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Southern Cultural Pride

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Nevertheless, he sees certain strengths in the Greek position as he delineates it that he does not find in the barbarian position. In this respect, we could say that he recommends the strengths of the Greek position.

Hale's claim that we Americans today are A NATION OF OUTSIDERS (2011) seems to mean that we Americans today collectively represent the barbarian position as Ong delineates it.

But without contesting Hale's main claim about Americans today, I suggest that most Americans today represent, simultaneously, both the barbarian position and the Greek position as Ong delineates each of them.

At times, we gravitate toward like-minded others who share with us our preferred version of the Greek position.

But we are well aware that certain other Americans today do not share our preferred version of the Greek position.

As a result, we represent the barbarian position to them, and they in turn represent the barbarian position to us.

In other words, today progressives and liberals, on the one hand, and, on the other, conservatives stand in relation to one another as respecting opposed barbarian positions as Ong delineates it.

Conversely, today progressives and liberals, on the one hand, and, on the other, conservatives tend to have different preferred versions of the Greek position as Ong delineates it.

As William Faulkner's novels go, his novel THE UNVANQUISHED (1938) is Faulkner lite. Compared to his novel ABSALOM, ABSALOM! (1936), THE UNVANQUISHED is fairly straightforward. In my estimate, its title is perceptive. It calls attention to the fact that the ideology of white supremacy and rebellion that motivated the Confederacy remains unvanquished to this day.

But the ideology of white supremacy is based on resentment, as Faulkner shows in ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by portraying the character Thomas Sutpen as being motivated by resentment. The well of resentment is bottomless.

Concerning Faulkner's portrayal of Thomas Sutpen, see Sally Wolff's book LEDGERS OF HISTORY: WILLIAM FAULKNER, AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN FRIENDSHIP, AND AN ANTEBELLUM PLANTATION DIARY: MEMORIES OF DR. EDGAR WIGGIN FRANCISCO III (Louisiana State University Press, 2010).

Now, in South Carolina, the Republican Governor Nikki Haley publicly called for removing the public display of the Confederate flag at the state's capitol. But the Republican-controlled state legislature will have to make that decision.

But I want to call attention here to the symbolism involved in a woman calling for the removal of that flag from public display.

You see, Faulkner perceptively portrays Thomas Sutpen as a grossly misogynistic man.

About the same time, Virginia Woolf in England published her feminist manifesto THREE GUINEAS (1938). Like Faulkner in his 1936 novel, she links male militarism with male misogyny.

No doubt the Charleston shooter Dylann Roof fell into the bottomless well of resentment, as Thomas Sutpen did.

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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