I grew up in an environment very hostile to Country music. Seattle, Washington is known as the cradle of Grunge and maintains today, 15 years after the fact, an "alternative" music identity. I spent my formative college years at Notre Dame, which is mostly stocked with bluff midwestern Catholics and rich northeast Catholics who between them enjoyed a combination of hard rock, punk, and the occasional indulgence in pop music or hip-hop when it came down to dorm parties. My tastes then were nursed on a certain amount of assumed condescension toward Country music--it was, as my friends intimated to me on more than one occasion, the sound of a backwards, conservative, probably bigoted and ultimately embarrassing segment of America. And though I lived my next three years in the South, I maintained this attitude toward country music even if I found that land filled with good people and good values (both of which I miss to this day). It wasn't until I got to California that I suddenly found myself--very surprisingly--craving Country. Clearly, some unconscious comparison between the two disparate pieces of America thrust the issue into focus for me.
There is no doubt that Country music has become more popular of late. I even hear some Country songs on pop radio stations, which is of course appropriate because the odd Country music song (usually sung by an attractive young lady) will break into the mainstream Top 4o. Thus, I am clearly not the only one who is converting to a previously despised genre. Why? I think the reason for this is simple and often overlooked: Country music evokes the image of a happier, simpler time wherein we individually valued rightness over success and could therefore collectively be prouder of ourselves and our society.
The distinction between rightness and success as sources of happiness is one that resonates deeply with me, both because of my religion and (I'll argue) because of our collective understanding of "American Values." It isn't for nothing that the midwest and the south, where people live their lives in contempt of the cosmopolitan coasts and adhere to more ancient values and tradetions, are regarded as the repository of American culture--or at least when it comes to rugged individualism and the frontier ideal. We tend to regard the "settlers" and entrepreneurs who founded and built the states west of the Appalacians and south of the Mason-Dixon Line (excluding most of the West Coast) with idealism: these were the men and women who made something out of nothing; these were the men and women who raised our nation; these were the the people who valued independence, diligence, respect, and love; these were the salt of the earth. Yet that unconscious comparison that triggered my sudden, delicious, descent into Country music was the obvious fact that the people of the south apparent conformed to those idealized values with their own lives.
During my residence in the south I was surprised to see how kind, capable, friendly and even happy the general population was. Everywhere I found southerners from toddlers to great-grandparents acting respectful, respectful, sociable, and pleasantly independent (by which I mean they weren't needy). Near as I could make out, this was due to their lack of pretension. They could enjoy their surroundings without concerning themselves with the presence or attitudes of others. It felt overwhelmingly right and comfortable to me--I was in the curious position of feeling the need to be polite and yet also feeling no burden to be a certain person. Perhaps that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but for all that it is no less true. After all, politeness is simply, well, polite, and has very little to do with the values and perspectives that make up a character.
This lifestyle became suddenly much more noticeable by it's absence in San Diego. The cliche states that Southern California is mostly about image and style--and I'm afraid to say that it's both true and quite painfully obvious in the general unfriendliness of people. Often they are downright rude to each other, especially in restaurants and cafes, on the road, or when assuming a horrible condescending attitude toward waiters and retail clerks. Despite the fantastic weather, stunning scenery, and beautiful people, it was harder to stay happy in San Diego than it was in the rural and humid south for the simple reason that I had to deal with Southern Californians.
This is, of course, a very generalized comparison. There certainly are selfish and pretentious people in the south and kind and sociable people who live in Southern California (some of whom I met shortly after moving there, actually). However, based on the overall quality of society in both places, I would choose the South every time. I instinctively feel that it is easier to be a good man in the South than it is in California. There people's lives recall and present the kind of good, principled men and women who founded, developed, and succored our nation. We remember with pride our struggle for independence from England, our difficult settlement of the West, the idealism and honor on both sides of the Civil War, our conduct in both World Wars, our economic and social invincibility during the 1950s, and our victory over the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Our collective national identity values good Americans for the sake of what they have given us. Such Americans are more explicitly remembered and emulated in the South than in California. They are the characters of Country music and their stories form the themes of the genre.
In addition to enshrining our cherished and idealized memories, Country music also exhorts us morally. It is the most visible media in America that generally suggests the right and good are better than success. The values of country music are traditional and unassailable, and include trust, honesty, commitment, freedom, sacrifice within relationships and for one's country, the intrinsic value of family and religion, and romance. Country music encourages these values, teaching us that happiness is not found in more things, or more status, or in hedonism; it is found in love and dedication and self-respect. And perhaps most refreshingly of all, Country music doesn't proselytize directly but expresses itself entertainingly in stories and ballads. Contrary to the opinion I was raised to hold, Country music is certainly not depressing but rather enjoyable and occasionally stirring. Maybe it's increased popularity is an expression of our collective awareness that such values and ideals are, in fact, valuable, and that they are slowly disappearing.
It is a pity that as a society we idolize Southern California so much. The main theme of our mainstream media (Movies, songs, and TV shows) seems to be success--getting the good relationship, getting the good life, and getting the best of others. More artistic media changes things up by lamenting how hard it is to get those things and often pillories an oppressive external agency. By presenting money, success, ideal relationships, and sex as our rights, pop music supports narcissism and indirectly criticizes those who don't have such things; by presenting bitterness and anger as natural responses to one's lack of happiness, pop music encourages it's listeners to be bitter and angry. In an eloquent example of life imitating art, Southern Californians make an uneasy worship to hedonism, selfish ambition, bitterness, and narcissism. This is certainly a nihilistic approach to life--for selfishness is a hunger that can never be fully satisfied and bitterness a vaccine against all true contentment. The greater pity, however, is that so many Americans continue in contempt for perhaps the one segment of society whose majority has actually seen or found happiness.
What I discovered when I moved out of the South was that the simple, undeveloped, often dumpy south nurtured a culture of greater luminence than the "golden" West. And the art of Country music told the parables of Americanism and enshrined the "American" values that choke us up at the sound of "Taps" or stiffen our backs at the sight of Lincoln's Memorial. Such "American" values have carved for us a great place in the world. Inspired by these values, we have throughout our history reached out in solidarity to give our fellow citizens and other nations hope and freedom. These values are the source of our greatness. So I needed them--and especially their expression in Country music--when I encountered the cold and contracted spirit of Southern California. I almost never knew what I was missing.
