The Appalachian Personality: A Series of Five Interviews with Prominent Appalachians

The Appalachian Personality A SERIES OF FIVE INTERVIEWS WITH PROMINENT APPALACHIANS by RON LARSON ) ( Vw' \J Interview No. 3 CRATIS D. WILLIAMS Born nearly three-quarters of a century ago, Cratis Williams grew up in eastern Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley. A descendant of Indian fighters, veterans of the American Revolution, and mountain feudists, he thinks of himself as a "complete mountaineer," but Appalachian studies people call him "Mr. Appalachia. " He holds two degrees from the University of Kentucky, and a Ph.D. from New York University. His three volume, 1600 page dissertation, "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction," is considered the definitive work in the field. Formerly Dean of the Graduate School at Appalachian State University, he currently is Special Assistant to the Chancellor there. He is in popular demand as both a speaker and singer offolk songs. He was interviewed in his office on the Appalachian State University campus at Boone, North Carolina . November 13. 1981. L- Is there an Appalachian mentality? W- It occurs to me that there is. I'm an Appalachian person myself, of course, and in trying to become educated in the larger American sense, I had some problems with myself. And these problems dealt with what might be identified as an Appalachian mind. This is a mental-set that we are conditioned to by our heritage and what goes on around us. Probably it was more evident when I was coming along than it is now because more of us lived in rural, isolated settings then. We were buried up to our necks in the culture, whereas the culture is not that concen19 trated anywhere nowadays. Yes, it seems to me that there is an Appalachian mind that is deeply preoccupied with religious concerns although fewer than half of us belong to churches. All of us seem to be deeply concerned with religion of the Calvinistic type. L- Jack Weiler has written an article entitled "Salvation is Not Enough." His criticism was that the Appalachian person was too much concerned with his own salvation, and not enough with the interests and problems of this world. Is the Appalachian mind generally self-centered? W- I think the Appalachian person's world begins with himself, but I think that's where everybody 's world begins. But we are just a little more aware of it, perhaps. We are the children of the struggle for Reformation but we were touched also by the Enlightenment. Our thinking processes were more or less set by those who first came into Appalachia, who were radical then. So we have retained many of those processes at the folk level. We are people who don't think of ourselves as educated, yet we feel that we are qualified to discuss the fine points of Calvinism and one's obligation to himself and to his fellows. Yes, I think that life does begin with the individual and then extends outwards to other individuals. In Appalachia, though, this extension traditionally has not included agencies and institutions. L- Do you think that difficult living conditions in Appalachia have exacerbated manifestations of self-centeredness? W- Yes; there is something to it. I could expatiate for an hour on that topic, but you don't want that so I'll be brief. It's partly cultural. We were a rural people for hundreds of years; we wanted to have our own space, even if this space didn't provide a life of comfort and abundance. This kind of life does indeed lay a great burden on the individual. Indeed, we are a self-centered people, but self-centeredness is not in itself a condemnation, as I see it. L- Jack Weaver a few years ago asked this question in Appalachian Heritage: Why only one Thomas Wolfe? He had several answers, but one was that the leveling philosophy of the mountains discouraged creativity, especially in regard to writing. What do you think? W- There's something to it. There was a strong bent toward anti-intellectualism in Appalachian culture down to WW II and even later in many parts of the region. Part of it, of course, is obviously psychological. Many of the preachers couldn't...