Summary: The Influence Of Southern Culture

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The vast influence of Southern culture is so evident and diverse that it can be observed all around the world. From literature, to music, or from sports, to fashion, southern identity has established and shaped itself within a huge range of aspects in life. Some of the world’s most prominent companies got their start in the Dixieland, and many of the most influential people in the world are products of the South. This raises a question: What makes one region’s way of life cause such a broad influence nationally and even globally? In order to answer this, the specific uniqueness and impact of the South should first be explored. If anything is for certain, it is that the presence of southern culture is distinctive in all aspects of life and culture…show more content…
The South has perhaps the most distinctive and recognizable regional traits out of any place on Earth. This brings us to the essential question: What exactly makes one region’s way of life cause such a broad influence nationally and even globally? The answer is most easily summed up in two words: pride and tradition. Southern pride is more relevant than any other regional pride in the United States. Southerners define whom they are by where they are from. Clyde Edgerton best explains this pride when he said, “Because I was born in the South, I’m a Southerner. If I had been born in the North, the West or the Central Plains, I would be just a human being” (qtd. in Chastian 207). This sense of pride connects directly with the southern sense of tradition. The South’s refusal to adhere to cultural change is what differentiates the South from any other region. Southern tradition brings the South together collectively with an invisible bond that is unlike anywhere else. The South’s influence is as strong as it is because the South is immutable in the face of cultural change. As author Florence King stated, “Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy...If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well” (qtd . in Chastian 116). This unique and perpetual pride in everything that is southern is what makes the South what it is: the most influential and distinguishing region in the

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