printFrom the New York Times comes a pleasant surprise. It outright condemns Chuck Thompson’s “screed” against Southerners, titled “Better Off Without ’Em,” finding Thompson guilty of proffering an “ignoramus theory.” About this man’s “Dixie bashing,” JANET MASLIN writes:
The historian Michael Lind, who has himself taken a dim view of the South, refused to cooperate with Mr. Thompson’s “Better Off Without ’Em,” telling him: “I disapprove of your project, which seems terribly snobbish, to judge by your nasty title. The last thing we need at this moment is one group of Americans suggesting others belong in a different country. … Even as a joke, it is not funny.”
Thompson’s picture of all things Southern is one to which nearly all historians, as well as liberals and establishment conservatives, have subscribed.
Thomas Jefferson considered “The natural aristocracy … as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?”
If the South has deteriorated it is, to a large degree, because the South’s natural aristocracy was destroyed in the War Between the States and during Reconstruction. The elimination of this landed gentry was the work of Lincoln and the war he launched (provoking Fort Sumter).
The South still bears those scars.
UPDATE (Aug. 22): Facebook thread: Have you ever read William Faulkner? Hell: From the South comes some of finest literature. As to John Zube’s dismissal: Only about 15% of Southerner owned slaves. The fight JZ seems to dismiss was for states’ rights, not slavery. Judging the past by applying today’s egalitarian ideology, moreover, is worse than idiotic. As was written here, “The missionaries in Africa, for example, regarded slaves as children to be de-tribalized and missionized. They were taught skills and trades; mission stations acted as havens for refugees fleeing tribal depredations in South Africa. As you tour the homes of the founders mentioned above, you’re wont to hear about this or the other wonderful cabinet maker or marvelously gifted horseman, or farmhand, etc. Who do you think taught the slaves these skills and trades? The monarchs of Buganda or Ethiopia? As I say, the Founders were advanced for their time in EVERY respect. Not perfect, but a great deal more perfect than most of us.”