# Is the Confederacy/South more interesting than the Union/North? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 11, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643 "2019-10-11T18:40:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/1 "2019-10-11T18:40:52Z")
Had this discussion with someone a while back: The discussion was, in fiction/cinema/the arts/historiography, which side of the Civil War was more interesting. The consensus seemed to be that, while the Union was the morally right side, it was the drier, less colorful, less entertaining side, and much more businesslike, and that for the arts, the Confederates were the ones with the more interesting story to tell and more fodder for entertainment or more intriguing stuff to read about. Wonder how the Dope feels. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/2 "2019-10-11T18:59:22Z")
No; fuck the Confederacy. A shithole of human suffering, created on purpose. Romanticizing that period and that place does no one any good. It was a terrible, awful place. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/3 "2019-10-11T19:15:16Z")
Evil is often more entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/4 "2019-10-11T19:19:36Z")
I live in that shithole. My geneaolgy suggests I had a very colorful group of ancestors. I’m dubious about calling every one in the South during the years of the Cofederacy evil or immoral. Surely lots were, but not ‘all’. Yankees came south and commited their fair share of atrocities during the Civil war and reconstuction. We are a whole country, no one can claim complete innocence in the horrors of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/5 "2019-10-11T19:24:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Had this discussion with someone a while back: > > The discussion was, in fiction/cinema/the arts/historiography, which side of the Civil War was more interesting. The consensus seemed to be that, while the Union was the morally right side, it was the drier, less colorful, less entertaining side, and much more businesslike, and that for the arts, the Confederates were the ones with the more interesting story to tell and more fodder for entertainment or more intriguing stuff to read about. > > Wonder how the Dope feels. Lost cause glorifying Confederate propaganda considers the South more entertaining? Shocker. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/6 "2019-10-11T19:31:33Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > No; fuck the Confederacy. A shithole of human suffering, created on purpose. Romanticizing that period and that place does no one any good. It was a terrible, awful place. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Yankees came south and commited their fair share of atrocities during the Civil war and reconstuction. We are a whole country, no one can claim complete innocence in the horrors of slavery. If I may junior-mod a bit before the thread goes off tracks: This thread is not asking about the morality of either side - obviously, the Confederacy was more evil. I am asking which side was/is more \*\*interesting \*\* to an audience to write about, or provides more fodder for the arts. ISTM there was a good argument that _Gone With the Wind_ was successful because it was about the South, not the North. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/7 "2019-10-11T19:36:09Z")
So sorry. I’d say the south was and is full of colorful characters. But who can tell what an audience will grasp on to and eat up. I’m still trying to understand that movie ‘Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter’ ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/8 "2019-10-11T19:43:49Z")
Siding with **Bo** here. The Union had just as many if not more “characters” and such as the traitors did. Popular culture has just fixated on the losers because they were still around and noisy. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/9 "2019-10-11T19:55:22Z")
In addition to what’s already been noted, I suspect that at least part of the allure, for fiction writers, is alternate-history fiction, in which the South won, and remained independent – and the focus of that is primarily in what an ongoing Confederacy might have been like. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/10 "2019-10-11T20:11:59Z")
It’s like, in WWII, Germany is far more interesting tan France or Poland, or even the UK. The were genocidal monsters, of course, but they are more interesting in a creepy way. The serial murderer is more interesting than the teacher that helps underprivileged kids. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/11 "2019-10-11T20:26:15Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Siding with **Bo** here. The Union had just as many if not more “characters” and such as the traitors did. Popular culture has just fixated on the losers because they were still around and noisy. Im not Southern and I dont support their causes but the North was every bit as traitorous as the South. We are a nation built on rebellion. I would hope that you as a teacher would understand this. All you are doing with this name-calling is giving the South another grievance. And even the Union, while it held the moral high ground, wasnt exactly moral. Shermans march to the sea was a war crime that mirrored the slash and burn German invasion of the USSR. History rarely lends itself to simple black or white interpretations. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/12 "2019-10-11T21:17:58Z")
