I suspect that love for Christ and the Bible, a love historically increased by three great revivals, has been at the root of traditional Southern courtesy and politeness, and would explain why doors did not need to be locked in these parts until perhaps the 1970s. Community kindness and respect is something that comes from profound belief in the gospel.
Good manners are a beautiful thing.
They flow from the Golden Rule and from the grace of the gospel. The South itself needs a new infusion of the old loving, courtly gospel spirit as does the wider world. Let us thank God for how much we have had of it, and for how much still remains. The plantation system in the South worked in a way that kept families together. Many workers were needed and until the technological and economic changes that occurred in the mid-twentieth century, a fair sized plantation could support several related families on it.