Culture of honor (Southern United States)

The prevailing culture of the Southern United States is said to be a "culture of honor", that is a culture where people avoid unintentional offense to others and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others.

One theory to explain why the American South has this culture is that a willingness to resort to retribution to enforce one's rights is important for a man in any region where gaining resources and keeping them depends on the community’s belief that the man can protect those resources against predators. Toughness is a strong value in such a culture because of its effect on the deterrence of such predators from one’s family, home and possessions.

The concept was tested by social scientists Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen in their book Culture of Honor^[1], and it was repopularized by a discussion in Chapter Six of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Background

The “culture of honor” in the Southern United States is believed by some social scientists^[2] to have its roots in the qualities of the early settlers who first inhabited the region. Unlike the farmers and workers (mainly from the densely populated South East England and East Anglia) who settled in New England, the Southern United States was settled by herders from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Northern England and the West Country. Herds, unlike crops, were vulnerable to theft because they were mobile and there was little in the way of a government with the practical ability to enforce property rights in the animals. Developing a reputation for retribution against those who stole herd animals was one way to discourage theft.

According to Todd K. Shackelford in "An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective on Cultures of Honor," “[s]uch cultures are particularly likely to develop where (1) a man’s resource holdings can be thieved in full by other men and (2) the governing body is weak or nonexistent and thus cannot prevent or punish theft.”^[3] These two qualities are consistent with past Southern culture. In order to be successful in an environment such as Southern United States, a man had to reduce the chances of theft or attack from thieves and criminals by building their reputations for strength and toughness. The only way to accomplish this was to show willingness to resort to violence.

These social scientists compare the culture of honor found in the Southern United States to similar cultural values found in other subsistence economies dependent upon herding and places with weak governments.^[4][5][6]

This thesis is limited, however, by modern evidence that a culture of honor in the American South is strongest not in the hill county, where this thesis suggests it has its cultural origins, but in Southern lowlands.^[7] These observers argue that religion, which has been distinctive in the American South since the Second Great Awakening in the 18th century, may be a more important source of this cultural phenomenon.

The Southern culture of honor is associated with such distinctive elements of the American political culture as dueling (particularly in the American South and involving Southerners) and the concept of a gentleman, as espoused by individuals such as Robert E. Lee, which remains a part of United States military law (although the Uniform Code of Military Justice now expressly bans dueling). It is also associated with the idea of a blood feud,^[8] a characterization given to many deadly conflicts between families in Appalachia.^[9]

Women and the “Culture of Honor”

The Southern culture of honor also includes a notion that ladies should not be insulted by gentlemen. An insult to a woman's honor is a classic basis for violent retribution against those, including the woman, who have caused the insult. Southern gentlemen are also expected to be chivalrous towards women, in words and deeds.

Although “culture of honor” qualities have been generally associated with men in the southern United States, women in this region have also been affected and even shown some of the same qualities.

Sociology

In the four main chapters of his book Albion's Seed, particularly one titled "Borderlands to the Backcountry: The Flight from Middle Britain and Northern Ireland, 1717-1775", Brandeis University Professor of History David Hackett Fischer presents an explanation for a Southern propensity for violence that is rooted in traditional herding societies in Northern England, the Scottish Borders, and Irish Border Region, a propensity that is inheritable and can be tracked to different urban populations of the United States.^[10]

Randolf Roth, in his American Homicide (2009), states that the idea of a culture of honor is oversimplified.^[11] He argues that the violence often committed by Southerners resulted from social tensions. He hypothesizes that when people feel that they are denied social success or the means to attain it, they will be more prone to commit violent acts. His argument is that Southerners were in tension, possibly due to poor Whites being marginalized from rich Whites, free and enslaved Blacks being denied basic rights, and rich and politically empowered Whites having their power threatened by Northern politicians pushing for more federal control of the South, especially over abolition. He argues that issues over honor just triggered the already present hostility, and that people took their frustration out through violent acts often on the surface over issues of honor.

He draws historical records of violence across the U.S. and Europe to show that violence largely accompanies perceptions of political weakness and the inability to advance one's self in society.

Also, he shows that although the South was very "obsessed with honor", in the mid-18th century, there was relatively little homicide.^{[clarification needed]}

References

1. ^ Nisbett, R.E., & Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
2. ^ Nisbett, R.E., & Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
3. ^ Shackleford, Todd K., "An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective on Cultures of Honor," 3 Evolutionary Psychology 381-391 (2005), available at http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep03381391.pdf (last visited April 16, 2008).
4. ^ See, e.g., J.K. Campbell, "Honour and the Devil" in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (1966)
5. ^ Henrich, J. et al. 2010. Markets, Religion, Community Size, and the Evolution of Fairness and Punishment. Science 327:1480. doi:10.1126/science.1182238.
6. ^ Hoff, K. 2010. Fairness in Modern Society. Science 327:1467. doi:10.1126/science.1188537.
7. ^ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/200904/is-southern-violence-due-culture-honor Nigel Barber, "Is Southern violence due to a culture of honor?", Psychology Today (April 2, 2009)
8. ^ William Ian Miller, "Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland"(1990).
9. ^ See, e.g., Keith F. Otterbein, "Five Feuds: An Analysis of Homicides in Eastern Kentucky in the Late Nineteenth Century," American Anthropologist 102, no. 2 (June 2000): 231-243
10. ^ David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, (ISBN 0-19-506905-6), Oxford University Press, 1989.
11. ^ Randolf Roth, American Homicide (2009), esp. p. 33.

Further reading

• Hayes, Timothy C., Re-examining the Subculture of Violence in the South (dissertation, La. State Univ., 2006), available at http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07022006-123237/unrestricted/Hayes_dis.pdf (last visited April 16, 2008)