Evil regimes are more interesting. North Korea is more interesting than Switzerland. Japan, USSR and Germany during WW2 were more interesting than Canada and Australia during WW2. In that regards, I’d say the south was the more interesting regime since it was a coalition of business owners and racists. The north was just fighting to keep the union together. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/13 "2019-10-11T21:24:08Z")
I think a large part of the reason is that Southern writers as a whole tend to be more romantic, more enamored with lost causes, more sympathetic to the crazy aunt everyone else would keep locked up - in short, more _entertaining_. But it’s not just the South and the Civil War. The Spanish Civil War, the Russian Revolution, and World War I, to name a few, all lent themselves to stories about doomed idealists fighting against insurmountable odds. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/14 "2019-10-11T21:24:22Z")
The Southern side gains interest from the fact that virtually all the battles took place in the South. Only Antietam and Gettysburg took place in the North, and Gettysburg does therefore get its fair share of interest. Talking about the North in the Civil War is like setting a WWII movie in Chile. There will be no more glorifying the South movies for a long while, though. The campaign the South has waged for 150 years is finally getting derailed. Every movie about that period for the next couple of generations will treat the South about like _Django Unchained_did. About time. As a historian I know exactly how badly everybody in history looks from a modern “woke” perspective. I keep telling those who wonder whether an artist’s works can still be appreciated now that they know both sides that the same applies to everyone famous ever. There are no heroes. Nobody is pure enough to pass all of our tests. That said, fuck the antebellum South, the ending-Reconstruction South, the Jim Crow South, and the modern hate-all-the-Others South. The gap between not perfect and outright evil is enormous, and everybody who does not at every opportunity point out which side the South has been on since the 1600s is culpable. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/15 "2019-10-11T21:37:22Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Im not Southern and I dont support their causes but the North was every bit as traitorous as the South. We are a nation built on rebellion. 1. We won. 2. Our revolution was at least partially based on the idea of democracy and freedom, not the continued subjugation of our fellow human beings. Did we have slaves? Sure. Was the American Revolution about slavery? No. 3. The losers of the American Revolution didn’t make a multigenerational whine-fest about the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/16 "2019-10-11T21:58:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > If I may junior-mod a bit before the thread goes off tracks: This thread is not asking about the morality of either side - obviously, the Confederacy was more evil. I am asking which side was/is more \*\*interesting \*\* to an audience to write about, or provides more fodder for the arts. ISTM there was a good argument that _Gone With the Wind_ was successful because it was about the South, not the North. I’d say _Gone With the Wind_ was successful because it was about people with money. The rich are always seen as more interesting than the middle class or poor. I don’t see that a story of a shop owner in antebellum Alabama is more interesting than that of a shop owner in Connecticut in the same time period. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/17 "2019-10-11T22:03:10Z")
Arts? Poe, Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau and Fenimore Cooper were all Yankees. Who did the South have? ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/18 "2019-10-11T22:09:13Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > 1. We won. > > 2. Our revolution was at least partially based on the idea of democracy and freedom, not the continued subjugation of our fellow human beings. Did we have slaves? Sure. Was the American Revolution about slavery? No. > > 3. The losers of the American Revolution didn’t make a multigenerational whine-fest about the outcome. It’s funny you use the word subjugation because the losers are still subjects over 200 years later. They’ve been much more successful in winning you back to their way of thinking. Indeed, America’s best friends now are more likely than not subjects. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/19 "2019-10-11T22:17:22Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I’m dubious about calling every one in the South during the years of the Cofederacy evil or immoral. Sweeping generalizations and bigotry against anything and everything to do with the US South is one of the few remaining socially acceptable bigotries in the US–including very widespread and unmoderated use on this board. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643/20 "2019-10-11T22:23:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That said, fuck the antebellum South, the ending-Reconstruction South, the Jim Crow South, and the modern hate-all-the-Others South. And here is a perfect example–can you think of any other group (“the modern hate-all-the-Others South”) that would be said about them “fuck them” with impunity and without fear of moderation? Exapno Mapcase, by saying “fuck the modern South”, do you not realize that you are saying “fuck you” to SMDB members, including me and Beck? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-confederacy-south-more-interesting-than-the-union-north/841643.md?page=2)