Faulkner: "Why do you hate the South?" "I don't hate it...I don't hate it"

[DeepModem Mom]

"Tell about the South," said Shreve McCannon. "What do they do there? How do they live there? Why do they?…Tell me one more thing. Why do you hate the South?"

"I don't hate it," Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; "I don't hate it," he said. "I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark: I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!"

William Faulkner, "Absalom, Absalom!"


Quentin, of course, like Faulkner, was a Southerner. Southerners, and native Southerners who live elsewhere, please discuss. I'm trying to sort out my own feelings.

[Hosnon]

1. Weather

I've come to realize as I get older that I don't click socially with most people around here. I don't want to hunt, SEC football is only mildly entertaining to me and I hate Bush.

However, the weather is freaking incredible. That's the real reason the North invaded...it was a long term plan regarding Florida retirement homes.

But yes, I feel a bit traitorous because I love my home but a move may be needed.

[Maddy McCall]

2. I love everything about the south...

except for the people who live here. (Just kidding.)

The funny thing about conservative southerners is that they look at the recent Republican rule as a triumphant vindication for losing the Civil War. It took them a century, but the values that caused the civil war eventually won. (I don't believe this, but many Southern "Old South" retrogressive conservatives do.)

[Hosnon]

3. That's odd. I never have heard that before. Wouldn't surprise me though.

I hope Northerners realize how ingrained that whole thing is. I'm about as liberal as one comes and refuse to call it the Civil War - appropriate name is War between the States.

[Maddy McCall]

5. I guess "war between the states" is better than...

"war of northern aggression," which is what all the confederate reinactors call it. :-)

[Hosnon]

6. Yea - it's just that Civil War implies an attempt to overthrow a

government. The South was trying to make a new government.

[unblock]

7. see, there's even a dispute about terminology, to this day

the south called it the war between the states to tout the legality of state secession. the north called it the civil war to emphasize the fight to keep the nation whole.

i think as a matter of law, it should be clear that there was no provision for secession or unilateral withdrawal from the united states, and so "civil war" is the appropriate term.

regardless, my point is that this is just one of many indicators that the south hasn't gotten past those series of bloody battles that spanned five aprils.

[unblock]

4. the south has never gotten over the civil war

and the south never accepted integration into the union.

on many levels, they are still fighting. "the south will rise again" is their mantra.

i've lived in texas long enough to know.

northerners don't hate the south, they just don't fully respect it. but this is nothing more or less than the usual regionalism, as the south doesn't respect the north either, both southerners and yankees alike think californians are nuts, midwesterners are hayseed, and new jersey doesn't even respect itself.

a little bit of state and/or regional pride is a good thing. what sets the south apart is the militant, secessionist, to hell with the rest of you flame has never been put to rest.

[NC_Nurse]

8. Gee, I'm from the South

and my family could give a shit about the Civil War and the "South rising again" thing. Frankly, I think that's a few pockets of rednecks and the rest of us pay for their flamboyant idiocy.

I think the South has become red for the same reasons the midwest has, the conservative Christian movement has distracted people from the real issues and made everything about "morals" and "faith-based" govt. People buy that shit and refuse to think past those few social issues to the REAL issues that the govt should be involved in like foreign policy, economics, civil rights, etc.

Let's not forget that all the blue cities have plenty of upscale areas where there were plenty of shrub supporters with W04 stickers on their Yukons. I think they were into Repubs to protect their $$$$, not their morals.

[LiberalSoutherner]

9. Good topic for my first post

Well, I just moved back home to New Orleans last month after living in Chicago for 20 years, and I do love the south. There are plenty of reasons, one is culture. In Chicago culture was going to the symphony or theater. Here culture is in the corner grocery, the food we eat, the houses we live in, the crab nets that my grandfather made by hand, the music, even the very language and slang used here.
Friendly and hospitable can't be over used when talking about this area. Here most people approach strangers as a friend until they prove otherwise (not to say we aren't street smart), in Chicago most seem to approach strangers as an enemy until proven otherwise.
I do know that south Louisiana isn't exactly the same as Mississippi or Alabama, but I recently visited Tuskegee AL, and the people there were warm, friendly and helpful as well.
These are just some of the reasons I like it here, of course I AM living in a liberal city that voted for Kerry (although the state went to Bush).
And just to let y'all know, I am a long time lurker, and have found a tremendous amount of useful information here over the years.

[NC_Nurse]

10. Welcome to DU!

You reminded me of why I like the South too! Glad you're back down here!

