Blog War on the Civil War (Yet More)
Joseph Stromberg has a long and thoughtful response . I have already answered our critics here, here , and here but let me take time to address a couple of his points.
Stromberg: In aid of trivializing the ideas of Southern multiculturalists, so-called, the authors adduce a (white) female professor caught in the act of defending Kwanzaa. The less said of this" comparison," the better. Just in terms of sheer time-depth, Southern culture is a few centuries older than Kwanzaa and might, therefore, have more standing. Southern culture, like it or not, is"older than the Union," so to speak, and thus has had time to develop a good many cultural features with no small claim to authenticity, even as the word is understood by social scientists.
The whole American experience itself is not very old in historical terms, and it is not immediately self-evident that the repackaging of that experience by New England scribes, self-appointed to define the truly"American," settles such questions for all time. There is a Virginia-centric reading of Southern – and American – history, and there has been for a long, long time.1 It is not entirely idle for people who find themselves in possession of a particular inheritance at the end of several centuries, to wish to preserve some of it, especially when they find that inheritance under constant attack.
Beito: Many readers have interpreted our article as a general attack on Southern culture. Nothing could be further from the truth. Speaking for myself, I rather like living in the South. Particularly refreshing is the friendliness, the easy going outlook and, of course, the skepticism of big government. Moreover, in a generally sense, I agree with David Hackett Fischer and other historians who trace much of this distinctiveness to the Celtic background of many Southerners.
A key problem with the Confederate multiculturalists is that they try to make the four-year interlude of the CSA into *the* defining aspect of Southern culture. Hence, my Kwanzaa example. The focus on the short-lived CSA, of course, is problematic in other respects. It ignores (and actually diminishes) the significant African contribution to Southern culture and has nothing to say about the role played by many white Southerners who refused to support secession. Interestingly, the Celtic influence was often especially strong in the Unionist areas! What about their contribution to Southern culture? Why should their memory be forever chained to the legacy of the same CSA which may of them opposed?
Stromberg: Beito and Nuckolls adduce the League’s call for"reparations for the South" as further evidence of Southern multiculturalism. Here, I fear they are – for all their formal training in the sciences of human action – a bit tone-deaf. I don’t think anyone calling for"reparations for the South" really expects to get them. What we have here is a talking point, an attempt at reminding people that Mr. Lincoln’s Union-saving armies did burn Atlanta, did burn Columbia, did shell Charleston for a year and a half, and so on.
Beito: Talking point? If so, it is a wrong-headed talking point that is contradictory, purely reactive, and morally dubious. It reminds me of David Horowitz's misguided attempt to embrace"ideological diversity" as a ploy to defeat the advocates of racial diversity. A better solution, in my view, is to promote the good old fashioned and beleaguered ideal of merit. It is an ideal that has far too few defenders today.
Stromberg: I have not argued the details of the late war. Let those who cling to it, as the glorious Second Founding, do so. My only question – and it is a purely hypothetical one for purposes of discussion – is this: Now that the South has been so profoundly reformed and improved by armed exophilanthropists, what objection can there possibly be, especially from self-named classical liberals, to substantial local autonomy for the South, or indeed, full political independence?
Beito: I have no objection at all. In fact, one of my quibbles with current advocates of states rights is that they they don't go far enough in their decentralism. I much prefer the Swiss model e.g. the main unit of government should be no larger than a canton.
Such a system, if adopted today in both North and South, would have the virtue of equally empowering people in the black belt and hill country. Had we adopted such a Swiss model in 1787, slavery (which depended heavily on subsidies from a large federal and large state Leviathans) would have probably ended much sooner.