We are mixing things up again: (A) Respect for your countrymen who did and do their duty honorably (even in a dooomed cause) is one thing, and worthy. (B) Exalting a “Warrior Caste” is another, and it is folly.
It doesn’t even have to call up the “Moralization Gap”, I’m for respect and against idolatry for the troops on MY side. So what if people claim some atavistic psychoevolutionary or neurobehavioral angle to it, it’s 2013 fer cryin’ out loud, we’re not outside the walls of Troy.
Here I must sharply disagree, saying things like “it wasn’t about slavery” isn’t getting close to saying “slavery was good”. “It wasn’t about slavery” is a way to save face, in essence. What the Confederacy was fighting for (as a unit, as again he motives of individual soldiers varied) cannot be defended. People don’t even try to defend it, that’s how bad it is. That people instead come up with state’s rights or tariffs or what have you is a good thing, really, as it means slavery has been totally disavowed.
To continue the Nazi connection, it’s also significant that neo-Nazis don’t defend the Holocaust, instead they deny that it ever happened.
This portion of the wiki page for the Lost Cause illustrates what I’m speaking of:
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect a generation of people to decide that they were in the wrong, and disavow their past, and thus I don’t blame the South for failing to do that overnight. It can happen, as appears to be the case with post-Nazi Germany. There are major differences, though, such as the fairly short duration of the Nazi era, as opposed to the antebellum South’s foundation of chattel slavery and a landed pseudo-aristocracy.
As for “the South should have won”, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that sentiment outside of the Hank Williams Jr sense of “Southern culture is grand, and it’d be everywhere.” Note the lack of references to slavery or racial oppression.
Absolutely, it was merely a hypothetical.
I went to school in Kentucky, and I was taught about the horrific conditions of slave ships and plantations, and that the Confederate states seceded to preserve their slave holdings. I don’t know how it’s taught elsewhere in the South, certainly if some areas are teaching the state’s-rights angle or Lost Cause nonsense about Southern moral superiority, that’s a problem. I merely feel that Confederate Memorial Day is not a problem.
The Nazi situation is the exception. I’d say the Confederate cause is reviled, but Confederates aren’t. It’s an interim position, and time will tell how the New South comes to terms with the past in the years ahead.
Those things are indeed mixed together, and it can be difficult to avoid (B). Again, I’m not saying humans should thoughtlessly exalt their soldiers, just observing that they do.
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It doesn’t even have to call up the “Moralization Gap”, I’m for respect and against idolatry for the troops on MY side. So what if people claim some atavistic psychoevolutionary or neurobehavioral angle to it, it’s 2013 fer cryin’ out loud, we’re not outside the walls of Troy.
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If there is indeed an advantage to be had for societies that idolize their warriors over those that don’t, then the tendency will persist. In the modern day, I’m not certain there is such an advantage, as success owes much more to trade than conquest, and war is being fought by smaller numbers of highly-trained specialists, rather than large unruly mobs. So, we’re on the right track.
“It wasn’t about slavery” is like a milder form of Holocaust denial. I recognize that it may come from ignorance (and attempts to save face), but I think you’re being too charitable- such a sentiment should get the same pushback (perhaps in a milder form) that Holocaust denial gets.
It’s been a lot longer than overnight. Yes, these things take time, but generally it shouldn’t take longer than it takes for those who lived through it to have died. By now celebrators of the Confederacy should be much fewer and far between than they are, and celebrators of Southern culture before the 60s should be almost exclusively old folks. This is not the case.
Of course there’s no references to slavery and racial oppression! That’s a revisionist song, and it should be reviled. And if you haven’t heard that sentiment from others, then you must have grown up around different southerners than I did (I grew up in Louisiana and Arkansas, and spent a lot of time in northern Florida and Georgia as well).
I think Confederate memorials are a symptom of the problem. The problem is that many leaders in the South (especially white southern politicians) either explicitly celebrate the Confederacy and the old South, or fail to look askance at those that do. This should change.
It’s a credit to today’s Germany (and therefore most Germans) how they view the Holocaust and the Nazis, in general. And it’s a mark against the New South (and many or most white southerners) how they view the Confederacy and old Southern culture. People like you and me should speak up to our Southern friends and relatives when given the chance- the culture of elevating the Confederacy won’t change until enough people like us actually speak up.
Much, much milder, in that it doesn’t deny the harm that was done. It does need to be pushed against, especially when the reasons for secession are so clearly spelled out in the words of the Confederate founders. It’s an absurd position.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
It’s been a lot longer than overnight. Yes, these things take time, but generally it shouldn’t take longer than it takes for those who lived through it to have died. By now celebrators of the Confederacy should be much fewer and far between than they are, and celebrators of Southern culture before the 60s should be almost exclusively old folks. This is not the case.
