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The South? No. Midwest, Yes! Very conformist culture in many areas of the Midwest. If you act independently of the herd it is frowned upon and often times they try to run you out of town. That has been my experience in some parts of the Midwest.
I live in the Midwest I can agree with this.
However, the South will frown upon you if you do not believe in God.
And in some cases, you support bigger government role in helping the poor with employment and healthcare.
Maybe it's a matter of where you are, or more likely, who you choose to run about with. This is not the experience I have had with living in either east or west TN, or FL, AL, or TX.
Have you read in depth about the history of either, or are you just going off commonly accepted beliefs and stereotypes?
I most definitely have studied both. It seems that the south likes to tell a different version of both possibly out of guilt, but cold hard facts are kind of hard to deny.
The south can preach states rights all they want, but the civil war was about money being made from free labor that the rich in the south didn't want to give up no matter how evil slavery was. Period. The truth is that most confederate soldiers never even owned slaves but were just poor brainwashed people just trying to earn a paycheck fighting for the best interest of a minority of rich plantation owners. In fact ending slavery actually gave the common man in the south a better chance to earn a living.
Not long after slavery ended, the south became a leader in the country for using convict labor before it finally got very out of control as well. A factory would open in Georgia and the next day 100 blacks would be falsely arrested, sometimes all on similar charges. Go figure. Have you read any of the history on that?
The south still thrives on cheap labor today. No matter how much things have changed the wages in the south are still the lowest in the country and southern states still have the poorest people with the worst healthcare, education, ect. Illegal aliens and other immigrants are the new slaves in many cases.
The KKK is and always has been the most corrupt and hateful group in the U.S. Anti-black or any minority, anti-Jew, and even anti-Catholic. Although the Klan is long past its prime of the 1920s, its ideas have left a long lasting influence on southern culture as well as some other parts of the country like the eastern midwest or the northwest. At no point were they a positive aspect of any society.
I most definitely have studied both. It seems that the south likes to tell a different version of both possibly out of guilt, but cold hard facts are kind of hard to deny.
The south can preach states rights all they want, but the civil war was about money being made from free labor that the rich in the south didn't want to give up no matter how evil slavery was. Period. The truth is that most confederate soldiers never even owned slaves but were just poor brainwashed people just trying to earn a paycheck fighting for the best interest of a minority of rich plantation owners. In fact ending slavery actually gave the common man in the south a better chance to earn a living.
Not long after slavery ended, the south became a leader in the country for using convict labor before it finally got very out of control as well. A factory would open in Georgia and the next day 100 blacks would be falsely arrested, sometimes all on similar charges. Go figure. Have you read any of the history on that?
The south still thrives on cheap labor today. No matter how much things have changed the wages in the south are still the lowest in the country and southern states still have the poorest people with the worst healthcare, education, ect. Illegal aliens and other immigrants are the new slaves in many cases.
The KKK is and always has been the most corrupt and hateful group in the U.S. Anti-black or any minority, anti-Jew, and even anti-Catholic. Although the Klan is long past its prime of the 1920s, its ideas have left a long lasting influence on southern culture as well as some other parts of the country like the eastern midwest or the northwest. At no point were they a positive aspect of any society.
Church along with sports is basically life in the south. Anyone claiming that they have never been asked, probably doesn't get out much. Just going to church is not a problem but it is the extreme beliefs that come from EXTREME CONFORMITY that get so annoying.
I suppose maybe the specific area you live in may be more aggressive in asking those church questions. Not all the South does that on a regular basis. People need to quit lumping the whole South together as one monolithic region. We ARE not.
By the way I certainly do "get around". So I can't say how it is you meet up with so many wanting to save your soul.
I most definitely have studied both. It seems that the south likes to tell a different version of both possibly out of guilt, but cold hard facts are kind of hard to deny.
The south can preach states rights all they want, but the civil war was about money being made from free labor that the rich in the south didn't want to give up no matter how evil slavery was. Period. The truth is that most confederate soldiers never even owned slaves but were just poor brainwashed people just trying to earn a paycheck fighting for the best interest of a minority of rich plantation owners. In fact ending slavery actually gave the common man in the south a better chance to earn a living.
Not long after slavery ended, the south became a leader in the country for using convict labor before it finally got very out of control as well. A factory would open in Georgia and the next day 100 blacks would be falsely arrested, sometimes all on similar charges. Go figure. Have you read any of the history on that?
The south still thrives on cheap labor today. No matter how much things have changed the wages in the south are still the lowest in the country and southern states still have the poorest people with the worst healthcare, education, ect. Illegal aliens and other immigrants are the new slaves in many cases.
