Why do Southern Schools Paddle? The overlooked reasons why, and the emotions that drive each political faction.
Before you read this, please read
How Europe treats teens and children compared to America,
and
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This article is accompanies my article An addendum to Whatifalthist on Anxiety & Europe. Why is self-defense taboo & illegal in Europe? Why won't America adopt Gun Control like Europe, Australia & Canada?
I’d say Left-wing neuroticism comes from Anxiety & Envy, while Right-wing Neuroticism comes from Disgust & Pride.
Many people look at how prevent School Corporal Punishment is in the American South, & attribute it to Slavery.
I think a better explanation is conservative disgust sensitivity.
How Disgust Drives Society, History and the Right
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The origin of the redneck culture from Britain | Thomas Sowell
How The Scot-Irish Transformed The American South
If you want a deep dive into this, listen to The Origin of Black American Culture and Ebonics | Thomas Sowell.
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What the states have in common:
. Conservative Southern Culture (obviously).
. In the Bible Belt.
. Member of the Confederate States of America.
. Subtropical climate.
. Rural & agricultural.
. Redneck culture.
Black Rednecks and White Liberals By Thomas Sowell
If you want a sample of the culture that Thomas Sowell talks about, read
When School Feels Like Jail - the Marshall Project.
(School District Wants To Discipline Misbehaving Kids, Votes To Bring Back Paddling)
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Animal husbandry is viscerally disgusting, as are slaughterhouses. The American South, up to Missouri, is hot & humid, which historically led to disease.
The South had hookworm into the 1950’s.
How a Worm Gave the South a Bad Name | NOVA | PBS
The 1950’s was pretty recent, not only in time but also in technology. Lots of people had television, cars regularly came equipped with radios, air conditioning, & automatic transmissions, & in 1957, the Soviet Union would successfully launch Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite ever. In the 1940’s, we had the first manned supersonic flight, radar, microwave ovens, blood plasma transfusion, penicillin, jets, the Atomic bomb, guided missiles, even computers (albeit mostly used for cryptography. ENIAC is rudimentary by today’s standards).
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Sowell’s The origin of the redneck culture from Britain mentions how New England Yankees went to the South & established schools. While the Yankees were industrious, hard working & promoted literacy & education in the South, they also promoted their socially conservative Puritan culture. As Rudyard Lynch mentioned in How Disgust Drives Society, History and the Right, the upper classes tend to push their disgust sensitivity onto the rest of society.
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There are plenty of very conservative states, such as West Virginia & even Utah where government school corporal punishment is banned. Wyoming has virtually no corporal punishment in its schools in years.
In the year 2000, Kansas, a pretty conservative state, recorded 99 instances of corporal punishment in government schools. For the whole state. In 2018, 0.
These states have two things in common:
. Not members of the Confederate States of America.
. Outside of the Bible Belt.
Virginia has a highly urbanized population, which explains why it banned corporal punishment in its government schools.
(2000 State and National Estimations - Civil Rights Data Collection, U.S. Department of Education
Part 4: Corporal Punishment in Public Schools - CRDC Data Reports and Presentations)
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I don’t view Southern School Paddling as a result of racism, slavery or segregation, but there’s a spurious correlation.
“Another example of a spurious relationship can be seen by examining a city's ice cream sales. The sales might be highest when the rate of drownings in city swimming pools is highest. To allege that ice cream sales cause drowning, or vice versa, would be to imply a spurious relationship between the two. In reality, a heat wave may have caused both. The heat wave is an example of a hidden or unseen variable, also known as a confounding variable.” - Spurious relationship - Wikipedia
The confounding variable for Southern School Paddling is disgust.
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When it comes to racism, the vast majority of Right-wingers I know aren’t racist. Tribal & socially conservative, but not racist.
What is true is that rural people do tend to have stronger in-group preferences than city people, & prefer that outsiders pass a test or otherwise show themselves to be worthy of membership within their tribe, which is the local community. This is touched on in What do Non-Whites Like About the Left?
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Trends in Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing
Legality of corporal punishment in government schools
PADDLING & LYNCHING In The United States
In my personal opinion, whenever the American South take up its positions on issues such as segregation, gun control, sex education, abortion, school corporal punishment, gay marriage or COVID, it’s upholding said positions & general crassness mainly out of tribalism (& I say that as someone who does support State’s Rights & oppose gun control & COVID restrictions).
I’d say that both Western Europeans & Bible Belt Americans both value authority, but it’s simply they they follow different authorities. Urban Americans, Canadians, Australians, Scandinavians & Western Europeans all follow the mainstream media, academia, & government as their authority figures. Utahans & Bible Belt Americans follow their church & religious leaders as their authority figures.