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Do we have a basis for comparison, other than post-Nazi Germany? I’m trying to think here…Japan certainly has had issues dealing with its Imperial period, and Great Britian with its Imperial period…I don’t know much about other post-fascist nations like Italy or Spain, or how Russians deal with their awful, awful past, so I can’t say whether the South is ahead of, behind, or on schedule.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
Of course there’s no references to slavery and racial oppression! That’s a revisionist song, and it should be reviled. And if you haven’t heard that sentiment from others, then you must have grown up around different southerners than I did (I grew up in Louisiana and Arkansas, and spent a lot of time in northern Florida and Georgia as well).
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Aw, c’mon now, it’s a fine song! It’s just harmless references to the inoffensive parts of Southern culture: the music, capital punishment (well, ok, non-race-related parts of Southern culture), the food, the whiskey, the accent, manufacturing, Kentucky horses, and so forth. If I’m being to charitable, I suggest you’re being too harsh, it’s a good thing that a song called “If The South Would Won” isn’t about slavery or segregation.
And, there’s another change for you: singing about making cars, instead of agriculture. The New South at work.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
I think Confederate memorials are a symptom of the problem. The problem is that many leaders in the South (especially white southern politicians) either explicitly celebrate the Confederacy and the old South, or fail to look askance at those that do. This should change.
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I don’t feel particularly qualified to create a proposal to get the South into a fully post-Confederate period, but my feeling is that going after memorials is the wrong approach, is it gets at very legitimate feelings of honor and respect for young men who died in war, and thus throws the baby out with the bathwater and would make folks very defensive, and probably cause them to double-down on their reverence. I’d say the idea of attacking revisionism is a better way to go.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
It’s a credit to today’s Germany (and therefore most Germans) how they view the Holocaust and the Nazis, in general. And it’s a mark against the New South (and many or most white southerners) how they view the Confederacy and old Southern culture. People like you and me should speak up to our Southern friends and relatives when given the chance- the culture of elevating the Confederacy won’t change until enough people like us actually speak up.
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If chattel slavery and a plantation-based economy started in 1853 and ended in 1865, like the Nazi period spanned 1933-1945, the situation in the South would be comparable to Germany. All credit to the Germans, sure, but it’s a lower level of difficulty.
I have had the state’s-rights argument with folks, and the vibe I get is almost always* saving face, rather than crypto-racism. We just don’t like those Yankees being in the right, is all.
It’s not much milder because it’s used to justify the Southern position and argue that they were in the right. Much like Holocaust denialism is meant to justify the Nazis position and argue that they were in the right. The reason why it’s not quite as bad is because the “wasn’t about slavery” folks don’t argue that slavery didn’t exist, though a small number argue that slavery wasn’t so bad. But it’s really bad, and should be marginalized, mocked, and challenged.
I doubt you’d say the same things if someone wrote a song celebrating the non-killing-Jews parts of Nazi Germany (perhaps celebrating the sausage, beer, and industry of Nazi Germans). I don’t have a problem, of course, with celebrating the parts of Southern culture that have nothing to do with oppression (food, drink, and so forth). But by titling the song “If the South Would have Won” ties it to the oppression of the South during the Civil War, and it serves as a defense of the South and the Confederacy. This should be unacceptable- and you should find it unacceptable. It doesn’t mean Hank is a bad guy, but he shouldn’t have gotten away with this song.
I’d favor all approaches. The memorials shouldn’t be attacked, but they should not be discussed without the recognition of the monstrousness of what they fought for. Those who celebrate the Confederacy and old Southern culture, especially the politicians, should be marginalized, mocked, and challenged. Those who fly and celebrate the Confederate battle flag should similarly be marginalized, mocked, and challenged- just as anyone who would fly the swastika would be. And people like you and me, who recognize all this, should point it out (as gently as necessary) when our friends and relatives say something like that. Perhaps not with great-grandpa, who we know is never going to change, but certainly with cousin Clay and Uncle Bill.
I know that many of those folks (perhaps even most) are not actually racist, but that doesn’t excuse them. They should be educated. One thing I always say to them is “flying the Confederate flag where black people might see it is just as rude and obnoxious as flying a swastika were Jews might see it”- whatever their intention. It’s extremely impolite- and Southerners should be polite. I tell them it’s not their fault that racists use the same symbol, but they should understand that it’s reasonable for black people to see it as a symbol of oppression, because for a long time it actually was a symbol of the worst kinds of brutality. If they still want to fly the flag, then they’re just assholes. But assholery should be challenged, mocked, and marginalized.
That is a big difference, though, Confederate revisionists don’t say slavery wasn’t a bad thing, instead they argue that the Confederacy wasn’t formed to protect slavery. There’s a big distinction, IMHO, between “this awful thing didn’t exist” and “this awful existed, but it’s not what they were fighting for.”
