The Tragic South

There’s something about the South that I’ve learned, not so much from intellectual analysis as from extensive spiritual reflection, in attitudes that do NOT reflect any sort of pride, wounded or otherwise; still less, conjured shame from those whose roots are southern and who cannot seem to rest until their personal atonement is made publically, either politically or culturally (think of all the trashy southern “gothic” fiction out there–or still worse, the films. (“If I slander and condemn and beat the already killed among my ancestors, will I be worthy of your love then?”)
Defeat brings something to the defeated that the victorious can never have. The Germans know about it. The Indians and the Japanese know as well. Americans do not.