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In Reply to: RE: The Forrest Gump syndrome.... posted by genungo on September 21, 2014 at 12:24:34
I don't think it's a class thing. I'm thinking of all those grey old bearded guys in cowboy movies who'd cook beans and say "Ow shucks, doggone it.... I just done did that.......Ow shucks....." in gravelly voices. Loads of films glorify the simple guy.
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I think that the concept of "the simple guy" came mostly from the Northern Yankees who were influenced by a mixture of Puritanism and Jeffersonian Humanism. It spread westward from the north as the nation grew...One might be tempted to think that the concept of the "simple guy" came from the southern farming states rather than the northern manufacturing states, but his roots do not go back as far in the south. The Forrest Gump types abound down there today, but it must be remembered that this is a huge reversal for the southern states. The 18th and early 19th century southern landowners had enthusiastically reverted to the aristocratic model of old England and Europe, eschewing the puritan model and the even more modern Jeffersonian model (small family-owned "working man" farms, etc...). These southern landowners wanted to rule idly as an aristocrat might do, over vast tracts of land. They wanted to be the entitled "gentleman farmers", outsourcing as much of the manual labor as possible to slaves or virtual slaves rather than to relatives or family members. It wasn't until the south was beaten down in the civil war that the bluebloods, whose societal structure was built upon aristocratic ideals such as provenance, ancestry, "divine rights", etc.., were forced to become more like the Yankee "working man" of the north.
I contend that the concept of "the simple, working man" in America has it's roots in Calvinist Puritanism. So, believe it or not, "the simple guy" has it's roots in England and Europe.
Edits: 09/21/14 09/21/14 09/21/14
Who was a Roman aristocrat. The 'better men'!?
Baseless, foot across your neck bullshit!
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
There are at least three different strains or versions of "predestination" to consider within Christian theology, AFAIK. Augustin's version implies differently than Calvin's.
Hey, whatever makes people happy..?
You mean this kind of thing (from Wiki...)
Historian H. W. Brands noted that in the years after the Gold Rush, the California Dream spread across the nation:
The old American Dream ... was the dream of the Puritans, of Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard"... of men and women content to accumulate their modest fortunes a little at a time, year by year by year. The new dream was the dream of instant wealth, won in a twinkling by audacity and good luck. [This] golden dream ... became a prominent part of the American psyche only after Sutter's Mill."[6]
Historian James Truslow Adams popularized the phrase "American Dream" in his 1931 book Epic of America:
But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.[1]
Pretty close to Marxism, ironically, though "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a slogan first used by Louis Blanc in 1851
The idea of "The California Dream" or the "New American Dream" seems to line up perfectly with the dream of Providence and/or the doctrines and beliefs of Calvinists.
Calvinists believed in the doctrine of "predestination". In other words, if you were doing well it was because you were a member of "the elect". But, according to Max Weber, it was thought that one of the proofs of having been elected was *wealth* - typically gained through an ambitious work ethic. The idea that earned (or captured) wealth was proof of divine favor may have been present in the American consciousness from the earliest days. This could be one reason why "the simple working man" became such a respected figure in the American landscape, I believe.
One's taste in music might have had little to do with one's spiritual status, however...
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