chapotraphouse

That’s the narrative they teach us, the puritan culture of rigorous labor as penance to God and devout, evangelical Protestantism is what American culture was born out of. However, I think this is bullshit. Yes, the Puritans were early settlers in America, but they were also far from the only ones. Furthermore, their culture pretty much collapsed under the weight of their paranoia and extremism; there’s a reason there’s no significant traces of Puritan culture in New England, while most of the evangelical fanaticism in America is in the South, Midwest and Great Plains, which derived out of unrelated cultures and sects.

The Puritans as Ur American Culture exists less for its historical accuracy and more that it’s a convenient narrative for the bourgeoisie: shoot yourselves up with the opiate of the masses, and don’t whine about things like wage theft because that makes you a sinner in the eyes of God.