On Sun, 17 Jan 2010, Joseph Catron wrote:
> I mulled this one over for a day, but am still not entirely sure, as an
> Italian-American in Crown Heights, that the examples you choose are the
> best to disprove Brooks' claim. Are you familiar with the basic thesis
> of David Hackett Fischer's *Albion's Seed*, or the research Malcolm
> Gladwell wrote about in *Outliers* on Southerners and our unwillingness
> to take guff? Culture does cast a long shadow ...
I'm a big fan of that book, but its argument about the back country is couched entirely in terms of sociology and the formative moments of culture. It was the social situation of living for centuries in the disputed borderlands between England and Scotland and being ravaged in revenge raids by both kings that created the culture of the "borderers" that was transmitted to the America Hill country when peace between the kings led to joint pacification and ejection. Fischer examines many axes of this creation and marshalls lots of evidence. He is very specific about time and place. There is no comparison.
The fact that cultural transmission argument are valid when they are made well -- and I'm a big fan of the form -- has no bearing on cultural arguments that are made badly. The stupid ones with no evidence where the reverse is just as true are still wrong.
And IMHO using religion as your sole and ultimate cultural ground is always a bad idea because all religions worth their salt contain opposite points of view.
> Which is not to say that Brooks' claim concerning Vodou is correct. I
> studied the Afro-Caribbean religions in college, and probably know a bit
> more about them than the average white American, but haven't thought
> much about how they might relate to Weber's Protestant ethic.
Weber's is the most beautifully written attempt to make such an argument. But it's the exception that proves the rule: it's based on extreme irony. And it wisely confines itself to explaining a unique event, so no comparisons are possible.
Weber's argument doesn't have anything to do with comparing protestant and catholic countries, or protesantism with any other religion. It only applies to one question: why did modern capitalism (which he defines as capitalism where (a) labor became fully a commodity, and (b) growth of capital became a goal in itself, rather than a means for great consumption) begin in England *rather than France or Italy?* And his answer is because back then they had Calvinist saints who, etc.
After that the start is made, the system takes over -- the iron cage -- and such motivations are unnecessary. They are only necessary to explain why the cake of custom is originally broken.
Michael