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I’d also like to mention that, male circumcision, which is by far the most common in the South, is highly correlated with violence.
File:Global Map of Male Circumcision Prevalence by Country.svg
File:Ongoing conflicts around the world.svg
Notice how many wars are going on in Africa, the Islamic world & the Philippines, all circumcising cultures. Also remember how the United States of America has a one of the highest violent crime and especially homicide rates among developed countries, & is one of the few first world countries where circumcision is routine, other than Israel & Turkey.
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Videos about the American Civil war:
American Civil War playlist - altCensored
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My commentary on this will be based on The Academic Agent's Why Rousseau is the Problem [to Sargon of Akkad].
Definition 1. Self-actualization. This is the Ancient, Aristocratic, and often right-wing/social conservative definition of freedom. You are freest when you are "your best self". For example, "if you studied hard, worked out at the gym, watched your diet, cultivated good and virtuous habits. This is you achieving self-actualization." This definition of freedom can be traced back to Aristotle and Fredrich Nietzsche. Many social conservatives argue that vices, such as pornography, prostitution, gambling, and drugs, prevent self-actualization.
Definition 2. Freedom from coercion. This is the classical liberal definition of freedom. You are free to walk down the street, but not to make anyone else carry you down the street. Your freedom to throw punches ends where someone else's face begins. This definition of freedom can be traced back to John Locke, Herbert Spencer, and F.A. Hayek. This definition seems to be more popular among parts of the United States of America and maybe even the Czech Republic and Estonia.
Definition 3. Convenience, lack of personal responsibility, and/or lack of boundaries. I am free to do whatever I want without boundaries. I am free to make you carry me down the street. In the words of YouTube user MAD Robot, "freedom is being unconstrained by responsibility... not having to worry about food, housing, education, transportation, healthcare, etc. not having to suffer the consequences of their own actions, playing the victim and blaming society or others for their own inadequacies." This definition of freedom is promoted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Jaques Derrida. This is the leftist definition of freedom.
Definition 4. Group self-determination. My tribe or my nation is free to govern itself. This is probably the definition of freedom outside the western world, though is a definition of freedom in the west.
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Back to southern conservatism. Southern resentment from the Civil War probably explains policies like:
. School corporal punishment.
. Abstinence-only sex education.
. Opposition to gay marriage.
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It seems that, whenever Americans talk politics, they seem to forget that not all western conservatives are like Southern Bible-Belt conservatives.
In one example, on the issue of prostitution, Poland & Italy, which people treat as Europe’s Bible Belt & bastion of right-wing politics, respectively, allow prostitution, while Sweden & Canada, supposed bastions of Social Justice, ban prostitution (specifically buying sex. Selling sex isn’t illegal).
Prostitution in Europe - Wikipedia
Prostitution in the Americas - Wikipedia
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The next example of child corporal punishment. Poland is the best example, having banned corporal punishment in 1793.
Child corporal punishment laws - Wikipedia
Did Poland become A Clockwork Orange with Antifa in place of the Droogs?
No! Quite the contrary, Poland is a very right-wing country. Tough apparently, European conservatism is more about nationalism than, say, supporting school corporal punishment or banning prostitution (which me, being a libertarian, makes me more of a fan of the European conservatives).
(Police contingent, 3rd May Parade in Warsaw)
(Officers of polish military police)
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Here’s an excerpt from my article Is America the most free country in the world? What's so great about America? Which countries have the most freedom? Which countries have the best human rights? And why are Singaporeans so unhappy?;
“I’d like to compare America’s Empty Quarter to Southeast Asia, based on Explaining America's Nine Nations part 2 & Explaining South-East Asian Civilizations. I know that it’s superficial, but I’ll do it anyway.
In many ways, the EQ & SEA are polar opposites, with the EQ being sparsely populated, mostly temperate or desert, mostly landlocked & is culturally one of the most individualistic societies in the world, while SEA is densely populated, tropical, & has some of the most collectivist societies in the world.
But, what I see that’s similar between the EQ & SEA is that they, by & large, avoid some of the very worst aspects of their parent societies.
In SEA, they never had a Caste System as strong as India, never had Islamic fanaticism as bad as the middle east (extending into Afghanistan & Pakistan), & Vietnam never had a tyrant as bad as China.
In the EQ, despite being extremely rural, is less socially conservative than the American South, never doing stuff like lynching blacks or paddling children as badly as the south. Colorado leftism is more about smoking marijuana & protecting the environment than fundamentally changing western civilization, & from what I’ve read, Colorado is politically a pretty moderate place. Though I’d compare Utah to Aceh Province, Indonesia, with Utah being extremely religious & conservative with the Morman Chruch being extremely influential in the state, while Aceh has straight-up Shariah law. Though to be fair, Utah has banned corporal punishment in its government schools since 1992, & quickly got rid of racial segregation.
