And while it’s become commonplace to see corrosive sectional pride as a strictly Southern thing, recent historians have argued that it was in fact the North that struck the first blow for regional chauvinism. Often shrouding their sectionalism in the soaring rhetoric of early American nationalism, Northern partisans like geographer Jedediah Morse and lexicographer Noah Webster shamelessly touted New England as the model for American identity and character, pointedly contrasting its Yankee “industry … frugality [and] piety” with the Southern slaveholding culture of “luxury, dissipation and extravagance.” “O, New England!” Webster concluded. “How superior are thy inhabitants in morals, literature, civility and industry."Saxon "roundheads." Heh.
I'm reminded of this exchange from Sorkin's Studio 60 about the culture wars ...
Harriet: I don't even know what the sides are in the culture war.
Matt: Well, your side hates my side because you think we think you're stupid, and my side hates your side because we think you're stupid.
