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Mark Steyn once wrote that a great part of the appeal of Elvis Presley was that…
...no matter how rich he got, his tastes never changed. Being rich meant doing all the same things he'd done when poor, only more so: he had banana pudding every night; instead of eating one cheeseburger, he'd eat six; instead of cruising Main Street for a late-night diner, he'd hop on the private jet, burn $16,000 worth of fuel and fly to Denver for a peanut-butter sandwich; instead of a 22-inch TV, he had the planet's biggest set; instead of grumbling that there was nothing on, he'd blow the set apart with his M-16 automatic rifle; instead of shooting beer cans off the tailgate of his pick-up, he'd buy up every available flashbulb in Memphis, toss them in the pool and shoot them out of the water. At Graceland, he took an antebellum colonnaded fieldstone mansion and turned it into the world's largest trailer.
This isn't the decadence of Hollywood and Manhattan, just the regular tastes of poor rural whites on an unlimited budget.
I was thinking about how true this is for so very many people. You might think that Russian Mail-Order Brides would be thrilled to marry a decent but lonely American guy, but you would be wrong. Being Russian, they just find other ways to maximize misery.
The Assad family were tyrants who ravaged and bled out a country. They could buy any toy a person could want. And they did: luxury cars of every brand. But in the corner of their garage are a couple of honest-to-goodness RVs.
Why?
My theory is that the desert nomad myth hangs tough, even with people who have never, themselves, been actual nomads.
Every culture has its RVs, the telltale elements that we just cannot leave behind. And it is not just food or dress or even language. Think of the Depression generation (and often their children) who simply cannot bring themselves to throw out food.
So here’s my question: What is the single most prominent cultural marker for your people?
I’ll go first: in the Orthodox Jewish litvishe world, the single biggest compliment you can pay someone is to call them smart. For better or worse, intelligence is rated more highly than any other attribute.
Jump in! The water’s warm!
Discussion (24)
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As a Southron, grits, properly made.
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Cornbread is good, too. No sugar.
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I usually enjoy a Mark Steyn article but that was just so bitterly cynical and somehow wrong that I have a difficult time stomaching it. I don't for a second believe that Elvis was finished musically at that point in his career. Death finished it prematurely.
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If we're talking ethnicity, while I have ancestors from all over Central Europe, the greatest concentration seems to be German. Maybe this isn't a German-German thing, maybe it's just a German-American thing. Maybe just a Minnesota German-American farm culture thing, I have no idea. But here is an observation I have made.
There seems to be a propensity to be stingy with compliments or encouragement among some of "my people." My father was raised with the attitude that people should be scolded if they do something wrong, but should never be praised for doing a job well, because everyone is supposed to do everything right every time. I don't get this. If someone is doing a good job, why wouldn't you want to let them know you are happy with their performance, so they give you more of it? And the people I have seen live by this philosophy have by no means been shy about receiving praise. They have wanted to be reassured that they're great. I'm dealing with a pretty small sample size, though, so maybe I am seeing a pattern that doesn't really exist.
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I think that's rather common, Weivoda.
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