Reddit reviews The Nine Nations of North America

There's a great book that goes into detail about this concept, although it's a bit dated by now. It's called the Nine Nations of North America.

Here's a decent book regarding the economic/political/sociological "cultures" of North America. Also seen in this map on /r/imaginarymaps

>the conquistador and the padres saw this region[American Southwest] whole, without imaginary line between creating divisions between the state state of Sonora and the state of Arizona. The desert was the same, the cactuses were the same. And the descendants of the conquistadors are still here. Hispanics in New Mexico still refer to themselves as Spanish, rather than Mexican-Americans, partially out of snobbery, but also out of a sense of historical accuracy. in Santa Fe, because of intermarriage, the lineage is throughly European. Mexican Americans, by contrast, claim a far more indigenous North American ancestry.

Page 216 The Nine Nations of North America

The Nine Nations of North America - Joel Garreau

American Nations - Colin Woodard

>Thank you for that article, it did clarify your argument about cultural communities in America immensely.

I recommend picking up a copy of American Nations for yourself; it's quite illuminating. Our Patchwork Nation (book & website) and The Nine Nations of North America are also worth a look, but they are a bit ahistorical and place too much emphasis on economics rather than culture.

> I have to ask what the intentions are behind rejecting science...

With "science" lets be specific, as people (conservative or otherwise) tend to accept and promote scientific findings which confirm their biases. When people complain about conservative opposition to "science" they typically mean the following:

Rejection of Evolution

This position is assumed by many Evangelical Christians who embrace Biblical Litteralism. It is an article of their faith that the Bible, which states humanity was created in it's current form, is the true and inerrant word of God.

I think it's noteworthy that this issue has become more controversial, not less, over time; i.e. there are more people in America today rejecting evolution than there were in the 80s and 90s. I believe that for many Evangelicals rejecting evolution has become a necessary affirmation of their faith as part of the broader fight against Liberal cultural imperialism, which tends to be secular.

Rejection of Climate Change

The environmental movement in America is largely based in the liberal cultures of the Left Coast and Yankeedom (digression: I hate that name and tend to think of Woodard's "Yankeedom" as 'Greater New England'). In fact, the Left Coast was dubbed "Ecotopia" in The Nine Nations of North America, because of the importance of the environment to that culture.

This means that the primary proponents of climate science are the cultural enemies of America's Conservative cultures. By itself that would make the science suspect to those cultures.

Addressing the issues raised by climate change will require even more use of the federal government to enforce a cultural value of the aforementioned liberal cultures (specifically, environmentalism). It should come as no surprise that Conservatives increasingly suspect it's simply all propaganda meant to justify ever more cultural imperialism by the left.

Rejection of "Social Science"

On this front I have a lot of agreement with Conservatives. Much of "Social Science" seems, at best, to be a pseudo-science, heavily influenced by the biases and assumptions of its practitioners. Much of it also emerges from Universities based in liberal cultural regions, which explains why conservatives reject it.

Put simply, when it comes to the conservative "rejection" of science, what they are really rejecting is the arguments of Liberal Cultures, even when those arguments are right. The sad truth is, it doesn't matter if you've got the facts on your side, when the people you need to persuade can't trust you.

Scenario: two people come to you, asking you to choose a side in their argument. One is a trusted community leader or the representative of an industry that provides something you value and employs thousands of people. The other is someone who holds your beliefs in contempt and who promotes values you find offensive. Who would you believe?

Rejection of Healthcare

The great irony of the current health care debate is that the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) was based off a plan from the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank). So why are Conservatives so adamant in rejecting it?

Again, it's a matter of trust. All they can see is an effort to bring healthcare under the control of the federal government, and thus under the control of the liberal cultures.

If a conservative President had proposed the plan they would have supported it. Instead they are opposing it, because they don't trust the intentions of the people pushing it.

Rejection of Education

I actually went to the trouble to look up the Common Core standards which conservatives are up in arms about. Frankly, I found them so vague and innocuous that I suspect they were only passed as a "feel good" measure to make it look like the administration was taking education seriously.

