Hillbilly Hannah
68 posts
@hthfarm
Holistic, Homesteading, Homeschooling, & History- loving Hillbilly Momma. Proud daughter of Dixie!
This guy was an eyewitness to the Charlie Kirk assassination. Why were his colleagues trying to shut him up?
There’s a difference between firing people for politics and firing them for callousness. It’s not cancel culture to fire someone for celebrating out-and-out murder.
@BasedMikeLee So many horrific stories not covered
1/2 The Allure and Burden of the "Lost Cause" [Author’s Notes: As someone with deep Confederate Southern roots, I know the phrase “Lost Cause” can be misunderstood. I do not use it here in the sense of the postwar mythology that excused or sanitized history. Instead, I use it in the older, broader sense that writers and thinkers from Margaret Mitchell to Robert Heinlein, C. Vann Woodward, Shelby Foote, and William Faulkner all explored — the enduring human appeal of causes carried forward even in defeat. Even though I don't normally stray far outside my strictly military history "swim lane," my purpose in this post is to examine how the South’s memory of loss shaped not only its history but also its literature, music, and cultural voice. I think the anniversary of Atlanta's fall and its depiction in 'Gone with the Wind' marks a good time to reflect on this point.] Narrative There is a curious power in a “lost cause.” History, literature, and even science fiction have all grappled with the idea that defeat can leave a mark as enduring — perhaps even more enduring — than victory. When Margaret Mitchell put words into the mouth of Rhett Butler, her roguish hero of 'Gone with the Wind,' she gave him a line that has echoed for generations: “I’m going to join the army. … I’ve always had a weakness for lost causes once they’re really lost.” Delivered in the 1939 film by Clark Gable in almost identical wording, it is half-cynical, half-romantic — a recognition that there is something noble, even seductive, about throwing one’s lot in with a cause that cannot win. Robert A. Heinlein, writing three decades later in 'The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,' approached the theme with a philosopher’s eye. His character, Professor Bernardo de la Paz, guiding a Lunar underdog rebellion against Earth, observed: “Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory.” Where Rhett saw romance, Heinlein’s Professor saw dignity — that there is moral worth in fighting for principle, even if the cause is crushed. In both cases, defeat becomes not just an end but a kind of transcendence. These fictional voices resonate with a deeper Southern experience. As William Faulkner wrote in 'Requiem for a Nun:' “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” For Faulkner, defeat was not abstract but woven into the fabric of the Southern present. Individuals, families, and entire communities labored in webs spun long before their time, bound by consequence and memory. The Confederacy’s loss was not a closed chapter but a living ghost. Historian C. Vann Woodward gave this sensibility its scholarly form in 'The Irony of Southern History.' He argued that the South bore a “burden” the rest of the United States did not. While the nation at large celebrated triumphs, expansion, and exceptionalism, the South carried humiliation, poverty, racial crisis, and the fact of having been conquered. In his words: “Southern history, unlike American, includes large components of frustration, failure and defeat. It includes not only an overwhelming military defeat but long decades of defeat in the provinces of economic, social, and political life.” Shelby Foote, the novelist-turned-historian, expressed the same truth in Ken Burns’ 'The Civil War.' With a storyteller’s cadence, he explained: “As a Southerner I would have to say that one of the main importances of the War is that Southerners have a sense of defeat which none of the rest of the country has.” Where Woodward dissected irony, Foote described feeling. That “sense of defeat” became a cultural inheritance, something passed down not only in history books but in songs, humor, and even everyday manners. Taken together, these voices — Rhett Butler’s gallantry, Heinlein’s philosophy, Faulkner’s haunting prose, Woodward’s historical irony, and Foote’s cultural lament — all converge on a single idea: defeat carries its own kind of permanence. (See Graphic #1). Where victories can be celebrated and then forgotten, losses endure. They become identities. They inspire literature and music, color politics and culture, and shape how people see themselves in the stream of history. For the American South, that defeat was the Civil War. Unlike the Midwest, which remembers sacrifice and Union preserved, or the West, which folded the war into its larger frontier myth, or the North, which celebrated vindication, the South lives with memory of catastrophe. Its cause was not merely lost but woven into identity itself. That is why the South has produced so much of the nation’s most powerful literature, music, and cultural expression: because it has carried the burden of memory. The blues, with its mournful beauty; country ballads of loss; Faulkner’s haunted Yoknapatawpha County — all are threads in that web. The past is not past. And in the South, defeat has proved as enduring — perhaps even more spiritually satisfying — than victory. Graphics: 1) Chart summarizing the "Lost Cause" theme; 2) William Faulkner; 3) C. Vann Woodward; 4) Shelby Foote
