Heritable vs cultural personality traits and value systems in USA are hard to measure. It is a fascinating question. The waves of immigration (1820 to 1860 Irish and German, then Northern European ŵave 1860-1890, and the southern European, Eastern European wave 1890-1919, then Southern hemisphere and Asian wave 1965-present) were substantially greater, in popultion percentage, and likely have a greater cultural impact than the first European settlers. My uneducated hunch is that religion and a representative government have shaped cultural values in USA society more than origin of immigration. But, It is hard to discount tangible traits, why are Midwesterners gernerally so nice?
Yes, I agree. Part of Fischer's point is that the initial settlers created the *institutions* that more-or-less survive to this day, and that later immigrants end up conforming to the existing culture more than they change it. Catholic Irish in Boston, for example, had to bend to the Puritan institutions of education, property rights, civil/criminal courts, etc. After a few generations, Fischer would claim, Irish-Americans in Boston will be very different from Irish-Americans who settled in Virginia (for example).
re: Midwesterners, he notes that most of the northern waves of pioneer settlement came from (Puritan) New Englanders, versus southern waves that came from other groups. "Nice" is what happens when highly-cooperative Puritans meet strangers in need on the prairie.
That said, I think all of these conclusions are a stretch. And the last 50 years of homogenization of American culture make it harder and harder to generalize. But the tables in his book are uncannily recognizable when you compare to people from different parts of the country.
Heritable vs cultural personality traits and value systems in USA are hard to measure. It is a fascinating question. The waves of immigration (1820 to 1860 Irish and German, then Northern European ŵave 1860-1890, and the southern European, Eastern European wave 1890-1919, then Southern hemisphere and Asian wave 1965-present) were substantially greater, in popultion percentage, and likely have a greater cultural impact than the first European settlers. My uneducated hunch is that religion and a representative government have shaped cultural values in USA society more than origin of immigration. But, It is hard to discount tangible traits, why are Midwesterners gernerally so nice?
Yes, I agree. Part of Fischer's point is that the initial settlers created the *institutions* that more-or-less survive to this day, and that later immigrants end up conforming to the existing culture more than they change it. Catholic Irish in Boston, for example, had to bend to the Puritan institutions of education, property rights, civil/criminal courts, etc. After a few generations, Fischer would claim, Irish-Americans in Boston will be very different from Irish-Americans who settled in Virginia (for example).
re: Midwesterners, he notes that most of the northern waves of pioneer settlement came from (Puritan) New Englanders, versus southern waves that came from other groups. "Nice" is what happens when highly-cooperative Puritans meet strangers in need on the prairie.
That said, I think all of these conclusions are a stretch. And the last 50 years of homogenization of American culture make it harder and harder to generalize. But the tables in his book are uncannily recognizable when you compare to people from different parts of the country.