I'm now reading American Nations and have been quite impressed with it.
The book traces the cultural legacy of America's founding European nations, and does a great job highlighting what gave rise to all the internal wars preceeding the Civil War and all the cultural wars which followed it.
One of the biggest mind shifts it has made in me is to see Yankeedom (north eastern puritan culture) as much more of an authoritarian influence than I ever did before. The prefferred governance model for this culture remained community conformity and a desire to ensure a rigtheous environment. That this came across as authoritarian busy-bodiedness among Appalachians is to be expected. It was the antithesis of Scot-Irish independents. As a conservative mountain folk type guy, I can certainly relate to this.
The question this raises is to what extent do today's woke Washington elite relfect the puritanical tendencies of their past cultural groupings? Is political Wokeism a re-imagined Puritanism? Have they rediscovered and resold the value of ensuring a society's environment is a pure and righteous as possible?
This seems like the turn Islam made that helped it be so successful. Once you assume a universalist moral objectivness to a position, there is no arguing. It is a "right side of history" question. Political wokesim is there.
RELEVANT ACADEMIC READING
Cognitive mechanisms of Intolerance Thesis= "Viewing a moral issue as objectively grounded removes it from the realm of legitimate personal/social negotiation (i.e., individual and/or social attempts to condone it will be deemed unacceptable, and censorship/prohibition will be supported). Viewing a moral issue as non-objectively grounded, on the other hand, allows people to acknowledge its moral significance (i.e., that it is not simply a personal matter), while at the same time maintaining room for choice, dialogue, and debate—thus, social censorship/prohibition will be viewed less favorably)
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