:toast: :toast: :bounce: :bounce:

[LiberalSoutherner]

11. Thanks NC_Nurse

And I did move back in time to register and vote for Kerry, but alas, LA went for Bush (no surprise).

[unblock]

12. the difference in friendliness, it more city-rural and north-south

honestly, it has so much to do with the sheer number of faces you encounter on a daily basis. manhattan is the american extreme, where i have to wade through streets filled with thousands of people just to get to and from work each day. most of the time, i just can't give them the time of day (that and not wearing a watch).

if someone asks for directions, i point and say "uptown" without breaking my stride. my commute can easily be 2 hours, i just don't have the time to chat with strangers. it comes at the expense of sleep and time with my own family.

but when i was in austin, texas, i would happily spend 5 or 10 minutes with a total stranger, giving them directions, or recommending a better restaurant, finding out where they're from. what a difference when your commute is 20 minutes, the roads are wide, the aisle in the grocery store fit three carts abreast....

(note, i wouldn't categorize austin as "rural", i just mean to refer to how densely packed things are, people per square foot, average retail store size, etc.) austin is a far cry from manhattan or chicago by that criterion.

[LiberalSoutherner]

14. I do agree with you, partially

In Chicago, my daily commute could be 1.5 hours, and there was less time to stop and smell the roses as it were. But here I can stand in line at the local seafood shop for 20 minutes, crushed elbow to elbow, and everyone still chats like old friends. My, your little girl is pretty, How you doin taday darlin? etc. In Chicago, if I tried to start a conversation while in line I was looked at as if I were some kind of alien fallen to earth.
I really don't want to start some kind of argument here, the north has alot going for it too. Just telling it like I see it.

[unblock]

17. not arguing, i generally agree with you

it really has to do with the number of faces you see each day.

humans are social, and we're wired to see other faces as opportunities for social interaction. but at some point, when you see too many faces each day, you develop more selective criteria. so, even if you're in line with the same number of people, if this line is the only group of people you'll interact with all day, well, of course you'll chat 'em up. if you've already seen 10,000 faces and expect to see 10,000 more, you'll be looking to 20 minutes in line as a good time to zone out, decompress, think of the things you can't think of when fighting crowds, and so on.

mostly people are somewhere in between those extremes, but certainly in big cities you find more people who don't view simply seeing another face as sufficient justification to start a conversation.

my main point is that the people in houston behave more like the people in new york, despite being in the south, and the people in vermont behave like rural folk, despite being in the north.

[DeepModem Mom]

13. Welcome, LiberalSoutherner! I asked for discussion because...

I, too, a Southerner born and bred, am returning to the South, not by choice, after spending most of my adult life outside of it. I used to love so much about it, some of which you describe. I loved the literature, the story-telling, the humor, the food (with its origins in Africa), and, most of all, the camaraderie of like-minded Southern liberals, fighting together (and I know they are still there, in every town and city in the South). When I visit now, a lot of that seems gone, replaced by mega-churches and conformity, instead of the delightful eccentricity I remember -- and the effect on our country of the political force exerted by what the South now is, makes me not want to be there. I don't even want a Southern license plate on my car.

I am going, however, to a place that, like New Orleans, is not typical of the state it is in,and have already found there some like-minded compatriots. I'm working on my attitude, and thinking about things I might get involved in there to make a difference. I appreciate your thoughts, and those of others in this thread.

[LiberalSoutherner]

15. Thanks DMM

The thing I can't understand about the rural areas here is if you talk to the people, they often hold liberal ideals. They don't like big corporations, many live with government assistance, there is a live and let live attitude, but they still consider themselves conservative and vote for the repubs. Of course I avoid the fundies like the plague. It's a dichotomy I don't understand. And it's these people we need to change, if we are ever going to be accepted and get their votes again.

[DeepModem Mom]

16. True -- I talked to a guy who told me all the ways the country...

was going to hell in a handbasket under Bush, and was surprised he won -- but voted for him. There seems to be a mindset that voting Democratic is just "not done."

[rolleitreks]

18. Remember to view this passage

through the prism of Quentin. The conversation takes place late at night at Harvard, if I recall. Sometime later QC drowns himself in the Charles -- so we're dealing with a deeply troubled character. To understand him, one might look to his version of the story he has just told.

[DemoTex]

19. But what did Quentin Compson love most of all?

Faulkner says (in the "appendix" to The Sound and the Fury) that Quentin Compson loved death most of all. Quentin, of course, succumbed to that love of death by committing suicide.