I’d also like to compare the American South to the West Coast & Northeast Megaopolis as if they were India, Islam & China. I’d compare the West Coast & Northeast Megaopolis to China, being obsessed in education, urbanized, & is ruled by a big government, while the American South would be Islam & India, being insanely socially conservative (the American South is probably the most socially conservative place in western civilization) & backwards, & by & large, people don’t trust the government, preferring to work with their families or local communities.
Like I said, these comparisons are superficial.”
How Agriculture Can Shape A Culture.
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An additional theory I have as for why the South hasn’t gotten rid of corporal punishment in its government schools is because of agriculture. Raising & slaughtering animals is viscerally disgusting. I’m not surprised to find that the school district that used corporal punishment the most was in a region where raising & slaughtering chickens is the biggest industry.
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“This year, Scott County Public Schools recorded more corporal punishment than any other district in Mississippi — delivering punishment by paddle 637 times in 2022-23, according to state data.
This part of the state is chicken country — 610 square miles of rural living with a bevy of poultry growers and processing plants.”
- In over 15 states, schools can still paddle students as punishment
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Now let’s move around the globe. Compare the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) to the Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia & Indonesia. Malaysia & Indonesia are shame-based eastern cultures like MENA & also practices Islam like MENA. But Malaysia & Indonesia are far less violent societies than MENA, & experience less honor killings. Rice farming may also be why Bangladesh is less violent than Pakistan, another Indic Muslim-majority country, & was a part of Pakistan as East Bengal until 1971.
Rice farming is extremely labor-intensive, needing to be done constantly, unlike wheat where men can farm for half of the year & fight for the other half of the year. Rice farmers also get tropical diseases such as ringworm & malaria, which cause lifelong lethargy.
Maybe the reason why Bangladesh gets into less fights with India than Pakistan is because they’re too busy farming rice (that was a joke. No offense to Bangladeshis or Pakistanis).
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This also relates to honor culture, with for example, having a reputation for giving violent retribution against anyone who steals your herd animals is a way to discourage theft. The same would definitely apply if you were a desert nomad, who can not afford to have your food & water stolen from you or you will face starvation & dehydration, which are absolutely terrible ways to die in the desert;
12 Proven Facts about Honor Cultures
5 Types of Honor-Shame Cultures
“The "culture of honor" in the Southern United States is hypothesized by some social scientists to have its roots in the livelihoods of the settlers who first inhabited the region. Unlike those from the densely populated South East England and East Anglia, who settled in New England, the Southern United States was settled by herders from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Northern England, and the West Country. Herds, unlike crops, are vulnerable to theft because they are mobile and there is little government ability to deter such theft. The theory holds that developing a reputation for violent retribution against those who stole herd animals was one way to discourage theft of livestock.”
Culture of honor (Southern United States)
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If Scottish Highlanders converted to Islam, they’d probably be like the Chechens, who are also stubborn mountain people who love violence.
Feature History - Chechen Wars (1/2)
Feature History - Chechen Wars (2/2)
Origins of the Chechen resistance
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I know that someone who watched How Family Structure Drives Ideology is going to mention how inbred is Alabama is, reasoning that if Alabamans have a family structure like Muslims, it’s expected that they’d act more like Muslims, being insanely conservative & tribal?
Well, I’m not so sure. Seriously, I haven’t found a satisfactory study on consanguinity by state or region. So for that question, I don’t know.
Here’s a comment from YouTube user a.bastianwiik5592. I like to call it “bastianwiik’s Agriculture Theory Of Family Structure.“
“This entire video tries to force the narrative of "family structure = ideology" while ignoring what causes family structures: Agriculture. Societies with large herds on open plains develop different family structures to societies producing fruits from plants taking years to mature. Accumulating large amounts of wealth over time is easier with cows than with fishing. Societies that lean heavily on potatoes and other root vegetables tend to be more equal between the sexes than those that rely on "male-favoring" heavy ploughs. Some crops are very labor-intensive and therefore creates a demand for slavery and servitude, while other crops require passed-down specialized knowledge(Sugar cane vs Flax). Hunter cultures often have both individualism AND collective safety-nets in the form of norm-enforced sharing since the outcome of each hunt often involves random binary outcomes so that one participant in the hunt gets the animal and all others get none. Pack-animals such as horses, camels, donkeys and lamas makes large distance relationships(such as large states and exogamous marriages) possible, while areas with Malaria and Tse-Tse flies punishes certain types of agriculture and hinder larger communities. Certain crops require certain water-leading slopes( Wine, rice), while some herding activities are more practical in flatlands where water has to be carried from "non-polluted" wells and springs reserved for humans, and swineherding is really difficult if there is no river to transport the large amounts of excrement away. All of these agricultural variances causes different types of wealth and labor-distributions. Notice how largely sheepherding/potato/oceanic fishing/whaling/flax "democratic European nations" gave women the right to vote first(New Zealand, Norway, Idaho, Ireland, Denmark, Lithuania, Albania, Ecuador), while wheat/wine/olives/maple syrup/bovines "European democracies" gave them last(France, Switzerland, Greece, Quebec, Romania, Mexico, Argentina). Wineries require "strongmen" and bondage to the land to create necessary stability, while fisheries require cooperation between the sexes and mobility. Nations that got their clothing from flax, silkworm, trapping and wool developed better than those that got them from cotton and bovine hides.
