Cowboy Ethics Hooey

I commented on this eons ago on our Today In Wyoming's History Blog, here:

Today In Wyoming's History: July 21:

2010  The State Code adopted by the Legislature.

Wyoming, like most states has a set of state symbols.  I think I've listed them all over time, including now this one, the most recent to be adopted.

I've generally abstained from commenting on the symbols, even though a few of them strike me as a bit odd. For example, we have a State Insect, which I don't know that we need.  But so be it.

Here, however, I can't help but comment.

The State Code I guess, is okay enough.  Here's the statute that sets it out:

 8-3-123. State code.

(a) The code of the west, as derived from the book Cowboy Ethics by
James P. Owen, and summarized as follows  is the official state code of
Wyoming. The code includes:

(i) Live each day with courage;

(ii) Take pride in your work;

(iii) Always finish what you start;

(iv) Do what has to be done;

(v) Be tough, but fair;

(vi) When you make a promise, keep it; 

(vii) Ride for the brand; 

(viii) Talk less, say more; 

(ix) Remember that some things are not for sale; 

(x) Know where to draw the line.

There's nothing in here in particular that I disagree with, although that "ride for the brand" item doesn't really reflect a lot of Wyoming's history very accurately.  The central conflict in the state from the 1876 to 1900 time frame really centered around individuals who started out riding for one brand, and then acquired their own brand and quit riding for the Brand No. 1.  Indeed, it might justifiably be argued that Individuals, rather than Ride For The Brand, is the true mark of a Wyomingite.

My greater problem, or perhaps irritation, with the State Code is, I suppose, similar to my comments regarding "state" authors, in that in supposedly finding a "code" that identifies us, we had to copy it from a Wall Street figure and not a Wyomingite.  The code comes from a book that Owens wrote in which he identified what he though were "Cowboy Ethics" and argued that this simple Code of the West could teach the nation something.  I'm not arguing that it couldn't, but I tend to doubt that a Wall Street figures is really capable of capturing the ethics of a class and group so very foreign to his own.

Again, as noted, having been around a lot of cowboys and rural workers, one thing I think is totally missing is that they all tend to have a high degree of independence and its not unusual at all to find actual working cowboys who switch employers a lot.  Perhaps they "ride for the brand", but often only briefly.  The "talk less, say more" item is a nice toss to a certain Gary Cooper view of the cowboy (and Gary Cooper was raised on a Montana ranch) but truth be told, being an isolated group, quite a few cowhands like to talk quite a bit, if given the opportunity to.  One Wyoming politician, the former Senator Simpson, is widely celebrated in Wyoming for his gift of gab at that, which has occasionally gotten him into trouble.  But the general list is not a bad one.  I only think it a bit sad that in order to define what our ethics are, we had to borrow them from a Wall Street figure who wrote what he thinks ours our.  It would seem that we could have defined them ourselves.

I would have thought by now that the bolt would have been shot on this entire Cowboy Ethics as defined by Wall Street guy, but nope, I see where this speaker will present at the 14th Annual Doornbos Agriculture Lecture Series at Casper College later this month.

I've noted in some recent posts here that this locality is a very provincial one, and it is.  But, provincialism is a two sided coin, and the flip side of it is the odd crediting of an outside "expert' in one thing or another.  It's almost like a type of poor self esteem type of problem.

I don't know much, or anything really, about Jim Owens, the author of the State Code, other than that he's not from here.  And yet, he's oddly had a big impact here in the form of the book he wrote.  I have a copy of it myself that was given to me as a gift (I'd never have bought it), and I see it cited here and there as an exemplar of us.

My real problem with this is noted above, in part, but it's somehow galling that a person who has really made his living elsewhere is now thought to have tapped into part of our souls. The simple truth of the matter is that just electing to live here, if you are from here, is normally electing to make considerably less money than you would have elsewhere. We tend to be blisteringly independent here, for good or ill, and many in the state approach libertarian concepts of politics and economics when a dose of distributist ones might actually make more sense in some circumstances.  Anyway you look at it, however, those decisions were ares, and we actually tend to be a bit different from others elsewhere.  Looking towards an outsider, as we so often do, for clues on what we are or are to be, may not be that wise of an approach.