much

1:24:06

more native. And so this is

1:24:08

kind of a similar thing where Miami and all of

1:24:10

that is Europeans who settled, Spanish speaking Europeans who

1:24:12

settled in the new world, whereas El

1:24:15

Norte is Native American

1:24:18

slash Spanish culture, the Spanish living

1:24:20

in the agrarian area. Yeah. Cuba

1:24:23

is 80% white, 20% black. Same

1:24:25

as Puerto Rico. Okay. So

1:24:28

if we're talking about El Norte

1:24:30

culture of Mexican

1:24:33

American communities in South Texas, New

1:24:35

Mexico, little bits of Colorado, what

1:24:38

is that kind of culture? It's strange where

1:24:40

those areas were the first European colonies of

1:24:42

anywhere in America. The

1:24:45

English settled in Virginia in 1607. The

1:24:48

Spanish established their colony in New Mexico in 1591. And

1:24:52

it was this tiny outpost of Spanish

1:24:54

civilization. The thing we forget about when

1:24:56

we look at the Spanish, the Mexicans

1:24:59

running the Southwest is the

1:25:01

modern Mexicans in the Southwestern states like

1:25:03

Texas or California or New Mexico, they're

1:25:06

not the descendants of the original inhabitants. There was

1:25:08

a total of 7,000 people

1:25:10

in Texas when the US conquered it, or 7,000

1:25:12

Hispanics, and

1:25:16

they were completely overrun by Europeans. And for a

1:25:18

frame of reference, Philadelphia at

1:25:20

the exact same time had like

1:25:23

half a million people, or New

1:25:25

York at half a million people. So there's 7,000 people in all

1:25:27

of Texas? 7,000 Hispanics in

1:25:29

all of Texas in 1840, New York City

1:25:31

at over half a million people. Right. Okay.

1:25:34

So it was a very, very unpopulated part of them. And

1:25:36

then the Anglos steamrolled it. And so if you're looking in

1:25:38

1970, Texas, California, they're

1:25:40

all 80% Anglo-American. And

1:25:43

then there was a giant wave of immigration from 1980 until

1:25:45

today from Latin America. And

1:25:49

that has flipped the demographics of the

1:25:51

region. And so when people think of

1:25:53

Los Angeles, they normally think of just

1:25:55

surfer bros in Hollywood, but

1:25:57

the vast majority of Los Angeles.

1:26:00

as ethnically Hispanic. You

1:26:02

could say Los Angeles

1:26:04

by majority of people is a

1:26:06

Latin American city. There is this

1:26:08

underlying southwestern culture, but rapid demographic

1:26:11

flip-flopping in the southwest. Okay. So

1:26:13

the natives also got wiped out

1:26:15

too. Okay. And then

1:26:17

we talked about the left coast, that

1:26:19

kind of west of the

1:26:21

mountains hugging the beach

1:26:24

thing. It was settled by

1:26:26

New Englanders that were largely replicating that

1:26:28

same worldview, but it is distinct. I

1:26:30

mean, I wouldn't say that like Oregon

1:26:32

is the same as Maine. So how

1:26:35

would you phrase that cultural? It's

1:26:37

more individualistic where there's

1:26:40

not this communitarian spirit at all. And I

1:26:42

was watching this TikTok, or I don't have

1:26:44

TikTok, I was watching a TikTok video on

1:26:47

Twitter, where was this lady being,

1:26:49

I do alternative weddings and it's

1:26:51

all stuff like, do you want to bring a goat

1:26:53

to your wedding? Do you want to have a gay

1:26:55

themed Kate? Do you want to pause play

1:26:57

at your wedding? I think this is the

1:27:00

most Pacific Northwest thing I've seen in my life. It's

1:27:02

an incredibly individualistic culture and incredibly

1:27:04

creative. And the positive side of

1:27:07

this is it created things like

1:27:09

it created the modern tech world

1:27:11

that created Silicon Valley. It created

1:27:13

Microsoft. It created Netflix.

1:27:16

It created Boeing, Nike.

1:27:19

The Pacific Northwest

1:27:22

is all of these important companies. And I

1:27:24

talk about this a lot in my video

1:27:26

on the topic. The negative of that is

1:27:28

just sheer delusion, where you look

1:27:30

at this culture, that

1:27:32

entire area. And one of my friends

1:27:34

is an anthropologist calls Northern California granola

1:27:36

land. And as a Pennsylvanian,

1:27:38

it's all people. It was a society

1:27:41

inhabited by people who would be outcasts

1:27:43

in Pennsylvania. Like if you're like, I

1:27:45

want to make a granola tech company

1:27:48

based upon meditation, you'd get laughed

1:27:51

at in Pennsylvania. But they

1:27:53

formed an entire society on the West Coast.

