US History

What does "the pre-Civil War period witnessed the widespread substitution of horizontal allegiances for vertical allegiances." mean?

I'm in need of an answer to this question, please help.

Please?

It means absolutely fucking nothing. It's obfuscated bullshit that is meant to sound clever.

Horizontal means affinity to compansions in a group; vertical means affinity to the group itself.  The context of your statement doesn't exist, unless the next or preceding sentences shed light on the kind or scope of allegiances to which it refers.

>>5
*companions

sociology is pseudo-science, study petrochemical engineering and business studies instead

>>7
Of course it's a pseudo-science, it covers insignificant things like the consequences of such clearly-more-important-than-God stuff as business and industry, not to mention the oh-so-not-important stuff like politics. Not to mention how, y'know, real people are affected by all this.

Do have a look at it, but don't base your career on the grades your teacher gives you or anything. The real pseudo-science here, is translating oh-so-unimportant things like background knowledge into numbers that show-me-some-damn-cash-right-fkin-now businesses can wrap their precious little heads around.

>>8
Please stop abusing hyphenation so much.

>>1
Sounds like "horizontal allegiance" is supposed to mean allegiance to a group of peers (like (members of) one's city or state) as opposed to (central) authority figures like the POTUS.

If so, it's a fancy-pants way of saying ppl started listening to their own state folks instead of the high-horse brass in Washington, or something. People's loyalties were getting decentralised, and they wanted to do their own thing.

Which would be one driving force behind the secession of the South. Which is, obviously, what triggered the Civil War.

>>10
If you read what the OP said again, you'll actually find your interpretation backwards.  The terms are correct but you attributed the wrong change:

widespread substitution of horizontal allegiances for vertical allegiances

a fancy-pants way of saying ppl started listening to [the high-horse brass in Washington] instead of [their own state folks]

>>10
Actually, I'll be correcting myself now.  I was reading "substitution of horizontal allegiances for vertical allegiances" as saying "getting rid of horizontal allegiances, replacing them with vertical allegiances;" but, "getting rid of vertical allegiances, replacing them with horizontal allegiances" also sounds valid now.  It depends whether you think "substitution of X" means that they already have X or if it makes you think that X was what they used to replace whatever they got rid of.

I need an English teacher in this thread.

ITT: we pretend like we know what the fuck we are talking about

>>13
And, in the process, alienate anyone who does.