An Interesting historical recount of the origins of American culture (1 Viewer)

[jmotivator]

The following video is built on excepts from the works of Thomas Sowell on the origins of Black (and poor white) culture.

There is a lot of interesting tangential discussions that can come from this, and I think his core point is very sound. The core of his argument being that poor black and white culture today have a common root in the Northern British Isles of Scottland and Ireland and that the culture became common across all poor southerners before and following the Civil War.

I'd also argue that there is a healthy dose of the more general American ethos that was derived similarly from those same cultures. It's a long video (2 hours), but worth a watch.

The Origin of Black American Culture and Ebonics | Thomas Sowell​

 

[TheParser]

Speaking of Ebonics, I have read that some Americans do not use the "s" ending in present tense third person (for example, they say, "Sue love Tom" instead of "Sue loves Tom") because slaves learned English from their masters, some of whom themselves spoke a dialect of English that came from a certain area in the British Isles where the "s" ending was not used.

 

[Napoleon]

It’s not a subject that takes two hours to think about. The Americas were used by England and France as a penal colony for lower class convicts for centuries.

 

[jmotivator]

It’s not a subject that takes two hours to think about. The Americas were used by England and France as a penal colony for lower class convicts for centuries.

If you watch the documentary I think you will find the finer details to be rather interesting and thought provoking regarding the state of the country today, and the origins of all of the competing cultural currents in modern America.

 

[jmotivator]

Speaking of Ebonics, I have read that some Americans do not use the "s" ending in present tense third person (for example, they say, "Sue love Tom" instead of "Sue loves Tom") because slaves learned English from their masters, some of whom themselves spoke a dialect of English that came from a certain area in the British Isles where the "s" ending was not used.

There are a lot of similarities between Ebonix and 17th Century Scottish, Irish and Poor british dialects because yes, that is who they learned the language from.

There is pretty interesting detailing of the generally ineffective industry of the Southern states throughout the 17 and 1800s that was the result largely of sloth in the majority of white southerners which lends to why the South relied so heavily on slave labor.

I've long had the position that I don't denegrate anybody on their lack of drive, skill or determination so long as they are happy with the fruits of their labor. The primary issues in American culture is that in a large majority of the population the effort and the aspiration have become decoupled.

Also of particular interest to me is how so much of the Constritution can be seen as a balance between the two primary cultural currents of the time. On the one hand there is the rugged indivualism of the Northern British isles that settled in the American South that were deciudedly anti-Monarchy due to various wars of conquest, and on the other there were the Northern states that were settled largely by various European factions that suffered religious persecution back home.

Even more fascinating is how the various American states politics seem tied inexorably to the nationality of their largest settler groups even 300 years removed.