Was West Virginia "less southern" than Virginia in 1988?
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West Virginia should probably be renamed "East Kentucky" at this point.
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People in New Orleans consider people from Shreveport to be Yankees.
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"Maryland and Delaware are totally Southern culturally in 2020 and will forever be, because they're south of the Mason-Dixon Line geographically" is an interesting discussion to have. Personally, my view is clear - culture and geography are separate concepts and the former can change. Maybe I'm aware of that due to living in Quebec, which is always only a couple generations away from becoming Louisiana - a Canadian province just like all the other ones. If you told me (or anyone else) that Quebec is forever guaranteed to be culturally distinct just because it was so at some point in its history, you'd be laughed out of the room. Now, the only semi-logical argument I've seen to deem NoVa Southern but MD/DE not, is secession in the Civil War 160+ years ago, and it does not hold any water upon scrutiny - it's like saying that Scottish culture would only start to exist if Scotland voted to leave the UK, or that if Quebec voted ever so slightly differently in 1995 (50.5% Leave/49.5% Remain instead of the opposite) and re-joined Canada five years later, its status as Culturally Distinct would be set in stone until the end of times. If Tennessee voted 50.5% Leave, 49.5% Remain while Kentucky voted 49.5% Leave, 50.5% Remain in early 1861, these two states are now totally culturally different in 2020?!? Makes zero sense. |
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As MonkeyRonin pointed out, if Virginia becomes an extension of the BosWash Corridor culturally, then that's not Southern anymore. Period. If ~2 million Ontarians from the GTA decided to relocate to the NCR and they all settled in Gatineau, the city would instantly lose its current "no question that that's culturally a Québécois city" status, despite the fact that all those square feet of land are still part of the province. |
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For example in the case of "Cajun" the definition has evolved to eliminate from the belonging requirement any knowledge of French or associated culture in order to be considered part of it. The definition of Southern or even Québécois could very well be similarly "dumbed down" (so to speak, sorry) at some point. |
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To use your metaphor, what if Gatineau gave up the idea of nationalism? They keep their language, their cuisine, their culture, the only difference is that these new Québécois think of themselves as Canadians first and foremost. They firmly advocate against any form of special categorization in terms of the law, believing it harms national integration. Politically they vote more similarly to Ontario than they do to most other regions of Quebec. If that happened would Gatineau lose its "Quebec status", even though walking around you wouldn't see a lick of difference between it and anywhere else in the province? |
Quebec is a much more of a distinctive society than "the South" - which is home to nearly 40% of the US population.
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Well, let's just distill things a bit here.
So, people are saying that there is a geographical and historical South, and a cultural South. If that's the case, then what, exactly, is this Southern culture -- and more importantly, why can that Southern culture not include big cities, aggressive drivers, Hindu temples, signs in Mandarin, Catholics, decent dim sum, bodegas, conveyor belt sushi, El Salvadorans, subzero winter temperatures, and all the rest? Just going from the stereotype of Southern "hospitality" alone, anyone who thinks Southerners are hospitable has never driven in the South. Atlanta is home to the most vicious drivers on the planet. |
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Separatist parties also don't fare very well here and they've only extremely sporadically elected reps from here, though municipal politicians with separatist leanings generally do OK - the city has no power to separate from Canada. We are also OK with more general Québécois nationalist principles, if they stop short of independence. For example the CAQ won 3 of 5 seats in the region in 2018. |
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My gf's mom is from West Virginia. I never fully appreciated how much of an insult it is to say "bless your heart" to someone until she starts talking about her extended family. |
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