To date, this blog has reviewed two of the
three political subcultures that Daniel Elazar[1]
identifies as existing within the US borders.
They are the individualistic and the moralistic. The remaining one is the traditionalistic
which basically is found in the southeastern states. This posting addresses this last one and, as
with the other two, it will relate George Lakoff’s socialization models[2]
to its attributes.
The
characteristics of the traditionalistic subculture are:
1. Power should be maintained by the elite classes
which have been mostly determined by the conditions of birth. This pre-industrial view sees society as a hierarchical
arrangement determined by the nature of things.
In the hands of the elite, government is capable of doing good things.
2. Good is defined as government’s ability to
maintain the given distribution of power within the society.
3. Politics is the product of personal
relationships. Political parties are superfluous,
and their only function is to recruit individuals to fill positions not wanted
by elite members.
4. Leaders of traditionally governed areas play a
custodial role and will initiate change only when overwhelmingly pressured to
do so from the outside.
5. Of the three subcultures, the traditionalistic
one is the least viable. Predominantly
in the South, historical events such as the Civil War have limited its spread
and legitimacy.[3]
Generally, these attributes suggest a strong
alignment with the strict father morality model of political
socialization. Underlying Elazar’s
findings is that the historical trends established within the three regions
where the three subcultures are found today, owe their biases to the historical
patterns established in the colonial period. Here are the findings of a 2018 relevant study
(as described in its abstract):
Results
indicated that perceptions of parenting style across regions varied as a
function of parent gender, such that parents, particularly mothers, were more
authoritarian in the Southern sample. Moreover, latent profile analysis
produced two perceived mother–father dyad parenting profiles: (1) congruent
maternal and paternal parenting style and (2) a high authoritative and
authoritarian mother coupled with an extremely high authoritarian and
authoritative father.[4]
The exception to this finding as depicted in
the popular culture – see the movie, Gone with the Wind, – are the
elites who tend to pamper their children and follow the nurturant family model
of morality almost, if not definitely, to a fault.
One can speculate, to the extent one feels
comfortable with this delineation among southern parenting styles, how these
trends affect political thinking from race relations to the role the government
should adopt in relation to the economy.
What can be easily documented is how the South has been safely ensconced
in conservative politics.
That, in turn, has been antagonistic to
welfare, abortion rights, and government efforts to assist low-income families. For example, while there are prosperous
southeastern states (e.g., Florida and Georgia), in terms of GDP per capita, of
the five poorest states, that region has four states (Mississippi, Arkansas,
Kentucky, and South Carolina).[5] Yet, in terms of distribution of benefits by
the federal program which are managed by the states, the Affordable Care Act
(ACA), while the average among the states is 25% of the populous, the southern
states report a telling distribution.
That is, Florida 8%, North Carolina 9%, Alabama
9%, Mississippi 11%, South Carolina 11%, Tennessee 12%, and Georgia 12%.[6] While some of these states are relatively
well off, others have challenged economies as compared to the states in
general. The point is that the
concentration of these states is in the southeast – the former states of the
Confederacy; that illustrates the conservative, traditionalistic biases
outlined above. It also reflects the
dispositions that a strict father morality encourages.
Through the distribution of the various
subcultural ideals and values throughout the country, they go a long way to provide
one with a sense of how and why the various cultural attributes are what they
are among the regions of the country.
Yet, throughout the country one can sense an overarching cultural
reality, a unifying sense of what is ideal in terms of the nation’s governance
and politics.
Highly tested, including the experience of a
Civil War, one can detect a central federalist dominance up until the end of
World War II. Since then, individualism
has held sway. And with this more individualistic
trend, how did communal federalism historically fare with the quickly
developing social/political culture? The
next posting will further attempt to answer that question.
But first a recurring message that this blog
shares with its reader in its first posting of the month.
[Reminder:
The reader is reminded that he/she can have access to the first 100
postings of this blog, under the title, Gravitas: The Blog Book, Volume I. To gain access, he/she can click the
following URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zh3nrZVGAhQDu1hB_q5Uvp8J_7rdN57-FQ6ki2zALpE/edit or click onto the “gateway” posting
that allows the reader access to a set of supplemental postings to other
published works by this blogger by clicking the URL: http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/ and then look up the posting for
October 23, 2021, entitled “A Digression.”
In addition, “A Digression” points the way to other supplemental works
by this blogger.]
[1]
Daniel J.
Elazar, American Federalism: A View from
the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966).
[2]
George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think
(Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago
Press, 2002).
[3] Michael F. Holt offers a detailed account of how this
tradition was limited to Texas in its western expansion. Basically, to the extent this subculture was linked
to the plantation system and slavery, the physical conditions of soil and
weather had significant limiting effects; farther west, the plantation system
was not profitable or even possible. See
Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the
Civil War (New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, Inc., 1999).
[4] Cliff Mckinney, Melanie Stearns, and Mary Moussa
Rogers, “Perceptions of Different Parenting between Southern United States
Mothers and Fathers.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27, 11
(November, 2018), accessed January 2, 2022, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326662232_Perceptions_of_Differential_Parenting_between_Southern_United_States_Mothers_and_Fathers .
[5] “List of States and Territories of the United States
by GDP,” Wikipedia (n.d.), accessed January 2, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_GDP .
[6] “Distribution of Eligibility for ACA Health Coverage
among the Remaining Uninsured,” KFF (organization, n.d.), accessed January 2,
2022, https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/distribution-of-eligibility-for-aca-coverage-among-the-remaining-uninsured/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Medicaid%2FOther%20Public%20Eligible%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D .
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