I keep getting asked about the term “Hillbilly Logic”. I’ve been using that term for years, but never really tried to define it. So, I’ll tell you the story behind it…it’s nothing earth-shattering or life altering, but it’ll answer the questions. First…Let’s see how the web defines the two words.
hill·bil·ly /ˈhilˌbilē/
noun – INFORMAL•DEROGATORY –an unsophisticated country person, associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians.
log·ic /ˈläjik/
noun – reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.
Hillbilly Logic…It seems pretty straight forward. Valid reasoning conducted by an unsophisticated Appalachian. There’s a lot more to it than that though.
To the best of my knowledge this term originated out of thin air on the island of Okinawa in 1989. That’s the first time I’d ever heard it, anyway. I was a very young Marine who got assigned to accompany a very old Marine to a staff meeting and found myself uncomfortably sitting in a room full of other very old Marines as they discussed the best way to accomplish a task. After hours of kicking the hell out of every idea they could muster, one of them jokingly asked me what I thought. Chuckles came from every seat at the table, but every eye in the room was on me waiting to see what kind of comic relief my young ass could add to the conversation.
Now….in this situation, the proper response was to humbly refer to their years of experience and the fact that I was still wet behind the ears and note that I couldn’t possibly have something to offer this room full of professional and seasoned war fighters.….I know this now. Truth be told I probably knew it then, but nevertheless I stood up and spent five minutes laying out an idea that I thought was not only viable but efficient and logistically sound. When I finished, I was met with steely stares and silence. The Marine that asked me for my two-cents told me I was just about as “Country Dumb” as he’d ever seen and after some whispered chit chat across the table, the senior man at the table asked me to step outside the room for a while, which I was more than happy to do.
As I sat in the outer office, that “Country Dumb” comment kept running through my head. First, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but never dumb in any way other than the occasional “dumb ass” which was probably justified more often than not at that corresponding place and time. But, secondly…I really didn’t want any one of the men in that room thinking I was an idiot. It was way too early in my career to get a label like that. And then there was the fact that I was new to this environment and wondered if maybe it was a back-handed compliment that I didn’t understand. Regardless, I found myself sitting in that little room wishing like hell I’d just kept my mouth shut.
Then the door opened after a while and I heard my name called. As I started in, everyone else was walking out so I stood to the side and absorbed the dirty looks as I waited for everyone to exit. I stuck my head in the door and the only person left was the senior Marine in the meeting. He brought me in and told me to have a seat and then began telling me how I’d just embarrassed some of the command’s most experienced minds in their prospective fields. He asked about my education and I simply said “West Virginia public schools”. For the next ten minutes I got the “higher education” lecture, followed by a handshake that felt a lot like a pat on the back. He asked if I had any questions and the only thing that came to mind was “What does Country Dumb mean?”. He told me that the Corps is just like anywhere else in life…the people you embarrass will try to belittle you in front of their peers in an attempt to save face…and then came the words “Hillbilly Logic just embarrassed the whole damn room today”.
Hillbilly Logic…I liked that term. I sure liked it a hell of a lot more than Country Dumb.
Over time I found out that Hillbilly Logic was a real thing. We think differently than people from other places in the world. It really doesn’t have anything to do with education. We seem to have this innate ability to strip away all the nonsense, drama, politics and other white noise and get to the heart of the matter to solve the problem. I don’t know if we’re born that way or if we’re conditioned that way, but most people I’ve met from this region never refrain from cutting straight through the bullshit to get to bottom line and find the solution. I’ve been paying attention to this for years, friends and I’m convinced…We have an undeniable knack for simplifying a situation and seeing through the haze of distractions…and it’s successful.
Hell, CBS made a fortune off Hillbilly Logic between 1962 and 1971. How many times did Jed, Granny, Jethro and Ellie Mae outsmart all the swindlers and sophisticates they encountered? Country folk outwitting city slickers was such a successful story-line CBS did it again from 1979 to 1985 with the Dukes of Hazzard.
If you need a good example from the real world, just listen to a Nick Saban interview. https://247sports.com/Article/Nick-Saban-Alabama-Crimson-Tide-discipline-quote-viral-college-football-134818551/
Or…Watch Lou Holtz give a commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wMmcoPTmAs.
So, that’s how the title of the website originated. I warned you that it wouldn’t be anything exciting… But, I hope that answers all the questions.