Reddit reviews Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America

>On a percentage basis, the undisputed kings of game-day emergencies are certainly the Cincinnati Bengals. When the Who Dey play, emergency calls in the normally-quiet downtown districts of the Queen City spike an astounding 50-100 percent while the rest of the city is unperturbed. That includes dozens of drug stops, plenty of disorderly conduct, and even 32 cases of assault.

>As is the case with the Cubs, drilling down on where the additional calls are coming from reveals that the biggest spike by far comes from the neighborhood where the Bengals’ stadium is located.

>The Reds cause no such mayhem, so this has less to do with Cincinnati generally and more with the Bengals specifically. Maybe they’re taking the pain of rooting for a perpetually losing but never-changing outfit out on each other. Maybe they’re inspired by a roster that regularly hosts criminals. Maybe they’re mad that Marvin Lewis was the head coach for so long. Whatever the reasoning, Bengals home games increase the number of 911 calls in Cincinnati by 10 percent across the entire city.


Carloads of hillbillies attend and get drunk at Bengals games. Many hillbillies seem to be spoiling for a fight even when sober (Jim Webb helps to explain this phenomenon--https://www.amazon.com/Born-Fighting-Scots-Irish-Shaped-America-ebook/dp/B000FCKGTS). When they get fired up on booze and packed together in a stadium, voila, you have a recipe for 911 calls!

I feel like there's two ways I can interpret your question, so I'll answer both just to be safe.

If your question is "Why did I pick so many Scotsmen as examples?" then the answer is simply that most of my historical knowledge focuses on North America and Europe (although I've gotten really interested in African history recently), so that was the area of study I readily had examples for (although I did include a Korean example). I'm almost positive you'd be able to find similar examples in any other culture.

If your question is "Was there a cultural reason so many Scotsmen were willing to risk themselves in battle?" then the answer would be "probably". Scotland has a notoriously warlike culture. When they weren't busy fighting the British, they were busy fighting each other. As one Scottish proverb puts it, "twelve highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion." It's been theorized that the reason the Scots were so notoriously ready to thrown down was because they had a culture of honor, a phenomenon that often pops up in societies that are economically dependent upon herd animals for their livelihood, as well as an absence of effective law enforcement (Scotland fits the bill for both of those things). In short, if most of my wealth was in the form of herd animals, and there was no law enforcement around, then I would be a very attractive target for anyone looking to gain instant wealth, at the expense of my livelihood. Therefore in order to survive, I would have to make it clear to the world that I was not a shepherd to be fucked with. I could accomplish that by delivering swift and disproportionate vengeance upon anyone that attempted to take advantage of me. If I didn't do that, it would show the world that I was an easy target. When fighting and violence is that central to your life, you probably aren't extremely adverse to war, either.

Interestingly enough, the concept of a culture of honor also applies to inner-city drug dealers. When you're carrying all your wealth (whether it be money or drugs) on your person, and you have no option of reporting a theft due to the illegal nature of your wealth, you pretty much have no choice but to deliver justice yourself.

The Scotch-Irish are an especially noteworthy subculture, with a well-deserved reputation for being fiercely independent and not afraid of violence. These are people who left Scotland and settled in Northern Ireland. Many of them took the leap of immigrating to America, and were a key group in settling/conquering the American frontier (which back then was much further east than what most people think of), as well as the Appalachians, an area not too dissimilar from their native Scotland (Here is a relevant map. Spotting the Appalachians should be pretty darn easy).

Many of the greatest fighters in American history were Scotch-Irish. No less than 12 American Presidents were Scotch-Irish (and that's not including President Obama, who believe it or not has some Scotch-Irish from his mother's ancestry), including Andrew Jackson and U.S. Grant, both famous for their skill in war. Other notable Scotch-Irish warriors include Chesty Puller, George Patton, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Stonewall Jackson and James Webb. That's just a quick sampling, barely scratching the surface.

Anyways, I'm finished talking your ear off. If you'd like to know more, I highly recommend either James Webb's history (appropriately titled Born Fighting), or Fischer's Albion's Seed.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that both the Hatfields AND the McCoy's were Scotch-Irish, two groups notorious for their propensity for violence.