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Notes -
The South was also very Christian. It's not like the South in the Civil War was this bastion of rationality and inquiry compared to the North, and many were very Christian such as Stonewall Jackson. I agree with much of what you are saying, but I don't think it is a binary like OP was making it. For example, I do know that much of the "Scientific" racism came from the Enlightenment (hence why I stressed that the Founding Fathers were also scientifically racist in an earlier comment). But I just refuse to believe that the average racist White Southerner was meaningfully influenced by Rousseau in any way. I think it was just this is always how we have done it so this is what I believe.
That being said, @HlynkaCG is correct that Progressives downplay their role in racism and many bad things that happened because of "Trusting The Science". And I do understand why they would get annoyed by this and default to pushing back against that narrative because for a true Red Triber this must get annoying. And I would even say that "Scientific" racism was initially pushed and "discovered" because it was very useful to what the regimes in Europe wanted to be true. This is probably a very Foucault type argument on my end though.
So my disagreement with @HlynkaCG isn't that he is 100% wrong but instead they are massively simplifying complex historical forces that would have probably happened even if Rousseau or Hobbes were never born.
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