Chapter sixHarlan, Kentucky

1. Chapter sixHarlan, Kentucky

Chapter six
Harlan, Kentucky
Author: Dmitriy Beketov
MIPT
Moscow, 14/04/2025

2. Agenda

• Vocabulary
• Harlan
• Broader perspective
• Culture of honor
• Cause of the Appalachian pattern
• Experiment
• Results
• Summary

3. Vocabulary (1)

• primeval - ancient or belonging to the earliest ages
• jail - prison
• clash - a violent confrontation or a loud conflict
• decline - to refuse politely yet decisively
• ambush - a surprise attack by people lying in wait
• uproar - a loud and impassioned noise or protest
• ought - should or must
• feud - a prolonged conflict between families/groups
• feudist - a participant in a feud
• indictment - a formal accusation of a crime
• abrupt - sudden and unexpected

4. Vocabulary (2)

• bench - the judge's seat in court (or the judge himself)
• haste - excessive speed or urgency
• hasty - done quickly without care
• acquiesce in - to accept something unwillingly but without protest
• prompt - quick
• bolster - support or stregthen
• slay-slew-slain - to kill violently
• marginal - minimal, barely adequate
• ferocious - violent
• steep in - immerse in (liquid, culture e.t.c.)
• turmoil - a state of confusion or disorder

5. Vocabulary (3)

• tumultuous - loud, chaotic, or turbulent
• scrape out (a living / an existence / a livelihood) - to barely manage to survive financially
• mug - to attack and rob
• homicide - the killing
• irascible - easily angered
• miscellaneous - diverse
• short temper - a tendency to become angry or irritated very quickly, often with little
provocation
• torment - severe suffering
• tormentor - one who causes torment
• maim - to wound severely, causing permanent disability
• incredulous - unwilling to believe something due to its shocking or unreasonable nature

6. Vocabulary (4)

• indenture - a legal contract or bind
• folkway - traditional customs of a folk
• lay down - to establish (rules)
• questionnaire - a written set of questions for research
• confederate - an ally or, in experiments, a collaborator
• jostle - to push roughly
• arousal - a state of physiological alertness or excitement
• downright - complete
• deferential - showing respect
• intact - whole and undamaged
• forebear - an ancestor

7. Harlan

• a town in the USA, southeastern corner of Kentucky, in the
Appalachian Mountains, Cumberland Plateau
• nineteenth century
• feud between two town's founding families—the Howards and the
Turners
• at least fifteen killed people

8. Broader perspective

• almost identical clashes in other small Appalachian towns
• thousand murder indictments in one Cumberland Plateau town for 40
years
• no more than fifteen thousand people in the region

9. Culture of honor

• highlands and other marginally fertile areas
• cattle breeding
• no need in close cooperation with the community
• constant threat of the loss of the animals
• herdsman has to demonstrate that he is not weak
• has to be willing to fight in response to even the slightest challenge to
his reputation

10. Cause of the Appalachian pattern

• immigrants from the borderlands (lowlands of Scotland, the northern
counties of England, and Ulster in Northern Ireland)
• one of the world's most ferocious cultures of honor
• remote, lawless, rocky, and marginally fertile places
• reproduction of the culture of honor

11. Experiment

• gather together a group of young men (both northerners and
southerners) and insult them
• long, narrow hallway in the basement
• a confederate of the experiment jostled the young men with his
shoulder, and said the trigger word: "Asshole"
• game of chicken (how close do a student get to the another
confederate before he get out of the way?)

12. Results

northerners
unmoved
6 feet
insulted
5 feet
southerners
9 feet
2 feet

13. Summary

• cultural legacy directs people's attitudes and behavior even in the
modern world
• inherited traditions and attitudes influence our success