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[Related to:\\xa0Book Review: Albion\\u2019s Seed]
[Epistemic status:\\xa0Not too serious]

I realize I\\u2019ve been confusing everyone with my use of the word \\u201cPuritan\\u201d. When I say \\u201cThat guy is so Puritan!\\u201d people object \\u201cBut he\\u2019s not religious!\\u201d or \\u201cHe doesn\\u2019t hate fun!\\u201d

I don\\u2019t know what the real word for the category I\\u2019m calling \\u201cPuritan\\u201d is. Words like \\u201cYankee\\u201d, \\u201cBoston Brahmin\\u201d, or \\u201cTranscendentalist\\u201d are close, but none of them really work. \\u201cEccentric overeducated hypercompetent contrarian early American who takes morality very seriously\\u201d is good, but too long.

Instead of explaining further, here\\u2019s a (more than half-joking) Puritan checklist. Maximum one item per red box.

The obvious next step is to rank historical figures by Puritanism Points. Here are the top five famous Americans I can find, as per Wikipedia:

#5: SAMUEL MORSE
Samuel Morse was born to Pastor\\xa0(+3)\\xa0Jedediah\\xa0(+1)\\xa0Morse and his wife Elizabeth\\xa0(+1)\\xa0in Charlestown, Massachusetts\\xa0(+3), the eldest of six children\\xa0(+3). After attending Yale\\xa0(+1), he pursued a career as an internationally famous painter. But when his wife Lucretia\\xa0(+1)\\xa0fell sick, he was unable to receive the news in time to go home to her before she died, inspiring him to change careers during mid-life\\xa0(+3)\\xa0and become an inventor. He spent his life perfecting the telegraph\\xa0(+1), but also invented an automatic sculpture-making machine\\xa0(+3). In later life, he switched careers again, becoming an anti-Catholic activist\\xa0(+1); he ran for Mayor of New York on an anti-Catholic platform, and wrote anti-Catholic pamphlets like\\xa0A Foreign Conspiracy Against The Liberties Of The United States\\xa0(+1). He was also a well-known philanthropist\\xa0(+3). His hairstyle looked\\xa0like this\\xa0(+3).

Total Puritanism\\xa0= 28