resent the application of human engineering and engineering of consent techniques to their way of life. They consider it the least candid and honest development in the long history of American political life. They are among the least “other-directed” citizens in this Republic, to employ the modern term that describes Americans whose character and behavior are shaped by the pressures applied to them. There is simply too much of the hard substance of the South’s experience working on the lives of Southerners. Change has come slowly. It has not been a shattering experience. There are no large groups of persons whose parents or grandparents knew fear and oppression in the slums and peasant villages of Europe. Rather, historic memories of Southerners are of freedom under Southern skies, of battling for what one believes is right, and of resisting outsiders and outside influence.
There are literally millions of conservatives in the South, millions of opponents of rapid change. Even today in the midst of the rush for industry, many citizens in all walks of life are saying, “Go slow.” Southerners don’t want to be swept away by too rapid industrialization or by any sort of economic or social change that is too swift. There are plenty of people around to drag their feet or hold their shoulders against the door. There are three hundred years of history behind the South, history with a special bent. It is highly unlikely that this will be written off overnight. And Southerners ask: Why should the South be recast in the image of New York?
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