It is bad, and should be marginalized & etc. It just offends me a lot less than saying that the suffering and death of millions didn’t happen, and that the survivors are lying about it. Maybe it’s a 6/10 on the offensive bullshit scale, where Holocaust denial is a 10/10.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
I doubt you’d say the same things if someone wrote a song celebrating the non-killing-Jews parts of Nazi Germany (perhaps celebrating the sausage, beer, and industry of Nazi Germans). I don’t have a problem, of course, with celebrating the parts of Southern culture that have nothing to do with oppression (food, drink, and so forth). But by titling the song “If the South Would have Won” ties it to the oppression of the South during the Civil War, and it serves as a defense of the South and the Confederacy. This should be unacceptable- and you should find it unacceptable. It doesn’t mean Hank is a bad guy, but he shouldn’t have gotten away with this song.
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If the title is the only thing you object to, and the title is just a framing device for a rhetorical “What if everywhere was the South?” song, then the connection to the CSA is pretty thin. Yes, I admit a song called “If the Reich Woulda Won”, all about Mercedes cars, oompa bands, and banking, would raise my eyebrows a lot more, even though it’s the same rhetorical device. That’s probably a product of being a lot closer to the South than to Germany. So, you make a good point, the title is pretty bad. Good otherwise, though, and I think he was going for “Ain’t the South grand?” and nothing more.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
I’d favor all approaches. The memorials shouldn’t be attacked, but they should not be discussed without the recognition of the monstrousness of what they fought for. Those who celebrate the Confederacy and old Southern culture, especially the politicians, should be marginalized, mocked, and challenged. Those who fly and celebrate the Confederate battle flag should similarly be marginalized, mocked, and challenged- just as anyone who would fly the swastika would be. And people like you and me, who recognize all this, should point it out (as gently as necessary) when our friends and relatives say something like that. Perhaps not with great-grandpa, who we know is never going to change, but certainly with cousin Clay and Uncle Bill.
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I can endorse that approach, placing the fallen soldiers in the context of the Confederacy without demonizing them as individuals or shaming those who’d honor them as soldiers. I think that’d work.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
I know that many of those folks (perhaps even most) are not actually racist, but that doesn’t excuse them. They should be educated. One thing I always say to them is “flying the Confederate flag where black people might see it is just as rude and obnoxious as flying a swastika were Jews might see it”- whatever their intention. It’s extremely impolite- and Southerners should be polite. I tell them it’s not their fault that racists use the same symbol, but they should understand that it’s reasonable for black people to see it as a symbol of oppression, because for a long time it actually was a symbol of the worst kinds of brutality. If they still want to fly the flag, then they’re just assholes. But assholery should be challenged, mocked, and marginalized.
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It is a real shame about the flag. It is handy to have a symbol for the South, because it’s such a distinct and insular region, but having the default one be the Confederate battle flag is a problem. There’s a sort of Venn diagram of people that use it to essentially self-identify as racists, people that use it to show pride in the South, and people that do both. The racists ruin it for the other proud Southerners. What I wouldn’t give for another symbol to replace the stars and bars…maybe the BCS football trophy? 
As it stands, SEC athletics unifies the South; black, white, and other; more than the Confederacy or the battle flag ever did.
This. The loonies who are shutting down our government were mostly put their by the South, which votes in an eerie bloc which matches the Old Confederacy. But forget the Confederacy- the South is where the mindless obstruction comes from in my view.
John Boehner represents Ohio, and I count 12 Southern red states and 12 non-Southern ones, so I question singling out the South. Blame Republicans, sure, but the Southern ones aren’t any more to blame than non-Southern ones. Also, consult this map of the Tea Party Caucus, the hardcore loon 'Pubs aren’t a Southern phenomenon.
Extreme idea here. Let the south secede from union. Use federal union money to relocate everybody that wants out of the south to the north or west. Everybody gets what they want right.
No, because the South doesn’t want to secede.
Maybe not now but if they got to see the condition that everyone who did not want to be there was relocated at no cost to the southern states I could think of a few states that would jump all over it. Texas Mississippi Alabama
No, they wouldn’t. Or, rather: prove it. Show me some kind of data that indicates majority support for any secession plan in those or any other states.
OK I Agree no majority today wants a traditional real life secession that would be met with federal resistance like the last one was. That ends with bloody civil war.
My tongue in cheek pipe dream was about a north that rids itself of southern political influence by a mutual agreement that lets the south do what it wants and a north that no longer has to deal with it. The two sides could stay friendly neighbors (like they do with Canada.) The north would get to create their idea of utopia. The south gets to think they rose again.
