Appalachian Controlee
I read "Deer Hunting With Jesus" by Joe Bageant over the weekend - it wasn't a bad book. But he does have a whole damn chapter on a persistent bugbear of this blog - the Scots Irish, those lovable drunken belligerent ginger bigots who are responsible for all the worst things in American culture, but gawd bless 'em, they saved our asses and if it wasn't for their heroic manly ways we'd all be speaking German.
It just struck me while I was reading it that there's a clear counterexample to show why this is bullshit. Do you know what country is chock fucking full of Lowlands Scots? Canada.
We do pretty much speak German, as it happens. So where were the Scots when the German invasions were happening, eh? Still in Ireland, that's where.
ReplyDeleteIt just struck me while I was reading it that there's a clear counterexample to show why this is bullshit. Do you know what country is chock fucking full of Lowlands Scots?
ReplyDelete... Scotland?
But, more seriously, I think the reason for the confusion is that what the Americans call the "Scots Irish" are the lovable drunken belligerent ginger bigots we call the "Ulster Prods" - originally Scots, true, if you go far enough back, but in that sense the English are originally German.
ReplyDeleteDavid Hackett Fischer's ALBION'S SEED has a very interesting exploration of the culture of the 'borderlanders' in 16th and 17th century America. They don't come across well.
ReplyDelete"we call the "Ulster Prods" - originally Scots, true, if you go far enough back, but in that sense the English are originally German
ReplyDeleteNo, not really. Most emigrants from Ulster to America in the eighteenth century had only resided in Ireland for a generation or less. They identified Scotland as the home-land, with Ulster as a settlement - failing because of the oppressive Establishment and the incorrigible Papishes - much as America was.
Michael Lind wrote about the influence of Scots Irish culture in the South, specifically Texas and on GWB, in Made in Texas.
ReplyDeleteI bought and read Bageant's book. I have mixed feelings about it. It was an interesting gonzo journalist take on the South, but I think too many liberals/center-of-left people will read it and have their prejudices about Southerners reinforced.
Ajay beat me to it on the 'Scotland' comment.
ReplyDelete... also responsible for some of the best things in American culture: see under bluegrass, country, folk revival, R.Zimmermann (works of) etc.
ReplyDeleteOf course, YMMV, ....
Can I just say "(living in brackets)"? Ta.
ReplyDeleteI think that pedants would suggest that Zimmerman is more of a Jewish name than an Ulster Protestant one, but yes.
ReplyDeleteNot just pedants. A lot of us Jews, too. And no, the latter is not a subset of the former, although the intersection is not null ... um, where was I?
ReplyDeleteCanadians as individuals tend to be peaceful. Canadians as regiments fight like mad bastards. They have high volunteer rates, high death rates, and high kill rates.
ReplyDeleteKeep them disorganised, for the love of god. Let Canada sleep, the Germans will sorrow when she wakens...