Jeremiad against the machine

Published in 1930 by a group of 12 Southern writers based in Vanderbilt College, I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition is a collection of essays issued as a stay against further industrialization of the South. Obviously they failed. In many respects the South is no different from any other region in the US. Regionalism has given way to a corporatized banality. The last bastion of yeoman farmers lost out to Detroit and other industrial powerhouses in the late 30s and 40s.
At times racist and patronizing, bitter and nostalgic, prophetic and prescient, I'll Take My Stand desperately tries to convince the South to keep her identity, but to no avail.
The essays offer no practical advice, merely polemic, but some of them...whew. What would the world be like if their ideas had prevailed? There is no way of knowing...at least not until the oil runs out. And that shouldn't happen for another 250 years--right?

Comments

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property. --Hilaire Belloc ...

Thing 10

Why did you select it? Were you also able to download a video? On my previous post I knocked YouTube--and I stand by that knocking, but I did say there were some worthwhile things on there. Here is one of them; I discovered this in the summer of '07 on two different blogs. While not a perfect fit for the idea of localism, it certainly is a jeremiad against globalization. A British group bemoaning a loss of their culture (oh, yes, it is rich with irony, but these aren't imperialists). Enjoy. I tried a couple of different videos to download including this, but to no avail. Zamzar is interesting and could be useful for the classroom, but I kept getting "file has no extension" error messages. I'll have to try again.

I Am Not Hamlet

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