PretentiousHipster wrote:I am Canadian but I don't understand the hatred of the South? They seem like they would agree with me economically. They just went downhill because of the news that started a culture war, and said that a celebrity billionaire is someone who would best represent the poor. I find it gratifying and engaging to speak with the other poor people to get their perspective and to help shift it.
It's a long combination of things going back to our early days as a nation and helps illustrate what serve as our big national divides.
While the North industrialized and benefited/experienced problems from a relatively steady stream of immigration, the South was more agricultural and relied extensively on slave labor. Since slaves were seen as subhuman, it created both legal and cultural ramifications, and the biases that were built in from such a system continue to plague the US. Also, the South's adherence to slavery is a direct cause of the U.S. Civil War, and while slavery was outlawed as a result, both the North and South continued feelings of animosity towards each other during the Reconstruction era. As soon as it was able, the South fed off its own biases from slavery and instituted repressive laws against former slaves which lasted nearly a century and which further compounded societal biases and prejudice that still plagues us to this day.
To add to this, these differences were harped upon by the various political parties of the nation. The dominant party in the North tends towards an urban outlook, while the dominant party in the South tends towards a more rural, "small town" outlook. While the parties have flipped control, and while certain vestiges of their history are not lost (ie. Republicans still claim to emphasize business despite this being directly tied to the upper class development in urban areas during the Industrial Revolution and considerably less in the interest of what are often agricultural or menial workers in the rural areas that now tend to favor voting Republican).
Since the South tends towards decentralized population and agriculture, it also made things more difficult to build up, such as effective public education. Instead, the South tended to treat religion as a way to centralize a society and educate the population, particularly after the various Awakenings and Revivals that have occurred in US society over the last 250 years.
And then there are also the foundations, with many Northern immigrants coming to avoid religious persecution or economic disparity while many immigrants to the South were either here to serve in crown colonies or in penal colonies.
As a result, we have attitudes and prejudice regarding each area. The South is seen as backwater, overly religious, uneducated, and racist. The North is seen as unrealistic, snobbish, greedy, and desiring the destruction of Southern society.
And while there is some level of truth in all of this, it's overblown out of fear and frustration. But it also provides evidence that the ongoing struggle in the US is still between urban and rural.
