Thread by @steppedenizen

Being from New Orleans, & I mean for generations, engenders a certain “headspace” for lack of a better term.

Giving it definition may be futile but some things I notice>>

Thread below🧵

1.) pace of life. Perhaps it’s a. Roman influence via the French. In Latin Odium-is understood as being what life is all about. No 1:1 translation. Some say “leisure” even that fails to capture it. “Higher things” maybe

Latin-Negodium- negation of odium translates to work

Here we have a calendar of festivities and social occasions. For many work is seen as an inconvenient thing that facilitates us getting to actually “live”. While I sense elsewhere working becomes one’s identity

2.) Catholicism- Catholicism is unavoidable. Not just old pretty buildings. The likelihood of living entirely outside of the aparatus of Catholicism is slim. Be it schooling, charities, hospitals etc the institutional church is megalithic in a way not common elsewhere

But furthermore everyone here is (in a sense) Catholic. Even the non-Catholics are Catholic. The mindset is Catholic. The imagination is Catholic. Not to get too Freudian but even the most virulent hater of Catholicism has a Catholic “super ego” negating their libido

3.) Noblesse Oblige- many of our wealthier members have ties back to, if not New Orleans, the region. Many going back to plantation agriculture. This engenders a certain civic mindedness. Many of our wealthy feel compelled to look after their employees for example

I mention the plantation economy, I don’t want to touch on race (yet), but this paternalism of our well-to-do transcends race.

4.) race relations- this is obviously contentious. But anyone from New Orleans implicitly understands things are a bit different here. The first aspect is geographical proximity. In other cities there are black and white parts of town.

In New Orleans while there are parts of town that are blacker or whiter, one must almost approach it on a block by block basis. Even then, it may not provide adequate enough granularity

Furthermore, New Orleans has a long history of blacks and whites cohabitating the city and having their cultures involved in dialectic. Does one put okra in gumbo? Idk but we aren’t talking about whether or not to put dry rub or vinegar based sauce on bbq.

In many ways “American” culture is the culture of certain, especially influential milieus of a handful of coastal cities imposing themselves upon “the hinterlands” and even abroad throughout the Global American empire

While present in varying degrees, much of these peoples experience especially of black people is with black people who migrated north around the turn of the century and don’t have deep roots like they do here in New Orleans. Furthermore there is an “othering” geographically

That is to say, in a “public facing” setting they will wax poetically about being champions of “racial justice”, yet in their private life, and frequently in silence, avoid commingling outside of their ethnic and social groups.

While not perfectly tranquil, the New Orleanian white and the New Orleanian black understand and are generally comfortable around each other. The Cape Cod WASP would feel more foreign to the NOLA white despite both being of the same “race”.

5.) Unique approach to cosmopolitanism, bohemianism, the eccentric, and the question of “grime”- New Orleans is a port city. From its beginning, due to this fact there has always been an aspect of cosmopolitanism. It’s baked into our streets, or better put; paved

Much of the slate and stone used in our older streets being ballast stones used by ships back in the day. The term “diversity” is obviously loaded. So I will avoid it, Inorder to skirt the connotation. But New Orleans must be said, is a place that is

One which is less so in dialogue with itself, but rather in dialogue with the rest of the world, at times the Caribbean, Africa, Europe or America. Seldom does cultural innovation come from sanitary environments. Jazz after all was born in the brothels of Storeyville & is lauded

6.) native high culture- many of the parochial cultures of America play to their rusticity. I mention BBQ, Appalachia likes the image of the moonshiner. New Orleans, in food, dress, interior design/architecture etc. has a “haute-couture” which is seen as simultaneously

Our own, but also aspirational.
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I tried to approach this delicately. I don’t mean to cast aspersions. I’m just “calling it as I see it”. Perhaps other New Orleanians have a different perspective. This is not an exhaustive list.

Are there other qualities I’m forgetting?