Once that happens, there goes the republic. No federation, and no democracy, can survive if the losing faction can leave in a huff, or if the winning faction can eject the losers. First the North ejects the South, then the red-state Midwest and Northwest has to go, then New England leaves the rest of the Eastern seaboard, then Oregon and Washington state split off…it’d end in rubble.
And I thought that my little City was one of the few places left to hang on the the war. I sit here in Charleston SC and am a bit stunned that so many of you here on the SD are still fighting the Civil War!
They say here “The Civil War started in Charleston, and some day it may end here.”
I has not ended yet. The tourist love it and we love the tourist.
Meh. The majority of GOP House seats come from the South. Take care of that population and the problem gets solved, without expending resources travelling to every remote town in Nebraska and Kansas to witness about the outside world.
Not true, there are 110 Republicans representing Southern states in the House, and 124 representing non-Southern ones.
I’m including Texas as “the South”. A couple things, Human Action.
1- I wouldn’t want to beat my head against a wall. The true-blue tea party base types are going to be the most impenetrable and hardest to reach. They control something like 80 districts- I’d avoid most of those altogether as lost causes, just to conserve effort.
2- The South is where the most good can be achieved. Check outyesterday’s cover of the NY Times(pdf warning). See the map in the lower right? You can see that the states who resist most the expansions to Medicare are all in the South, where the people are the poorest and most in need. What’s the problem? See 3:
3- It is widely believed that the resistance to health care reform has racist motives. If you’ve read up at all about the pro-segregationist movement, much of the sentiment revolved around ‘keeping them down’ and ‘once you let them up you’ll never put them down again’. Health care reform and Medicare expansion for the poorest will help a lot of minority citizens, and it is believed that is the motive for GOP opposition to all of it.
4- The South is believed to be the most racist part of the country (though Clearly not everyone there is alike). There’s Confederate Memorial Day there and nowhere else, for example. You get scenes like this at Jefferson Davis’ grave fer cryin’ out loud, or characters like this guy (who isn’t some random yokel but helped Rand Paul get elected. Seriously!) Take the fight to where it comes from.
A series of boycotts and embargoes, and voluntary travel bans to the South, would make a good start. And, do you remember when protesters in Detroit blocked the interstates during rush hour there to protest the installment of their ‘emergency manager’? Well, it only takes a few patriots with pickup trucks to pull off the same thing in major cities across the South. All this and more could impose a ‘partial shutdown’ of the Southern economy.
But don’t worry! It will be over so fast no one will even notice! You’ll wake up when its over and realize that the South can live without the approval of the rest of the country just fine. It’s nothing.
So am I. I used this article, and counted Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia as “Southern”. Feel free to double-check my counting.
[QUOTE=Try2B Comprehensive]
A couple things, Human Action.
1- I wouldn’t want to beat my head against a wall. The true-blue tea party base types are going to be the most impenetrable and hardest to reach. They control something like 80 districts- I’d avoid most of those altogether as lost causes, just to conserve effort.
2- The South is where the most good can be achieved. Check outyesterday’s cover of the NY Times(pdf warning). See the map in the lower right? You can see that the states who resist most the expansions to Medicare are all in the South, where the people are the poorest and most in need. What’s the problem? See 3:
3- It is widely believed that the resistance to health care reform has racist motives. If you’ve read up at all about the pro-segregationist movement, much of the sentiment revolved around ‘keeping them down’ and ‘once you let them up you’ll never put them down again’. Health care reform and Medicare expansion for the poorest will help a lot of minority citizens, and it is believed that is the motive for GOP opposition to all of it.
4- The South is believed to be the most racist part of the country (though Clearly not everyone there is alike). There’s Confederate Memorial Day there and nowhere else, for example. You get scenes like this at Jefferson Davis’ grave fer cryin’ out loud, or characters like this guy (who isn’t some random yokel but helped Rand Paul get elected. Seriously!) Take the fight to where it comes from.
A series of boycotts and embargoes, and voluntary travel bans to the South, would make a good start. And, do you remember when protesters in Detroit blocked the interstates during rush hour there to protest the installment of their ‘emergency manager’? Well, it only takes a few patriots with pickup trucks to pull off the same thing in major cities across the South. All this and more could impose a ‘partial shutdown’ of the Southern economy.
But don’t worry! It will be over so fast no one will even notice! You’ll wake up when its over and realize that the South can live without the approval of the rest of the country just fine. It’s nothing.
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We’re pretty far afield from my actual objection, which was to this:
If you think the GOP is bad for America, or that the South is a place ripe for political change you’d approve of, that’s fine. I objected to your pinning the blame for the shutdown, or obstruction, or Republican nonsense in general, on Southern voters in particular. The numbers just don’t back it up.
