Monthly Archives: December 2018

Why We Can’t Whistle Dixie Past the Graveyard of American Unity

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Devolution, Federalism, Patriotism, Southern History, Uncategorized

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Grant-Christian-MuralSome 37 years ago, the eminent Southern writer John Shelton Reed posed an intriguing question: Why No Southern nationalism?

I have thought a lot within the last 25 years about the prospect of a renascent Southern nationalism in the face of American decline. And, yes, the South, for several reasons, simply must represent a vital and essential facet of discussion about the future of American constitutional liberty in the midst of this decline.

Here is the problem as I see it: There currently is no coherent Southern nationalist identity to speak of, at least presently. What we currently have in the South is a sense of Southern distinctiveness and identity amid a deep well of hyper-American patriotism, one that is particularly evident in the Deep South, where I live. To put it another way, we have nationalism IN the South but not nationalism OF the South.

Southern Historical Roots

Much of this is deeply rooted in Southern history.

In the last decade of the 19th century, as the South dug its way out of defeat, economic dispossession and grinding poverty, the United States not only was regarded the world over as the most successful post-colonial nation but also the one most likely to overtake and to supplant Britain as the dominant global power.  Reed rightfully noted that this prospect appealed especially to the defeated and economically prostrate South, which retained a strong martial tradition and an enduring affinity for cultural rootedness and identity.

Also, as he stressed, the South’s enduring racial legacy certainly has played a significant role in detracting Southerners, black and white, from forging a strong regionalism comparable to Welsh or even Scottish identity. Indeed, the fact that the South’s legacy remains the focal point of the so-called Culture War has only reinforced the Southern penchant for embracing a wider American identity rather than a distinctly Southern one.

One could argue that the Culture Wars, far from driving Southerners away from American identity, has intensified this sense of hyper-American patriotism.  The left’s unrelenting assault on Confederate symbolism and the Confederate legacy in general has only worked to drive many Southerners, particularly younger ones, away from anything that smacks of a distinctly regional identity.

The South’s Evangelical Christian Legacy

The present-day cultural struggles within Evangelical Christianity have also reinforced this disposition. This brand of Protestant Christianity has historically served as the de facto state religion of the South and still comprises its moral and ethical cultural ballast. Yet, the largest and most culturally influential Evangelical faith, the Southern Baptist Convention, not only officially decries the display of Confederate symbolism but even has considered whether to retain Southern in its name.

It’s worth pointing out that Evangelical Protestantism has never served the South in terms of supplying a nucleus of cultural identity, certainly not in the way that the Catholic Church has historically sustained the cultural and national identities of Ireland and Poland.   And considering the frontier roots of Evangelicalism, that’s not surprising. Evangelicalism, a product of Back Country settlement, was incubated in an environment of strong cultural deracination, just as Southern pioneers were settling the region.  Southern identity is not fused with Evangelical Christianity in the way Irish nationalist identity is Catholicism or Russian identity is with Eastern Orthodoxy.  And the faith’s strong emphasis on soul competency at the expense of tradition and church authority only reinforces this tendency.

The View among Rank-and-File Southerners

A survey of Southerners randomly chosen from the various socio-economic levels would support these arguments.  Most native-born Southerners — whites and, no doubt, a respective number of blacks — are proud of being Southern.  They feel a sense of rootedness with Southern culture, with its faith, its cuisine and particularly with its sports traditions.  Undoubtedly, the minority of those who have followed closely the growing levels of political and cultural acrimony in this country and who have  considered their long-term implications would acknowledge the South as the region of the country best suited to restoring the founding principles of American constitution liberty in the aftermath of some of federal breakup.

But the vast majority of these Southerners, especially the middle-class, college-educated ones among them, would express these views within a decidedly post-racial, post-Confederate context.

This is the great paradox facing the 21st century South.  The region, because of historical and cultural cultural distinctiveness, represents the best prospect for restoring a viable counterweight to the culturally corrosive liberalism now represents this country’s regnant culture and political ideology.  Yet for such a restorationist movement to survive and grow, it must remain explicitly American and not take on so much as a tincture of Confederate restorationism or symbolism.  In time, Southerners could and undoubtedly would conceive a national identity with a more distinctly Southern hue, though one explicitly post-Confederate in nature.

What emerges over time likely would resemble a kind of symbiotic nationalism, one in which an over-arching American identity provides a safe harbor for a uniquely Southern national identity to emerge, one deeply rooted in the region’s culture and faith.

Lessons from Ireland and Taiwan

We can draw lessons from other countries around the world.

Historians have observed that the late Edward Carson, the father of Northern Ireland was arguably as much an Irish nationalist as Eamon de Valera or Michael Collins, only he perceived the British Union as the most congenial context for preserving Protestant Irish identity.  Protestant identity on the island has been sustained through affiliation with a wider sense of British identity.  But the case also could be made  that Catholic and Protestant Irish identities have co-existed in Northern Ireland only because of the adhesive effect British identity has provided.

There is an added lesson here for Southerners:  If the American Union ultimately splits into smaller federations, maintaining a kind of  residual American identity in the South very well could provide the basis on which black and white Southerners can forge a new distinctly Southern identity.

