This monument is dedicated to the Confederate defenders of Charleston. It overlooks the Fort Sumter on an island off the bay.
The
desperate and all-consuming rush for money today has Southern States
outbidding each other for how many tax dollars can be given away to big
business or Hollywood, calling this “economic incentives” and claiming
that somehow it is the duty and obligation of government to create
employment for all. The de-Southernized South has become the land of
“you guys,” fast food and mega-store chains, “lunch” instead of dinner,
and what those who refuse to assimilate call “que” – formerly known as
Southern pork barbeque.
Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
"Documenting Cape Fear People, Places and History"
Will the South Survive?
“The
Tullahoma local newspaper reported that the town was trying to pass
liquor-by-the-drink laws to woo “up-scale” restaurants to locate
themselves at the interstate interchanges. Such new South boosterism has
made heavy inroads into local culture.
New
South boosterism began in the nineteenth century with Henry Grady,
editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Boosters and their
legislation promised that all the South needed was to give up everything
that makes us the South and become just like the North, and we would
all be happy and wealthy (nobody mentions boring).
A
Chamber of Commerce might conclude that we need to entice more national
chains to establish prosperity, but chains and industry move elsewhere,
leaving behind unemployment, a victim mentality, and no lasting
prosperity. I call this kind of approach, “homo economicus”
anthropology. It reduces everything – and every man – to a question of
money.
One
hundred and twenty years later, the promised still haven’t been
fulfilled. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, or puke, but I am
pretty sure that passing liquor-by-the-drink laws will not bring
economic nirvana to Tullahoma. When you make a bargain to sell your
soul, first make sure that the devil can pay.
Will
boosterism finally gobble up the South? On the surface, the
homogenization of culture that comes with the local economy relying on
big business and chain stores means we are steadily being
de-Southernized. The whole effect is to homogenize and standardize the
landscape. That seems to be proceeding fast, while the people
themselves seem unchanged. What’s happening to the roots of Southern
culture is anybody’s guess. On the outside the country here is
peaceful, pleasant, friendly, independent and helpful, but at the same
time there’s that welfare mentality, some very fat people, and loads of
government economic intervention.
The
courthouses at the heart of each county tell this story of the South
eloquently. Giles County 1910 courthouse retains the integrity of the
South’s past. In Lawrenceburg sits a hideous 1960s “Modern” courthouse.
In Waynesboro looms a 1970s tenement-style concrete slab. In
Winchester squats a blocky 1936 “American fascist” look that would
gladden the heart of any fascist or Soviet architect.
Gone are the
stately courthouses, the statues of soldiers holding muskets and facing
north, symbols of the community’s continuity and long life, and with
them fast disappears our local history.
Nevertheless,
many of these counties have attracted back-to-the-land, simple-life
people, and their roots are permanent so they will recreate permanent
prosperity. The land is rich, the people true, the leadership clueless. I
could move elsewhere, but Tennessee is my home. Our family could do a
lot worse than finding itself at home here.
Perhaps
the fate of the Magic Road says it all. The State is turning Highway
Sixty-four into a four-lane, bypassing exquisite little villages like
McBurg and big towns alike. I know it’s faster, but God help me, I do
love the old road better.”
(At
Home in Dogwood Mudhole, Vol. 1, Franklin Sanders, Four Rivers, Inc.
pp. 37-39) This fine book of Southern culture can be ordered from www.dogwoodmudhole.com.
