Land of the Free

Mountains, prairies, and oceans make this country what it is.

Mountains, Prairies, Oceans

During the recently passed July 4th holiday, I am sure many people at some point heard the song “God Bless America” played. As such, the chorus of the song should ring familiar to many: “From the mountains to the prairies/to the oceans white with foam/God bless America, my home sweet home.”

Due to their familiarity, these lines may not stand out to many or strike anybody as remarkable. I don’t mean the poetic and/or descriptive nature of them, but the reality that underlies these lines. The reality is that one can see mountains, prairies, and oceans all while remaining inside the United States. At first thought, this may not seem that extraordinary or even worth talking about, but this geographical diversity that America possesses is deeply impactful to American identity.

The geographical diversity was brought to life for me over the last few weeks as my wife and I did some traveling. On June 27th, my wife and I got on a plane at the Atlanta airport and were soon (5 hours or so later) in Seattle, Washington visiting friends (shoutout Claire and Jake). In Washington, we went to Pike Place Market on the Seattle waterfront, saw the towering Mt. Rainier, went on a beautiful hike with a thundering waterfall, kayaked in the ocean alongside seals, and gazed at numerous stunning seascape views. On the way back, we flew over the endless, barren landscape of Idaho and Wyoming. We stopped in Denver to watch a Colorado Rockies game with the Rocky Mountains ever hovering along the skyline.

After a day's rest, we took to the road this time and drove the always delightful eight hours to visit family in Orlando, Florida. On the way down, we passed (endless) fields of farmland full of everything from cotton to corn to sunflowers. Once there, we were many hours away from seeing the nearest mountain, thirty minutes from the nearest beach, and in the path of a category 1 hurricane. We ended our trip in Greenville, South Carolina where we stayed in a hotel overlooking a river that flows into a waterfall right in the middle of downtown. All of this while remaining in the United States.

Geography and Identity

As the world becomes more virtual, the physical world tends to fade from the forefront of our minds. We recognize that we live in a certain place, we may notice the weather, or we may enjoy certain outside activities, but the consistent awareness of the physical world around us has faded. Think about when humans were nomads. They were constantly looking for food, looking out for predators, identifying good locations to set up camp, and making tools from whatever they could find. Ignoring the physical world around them meant dying so it constantly occupied their mental energy.

While the internet has changed how much we are forced to think about the physical world, geography still impacts people in multifaceted ways in which the internet cannot change. Whether it is economically, culturally, or socially, geography shapes people’s lives in such an all-encompassing way that people rarely even consciously notice now. In other words, it becomes so entrenched that it becomes part of our identity.

For example, the south is full of flat, fertile fields that are perfect for farming. As a result, farming is an enormous part of the southern economy and an ever-present fact of life for many living in the south. This is an obvious and direct economic impact of geography but it doesn’t end there.

Farming is a labor-intensive activity that requires long hours working under the blazing sun in the field. It is sweaty and dirty. Though the work is hard, it is required work to put food on the table, so many farmers do it. As a result, the “ideal” southerner (gathered from living here and country music) is someone who physically works hard via manual labor. Conversely, someone who spends their days in an office is viewed as not working as hard because they aren’t putting in the same amount of sweat. This is a cultural attitude that is shaped by the geography of the region.

The impact of geography doesn’t end there though. Because agriculture is such a mainstay of the American south, there is a lot of wide-open lands. This means the closest grocery store could be a twenty, thirty, sixty-minute drive away. It also means the sheer amount of people that one interacts with on a day-to-day basis is remarkably low especially compared to a more urban area. This means that people in the south are forced to be more socially independent and family-oriented because one does not have a plethora of people to rely on.

All of this is then exemplified by certain markers that become central to the southern identity. Trucks are used to carry farm equipment and for easier driving on farmland, so driving a truck becomes a marker for being southern (whether one actually is a farmer or not). Jeans and boots are similarly well-suited for working on the land, so jeans and boots become markers of southern identity. A cursory listen to country music can prove my point that these are markers used to show one’s southernness and thus central to one’s identity.

While I use the south as an example because I live here, this relationship between geography and identity is universally true. Whether a region is hot or cold, beachy or desert, flat or mountainous, the region’s economy, culture, and social identity are impacted by geography. This means that each of the places that my wife and I traveled to the past few weeks has a unique identity greatly shaped by the geography that we experienced there.

American Identity

So, if geography impacts the identity of people then how does America’s diverse geography impact American identity? Well, I think it’s reasonable to assume that American identity is similarly diverse. However, I don’t mean ethnically diverse, though it certainly is, like is usually thought about when that word is used. I mean diverse economically, culturally, and socially which leads to vastly different lifestyles.

This diversity is accounted for in the system of federalism that was set up by the Constitution. Power should be localized as much as possible because people closest to a region have the best idea regarding what is best for that region. For example, Brian Kemp, Georgia’s governor, knew that a government mask mandate would catch the ire of independent-minded Georgians. As a result, he did not mandate masks but went around the state wearing a mask and encouraging Georgians to do the same understanding that would be more effective.

This also helps with preparation and responses to region-specified emergencies. For example, the category 1 hurricane that was headed our way while we were in Florida did not phase anybody there. This is because they are accustomed to hurricanes and know when they seriously need to worry and how best to prepare for one. Now, I can imagine that if a category 1 hurricane was headed towards Washington state while we were there, the people there would have reacted much differently.

In fact, my wife and I were in Washington in the midst of a record heatwave that brought temperatures as high as 108 degrees. Now, a heatwave like that in Georgia would have been unusual, but largely life would not be drastically impacted. However, the buildings in Washington are frequently built without air-conditioning because the climate is mild enough to not make it necessary. This meant that restaurants throughout the city were closed because they did not have air-conditioning in their buildings. Maybe this heatwave will make Washingtonians reconsider and require buildings to be equipped with air-conditioning in the future or maybe they will simply recognize the rarity of it and not think about it again. Our system of governance allows Washingtonians to make that decision for themselves.

Finally, the diversity of American geography leads to an American identity that can (or at least should) appreciate the differences that exist within the country. Families across the country go on vacation to another part of the country. Growing up, I knew many families that would go to the beach in Florida for the week. I know many people will go to Colorado during the spring for a ski trip. Part of the fun of these trips is to appreciate the geography of another part of the country while not necessarily wanting to live there. This is a recognition that there is value in a region that may not be permanent for you.

This attitude, while easy with geography, is much more difficult to implement with people. Very often, we want people who live in another region to live just like we do. People in California want Christians in the bible belt to wholeheartedly accept gay marriage and abortion as morally right. Conversely, Christians in the bible belt want to force Californians to ban transgender bathrooms and stop smoking weed (or whatever else). While this is an easy trap to fall into, we can instead treat each other like we do geography: acknowledge the differences but leave them for the people who live there.

God Bless,

Hunter Burnett