Southern violence is explained by social-capital deficit, not culture of honor

Evidence

Some observers have blamed “a southern world view that defines the social, political, and physical environment as hostile … the symbiosis of profuse hospitality and intense hostility toward strangers.” Others suggest that the key to the puzzle is a distinctive southern “culture of honor,” manifest in the nineteenth-century tradition of dueling and traceable perhaps to eighteenth-century immigration patterns. Figure 84 suggests instead that social capital (or, rather, its absence) may be the missing link. Once differences in social capital are taken into account, the hoary regional difference vanishes. The South is no more violent than you would expect it to be, given its well-established social-capital deficit. This explanation accounts not only for the gross difference between North and South, but also for differences within the North and South. In other words, lethal violence is endemic wherever social capital is deficient. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1079

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The form of violence reflects institutional structure, not underlying hostility. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 655

Broader Connections

• The form of violence reflects institutional structure, not underlying hostility. #expands (0.80) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 655