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Heating/lighting and water -gathering is also an important aspect: Women who have to spend a large part of the day gathering small pieces of firewood and dung do worse than women in nations with peat, whale-oil, tallow and large-scale logging. Living close to non-stagnant water drastically increases female participation in society since carrying water from wells often falls on women. When the time-consuming tasks fall on women entirely in societies, surplus women often become worthless, no need for a second woman to gather more firewood than the fire consumes or to carry more water than the family need. Same as additional men become worthless when they have no cows to watch over in bovine-based societies. These "burden"-family members create situations with dowry, polygamy, ritual violence, etc.
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As for what agricultural conditions caused marxist-leninism/fascism/liberalism to be popular some places and fail to gain traction other places?: Notice how communism was great at overthrowing regimes that had large wheat/rice production but NOT large scale bovine agriculture? How fascism thrived in nations producing wine, but failed to gain traction in "fish'n'chips" nations? How communist nations really struggled to subjugate goat-herders and nomads? How successful whaling nations tended to favor liberalism? But we also need to remember that these ideologies came about in the industrial revolution context: industrialized nations tended to do better at whaling, fishing and cattle-feed. Countries lacking large-scale industry, but lots of population and exploitative natural resources tended to ferment social unrest that could result in communism or reactionary counter-revolutionary fascism. Fascism and nationalism required some sort of urgency to protect a stable idealized state or notion of nationality, that many of the colonies in Africa lacked when they became independent, but plenty of South American nations had.”
Emotions that drive each political faction:
Social Conservatives: Disgust and Pride.
Leftists: Anxiety and Envy.
Libertarians: Pride and Guilt.
Extreme ends of the spectrum:
. Social Conservative:
Mild: Flies country’s flag, disapproves of gay marriage.
Extreme: German National Socialists, Genghis Khan’s Mongols, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Imperial Japanese. All of these were absolutely barbaric against outsides.
Libertarian:
Mild: John Locke, Milton Friedman.
Extreme: Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand.
John Locke & Milton Friedman were classical liberals. Friedman didn’t have a problem with things like welfare or government funding schools. Rothbard was an anarcho-capitalist, & Rand, while she wasn’t an anarchist, was an absolute individualist. I think extreme individualism is a very pride-motivated trait.
Leftist:
Mild: A normie progressive whose okay with multi-billionaires paying taxes, is fine with the state building roads.
Extreme: Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, & Joseph Stalin.
Studies about disgust and moral judgments.
Disgust and Moral Judgments - Psychology Today
Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment - SageJournals
Grime and Punishment: How Disgust Influences Moral, Social and Legal judgments - The Jury Expert
Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment - National Library of Medicine
On Disgust and Moral Judgments: A Review - Journal of European Psychology Students
Chapter Three - How disgust affects social judgments - ScienceDirect
(School corporal punishment USA map)
(Confederate States of America (orthographic projection))
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The real issue is that modern people (Progressives) are okay with drugging children with psychoactive drugs over labels such as ADHD and so forth.
While it may be true that SOME children do really have trouble focusing, it would be best to understand that children are naturally hyperactive and to check for OTHER medical issues, because as someone who has dealt with other illnesses (parathyroid and inflammatory illnesses), I can tell you firsthand that physical diseases CAN DEFINITELY affect your mood, concentration ability, emotions, and cause symptoms similar to ADHD or a lack of focus, not to mention mood problems.
Libertarians should honestly prefer AMERICAN conservatives; they are objectively more libertarian because with the exception of a few European countries, most of them have relatively restrictive gun laws with a long licensing process, registration, and restrictions on magazine size. I definitely do not prefer European conservatives because to be honest, conservatives in most other countries (except for the Swiss, Czech, and a few others) tend to be moderate liberals by American standards.
Paddling might be an issue, but it is nowhere near as bad as the other problem, using psychotropic drugs.