Thread by @TheMittani

let’s explore the other pillar of the confederacy - the border/backcountry culture, forged by a thousand years of atrocity into a warrior society obsessed with tribal honor, violence, nascar, cowboys and patriarchy - the shock troops of modern ‘murican empire, allied w/cavaliers

your shitkickers, your ‘hicks’, your ‘aggies’, every shitty stereotype you may have about ‘hillbillies’ is probably dangerous and dumb, they are probably one of the core reasons why America is so fucking good at war and that’s not necessarily a bad thing from a coldhearted place

The borderlanders came late to the ‘Murcia party and were mostly broke so they settled in the ‘rear’ of the colonies - Appalachia - and as inherently nomadic types they spread west into Texas, OK, but there were a fucking lot of them, outnumbering the other colonial migrations

they came from the ‘borderlands’ between England and Scotland and before the migration spent centuries being the victims of constant raiding and vicious atrocity-filled warfare between those nations, always caught in the middle - men were warriors, women workers, and clan was key

despite being dirt starving poor and living in unimaginable poverty and horror they developed a tremendous pride perhaps because after generations of insecurity and no-holds-barred warfare they fucking love to fight and are damn good at it.

this pissed off basically every other nation in colonial ‘Murcia - the borderlanders didn’t defer to the cavaliers or give a shit about their Anglican bullshit, and the puritans and quakers despises violence, but they fought against the natives and took the land no one wanted

The creation of the United States could be seen as a peace treaty between cavaliers, puritans and quakers; they left the borderlanders out of the deal and they immediately rebelled in the ‘whiskey rebellion’ which was glossed over in high school history class

ultimately though the cavaliers had a lot more in common with the borderlanders than the puritans and quakers - particularly on conceptions of warfare, role of govt, and gender roles. This developed over time into ‘north’ and ‘south’ but the internal cultures are v. different

Oh yeah xenophobia and inherent conservatism and anti-intellectualism, let’s dive back into Albion’s Seed:

Now keep in mind that from a structural perspective this is a consequence of the English nobility and the Scottish going to war for centuries and doing it on top of these folks, using them as shock troops. So they have a xenophobic and suspicious mindset which makes perfect sense

this isn’t to excuse those morals in the modern era but you gotta know how and why cultures tick if you want to make any sense of modern ‘Murcia especially if you come from a Puritan or Quaker culture based on punishing and abhorring violence and ‘ordered liberty’

a theory is that all warrior cultures of this type show similar social structures, but this is also a cool excuse to show a screenshot about sex in the borderlands and not being prudish about it

Here’s a thing about child-rearing and the violent and immediate defense of family/clan/derbfine honor, again warrior culture stuff

There is a bunch of cool shit about borderland culture that is Actually Pretty Awesome that gets overlooked, such as a genuine obsession with not lying (oral rather than written culture) and more equality of social behavior between economic classes

unfortunately the warrior tribal honor code is highly gendered and so this is probably where a lot of the homophobia comes from

If cavalier order and justice is based on maintaining royalist hierarchy, borderland order is straight out of Hammurabi - again, warrior culture and lex talionis

this is reflected in a court system that emphasizes punishing property crimes and handwaving personal violence since the clans will handle that on their own, so hey highest murder rates around, also fuck all cattle rustlers

their conception of liberty amounts to ‘leave me and mine the fuck alone’ as unsurprisingly those raised on warfare between nobles aren’t too keen on government intervention in their lives and clan feuds

one shitty thing about this is the emotional and violent reaction to dissent/disagreement of any kind, if you disagree in this folkway you’re probably a filthy outsider who should be beaten the fuck up, disagreement is inherently a sign of treason p much

I want to read more about the Whiskey Rebellion because it’s basically about the other three nations in ‘murica crushing the borderlanders into submission because they are functionally left out of the constitutional process and holy shit it was fucking ugly

the candidates the borderlanders adore seem like absurd charlatans to the other three ‘murican cultures, here’s Andrew Jackson and you can draw your own Trump parallels

anyway no shock here the warrior cultures of cavaliers (knights, horses) and the borderlands (infantry, guerrillas) are opposed to Puritan/Quaker impulses towards nonviolence and regulation of weapons

I grew up in cavalier culture and while folks had some guns it is nothing compared to the veritable arsenals my friends who have come from borderland culture enjoy - the modern south is a mix of these cultures, southern preppies, proud rednecks and of course oppressed black folk

Keep in mind that the Puritans and Cavaliers literally fought a civil war in England during the colonization of America and even the name ‘United States’ is kind of meta, the Constitution was essentially a peace treaty between Puritans, Quakers and Cavaliers to prevent more war

I’m personally against imperialism but modern politics is much more complicated when your recognize the possibility that the reason America is constantly at war is more of a feature than a bug, we’re more like four+ nations who hate each other masquerading as one country

If Australia is full of British convicts, America is basically full of the biggest assholes the UK ever produced - that goes for Puritans, Cavaliers and the Borderlanders, our cultures are fucking psycho - perhaps the only ‘good guys’ are the poor Quakers

anyway I’m more fond of borderland culture perhaps because of spending my first ten years in Texas, my uncle has a cattle ranch, etc. there’s none of the snobbery you see in royalist cavalier bullshit land, as long as you’re kin and one of the tribe. If you ain’t though, git~