Tuesday, August 15, 2017

The Good-And-Bad Dynamic Of Politics And Culture

In a free society, it is both natural and desirable for politics and culture to influence one another. The basic philosophical foundation of our government, that power should be divided and yet function in a co-dependent manner, is one that can be found outside of government itself. Sometimes, our culture provides those who govern with a means for inspiring the public, or at least making an emotional connection with it.  Think about the Kennedy Administration and "Camelot," or the Carter Administration and "Annie."  Sometimes, the dynamic works in the other direction; the culture finds a way to take aspects of the political climate and turn it into art--or, at least, into entertainment.  It therefore was not surprising that, when Carter was elected, that ABC created and (briefly) aired a TV series that was meant to celebrate, in its own way, the new president's Southern roots.

As someone deeply interested in politics and culture, I have a strong appreciation for this dynamic. At the same time, in the present political climate, it's all too easy to imagine the perverted results to which it can lead.  As it turns out, however, one doesn't have to use any imagination at all.

HBO has let the world know that it has under consideration a potential series called simply, and as of the moment, "Confederate."  At this point, it is little more than a proposed title and a concept, the latter being a species of what has come to be known as "alternative history."  Alt-histories, literary and otherwise, are essentially build around the question of how subsequent events would have played out had a given historical outcome not happened (or, at least, not happened they way they did in fact happen).  Perhaps the best known of these is "The Man In The High Castle," which describes what happens to a particular set of characters in a world where Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire won World War II, and more or less divided the United States as territories of conquest.

So it is proposed to be with "Confederate."  But, as this article in The Atlantic points out, for all practical purposes, the South did win.  Apart from the end of slavery, the Confederate states were re-admitted to the Union, their leaders and citizens given full citizenship, and they were still allowed to treat former slaves as second-class citizens, even while building the monuments to the "Lost Cause" that are at the heart of clashes such as last weekend's conflict in Charlottesville.

Even worse, the larger culture glossed over the sin of slavery by portraying the South as some sort of rarefied, gallant society where slaves treated as property somehow got better treated that "wage slaves" in the North.  "Gallant Cavaliers and their Ladies Fair," I believe, was the terminology used in the opening credits to the film version of "Gone With The Wind," a book written to explicitly mourn the loss of antebellum Southern society.

Does anyone doubt that the racism embedded in the very concept of this proposed series is meant to serve the same purpose it served in Mitchell's book and in its film version?  For that matter, does anyone doubt that the white nationalist currently sitting in the Oval Office made HBO think that now is the time to revive the sickening romanticism many still feel for a society that was evil at its core, and did not deserve to survive, much less win?

What would have happened if the South had managed to become a separate nation?  Slavery would still have somehow died, one hopes.  To think of it going on for centuries, debasing all who came into contact with it, is insane.  To try to turn that thought into entertainment is beyond insane.  At the very least, they should consider a new name for this series if it ever becomes reality:

"Trump Country."

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