The ironic thing is that the puritan's church, the Congregationalist Church,
is now one of the most liberal churches in the world. Its called the United
Church of Christ now. The Puritan views on the poor have been discarded by
the descendents of the Puritans and embraced by everyone else here! (The UCC
also marries gays, and ordains women, much to the chagrin of conservative
Christians).
As to how far the rest of what Andrew said is true, it really depends on
where in the USA you are. This is a very large country whose people are very
culturally diverse.
What I can say is that in the midwest there is an extreme intolerance
directed against the poor by the middle class and upper class. Racism is
endemic here, mostly against blacks, and that plays into the hatred of the
poor as well since many middle class whites seem in denial of the fact that
white people can be poor too.
There are still a lot of small towns in Indiana where blacks are NOT
welcome. Huntington, the hometown of former vice president Dan Quayle, used
to have signs at the edge of town along US 24 (the highway that connects
Huntington with the nearest big city, Fort Wayne) that said "NIGGER! YOU
DON'T LIVE HERE SO DON'T STAY AROUND TO SEE THE SUNSET." Towns like
Huntington were known as "Sundown Towns" and a large percentage of the small
towns here were sundown until the practice was banned by the civil rights
act of 1964. The signs are gone, but many of these towns are still so
unfriendly to blacks that none dare go to these places. My father, who was a
manager at Verizon before he retired, told me one of his black linemen was
mistakenly sent to Elwood, Indiana by a field supervisor who didn't know the
town's reputation and when the other linemen found out, several of them went
there to guard him because they feared that the local KKK would lynch the
man. This was in the 1990s!
So, there are some areas that are very 'conservative' (translation: hateful,
racist, and uncaring toward the less fortunate), and other areas that are
more openminded and caring. Depends on where you go.
--
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-486-2581
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com My latest work!
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On 12/21/10 7:05 PM, "Chuck Norcutt" <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I think it is a gross generalization but not without at least a slim
> thread of truth running through it.
>
> Chuck Norcutt
> (an actual Puritan descendant... but that was a very long time ago)
>
> On 12/21/2010 6:02 PM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
>> Ah but do the poor and underemployed actually vote? It has often
>> struck me that Americans can be astonishingly philanthropic and yet
>> are often viciously unsympathetic to the unfortunate. A gross
>> generalisation, I know and based on anecdotal evidence in the main so
>> don't beat me up. But I did hear one interesting thesis that it is
>> part of the historic culture. The Puritans believed that God would
>> make the righteous prosper. Therefore the poor and indigent must be
>> evil. And that this is a deep prejudice that is at the unthinking
>> core of the problem. Interesting logic Andrew Fildes
>> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
--
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