There are also lessons to draw from the besieged Nationalist Chinese redoubt on Taiwan.  Some 70 years ago, the forces of the Republic of China vacated the mainland and established the government on the Island of Taiwan. Initially, this island remained officially Mainland Chinese.  Over the course of time, though, as this exiled republic became more democratic and materially prosperous, it provided a harbor for the formation of a strong, home-grown Taiwanese identity.

Today, Taiwanese identity exists in two forms: a soft nationalism, combining elements of both Chinese Mainlander and Taiwanese identities and that emphasizes separateness of the Taiwanese people, though without necessarily eliminating the official name (The Republic of China), versus a much more explicit nationalism calling for replacing the current official name with “The Republic of Taiwan” and seeking United Nations recognition as a fully sovereign nation separate from Mainland China.

Preparing for the Possibility an American Breakup

Granted, we can’t predict what the future will bring for the South and for the United States in general. Even so, we all should be fully cognizant of the growing number of columnists and other public intellectuals on both ends of the American political spectrum who are taking note of the perilous state of American unity.  We must begin preparing for the possibly of an American breakup.

For us Southerners, the prospect of an American breakup forces us to consider this remarkable paradox:  that the South, because of its very uniqueness, represents the best prospect for restoring a constitutional republic in the aftermath of an American federal crackup.  But we can’t assume that this will initially take any form other than one largely American in substance.

The days of saving Confederate dollars and pining for the Confederate restoration are long gone. In time, we will build a distinctly Southern edifice, though one that closely comports with the realities of the 21st century.

To put it another way, we can’t afford to whistle past the graveyard of American unity, and we sure can’t be whistling Dixie.

 

The Mainstreaming of Secession

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in American Federalism, Devolution, Federalism, Uncategorized

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texas-capitol

Texas: One of several states harboring a nascent secessionist movement. 

I’ve been bowled over the last few weeks reading the growing number of articles in which mainstream columnists are finally coming to terms with a reality that I embraced more than a quarter century ago: the likely, if not inevitable, transformation of the  American Union into a much looser federation or into a number of smaller nation-states.

Predictably over the last quarter century, I’ve even been labeled everything from a neo-Confederate and a racist to a secessionist and traitor for subscribing to such views.

Actually, far more prodigious intellects, notably, the late George F. Kennan,  foresaw this inevitability years before I did.

I, for one, and despite my conservatism, respect the right of California and other left-leaning states to experiment with different domestic policies. I hope when all the chips are down that these enlightened blue-coast cosmopolitans will afford their counterparts in the red American hinterland the same courtesy.  And lest we forget, that was the concept behind American federalism:  that states possessed the attributes of nationhood but had chosen out of a desire for self-preservation against Britain and the other maritime powers of Europe to delegate a comparatively narrow range of powers to a general government that operated on behalf of the states.

Aside from all the constitutional arguments, there just comes a point when people outgrow relationships, whether these are business contracts, civic groups, friendships or marriages.  And the simple fact of the matter is that America is simply too damned big and diverse to govern, at least, based on the cookie-cutter approach that Woodrow Wilson and the progressives devised for us roughly a century ago.  We have reached the point where cultural evolution throughout through Europe and America has outstripped the ability of the central government to keep pace with it.

I really believe that.  In fact, I think that this is one of the inherent flaws in federations: The constituent parts are often inherently fissiparous, with their own highly evolved cultures and political ideologies.  These constituent parts don’t stop evolving when they enter into a federation: Their cultural and political evolution continues apace, sometimes to the point at which they feel compelled to question the utility of their relationship with the other members of the federation. Maybe it’s time for us to take into account that incontrovertible fact whenever we undertake the design and execution of another federation.

How close is America to a crackup?  I’m not sure.  Even so, I do believe that in many notable respects, we are drawing close to where the beleaguered Soviet Union found itself in about 1990.  Either we find some way to renegotiate federal arrangements in the United States by devolving more power back to states and, most important of all, localities, or we face a situation where internal pressures build up to a degree that states and regions take it upon themselves to address these problems.

Deep-blue California’s nullifying tendencies vis-a-vis the policies of the Trump Administration are merely a taste of what is to come.

In fact, in an unusually comprehensive and informative column posted in the Intelligencer recently, one perceptive columnist, Sasha Issenberg, predicts that growing number of states may enter into interstate compacts to work through a number of intractable domestic problems.  In the end, the United States may comprise up to three de facto federations: blue, red and neutral, each conducting their own unique domestic policies, while remaining parts of the United States.

Yet, even this columnist concedes that these de facto arrangements will only work for a time before the internal stresses build up and rend apart these federations, forcing each to move close to becoming bona fide countries.

For his part Kennan offered a sort of middle way, one to which I’m sympathetic: a union of about 15 or so constituent republics, to which the bulk of domestic powers would be entrusted, leaving the central government to run a common market and defense pact.

