9 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2023
    1. Most Americans know that before becoming a politician Reaganwas an actor, but fewer are aware that Reagan’s flagging screencareer was revived by a job with the General Electric Corporation(GE). Reagan hosted the popular television show General ElectricTheater, where each week his voice and face reached into tens ofmillions of homes, promoting didactic stories of individualism andfree enterprise. At the same time, he traveled across the country onbehalf of GE—visiting factories, making speeches at schools, anddoing the dinner circuit in communities where GE had a presence—promoting the corporation’s stridently individualist antiunion andantigovernment vision.

      From a philosophical viewpoint, Reagan grew up in Dixon, Illinois a small town (surrounded by farmland) in North West-ish Illinois roughly on the border of the political borders of what Colin Woodard calls The Midlands and Greater Appalachia. He seems to have been a Midlander for the first half of his life, but obviously had an easy time moving to a more Greater Appalachia viewpoint when working for GE.

  2. Nov 2021
    1. Du Mez told me it’s important to recognize that this “rugged warrior Jesus” is not the only Jesus many evangelicals encounter in their faith community. There is also the “Jesus is my friend” popular in many devotionals, for example. These representations might appear to be contradictory, she told me, but in practice they can be mutually reinforcing. Jesus is a friend, protector, savior—but according to one’s own understanding of what needs to be protected and saved, and not necessarily according to core biblical teachings.

      This seems to be getting at the "personal Jesus" and personal faith that Colin Woodard mentions as well.

    1. https://danallosso.substack.com/p/help-me-find-world-history-textbooks

      Dan Allosso is curious to look at the history of how history is taught.

      The history of teaching history is a fascinating topic and is an interesting way for cultural anthropologists to look at how we look at ourselves as well as to reveal subtle ideas about who we want to become.

      This is particularly interesting with respect to teaching cultural identity and its relationship to nationalism.

      One could look at the history of Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War to see how the South continued its cultural split from the North (or in more subtle subsections from Colin Woodard's American Nations thesis) to see how this has played out. This could also be compared to the current culture wars taking place with the rise of nationalism within the American political right and the Southern evangelicals which has come to a fervor with the rise of Donald J. Trump.

      Other examples are the major shifts in nationalism after the "long 19th century" which resulted in World War I and World War II and Germany's national identity post WWII.

  3. Jul 2021
    1. If we mutually exclusively split America into these four classifications, what would be the proportion of people within each?

      What do the overlaps of these four groups look like with respect to Colin Woodard's eleven American Nations?

    2. How America Fractured Into Four PartsPeople in the United States no longer agree on the nation’s purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?

      Before even starting, I'm curious what these four parts will be? Will they map in some way onto Colin Woodard's eleven American Nations

  4. Jun 2021
    1. The poet Christian Wiman, who returned to his faith after having wandered from it, wrote in My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer that “Christ is always being remade in the image of man, which means that his reality is always being deformed to fit human needs, or what humans perceive to be their needs.”

      This seems reminiscent of the reminder to recall that ancient writers actually lived and eventually quit living. C. Matthewes quote perhaps about Augustine?

      What effect does the personal relationship with Christ play in this catastrophe? (the one described in American Nations). I need to return to this thesis and examine it closer.

  5. Oct 2020
    1. In fact, only two regional cultures consistently exhibit urban-rural vote splitting, and together they account for just 15 percent of the population. Only in the Midlands has the split been a stark one.
  6. Sep 2017
    1. : Trump's 2017 U.N. speech trans

      Advocates for strong nation states as a way to elevate the human conditions. Argues that the UN post-WWII has been continually rigged against America. Smaller nations have broken the international system.

      • Uses the word "sovereignty" 22 times — Voyant textual analysis.
      • Nationalist document.
    1. Advocates for strong nation states as a way to elevate the human conditions. Argues that the UN post-WWII has been continually rigged against America. Smaller nations have broken the international system.

      • Uses the word "sovereignty" 22 times — Voyant textual analysis.
      • Nationalist document.