I just thought I'd ask some poeple on here's what they though about the infamous Southern Protestant craziness. My grandmother is the most and alternately self-critical and self righteous people there is. She taught my dad and all my uncles this. Some of them are guilt-ridden and have to deal with depression, some ended up competely seperated from their religion, they eventually all gravitated back toward some level of normalcy, and religious/general social acceptance. Ive had to deal with some of the same problems, and it got me wondering what the cause of all the southern farmer-guilt was about. 1-expecations of a low-income family for their kids to become college educated in contrast to expectation for a moral upbringing and an adherance to older values and community. 2-insanity, im sure it factors in, especially with those big-ass farm families and the newly working moms of the 50's 3-more rural areas are more likely to be unstable, becasue they are less connected to the social average and have fewer people telling them their nutty as shit, though this one is kinda n/a for most situations. 4-the pro-war fervor of WWII and Korea, and the uptightness of the depression generation making it's way into religion. 5-the souring of the American Dream, as described by HST: Hope for a strong, imperial America in the model of a Eropean power in the first half, fueled by the automobile, the highway and the development of the suburb, allowing many city dwellers to move out of their homes. This liberal-farmer sense of the american dream and the hippy generation came to a crest and crashed on JFK's assination and Nixon's fuck-up. This was further driven in by the 80's mini-depression, and the idea that the american dream and old american values and culture were dead. Then again maybe this sort or wierd instilled guilt it's just a product of change and will always be around as long as society changes. If so, them neo-conservatives better start getting their prozac perscriptions early.
You will want to add this consideration to your mix. Many of these types began to mix 'Law' and 'Grace'. Maybe more specifically - they began to replace 'Law' with 'working'. Hard for me to explain but they took a sort of 'Working Class Ethic' and began mixing it with a sort of 'Deserved Righteousness'. I think you are on the right idea when you mention the over-all social move away from 'physical working' towards automation, or even the end of any farm labour jobs at all. This would leave a tremendous problem for these types (work = righteousness) They are not only out of work, money and their lifestyles - but - 'in their mind' they are losing favour with God (due to lack of real old fashioned work) Neo-Conservatives would not be fitting into this. They are mostly 'Post-Modernists' to start with and are not worried about being a hard-working blue collar type in order to gain 'works righteousness'. Neo Conservatives are far more likely to believe (with good reason) they are the Counter-culture and are being 'progressive' (rather than mourning what used to be) Funny thing.. that 'Depressive Rural works- rightousness' attitude is equally common among 'Protestant' heritaged families AND Roman Catholic heritages. The Irish families were absolutely notorious for this in rural areas of North America.
I don't know if it is possible to be a christian and a post modernist at the same time. This is because post modernism rejects the 'grand narrative' type of philosophy, of which christianity is an example.
The term 'grand narrative' was coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to describe the type of systems that seek to describe, to define the entire reality, and on a social level to define power relations etc within the society based on the given system. Examples would be Marxism, Christianity, 'modernism', etc. All these systems are telling us a 'big' story - the only story, according to their own thinking. Further - these types of systems are all dependent on their own structures to produce meaning in any given instance. This is probably a very inadequate account. I only mentioned it because Foucault is seen as one of the major influences on/founders of post modernism and post structuralism. See this link for some more detailed explanation http://www.db.dk/jni/lifeboat/Positions/Postmodernism%20and%20poststructuralism.htm And this one for more on Foucault. http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/Foucault_general.html
Neo Conservatives are not necessarily Christians. In the minds of many NeoConservative types - they think of the world and its 'big story' as being essentially 'Secular' and that they are a new generation which seeks to Counter the Established Secular Culture. Im not necessarily agreeing with their world-view but I spend enough time with these types to get an idea of how 'they see' themselves.
Yep, g'ma is a little possesed, but not a whole lot more than other people of her day and place. Plus, you have to give the woman some credit for raising and cooking and cleaning for 5 kids, taking care of the money for the farm and working for the school system for 20y. Im sure that would drive anyone nuts. That rings pretty true about the cause being a change from a working class to a white-collar type family. The crop-farm scene on the East Coast is generally weird and depressing. Those neo-conservatives are a strange bunch, though. Maybe they are a part of renewed political conciousness and curiosity, or a move away from the Political Correctness advertized in the 90s.
Yes, it definately does have to do with the Calvinist Theology - but - I would suggest it became more of a weakened changed and maybe you can say 'perverted' memory of the original intentions of Calvin (or the other reformers) Hehe.. I notice the quote from Russel. That might have been one of his better ones, unfortunately it applied to him more than anyone else imo.
