Kilting Out of Context

[MacBean]

From Highlanders Discuss Highland Attire

I think this difference is primarily from two things: context and culture. When one wears a kilt in places outside its native land, one is distinctly aware that one is doing something unusual and, in some places, subject to misinterpretation. This gives rise to a heightened experience of kilting as something personally meaningful but contextually ambivalent.

Perhaps this belongs in Off Topic, but the context of kilting interests me. I am not so sure that we are so terribly out of context kilting in some parts of the US. There are so many here who, willy-nilly, show Scottish personality traits. Don't I detect the slightest Scots accent on some in this area? There were Gaelic speaking communities and Gaelic churches in Eastern US well into the 19th century. The influence of Scottish culture on our music is pretty obvious. Perhaps the Scottish influence is so old and pervasive here that we don't notice it? True, it is not so noticeable as in some places in Canada, but perhaps it's here all the same.

Do you see Scottish personality traits in your own family? What cultural, legal, philosophical influences in the US do you think of as Scottish?