Here’s a joke that tells a truth:
An Australian told an American: “We were the lucky ones. We got the criminals, and you got the Puritans.”
Harsh, judgmental, intolerant values pervade America more than many modern democracies. Look at our horrible rate of imprisonment:
In some recent years, the United States had more than 2 million citizens locked in federal, state and county cages – a higher ratio than any other nation. Thanks to “decarceration” efforts, the number has dropped to 1.8 million, but it’s still astronomical. While this country has 4 percent of the world’s population, it has around 20 percent of global prisoners.
The World Prison Brief for 2023 says America’s lockup rate now is 531 per 100,000. In contrast, Iceland has 33, Norway has 54, Holland 63, Germany 67, Denmark 72, Sweden 74 and Italy 97. Are Americans, say, eight times more criminal than Germans, Swedes and Italians? Of course not. I think this nation’s punitive “lock ’em up and throw away the key” mentality is to blame. Think of the billions that America blows on police, courts, lawyers, stockades and guards.
More U.S. Puritanism: Fundamentalists never stop raging against sexy movies, magazines and nudity – and against gays, abortion, transgender people, marijuana, lotteries, liquor and the rest. And they never stop trying to force religion onto defenseless schoolchildren and into government events, or to halt teaching of evolution. Much of this prudery and mind-control have existed since the beginning of the republic.
After Alexis de Tocqueville from France surveyed this country in the early 1800s, he wrote: “I think I can see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on those shores.”
Tom Jacobs of the Pacific Standard wrote: “Puritan values still resonate in today’s USA.” He cited several psychological studies about teen sexuality and promiscuous women, and declared:
“The Puritans’ value system remains lodged deep in our psyches, shaping our emotions, judgments and behaviors. And its effects can be seen regardless of one’s political orientation or religious affiliation…. So, it appears Puritan beliefs aren’t confined to evangelical churches or classic novels. That famous scarlet A, and the value system it represents, may be branded on Americans’ brains.”
During Puritan-backed Prohibition, legendary newspaperman H.L. Mencken famously called Puritanism “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” He told Theodore Dreiser that the stern faith is a “philosophy of taboos.”
When early Puritans ruled England under Oliver Cromwell, their Adultery Act of 1650 decreed death for adulterous women and their partners, and jailing of single mothers. Sodomy was a hanging offense. Many other “sins” required public whipping or worse.
That’s the heritage lurking in America’s “collective unconscious.” In comparison, the criminals shipped to Australia as settlers seem charming.
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