We Need a New Hillbilly Mythology
“I get winded by the weight of it all
Everybody talking shit but don’t know nothing at all.”
- Rapsody
It’s very rare for a tree to outgrow it’s roots. In a recent article I wrote, I labeled myself as a hillbilly and then laid out what I felt was a very plain-spoken account of the American Dream for a millenial. As a professional and the presiding journalist of this Outfit, without giving it away, it’s time to “drop the hammer, grind the gears,” and lift the weight on the anthropology of the Mohicans and the Acadians. It’s certainly not rooted in the spiritual essence it was in 1757, but our dying breed has limped along ever since. Whether we’re Fishin’ in the Dark or floating down the Whiskey River; you cannot kill an idea, and you cannot separate heritage from habit, for good or ill. But on the whole, I would argue for the former on behalf of my people.
Like some modern rendition of Caleb Brewster, or a Daniel Boone that respects labor. Just a Simple Man in the business of keeping Bad Company, because “freedom is the only thing that means a damn to me.” Where I Come From, “we work hard to make a living” and know how to handle ourselves. We can fall on either side of the law, but when it comes down to it we do it ourselves. Almost like a Hell’s Angels without the angst, insecurity and penchant for media attention. These traits belong to the Trumpets, our distant Redneck cousins, a Miserable populace of relentlessly unhappy men.
We’re both expert at having a Good Time but what separates the Hillbillies is that we’ve been blessed with a Light Within. It’s Turtles All the Way Down, and our religion centers on our Soul, one that we won’t sell, because we don’t read Postcards from Hell. The prevailing authorities of the various times where we appear in history have called us different things. We’ve been Highwaymen, bandits, privateers, smugglers, moonshiners, pirates and many other nefarious labels. What it is, to boot, is a rugged individualism. It’s the thing that separates Cowboys from Capitalists. Like the Raramuri or Tarahumara, with unmovable principles and the expertise to preserve it against those who seek to own and control us. It depends on whose writing, but we’ve been the hero, we’ve been the villain, sometimes we fall somewhere in between; but the one thing we have always been is free. It’s a special bond at the crossroads of space and time, that can make a dynasty from family and a family from strangers; and if you ask me it has always been criminalized. What separates us is our recognition of the Silver Lining, the inextricable truth that binds us to reality: that there are no shortcuts in this game, because “in Democracy you have to be a player.”
It’s the camaraderie of true freedom and it’s found in the hills, country roads, and riverside trails from Grand Rapids to Houston, Appalachia to Denver and across the divide, as far west as San Francisco and Humboldt County. To keep it perfectly abstract it’s a Long White Line and the endless path ahead is our Last Frontier. We walk it as self-taught, schooled in grit, with a spirit reminiscent of the Beat Generation and the Mountain Men of old.
I couldn’t give a good goddamn about what any dirty sunofabitch has to say about it, either. If neckbearded dweebs get Ben Shapiro and shallow, knee-jerk Rubes get beautiful pundits like Tomi Lahren and Candice Owens, dirty Rednecks and swanky businessmen get Tucker Carlson; then the prospects of True Grit should get their own mythology. It’s one of toughness, something all of the aforementioned lack. Where one can spit, cuss, rage and fight at the drop of a hat, sometimes all at the same time, and still be a moral man (or woman, or person).
We usually choose to avoid a fight, but when we do it’s for honor or fairness. It was us at the Haymarket Affair. It was us during the Great Upheaval, the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Coal Wars. It was us singing the 1922 Blues, and we all remember the collapse that preceeded the ’30s. It was us who lead the Greatest Generation and us who championed the New Deal. But grit has no race, no gender, and no preconceptions except liberty. Remember Anna Strong, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and countless others. We aren’t just rugged men, we’re Dime Store Cowgirls, Ron Woodroof’s of the Dallas Buyers Club, Stonewall rioters, and the counterculture. We’ve lived in communes before the Summer of Love. We’ve bought the ticket, as the Good Doctor said, and we’re riding the cycle a century later. It will be us again to do what others won’t. We identify with toughness, which means we support those who are tough in their respective arenas. It will fall to us again if diplomacy fails, because we don’t fight in rich men’s wars. It will always be us carrying the burden of the Cycle of History on our shoulders, and although we aren’t all living in the hills anymore, withdrawn from the powers that would see us extinct, we carry the same weight. We cultivate the Grapes and resist the Wrath. We can sustainably manage land but we can’t afford an army of lawyers.
Like the Gauls and the Barbarians outside the gates of Rome, the Hashshashin, the Native Americans, the Mongols, and most recently the Moonshiners and residents of the Emerald Triangle. The American Hillbilly is a complex persona with a Great and Terrible history, with some Outlaw State of Mind, we’re always on the outside of the system. Until our systems change to accommodate us, we will continue to choose this position. I come from an immigrant family of truck drivers and farmers. I can’t ever remember the “congress of jackals” in Washington D.C. doing anything for us, let alone the police. We are connected to the land although my people own less and less of it every year. The sad truth is, it’s because we didn’t stand up when they did it to the others. Benjamin Franklin’s words ring an ominous chime, and I guess in a way always have.
We’ve had a violent history, to be sure, but “love is more precious than gold, it can’t be bought and it can’t be sold. We’ve got love, enough to spare,” and as Chris Stapleton sings, “that makes us Millionaires.” Because the nut of the thing is that our violent history has only ever been a reaction to the suppression of our culture, which is our love, our fairness, and our equality amongst each other.
We live free because we believe we get to choose. I can choose to be a rotting, toothless Senate Majority Leader from Kentucky; but I’d rather choose to have integrity, and advocate for the dignity of others. Because I’ll never get to have my own peace of mind on my own stretch of hills without the Consent of the Others, the permission of the persecuted, the great key to the Locke. It is the gambit of the governed, and it will always be a risk to subscribe to a Republic. When that risk manifests itself in corruption, it will be us who turns risk into righteousness once again. I choose to be a Man in Black, I can respect people and be tolerant without losing my own values. After all, freedom isn’t worth much when there’s no one to share it with.
Words are reflections of what we make them, so I am a hillbilly, and what that means is what I choose to make it. To me, to be a hillbilly is to be all of this. Like some sort of Switzerland without the Banks, to be free of the Romans yet at peace with the Mongols, without any of the ego and prejudice that comes with independence. If this is controversial to you I implore you to breathe and find peace, and hear the music, if you will, then reread. Only then, you will find the tune, the music within the words.
“I ain’t tripping, I ain’t saying it’s wrong
but, it’s some other shit we can be on.”
- J.I.D.
Reporting live from a Temple in the Hills,
A Monk
