General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: SC Justice Kennedy to retire this summer, is the rumor. [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Not coincidentally, either, they tended to be settled more, or at least first on the coasts, by people bringing culture from southern European regions, which developed from Rome's, which believed that a person's rights were conferred by social status, not inborn. (Presumably that's why Maximus in Gladiator accepted going from confidant of an emperor to slave, instead of saying nuts to this and cutting out like any self respecting American would.)
Conversely, Germanic cultures from cooler, more northern regions tended to believe in inborn individual rights, at least of men, one of the earliest antecedents to the Enlightenment.
Very simplistic, but that's about as far as my education extends. Scientists have linked these big cultural patterns in a variety of ways to climate, though.