5 ms·

Louisiana is a wonderful mix of good things tainted with backwards thinking and selfishness. It is uniquely great and tragically flawed. There are several thin

Louisiana is a wonderful mix of good things tainted with backwards thinking and selfishness. It is uniquely great and tragically flawed. There are several things at play in Louisiana: - the US economy runs on noxious chemicals made in Louisiana - families are tight - people are at peace with adversity - the food and music are like nowhere else - everyone knows everyone - the well off who stay in Louisana are very greedy and small minded - people there have a way of life that is slowly going away and they feel threatened and short changed This produces exactly what you'd expect. I lived in central and western Louisiana for two years and also had business there off and on for several more years. I love Louisiana. I love the closeness of the families, the polite friendly attitudes, the amazing food, the laid back fun culture. I love the salt-of-the-earth people. Mixed in is a lot of ignorance, backwardness, and amongst those with money or power: selfishness, corruption, and nepotism. Louisiana will remain in this low simmer of tragedy forever. As long as there are chemical plants there will be small communities of working poor. As long as there are small tight nit communities of working poor that can endure, along with pollution, there will be environmental tragedies. Louisiana will never change. I imagine 200 years from now Louisiana will be one big superfund site which elite Americans are (once a year) horrified to find people still live in. It'll probably be some long-form bit of journalism just like this. People will say "oh that's terrible" and things will continue on as they always have.

MisterBastahrd 9y ago
Louisiana is a lot like the Rust Belt in the sense that people have been able to graduate with a high school degree for generations and with the right connections, land a life-long job at a chemical plant paying good money with better-than-average benefits, mostly due to pension plans being baked into their benefits because they work for multinational corporations. They have been conditioned to believe that education is not important while being constantly exposed to casual racism and are thus heavily conservative... the large Catholic population in the southern part of the state has certainly played a part in moving in that direction given the Democratic Party's stance on women's rights. They are also highly sensitive to any issue that negatively affects the petrochemical industry. Local politicians have tried to introduce other types of business to the region, but who wants to go to an area where the heat is oppressive, the education system sucks, and you're a hurricane away from not having power or clean water for a month? Most people in that state are like most people in other states with respect to banal "exceptionalism." They believe that their culture and way of life is greater than that of other areas even though the average citizen is poorly educated.

MisterBastahrd 9y ago

Louisiana is a lot like the Rust Belt in the sense that people have been able to graduate with a high school degree for generations and with the right connections, land a life-long job at a chemical plant paying good money with better-than-average benefits, mostly due to pension plans being baked into their benefits because they work for multinational corporations. They have been conditioned to believe that education is not important while being constantly exposed to casual racism and are thus heavily conservative... the large Catholic population in the southern part of the state has certainly played a part in moving in that direction given the Democratic Party's stance on women's rights. They are also highly sensitive to any issue that negatively affects the petrochemical industry. Local politicians have tried to introduce other types of business to the region, but who wants to go to an area where the heat is oppressive, the education system sucks, and you're a hurricane away from not having power or clean water for a month? Most people in that state are like most people in other states with respect to banal "exceptionalism." They believe that their culture and way of life is greater than that of other areas even though the average citizen is poorly educated.