1:27:56

I've spent a lot of time in Portland and I like Portland

1:27:58

but yes, Portland has a lot of that. vibe of

1:28:00

like, we're a coffee company that

1:28:03

also talks

1:28:06

to the beans and thanks them for

1:28:08

giving a sacrifice to us because we

1:28:10

believe that all plant life has spiritual

1:28:12

... Not everywhere, but

1:28:14

that's definitely more pronounced there than anywhere I've

1:28:16

ever been. Is

1:28:18

that individualistic element, is this synergistic where

1:28:20

you look at the western part

1:28:22

of Oregon is initially

1:28:25

these New England sailors who come and colonize

1:28:27

that, but the eastern part of Oregon is

1:28:30

these Appalachians that are just walking across the

1:28:32

country and they get there later for that

1:28:34

reason. Now, is it that there are these

1:28:36

two societies side by side and they're vying

1:28:38

for each other electorally or is it that

1:28:41

they merge and you get the social

1:28:44

engineering utopian, we can make the world better. We

1:28:46

can make the world great, optimism

1:28:48

from the New England bit coupled with

1:28:50

the kind of leave

1:28:52

me alone in the realism of Appalachia

1:28:54

or does something else happen that causes

1:28:57

this individualism to come in? As you

1:28:59

go further west to the east coast,

1:29:01

cultures break down and so Texas and

1:29:03

the Midwest don't belong to any of

1:29:05

these cultural groups, but Texas and the

1:29:07

Midwest are very much real places and

1:29:10

you can trace all these groups genetically, but

1:29:12

they stop at the Great Plains. California has

1:29:14

very ... You can't trace an east coast

1:29:16

culture there and so you do see a

1:29:18

lot of this Yankee influence, but it also

1:29:21

becomes its own thing. The

1:29:23

Appalachians in Oregon are a different

1:29:26

demographic from the people in the

1:29:29

west coast and a very

1:29:31

interesting fact is they stayed outside of

1:29:33

the south in the mid-20th century with

1:29:35

the highest KKK membership is

1:29:38

Oregon. This

1:29:40

area flip-flops really hard. It used to be

1:29:42

very racist, now it's very progressive. It's like

1:29:45

New England. It has to believe in whatever

1:29:47

popular ideology is popular at the time to

1:29:49

the fullest. It wouldn't surprise me if in

1:29:51

30 years they turned very hard right. If

1:29:54

you're in a world where the new popular

1:29:56

ideology is right wing, they'll flip there. It's

1:29:58

a culture that's ... very high

1:30:01

in a trait called neoteny, which

1:30:03

is culture related to child-likeness. It's

1:30:05

naivete, creativity, imagination,

1:30:09

friendiness. It's a very

1:30:11

young culture, but

1:30:13

the problem there is Auguste just goes insane. And

1:30:16

if you look at the West Coast, they're actively

1:30:18

shooting themselves in the foot. I'm working on

1:30:20

a video, The Rise and Fall of California,

1:30:22

and the big thesis of the video is

1:30:25

California is an example of how much

1:30:27

culture can kill an area. It's very

1:30:29

wealthy, it has perfect geography, a lot

1:30:32

of largeness, title, yeah, it's perfect and

1:30:34

everything except the culture of the people

1:30:36

who live there and they're just killing

1:30:39

that area and businesses are leaving the

1:30:41

West Coast and the cities aren't safe.

1:30:44

I visited Vancouver. Downtown

1:30:46

Vancouver is not

1:30:48

safe. It's like the Walking Dead. And I thought to

1:30:50

myself, if you messed up Vancouver,

1:30:53

you are an idiot. Vancouver is one

1:30:55

of the wealthiest places in the world.

1:30:57

It's in Canada. If you've

1:30:59

made that unsafe, that's just

1:31:01

you failed. Backtrack a

1:31:04

little bit. Let's spend just a minute

1:31:06

talking about New France. I would say

1:31:08

New France is Quebec and Louisiana.

1:31:12

It's New Orleans. I don't think it's had as

1:31:14

much of an influence on America as it has

1:31:16

in Canada. Quebec's had massive

1:31:18

influence on Canada because the

1:31:21

whole Canadian country is bilingual and

1:31:23

the idea of consensus and perpetual

1:31:25

negotiation are an attempt to accommodate

1:31:27

Quebec and keep it from leaving.