The KKK is and always has been the most corrupt and hateful group in the U.S. Anti-black or any minority, anti-Jew, and even anti-Catholic. Although the Klan is long past its prime of the 1920s, its ideas have left a long lasting influence on southern culture as well as some other parts of the country like the eastern midwest or the northwest. At no point were they a positive aspect of any society.
The industrial north indirectly benefited from that same slave labor, they also had their own version of cheap immigrant labor.
The KKK did start out as a social club for former confederate soldiers and rapidly spiraled into something sinister. It may have begun in the south but as you point out it had influence in many other ares of the country.
So why, when people talk about these things, is it always made to seem as this is something exclusive to the south? As if other areas of the country had absolutely no hand in any of this? The finger pointing and the tsk-tsking about the 'evil south' are hypocritical at best.
The KKK did start out as a social club for former confederate soldiers and rapidly spiraled into something sinister. It may have begun in the south but as you point out it had influence in many other ares of the country.
So why, when people talk about these things, is it always made to seem as this is something exclusive to the south? As if other areas of the country had absolutely no hand in any of this? The finger pointing and the tsk-tsking about the 'evil south' are hypocritical at best.
Not exclusive to the South, but certainly peculiar to it. Don't pretend the malevolence was practiced and distributed evenly.
Conformity is worse in the Midwest than the South. I think a good reason for this was the dominant importance of the manufacturing industry and having an agreeable productive workforce for businesses to maximize profit. The built environment and the way cities are laid out are also very conformist and straightforward in most of the Midwest. The PLSS grid network often applies to cities in the Midwest in addition to the way rural lands were initially plotted in the late 1800s. The social culture in the Midwest is also much more conformist with many people sticking with a set life plan that they prefer to stick to. Also, many in the Midwest really hate changes in routine or any surprises in the way things are done.
Technically, Texas is about as south as you can get in the US!
East Texas is DEFINITELY "southern" in personality. West and south and some parts of central Texas aren't particularly "southern" in feel or personality. Outside of East Texas (which in my opinion is a glorious mixture of southern and Texan), Texas feels like...well, like TEXAS. Texas, even East Texas, has it's own unique vibe.
The saying around here (in east Texas) is that you leave the south when you drive west out of Dallas.
Actually, KatA, my good friend, that old Ft. Worth slogan "Where the West Begins" was never meant to mean that "the South stops here." This is at least partially illustrated by the fact the Dallas counter-response was "Where the East Ends." Which was true.
But main point being, it meant exactly that...as in one was now entering the western parts of the South. The "western South" if you will; a sub-region where the basic South became blended with frontier traits not generally typical of the "eastern South." On a related tangent, this is given quite a bit of confirmation in that in extensive "regional self-identification" surveys/studies, even a majority of those who live in the further parts of west Texas consider themselves to live in the South and think of themselves as Southerners.
I think the liberal Northeast can be very conformist depending on who you are. Try being with some yuppies being someone who shops at Walmart, makes your own coffee, goes to church every Sunday and is against abortion, gay marriage, and illegal immigration. You will NOT be accepted and WILL be shunned. Also try living in a ghetto or illegal immigrant neighborhood and see how open they are.
Old comment, but I agree with this. Being from Northern NJ near NYC (and being a Republican), I can say that from my experiences, some people really do tend to shun anyone who is conservative in their thinking, whether it be on abortion, marriage equality, immigration, whatever. Religion I've found is more tolerable overall, we have quite a few churches around here and there are plenty of people who still hold onto religion which I think is just fine. Parts of northern NJ are also big Jewish areas. But anyway, it's almost like being conservative or Republican is instantly a bad thing - will people hate you for it, probably not. In a debate, will it get very heated and turn into a pissing contest and will insults fly, yes. Are there stereotypes involved, yes. The same can be said about the opposite, though, in an overall conservative area about more liberal thinkers.
As for immigration, NJ has a lot of immigrants. We are very diverse in this state but there are neighborhoods or even entire towns that are a majority of one ethnicity and you can feel awkward and unwelcome at times. This doesn't go for all places, or even for all people within one area, but I will say I have tried to avoid some areas for these reasons. This is normal, though, for immigrant areas, even historically IMO.
I think you can find behavior like the OP asks about in the South everywhere in America. It just may be opposite - i.e., liberals not tolerating conservative beliefs for example. It happens. We all disagree with one another but in the Northeast at least we won't hate you forever for it - let's just not talk about it and we'll be fine.
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