Culture Of Honor (Southern United States)
The prevailing culture of the Southern United States is said to be a "culture of honor", that is, a culture where people avoid intentional offense to others, and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others.
One theory to explain why the American South has this culture is that a willingness to resort to retribution to enforce one's rights is important for a man in any region where gaining resources and keeping them depends on the community’s belief that the man can protect those resources against predators. Toughness is a strong value in such a culture because of its effect on the deterrence of such predators from one’s family, home and possessions.
The concept was tested by social scientists Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen in their book Culture of Honor, and it was repopularized by a discussion in Chapter Six of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
Read more about Culture Of Honor (Southern United States): Background, Role of Women, Psychology, Sociology
Famous quotes containing the words culture, honor and/or united:
“Sanity consists in not being subdued by your means. Fancy prices are paid for position, and for the culture of talent, but to the grand interests, superficial success is of no account.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some smatch of honor in it.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)