perfidy

Nat at Imustnotthinkbadthoughts (the most frantical of all blog names) has posted some good houghts about the American South and the possibility that its particularism is fading as younger generations embrace more universal cultural norms, and as urbanization draws people into broader social spheres. (He also has some thoughts on the effects of de-urbanization that I'm going to have to chew on for a while.)

By way of making his argument, Nat draws an intriguing parallel between the American South and the German South; that is, Bavaria. Since he is an actual European historian of France and Germany, I will defer to his analysis, except on one thing. I think he's too cautious. Nat points out that Bavaria remained relatively autonomous when Germany unified, that it has remained more rural and culturally its own region than other parts of Germany have, and that (partly thanks to this) it was the region that gave rise to a certain political movement. In these ways, Bavaria is certainly like the South. (Also, my good friend the Excitable German has noted that his native Swabia, in the South of Germany, is sort of the West Virginia Of The Hun).

However, Nat closes his piece with this: "My feeling is that the fate of the South is something more like Bavaria–perhaps less picturesque and without the tragedy." I beg to differ. The South is very much like Bavaria in those ways too. The entire self-identity of the American South is intimately tied to a romanticized, picturesque history of self-determination, rugged individualism, and languid rectitute. As much or more than Bavaria, Southern writers have struggled with this self image-- both to reinforce it and to crush it-- for two centuries. And as for tragedy... well, we don't really know exactly how many slaves died, but if there's a big leagues of historical tragedies, American slavery will at least be on the wild card bubble for the playoffs.