Culture Of Honor

Much of this book by two psychologists covers familiar ground and some may find their explanation for what they found unpersuasive, but get this: When they brought white male undergraduates into the laboratory on a pretext and called them "asshole," Northern subjects laughed it off or ignored it, but Southern ones bristled. Subsequent tests showed that the Southerners had heightened blood levels of stress-related hormones and testosterone, but the Northerners did not. Moving the study of the South’s “culture of violence” to the physiological level was a remarkable achievement, but hardly anyone seems to have noticed.

Studying the Appalachian feuds, I started wondering if this level of violence were normal human behavior. This book assured me that the feud region during those years had a homicide rate more than ten times the national homicide rate today. A newspaper at the time labeled the area “The Corsica of America.” The authors explain that many Europeans who settled in the Appalachians were from the British borderlands. Both locations hosted herding economies and produced herders who prided themselves on possessing the strength, cunning, and violence to protect their livestock and fend off potential rustlers. Stolen hogs, horses, and cattle… show more.