Whatever the case, we are very possibly approaching a constitutional impasse in which large states, particularly California, increasingly will assume more and more powers on their own, drawing us closer to a Soviet scenario. By that I mean that, despite our attempts to stay ahead of the problem by introducing institutional reforms, the country inevitably comes apart.

 

Reassembling Humpty-Dumpty

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Christianity, Conservatism, Secularism, Uncategorized

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stained-glass-restoration

Photo: Courtesy of Rodhullandemu.

There’s been a long-stated conviction among conservative Christians, particularly evangelicals, that the path out of the West’s current predicament requires their active re-engagement with culture, the now regnant, post-Christian secular culture, with the ultimate aim of restoring Christianity to some preeminent place in American and Western culture. But given secular culture’s largely hostile regard for all forms of Christianity, particularly evangelicalism, is this even possible?

Almost a quarter millennium ago, the term “Ottantotist” (literally, Eighty-Eighter) was invented to describe French reactionaries who doggedly and vehemently insisted that the clock somehow could be turned back on the 1789 French revolutionaries.  The late American political philosopher Peter Viereck borrowed that term to describe American reactionaries suffering from similar illusory thinking.

I particularly relate to this term having spent 29 years as a Cooperative Extension professional writing extensively about the implications of invasive species to Southern forests, croplands and pasturelands.  I’m well aware of how such infestations, after wreaking considerable havoc for a generation or so, eventually establish a sort of equilibrium within the ecosystem over time, acquiring a permanent niche.

After that line has been crossed there really is no turning back:  The effects of these invaders only can be mitigated; they cannot be reversed.

Restoring a status quo ante is simply impossible in a complex, vastly extended  ecosystem, whether the interloper happens to be human, plant, mammal or insects.

The historically Christian West has been beset with its own invasion over roughly the last two-hundred years: a secular one.

Secularism, has moved far beyond its beachhead and now functions as the unifying ideal of Western culture. The Christian culture of the West now comprises an embattled remnant. Indeed, far from any sort of resilient cultural beachhead with a real prospect of staging a comeback, Christian culture more closely resembles Chiang kai-shek‘s besieged Nationalist fortress on the peripheral island of Taiwan, though lacking anything resembling the backstopping that Chiang enjoyed from the United States.

I recall a remarkable observation offered years ago by the late Oregon State University religion scholar Marcus Borg that illustrates the increasingly marginalized status into which Christianity has fallen. He noted how his students would undergo a discernible change from engagement to one of disengagement and even hostility whenever the classroom topic switched from, say, Hinduism or Buddhism to Christianity.

This hostility has grown from several deep roots, though much of it can be traced to advances in textual criticism and evolutionary sciences.  In material terms, these two advances have carried humanity a long way, but by removing much of the adhesive that has bound together the civilization of the West, they have produced catastrophic effects too.

I am not a conventional Christian.  In fact, I count myself a nontheist – I won’t go to the trouble here of explaining all the differences between atheism and nontheism. Suffice it to say I believe that everything that we have achieved, including our insights into transcendence, has been the result of a network that has developed over eons and that has grown primarily out of language, writing and technology, all of which are fused in this network and, as a result, create a kind of synergistic effect. I have come to call this networking the Non-corporeal Human Exoskeleton, because this dense networking of language, culture and technology enshroud us, much as shells do crustaceans, providing us with all manner of sustenance and protection.

Religion has historically been bound up this network and has afforded humanity all manner of advantages in terms of providing a sense of purpose and keeping all of the psychological furies and common human fears at bay.

This networking amounts to scaffolding – in fact, that term more or less could be substituted for network or exoskeleton to underscore how everything in existence is contingent on everything else.

The Christian faith afforded European civilization invaluable scaffolding.  But with the destruction of much of this scaffolding,  I’m not that confident that we will ever manage to put anything of equal and enduring value in its place.

So much of this scaffolding was bound up in Christian dogma.  The promise of an afterlife and the fear of eternal damnation for egregious offenders provided an integral, if not essential facet of this scaffolding. These unique facets of Christianity, despite the enormous psychological burdens they imposed on millions of adherents, arguably breathed life into the faith and provided it with its strongest and most enduring scaffolding, at least, until the mid-19th century.

Textual criticism and evolutionary science have challenged this.  In the minds of of the most culturally influential members of Western society, these advances put a lie to the faith.

Nietzsche, as memory served, believed that this destruction of old scaffolding would clear space for well-integrated humans who would put aside the old slave morality of Christianity and construct a new ethos more aligned with humanity’s true character and better equipped to maximize human potential.

Some technophiles and techno-utopians even have expressed the fervent hope, if not certainty, that advances in Artificial Intelligence will enable us to construct a viable alternative.

Ientertain serious doubts, frankly.

The faith tradition that provided the unifying idea for Europe beginning in the Fourth Century conferred all manner of advantage on the culture of the West.  But the scaffolding on which this civilization was built is facing structural collapse.  And this has led many of these West’s leading public intellectuals to wonder if these structural deficiencies will lead us into another dark age.

Whatever the case, it seems painfully evident to many that Humpty-Dumpty is broken and that despite the most fervent hopes and best efforts of well-meaning people to reassemble him, he is ruptured beyond repair.