Neo-conservatives can’t seem to make up their mind about the Confederacy. They all agree that the Confederacy represented everything evil about early America (which places them squarely in league with their intellectual brothers on the Left) but why they hate it presents the real conundrum.
It borders on schizophrenia.
Neo-conservative historian Victor Davis Hanson, for example, often rails against the Confederacy when issues involving “state’s rights” and secession come up. He opposes “sanctuary cities” as a vestige of the “New Confederates”, and blasts California secession as a rekindling of the Old South on the West Coast.
On the other hand, neo-conservative journalist John Daniel Davidson thinks that the Old South, the Confederacy, and John C. Calhoun wrote the blueprints for the modern bureaucratic, centralized state.
So which one is it? Is the Confederacy behind unwanted decentralization or unwanted centralization?
To these “intellectuals” it is just unwanted.
More @ The Abbeville Institute
Dr. Wilson seems to love Calhoun, so I expect there's some good in him. I haven't studied him in depth, though I have some of Dr. Wilson's books.
ReplyDeleteGreat quote: "the South produced the only truly unique and highly cultivated civilization in American history."
That's what I value most about the South: We were civilised, agrarian, and produced an admirable elite. Agrarianism is outdated, but I still like it just as an ideal.
And I'm all for decentralisation. I just praise the civilisation aspect first, because that's most important. Before anything we're moral, pious, orderly. Power politics tends to involve evil, but where possible man and a society should aim to serve God and honour his ancestors.
"the South produced the only truly unique and highly cultivated civilization in American history."
DeleteThat popped out to me also.
Richard Weaver wrote the same praise of the South. He said we nearly reached the levels of Europe's civilisations. He might have used to different wording. We're part of the same civilisation, but Europe was at a higher level in different parts of Europe. The South was nearly there before it was destroyed.
DeleteI didn't fully appreciate how amazing Weaver was until after I'd adopted this name. Now I'm somewhat embarrassed to post under it. He was too great.
Now I'm somewhat embarrassed to post under it. He was too great.
Delete:)