John Steinbeck: "Texas Is a State of Mind"
John Steinbeck: "Texas Is a State of Mind"
"Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans."
In the early 1960s, John Steinbeck made a 10,000-mile road trip through America to reconnect with the country he had written so much about. He told the story of this trip in his travelogue Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Research later showed that many details might have come from Steinbeck’s creative mind rather than actual encounters and discussions with Americans.
I first picked up the book to read the context of the quote below, but the travelogue was overall a pleasant, informative, and sometimes funny read (I particularly recommend the passage in which Steinbeck describes his experience with Customs not actually crossing the US-Canada border with his dog at Niagara Falls 😂).
I will leave aside John Steinbeck himself, a complex and at times controversial character, as well as his other writings, to focus on the chapter he dedicated to Texas, summed up by the well-known (at least to Texans) quote:
“Texas is a state mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.”
[Unless stated otherwise, all quotes in this article are taken from Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.]
It’s worth noting that Steinbeck’s (third) wife, Elaine Anderson Steinbeck, was from Texas (Austin). The ranch the Steinbecks (Elaine joined John in Texas) stayed at, which is described in Travels, was Elaine’s first husband, actor Zachary Scott’s ranch.
Others may have their own (and differing) interpretations of Steinbeck’s description of Texas and the Thanksgiving party the Steinbecks attended at the Texas ranch. For our purposes, I was interested in looking at Steinbeck’s account of Texas with our values/virtues lens. Let’s look at that Texas state of mind!
Texas Is Big
Throughout the chapter, Steinbeck seems to take precautions when he talks about Texas, describing the subject as the “Texas problem” and how one can only talk about Texas in generalities, yet Texas always comes back to contradict itself. One example he gives is “the booted and blue-jeaned ranchman in Neiman-Marcus, buying Chinese jades” (more on Neiman Marcus here and here).
Texas is big. Texas is huge. And Texas is diverse. East Texas is different from West Texas, or South Texas, not to mention the Panhandle… and Austin isn’t even Texas! (Kidding!)
The scenery can vary widely, but you find certain traits throughout Texas.
“I know no place where hospitality is practiced so fervently as in Texas.”
Texans are known to be friendly people, and Steinbeck says the ones he knows are “gracious, friendly, generous, and quiet.”
Texans are welcoming and helpful. Hospitality is a value for Texans. It is part of the state of mind, and Steinbeck didn’t miss pointing this out. This is part of a Texas identity that, historically, is linked to the American Founding and culture but is still particular to the state—“Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.”
Steinbeck points to the semi-national Texan identity as a trait Texans identify with abroad: “A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner.”
[Personal anecdote: shortly before I decided to move from New York to Texas, a group of Texans living in New York found my cat’s blog and followed it on Twitter (now X). My (French) cat’s name was Texas (the explanation will have to wait for another time). The group was super friendly, and I attended one of their meetings before moving to Texas. The name of the group? Texpats.]
Texan actor Matthew McConaughey said, “I can go anywhere in the world but my spirit is still Texan and I recognize my own kind. There are no secret handshakes but when Texans meet there’s a special fraternity.”
Steinbeck concludes his comments about Texas’ diversity and paradoxes by saying that Texas’ “unity lies in the mind” and that there is an “idea of Texas.”
This is the Texas state of mind.
Texans Are Proud
Steinbeck doesn’t talk about pride. Instead, he talks about “boasting” and “arrogance” when Texans are out of state. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere: there’s a tendency to call rightly understood and earned pride and confidence in one’s abilities and achievements “boasting” and “arrogance.” But confidence does not have to lead to and is not arrogance.
Texans are proud of their history and of the state that they built—and rightly so.
“The glorious defense to the death of the Alamo against the hordes of Santa Anna is a fact. The brave bands of Texans did indeed wrest their liberty from Mexico and freedom, liberty, are holy words.”
Liberty is a major value for most Texans.
“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery and paradox.”
And inspecting it is exactly what Achievement, TX, is doing (reminder: this publication focuses on the positive aspects about achievement and Texas on purpose; more at the About page).
Then, Steinbeck makes a strong statement about Texas:
“I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans.”
He pursues:
“To attack one Texan is to draw fire from all Texans. The Texas joke, on the other hand, is a revered institution, beloved and in many cases originating in Texas.”
Think Texas Humor or Texas Memes… which reminded me of this one:
Steinbeck also talks about Texans’ love for the land and for owning a ranch, and the land is definitely an important value for many Texans.
Steinbeck continues by associating the land with wealth and energy in Texans’ minds, as he adds, “and the energy of Texans is boundless and explosive,” explaining that Texans take the land—their land—seriously and work it:
“The energy, in a climate so hot as to be staggering, is also staggering. And the tradition of hard work is maintained whatever the fortune or lack of it.”
A virtue dear to Texans is hard work.
This takes us to the last part of Steinbeck’s chapter on Texas.
Texas Is Successful
And here comes the “Thanksgiving orgy” in Steinbeck’s chapter dedicated to Texas. This is not to be understood as a depraved party. This is the part where Steinbeck insists on how much rich Texans like to show their wealth by “squandering their millions on tasteless and impassioned exhibitionism.”
Now, I am too young 😅 to know what it was like in the 1960s in Texas. I have never seen that behavior in the past 11 years that I have lived in Texas, though. The only time I have seen that behavior was in Moscow right after the fall of the Soviet Union, coming from newly very rich people, so maybe there is a nouveau riche effect—I do not know.
This section in which Steinbeck insists on the fact that rich Texans feel the need to display their wealth ostentatiously is somewhat contradictory, though. On one side, he talks about “exhibitionism,” on the other, he says, “rich people began to arrive, concealing their status in blue jeans and riding boots.” He insists, “How unthinkably rich these Texans must be to live as simply as they were.”
Remember: They love, own, and work the land—and love everything about it. They work hard. They are successful.
Steinbeck is not really overly critical about these Texans’ wealth, but he insists and insists on how they display it, almost as if he were “a little frightened and very tender in [his] feelings” about it, if you ask me 😉 (something he attributed to Texans outside of state earlier).
Without putting it this way (perspective), Steinbeck essentially described how successful some Texans were. Perhaps the “state of mind” had something to do with it?
Texas Is a State of Mind
We can interpret Steinbeck’s description of Texas in Travels in several ways. To me, it echoes what we are looking at here, at Achievement, TX: it highlights certain values (liberty, the land, hospitality) and virtues (industriousness, pride, friendliness) that represent the Texas “state of mind” that Steinbeck talked about—even if Steinbeck might not have seen it exactly the same way.
Travels with Charley is well worth reading, just for Texas or for his entire trip through America.
Sources
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck, Penguin Books, 1962/2012.
“A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley” by Charles McGrath, New York Times, April 3, 2011.
“A New Texan Traces John Steinbeck’s Path Through Texas” by Madeleine Aggeler, Texas Highways, February 2022.