American Cultural Regions.

I'm happy to report that there already exists a definition and grouping of American sub-cultures, besides "West Coat/East Coast" or "Bible Belt". There is a Professor by the name of David Hackett Fischer that theorized today's United States is made up of four cultural regions based on the nationality and decade of it's settlers. He claims that New England culture comes directly from it's puritan founders between 1629 and 1640, while the Cheapness Bay area is influenced by English cavaliers and their Irish and Scottish servants who came between 1640 and 1675. The Delaware valley was settled mostly by Irish, English and German Quakers in 1675 and 1725, and Fischer claims that this cultural region is vast, spanning from the mid-Atlantic states to the west coast. Lastly, Scottish, Irish, and English settlers from the outlying borderlands of Britain formed the culture of the Upland South, which includes West Texas and the southwest.  (Fischer's book on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed)

Expanding on Fischer's work is a journalist and writer called Colin Woodard. He wrote a book breaking the culture regions into more specific regions and elaborating on their cultural characteristics. They are called: Yankeedom, New Netherland, The Midlands, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, The Deep South, New France, El Norte, The Left Coast, The Far West and First Nation. According to Woodward, these cultures can transcend countries, as El Norte expands south into Mexican and Alaska shares First Nation culture with parts of Canada. I'm going to try and track down his book and find out more about his definitions of the culture regions.

Additional thoughts: 
-As this may fulfill steps 1 and 2 of my project plan (see previous post) I'm afraid my project may be too short. Maybe I can incorporate some influential people and their positions on biopolitics in each region.

- I'd like to find someway to use to observations I have about American culture that effect Biopolitics. The first is that American morality seems to be highly inconsistent. (Example: Genocide is the worst thing a government can possibly do... Unless, of course, you count the Native American genocide. Then, it's an irritating blemish that most people ignore.) Conservatives seem to care disproportionately more about the well-being of unborn, potential children than that of poor children who are suffering malnutrition.

The second: America worships capitalism like a religion. And an unfortunate side effect of capitalism on over-worked, under-educated people is false promises of simple cures to what ails them. Biotechnology specifically is susceptible to this. The greatest contributer to our expanded lifespans is proper nutrition and safer lifestyles, yet pharmaceutical companies promise to cure everything with pills that come with side effects that seem to be worse than the disease in it's early stages. For example, if someone is suffering high cholesterol, they can first try to address the problem with diet and exercise before it turns into a bigger problem. Simply put: Capitalism fixes things that aren't broken.

-I found this graphic. I'm not sure that it will be useful though. It's more youth culture.