The Cowboy Way (2023) Drawing by Edwin Loftus

I'm not a cowboy and never have been. But I have lived my whole life in and next door to places where cowboy culture dominates. I've been friends with cowboys and in love with cowgirls and I know the head end of a horse from its tail.
The "cowboy way" is a real thing in America and though probably mostly found in those that come from European ancestry, it is open and welcoming to anybody. A big part of it is that a man or woman is judged by the way they act, not the way they look.
It includes dressing in "Western Style", liking Western music, and feeling at home with Western square and line dance. But those are celebrations of the culture's roots more often than not. It extensively overlaps with "Country Culture" and between them they dominate about 80-90% of the United States territory, though not its population. The other big components (and growing) are "Mexican Culture" with a great deal of overlap, and "Tribal" or "Indian" cultures.
There's good and bad in every people, cowboys included. The Cowboy Way has little tolerance for "bad" but a sense of "good" that includes a whole lot of things that "City-folk" get all worked up about. It values self-reliance, live-and-let-live, trustworthiness and particularly honesty. And it values "straight-forwardness," we are what we are and we are the way we act. Anyone doing anything else isn't worth the spitting needed express your opinion of them. You can think a thing to death. But things mostly are what they appear to be.
How "real" is this today? Well ... It ain't the "Wild West" anymore. But a friend told me a story about how, in the 1960s, her Daddy took some of the hands with him and rode out tracking some rustlers that took six of his horses. After a week, he and the hands came back with the horses ... and the rustlers were never heard of again. When she asked what happened to them, her daddy told her not to ever talk about that again. Just don't mess with how a man feeds his family.
Yee-Haw!

In this image, an early 20th Century cowpoke has bumblefucked it good. Trying to turn a herd of longhorns, he's got hisself caught up in the herd and his horse is getting spooked. In a thick cloud of dust, he can scarcely see, or breath and he's lost his lariat and he doesn't know which way is out. To his benefit, the Cowboy Way includes "Cowboy Tough" which means he won't waste time worrying about what he did wrong and is all focused on how to stay alive and if he lives, he won't waste time thinking about how scared he should have been, there's still work to be done and cattle to be driven.

Related themes

CowboyLonghornsWesternCattleCowboy Way