My Hypothesis

The key to Beaumont's problems, as well as the reasons for people's love of the city, go back to the founding of the United States.

In the beginning, the South was an agricultural state. The basic set up was this: a wealthy (mostly likely Anglo) male ruled a plantation and large stretch of land. His wife was valued if she was a demure woman, able to run a basic household and entertain friends.

Underneath him he has poor tenant farmers that idolize him and want to work hard enough to buy their own land and be a plantation farmer. Little do most of them realize that with the small amount of land, the tenant farmer can barely produce enough crop to sell to save up for more than survival. Rent from the land and perhaps some tax from the crops sold adds to the fabulously wealthy lifestyle that the plantation owner can lead, but most tenant farmers cannot save up enough to leave the conditions that he was born into. However, there is the illusion and legal ability to rise above the circumstances, and that is good enough.

Also there are the slaves. These workers were kidnapped and forced to work. But really, no one else in the culture had respect for this group of people, except for a bit of secret gratitude that they were there to be the bottom of the social caste.

The way this tenuous society sustains itself, though agriculture, seems like the most secure way. Agriculture is how society has formed and sustained itself for millenia. It's strong. But such a trade is resistant to innovation and change. A farmer is needed to tend the crops. He might develop some tools to make his burden easier, but the basic principle of farming remains the same.

The Protestant's god also becomes important in the culture. Most people in the culture believe that their fate is controlled by a benevolent god, and that any bad that happens either will lead to a greater good or because they displeased this god. The southerners had to believe this because so much of their life was beyond their personal control. Some little, unknown reason could cause a bad crop, for example, which would mean revenue loss, and in some cases starvation, for the farmers. A woman had no legal rights, so her reliance on imperfect men had to be supplemented by a healthy fear and love of something greater than the men in her life. Slaves had to believe that there was some force greater than their owners that would deliver them from the evils of that institution. God was necessary as a scapegoat, because nature and human selfishness were not good enough reasons to blame for the problems in the society.

This society crashed during the Civil War and Reconstruction, but the mids of the people still clinged to the old ways. There were no slaves, but people still wanted the “people of color” to be there as a lowest class and for cheap labor. Tenant farmers could travel more easily and cheaply, and therefore find better job opportunities, but plantation owners needed people to manage their land cheaply. Plantation owners lost money from burned plantations, lost slaves, and distended farms, but the plantation owners were idolized. Also, the same people who fully accepted this way of life were still in power. There was no real reason to change (“We can still farm... right, guys?”) but there was less profit in it.

The less profit in the “old life” meant that people were moving West and North. Anyone who could make a name for themselves moved to a place with more economic opportunities. This meant that the best and the brightest were leaving the plantation lifestyle and forming new cities. There were fewer bright minds to revolutionize the farming lifestyle (and I'd like to think that the best and the brightest of the new generation would dislike the tie to the racism and social inequality of the plantation life.) These newer, hipper generation were finding new ways to generate income, not contributing to the established agricultural industry.

Beaumont, in its special place in history, also had the misfortune of being a boom town. There was vast wealth in the oil industry until the wells dried up. And as high as the fortunes were in the good days, the bad days must have been 10 times worse, and the city has never recovered from that loss.

But each generation that has stayed has learned this old tradition, and the culture has never been updated. People in the small town either agree, disagree and stay quiet to avoid social outcast, or disagree and leave to a different place that they find acceptable. As information is spread more easily in recent decades (especially with the internet) social tastes are changing, and even more of the old lifestyle is disliked, which means more mass exodus. These people who are leaving are the same people who could bring in more income to the area and, in theory, who could bring about industrial and social change. Each person who leaves brings the opportunity for Beaumont (or any other historically agricultural area) to improve away with them. Each person who remains has been at least partially indoctrinated with a belief in the various major tenants founded 200 years ago.

This manifests into some good. People with a strong belief in a god tend, on the whole, to be somewhat happier. People with a strong respect for authority commit less violent and nonviolent crimes. People in smaller towns with the same beliefs feel closer and more comfortable with each other, which makes a friendlier atmosphere. But the problems that many people cite, such as racism, sexism, and poverty, also stem from this background. It's almost like the southern areas that I'm talking about are purebreds being bred with each other. Few new strains (ideas) have been introduced, and that's not necessarily healthy.

My goal for this blog is to study the culture of the area and see if this hypothesis has panned out like I anticipate through this logic.