I didn't think of duels, but I did wonder whether the same terms would have been applied to an English doctor, or whether they might only have shifted locales of prejudice—would he have had a fiery Scotch temper to explain it? A touch of the fighting Irish?
I'd expect something like that, yes. Even the Anglo-Irish Ascendency seem to have been regarded by English capital-S Society as being a bit... coarse, maybe? There's probably a better word for it, but I can't think of one the now.
That's a very well-stated sentence, by the way.
Thank you very much.
I have read papers about Southern dueling culture. I should find where those were online.
I've read a few, over the years--can't recollect how many of them were on JSTOR or in printed volumes, as opposed to being in more accessible places. If you happen to come across any more, I'd be grateful if you linked me to them; the subject is something of a hobby of mine. I have a feeling* that one could in part explain, or at least illuminate, some aspects of Southern culture by reference to the South having been a dueling society in comparatively recent times.**
Actually, this is reminding me of one of the few really interesting insights I got out of an otherwise somewhat boring class I took on the subject of the eighteenth century Atlantic trade system: eighteenth century English, Anglo-Irish, etc. merchants were as pugnacious on matters of honour as the aristocracy, if not more so, because their reputations were almost literally the life blood of their livelihood. Quantities of goods on the order of entire cargoes were typically exchanged not for bullion or bank notes but for letters of credit, and no one would do business with a man whose honour and veracity were suspect.***
*Making it into an hypothesis would require more knowledge than I have and probably more effort than is worth my expending. If I'd somehow ended up in American Studies or the like I'd probably have done more with it, as well as writing that paper on the crossbow in pre-industrial Appalachia... **In terms of historical memory, if nothing else, although I do have one friend--someone my own age, I might add--whose grandfather, sometime during the twenties or thirties, served as a second in a duel in Georgia. She says it's not something he likes to talk about, which lends credence to the story, to my mind. ***Someday I will find an excuse to write fantasy or space opera about swashbuckling traders who are just as interesting, just as inter-related in a baroque web of marriages and alliances, and just as deadly as the military aristocracy or the scholar-librarians. Not because I have any particular fondness for capitalism, but because, well, it just seems like something that needs done.
Re:
I'd expect something like that, yes. Even the Anglo-Irish Ascendency seem to have been regarded by English capital-S Society as being a bit... coarse, maybe? There's probably a better word for it, but I can't think of one the now.
That's a very well-stated sentence, by the way.
Thank you very much.
I have read papers about Southern dueling culture. I should find where those were online.
I've read a few, over the years--can't recollect how many of them were on JSTOR or in printed volumes, as opposed to being in more accessible places. If you happen to come across any more, I'd be grateful if you linked me to them; the subject is something of a hobby of mine. I have a feeling* that one could in part explain, or at least illuminate, some aspects of Southern culture by reference to the South having been a dueling society in comparatively recent times.**
Actually, this is reminding me of one of the few really interesting insights I got out of an otherwise somewhat boring class I took on the subject of the eighteenth century Atlantic trade system: eighteenth century English, Anglo-Irish, etc. merchants were as pugnacious on matters of honour as the aristocracy, if not more so, because their reputations were almost literally the life blood of their livelihood. Quantities of goods on the order of entire cargoes were typically exchanged not for bullion or bank notes but for letters of credit, and no one would do business with a man whose honour and veracity were suspect.***
*Making it into an hypothesis would require more knowledge than I have and probably more effort than is worth my expending. If I'd somehow ended up in American Studies or the like I'd probably have done more with it, as well as writing that paper on the crossbow in pre-industrial Appalachia...
**In terms of historical memory, if nothing else, although I do have one friend--someone my own age, I might add--whose grandfather, sometime during the twenties or thirties, served as a second in a duel in Georgia. She says it's not something he likes to talk about, which lends credence to the story, to my mind.
***Someday I will find an excuse to write fantasy or space opera about swashbuckling traders who are just as interesting, just as inter-related in a baroque web of marriages and alliances, and just as deadly as the military aristocracy or the scholar-librarians. Not because I have any particular fondness for capitalism, but because, well, it just seems like something that needs done.