Southern Comfort
by Rebecca Bynum (May 2010)
“Things reveal themselves passing away,” someone remarked to William Butler Yeats, and it is an historical fact that every established order writes its great apologia only after it has been fatally stricken. – Richard M. Weaver
In the passage above, Weaver was writing about the passing of the American South, its rooted feudalism, its chivalry, its attachment to the land and its deeply religious nature. In pre-Civil War America, the South was a civilization apart; more closely akin to that of Europe than to the Puritan North. more>>>Posted on 04/30/2010 4:37 PM by NER
Comments
1 May 2010
Mary Jackson
In some ways the American South is like the English North - caricatured and patronised.
1 May 2010
Peter Thomson
Dear Ms Bynum, is it not somewhat ironic that the first sentence of your final paragraph will be seen by those - and I venture they will be many - who only ever see it out of context, as a ringing endorsement of precisely the Muslim attitude to those changes that the circumstances of existence in this material world impose upon us - namely unthinking rejection?
Peter Thomson
1 May 2010
Rebecca Bynum
Dear Mr. Thomson,
What you view as irony, I view as an extension of sympathy.
4 May 2010
stephena55
This wholesome and moving essay evokes a great deal of empathy and agreement in my mind, even though my respect for evidenced truth forbids belief in God. More important is belief in freedom of belief and support for those who pursue a life in harmony with tradition and all the social and cultural benefits that ensue.
The comparison with Muslim obscurantism fails as anyone who knows the difference between the two religions can attest. Dawkins knows. It's the difference between good and bad, and you don't need to be a religious person to see that.
5 May 2010
Valerie
A very beautiful essay. I will send it to every Southern basher I know. Thank you Rebecca Bynum.
6 May 2010
dladams
An elegant defense of the American South. Well done, Rebecca.
One cannot be much more politically incorrect than this; defending both religion and the former Confederate States!
Marse Robert, and Old Blue Light would certainly applaud you.
Something has been retained in the heat and soil of the South that is now rare to find at the North. The surety of religious Christian belief and the moral code that accompanies it, that is so common accross the South, is the foundation upon which both the nihilism of post-modernism and aggressive ideologies of violence and hatred can be defeated.
Prayer, religion, and faith are at the core of the culture of the South which still lives despite the destruction and defeat of the War of Northern Aggression (aka, 2nd American Revolution, War Between the States, or more commonly, the "American Civil War") and the influx of... millions of... Yankees.
The term "Yankee" in the South carries with it more of a dismissal rather than a condemnation (barbarian). The term "Gaijin" (literal translation: barbarian) by way of comparison is very much a condemnation and expresses disdain, derision, and even alarm. One never hears in the South, "oh! look! a yankee!!" However, in Japan one does hear (in Japanese, of course), "oh! look! a gaijin!!"
When he was informed that the chaplains prayed for him, tears started to his eyes, and he replied: "I sincerely thank you for that, and I can only say that I am a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone, and that I need all the prayers you can offer for me."
from Part 5, Chapter 13 of "A LIFE OF GEN. ROBERT E. LEE." BY JOHN ESTEN COOKE
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Lee_Religious_Views.htm
-DLAdams
23 Jun 2010
Will
The new thing Napolean did was not to free his troops from supply lines, but to use supply lines instead of expecting those troops to live off the land, thus increasing the number of troops he could field. Supply lines in fact became a major vulnerability in the Russian campaign. I don't know what he did with chivalry generally, but eliminating the supply line wasn't it.
23 Jun 2010
Will
Napoleon didn't eliminate the supply line in his warfare, but instead fielded larger armies by using the supply line rather than living off the land. His use of supply lines became a vulnerability in the Russian campaign. I'm not sure what else he did with chivalry, but it's important to get these historical details right, I think, even if they're not central to the main argument.
20 Aug 2010
RICHARD FICEK
Did I miss something here? Slavery and the virtual re-enslavement of a race post Reconstruction.
21 Aug 2010
Liz K
A lovely essay, and one I will reread.
Unfortunately, it is marred by this piece of sheer fantasy:
>>“Unconditional surrender,” so appalling to the sensibility of Winston Churchill, is now imposed on our enemies as a matter of course.<<
Please list the instances apart from World War II in which the US has imposed unconditional surrender on its enemies.
30 Oct 2010
George
Nicely written, but many of the points made are very moot--which, of course, is the main point of the piece, that some things are eternal verities. I'll stick to the secular criticisms.
The writer, despite her fondness for Dixie, still has a patronising attitude to Southerners. Her military history is a bit ill-informed, and she her obvious sympathy for Israel depresses me: Zionist Jews have made The US Israel's bitch, and sent her Christian and not-so-Christian sons to bleed for that stolen land to create Jewish lebensraum.
Which depresses me, because I like most Americans, and I especially like those in the South. I was in the States in '70 with the British Airborne , I spent a 20-day leave hitching through the Northern states, meeting all sorts of people. in '78 I travelled from NY to Brownsville Tx, then coming back up from Latin America, from Laredo to Key Largo. As I travelled, I noticed the different pace of life, and the marked difference between "the "average" Southerner and the "average" Yankee. In most big northern cities, people were self-obsessed and foul-mannered. In the South, I found much graciousness and kindness. Which surprised me,as Holly-York's films and TV gave Brits the impression the South was full of Niggra-Whupping rednecks who hung Blacks as a hobby, and who were hostile to strangers .Nothing was further from reality. My observations on the respective denizens of North and South applied across the races -Black, White or Brown, people were more at ease with one another--even then.
Where on earth did the writer get the idea that Churchill abhorred unconditional surrender?
Churchill was a Zionist bagman who dragged us (Britain, and then you Americans) into a stupid, disastrous and utterly avoidable war that absolutely did not serve British interests,as our post-war demise and near bankrupting gave evidence to,as did the butcher's bill. It was Churchill who refused to negotiate a peace treaty with Germany and who, with Rooseveldt, engineered US involvement in the war.
Our two nations have both some rather unworthy "heroes" in Churchill and Lincoln, a corporate lawyer who provoked the South with his tariffs and taxation and set the scene for The War of Northern Aggression.
Anyhoo, 'nuff said, except for "Hurrah for Dixie! Yee-haw!"
From George from Scotland.
29 Jan 2013
Danyel
Good call on bringing to the srafuce the real importance of gratitude. You're right, a grateful person is more prepared for success and misfortune alike. They are able to receive good news with more genuine and lasting joy and bad news with greater serenity. Grateful people are a stabilizing and energizing force to have around in any society.
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