1:31:29

And so if we're

1:31:32

looking at North America rather than

1:31:34

America, I would say New Canada

1:31:36

has been, excuse me, New France

1:31:38

has been extremely influential. What

1:31:41

does it look like? What values does it have as

1:31:43

opposed to other regions? There's a handful of differences in

1:31:45

my map and Colin Woodard's, one of

1:31:47

which is I split New France in

1:31:49

two because he has Louisiana and Quebec

1:31:52

be the same. But

1:31:54

people in Quebec, they were people from Normandy

1:31:56

and Brittany, which is in the northwest of

1:31:58

France. Louisiana is people

1:32:01

from Poitiers on the west coast of

1:32:03

France. In the same manner,

1:32:05

we talk about the different parts of England, finding different

1:32:07

cultures in America. That happened for

1:32:09

France. And Louisiana was the least

1:32:11

healthy place for white immigrants. You just die

1:32:13

of disease. And it was 80% black

1:32:16

until the American colonization. So

1:32:19

it's useful to view old Louisiana as

1:32:21

almost an extension of Haiti, which

1:32:23

is also a French colony. If

1:32:25

I'm not mistaken, so like, New Orleans is

1:32:28

like an extension of Haiti. New Orleans is

1:32:30

Caribbean French culture with a very large black

1:32:32

population. But when Quebec is taken over by

1:32:34

the English, they kick out the

1:32:37

Arcadians, or maybe it's not Quebec, but the

1:32:39

Acadians. The Acadians. And they moved down to

1:32:41

Louisiana at times. So there

1:32:43

is like, Louisiana has two different French cultures.

1:32:45

It has the Caribbean, Haitian,

1:32:48

black French culture in New Orleans. But

1:32:50

then there's the kind of like fur

1:32:52

trapper. I

1:32:54

married a local woman, but I speak French

1:32:56

a bit. That's the Acadians that are down

1:32:58

there. The Acadians, they were from Poitiers on

1:33:00

the west coast of France. The Quebecers are

1:33:02

from Normandy and Brittany. And the

1:33:05

difference was that there wasn't the fur trapper culture

1:33:07

among the Acadians because they were out on the

1:33:09

coast. It was all local farmers. And

1:33:11

they lived by the ocean, go fishing,

1:33:14

farm. This very subsistence

1:33:16

lifestyle. And the English kicked them out

1:33:18

so they could populate the region because it was

1:33:21

just too difficult to have that many French

1:33:23

people there. At the

1:33:25

time of the French and Indian War, there

1:33:27

were, I think, 4 million

1:33:29

people in British America and

1:33:32

70,000 in all of French America. It was very

1:33:34

easy just to evict everyone and bring in tens

1:33:36

of thousands of Brits. And when

1:33:39

they went to Louisiana, it completely

1:33:41

changed their culture where they could

1:33:43

no longer do that farming lifestyle.

1:33:45

And so they had to switch over

1:33:48

to slaveholding. And

1:33:50

so in this capacity, like New Orleans, which is

1:33:52

what we're most familiar with in America, we're generally

1:33:54

more familiar with that than Quebec. That

1:33:56

is more of a Caribbean culture. It is, yeah. French

1:33:59

fur trapper culture. Yes, and that crew, because I

1:34:01

love New Orleans. I've only been there one of

1:34:03

my favorite places. Wonderful place. But I would say,

1:34:05

I don't know whether it's the heat or the

1:34:07

culture or what, but it strikes me as a

1:34:09

much more work-life balance play for the rest of

1:34:11

the country. Like wake

1:34:13

up at 10 o'clock, have yourself an

1:34:15

eye opener, maybe get to work round

1:34:18

11, then it's lunchtime, then you have

1:34:20

a drink, then maybe a little bit more work from

1:34:22

1.30 to 3, then go home. It's

1:34:26

not that wake up at 5

1:34:28

a.m. and go feed the cows kind of culture. It's a much

1:34:30

more like work to

1:34:32

live rather than live to work kind of thing. Yeah,

1:34:35

that's accurate. It's

1:34:39

definitely an interesting place. Louisiana

1:34:41

State University had a talk

1:34:43

that I watched on YouTube where they compared Louisiana

1:34:46

to a third world country, and they went through

1:34:48

all of the traits of a third world country.

1:34:50

And the speaker said, Louisiana would effectively be a

1:34:52

third world country without being attached to the U.S.