Nothing in them innately challenges conservative cultural values, so again I believe it's simply a matter of trust. It looks to them like Liberals using the federal government to indoctrinate their children, so they are fighting it tooth and nail.

>there are instances in which the conflicting values of a larger nation must be resolved

Very true, but unless you are going to use force, such resolutions require compromise and compromise requires trust. The cultural imperialism of America's liberal cultures, their open contempt for conservative values and their willingness to use the federal government to enforce their values on conservative communities, has destroyed any hope of establishing such trust.

>The fight for Civil Rights was an extremely controversial movement at the time, and many communities rejected it as progressive imperialism, which it certainly was. It was also the minority demanding change from the majority. If you look at it like that, making many people change for few might seem unfair but that is an extremely limited way of seeing. First of all, what exactly did the majority have to give up?

What the majority had to lose, was exactly what it did lose: the national consensus. In the wake of the Great Depression the Democratic party forged a political consensus between Americas various cultures, which allowed the nation to progress economically and stand united in the face of foreign threats.

That consensus, which prevailed into the early 1960s, saw America rise to the status of a global super power, entailed the strongest sustained economic expansion in our nation's history (before and since), and vastly expanded the middle class. That consensus was based on a social contract which entailed the liberal cultures ignoring the racist policies of the south.

Look at where we are today: declining global influence, rising economic inequality, and extreme political dysfunction. We have arrived at this situation precisely because the national consensus was sacrificed on the altar of liberal cultural imperialism.

That being said, it wasn't the passage of the Civil Rights Act which dealt the fatal blow. That act was, in many ways, simply an evolution of the national consensus. It was the product of a democratic process; passed by an elected congress and signed into law by an elected president.

The legalization of abortion, deregulation of contraception, and abolition of school prayer, were qualitatively different. They were forced on the nation by un-elected judges. These decisions were not the product of a national search for consensus and they galvanized the formation of the religious right, without which the Republican party would not have an effective electoral coalition.


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> It is infinitely less expensive to fund contraceptive services than to pay for pregnancy and childbirth

This is actually a very short sighted view. Since the wide spread adoption of contraception ,western nations have seen a marked demographic decline. If it weren't for immigration the U.S. population would be declining. Nations with aging and shrinking populations face stagnant or negative economic growth (see Japan).

Unfortunately, importing relatively uneducated workers from the third world to replace highly educated and productive first world workers who refuse to reproduce, is not a viable long term solution. Western nations might soon have to consider banning contraception in order to ensure their long term viability.

>insurance companies already "subsidize" men's sex lives, by covering erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra. That insurance companies were already covering those drugs was part of the reason why the Employment Equal Opportunity Commission ruled in 2000 that insurance companies providing prescription coverage could not exempt birth control.

That's a specious comparison. Erectile dysfunction is a medical problem requiring treatment. Fertility is not a disease, it is in fact a sign of health in premenopausal women. Comparing one to the other is like comparing reconstructive surgery with purely cosmetic surgery.

It's worth noting that the EEOC is an appointed body, not an elected one. Their rulings are not the product of a national debate in search of a consensus.

>Actually all the Planned Parenthoods in my area provide a big bag of free condoms to any person who asks for them.

Bully for them, but are they being required to by federal law? It's fine for an institution to promote your values in your culture. It's not alright for the federal government to coerce institutions in other cultures to enforce values which conflict with their own.

>>Men pay 70% of the taxes in this country

>And I'm gonna need sauce on this please.

Good catch. This figure is repeated often in the manosphere, so I cited it without confirmation. I think it emerged from this British report, but I can't find comparable numbers for the U.S. Given the disparity between male and female income in the U.S. it's likely men are paying more in taxes than women, but I can't find any hard numbers.

I highly encourage anyone who sees this to read "The Nine Nations of North America" by Joel Garreau. Its a bit dated now (35 years old), but its a fascinating look at the differences that have shaped our regional cultures.

A more modern take on this would be "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard. I haven't actually read this one yet, but it seems to be the progression of the work that Garreau laid out.