17 - Honor, Class, and White Southern Violence: A Historical Perspective

Summary

Introduction

It is important for researchers of violence to remember that there are substantial intraracial differences in involvement in violence. In this chapter, I will explore the extent and determinants of those differences for Americans of European descent. Many of the past and contemporary explanations aimed at explaining racial and ethnic differences have tended to note the importance of culture and values (e.g., early work of Sellin on culture conflict). I focus here on white males in the South during the nineteenth century, examining the aspects of Southern culture that have been identified by various scholars as playing a role in the etiology of violence. My focus is specifically the nexus of honor, class, and violence. Interacting in a number of ways, these factors: (a) determined the circumstances in which a challenge to honor was perceived and how it was responded to; (b) determined how white males interacted not only with male peers, but with white women and African Americans; and (c) determined how white Southern males defined themselves as men.

As I will discuss, the historic existence of a “culture of honor” in the antebellum (pre–Civil War) South and in the postbellum (post–Civil War) South is generally accepted by historians. The question for modern social scientists is whether or not this culture of honor continues to play some role in creating a “subculture of violence” in the present-day South. Is the South more violent today than other regions of the country?