1:34:55

Just due to these like slave slavery? Yeah,

1:34:59

slave societies don't turn out well. It

1:35:01

would be like a Caribbean

1:35:03

country, like Barbados or Jamaica. You

1:35:07

can look at like, I mean, even after

1:35:09

you emancipate, the lingering

1:35:12

effects, socioeconomically, educationally, and health-wise,

1:35:14

like slavery takes such a

1:35:16

human toll for centuries. You

1:35:18

can see it in America where the states of

1:35:20

the south, the deep south are all the

1:35:22

poorest parts of America, Georgia,

1:35:25

Alabama, et cetera. And

1:35:27

like Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, those are southern

1:35:30

cultures that are doing incredibly well, but

1:35:32

they weren't the ones that were completely

1:35:35

dependent upon slavery. And I

1:35:37

know we don't have a

1:35:39

lot of time, but there's a couple different

1:35:41

cultures I added in from after Colin Woodard.

1:35:43

I made Los Angeles independent, which was a

1:35:46

culture that formed around Hollywood in the mid-20th

1:35:48

century. And I mean, if you, LA is

1:35:50

kind of its own city-state akin to New

1:35:52

York. Like it's not quite, it's allied with

1:35:55

that El Norte Mexican-American thing, and

1:35:57

it's allied with the left coast.

1:36:00

It's its own thing. Yes. And

1:36:02

it's a culture, ironically, I did a

1:36:04

DNA test. The city ride, the most relatives

1:36:06

is Los Angeles. Because those people from Nebraska,

1:36:10

white Los Angeles is all people from

1:36:12

the Midwest. And it's ironic to their

1:36:14

culture to a 160, because Los Angeles

1:36:16

culture now is the opposite of the

1:36:18

Midwest in America or inside the American

1:36:21

context. And it's a culture that developed

1:36:23

around Hollywood of being popular. It's probably

1:36:25

the most feminine culture in the entire

1:36:27

world. It's

1:36:30

very driven by status, materialism.

1:36:33

I lived there for like four to

1:36:35

five months. And it's frankly my

1:36:38

least favorite place I have ever been to in the world.

1:36:41

I'll be honest. I'm going to give you, if I have

1:36:43

a spare, I'll give you a copy of a book I

1:36:45

wrote called Los Angeles is Hideous Palms of an Ugly City

1:36:48

that I wrote about three years ago now. One

1:36:51

of my best friends in the world lives in LA. There's lots of good

1:36:53

things about it. It's not for me. Yeah, Hideous

1:36:55

City. And just aesthetically, I should say. Yeah,

1:36:58

I agree with that. And

1:37:01

it's remarkable to see. And

1:37:05

I've lived in three third world countries. I've

1:37:07

lived in Peru, Thailand, and Mexico. And I've

1:37:09

been to other third world countries. Los

1:37:12

Angeles looks the most third world of

1:37:14

any of those four places. In

1:37:17

my opinion, the locals are so happy

1:37:19

to have sunlight that it compensates for

1:37:21

everything. You could have an apartment

1:37:23

building that's just a big, ugly,

1:37:26

cement center block with eyes gouged

1:37:28

out in it like skull sockets.

1:37:30

Yeah. But as long as

1:37:32

there's sunlight, it's beautiful. But

1:37:34

I'm going to hold back. I'm just talking aesthetically.

1:37:37

I'm just talking aesthetically here. I don't like it.

1:37:39

I'm talking about the quality of the people there.

1:37:41

Okay. Yeah, that's right. Well,

1:37:43

I know we are running up on time, but there's a very

1:37:45

large portion of the country we've not talked about. Yes. We

1:37:49

do need to cover this. And this would be the far

1:37:51

west or the west or whatever. It's

1:37:53

rugged miles and miles of nobody,

1:37:55

and then a dude with a gun part of the country.

1:37:58

So what is this? One of my best friends. friends

1:38:00

from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is the

1:38:02

western part of South Dakota, and it's

1:38:05

just the middle of nowhere. And it's

1:38:07

a very cowboy culture where this part

1:38:09

of the country is, was completely,

1:38:11

it's slightly populated today. I

1:38:14

think the entire northern

1:38:16

tier of America, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana,

1:38:18

area the size of western Europe has

1:38:21

less people than New York City, usually.

1:38:23

I mean, again, New York City has

1:38:25

more than 38 states individually. Yeah,

1:38:28

individually. In aggregate. I'm

1:38:31

sure that there's more people in New York City than

1:38:33

there are in Wyoming, Montana. I mean, a lot of