The heritage behind America's irrational militarism and imperialism

[stevietheman]

I posted this as a reply to another post, but I figured this was important enough information to release to a wider audience... this is a *great* article buzzing around now.

In The Journal of The Historical Society (Dec 2005), Bertram Wyatt-Brown wrote an article: "The Ethic of Honor in National Crises: The Civil War, Vietname, Iraq, and the Southern Factor".

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-5923.2005.00140.x (PDF of article available from a link on this page)

It's basically about how Southern honor in the United States has fueled conflicts that otherwise had no rational basis.

Here's a taste from the article:

In all three conflicts to be discussed--Civil War, Vietnam, and Iraq--similarities in the justifications proposed, the executions of warfare, and the outcomes are tragically evident. Some of these parallels bear the imprint of a sectional culture long noted for its resort to arms and violence. In all three wars, the heads of governments were deeply immersed in the ethos of the South. The three chief executives hailed from the Southwest: Confederate president Jefferson Davis of Mississippi (the "Old Southwest"); Lyndon Johnson of Texas; and George W. Bush, the latter a Southwesterner by adoption. Under such leadership, the southern influence, it could be said, helped to hasten the national crises that resulted in aftermaths not at all anticipated. "From the Quasi-War with France to the Vietnam War," argues David Hackett Fischer, both coastal and inland Southerners "strongly supported every American war no matter what it was about or who it was against. Southern ideas of honor and the warrior ethic combined to create regional war fevers...

Moreover, the emotional defense of honor's principles continues with special emphasis in the military culture of the nation, in which the southern presence is quite conspicuous...Thus, the intensity of the southern inclination toward the "warrior ethic" has helped to shape the meaning of honor even when it is not recognized as the compulsion it is. This code of conduct embraces these elements: that the world should recognize a state's high distinction; a dread of humiliation if that claim is not provided sufficient respect; a yearning for renown; and, finally, a compulsion fo revenge when, in both personal and collective terms, repute for one or another virtue is repudiated. What is honorable is also supposed to be ethically above question, even approaching the plane of a masculine purity of conscience under the rubric of conducting an Augustinian "Just War." Yet, invocation of this form of honor could well hide highly questionable reasons.

What we can clearly ascertain is our nation's current militaristic, imperialistic behavior is not occurring by accident. It stems from the crazed heritage of Southern honor.

Cite info: Wyatt-Brown, Bertram (2005)
The Ethic of Honor in National Crises: The Civil War, Vietnam, Iraq, and the Southern Factor.
The Journal of The Historical Society 5 (4), 431-460.
doi: 10.1111/
j.1540-5923.2005.00140.x

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. All the South's fault? Really?

Fascinating. I'm printing out the article.

[enlightenment]

2. Here we go again.

Every few years, another historian takes up the "southern honor" meme and uses it to explain everything. As an historian (and you may also be one, so I'm not trying to set myself out, just self-identify), it annoys me no end.

"Honor" has never been exclusive to the south -- and suggesting that George Sr. or George Jr. are southern enough to even FIT this model is ridiculous. Is this guy suggesting that honor is something you "catch" when you move south??

If you're interested in reading another view of honor and the American republic, try Joanne Freeman's Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic"

[stevietheman]

3. I'm not a historian but close to one who is a Civil War historian.

Anyway, since you are a historian, could you browse the article and then give us your observations? I'm asking you to please not prejudge the article. Thanks.

[enlightenment]

4. That I am willing to do --

and you're absolutely right; I should read before I judge. Must run off and attempt to inspire some young people now, but I promise I'll read it this afternoon.

I can't promise that my observations will be worth a hill of beans, though!

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Haven't read the article yet, but must take exception to one thing

in your reply -

"suggesting that George Sr. or George Jr. are southern enough to even FIT this model is ridiculous"

It seems to me that the Bushes very cynically played on the existance of southern honor to whip up war fever - that does not mean they themselves are subject to it.

And just off hand - can you think of any time that the south, as a whole, did not rise up in war fever when we faced conflict? I come up with only one time - going into the Balkans under Clinton. In that conflict there was no previous affront to US honor being flogged by the press, because it was a rational attempt to deal with a serious problem 'over there'. We had far less cause to go into Greneda or Panama, but the press continually spouted stories about offenses against America - the threatened students, the assaulted US personnel, etc., which demanded a US response to attacks on our national honor.

I'm now going to read the article and see if it says what I think it might be saying.

[marions ghost]

19. you are assuming the existence of something

called "southern honor." What kind of honor was operating in the majority of congressionals from all over the country who approved of going into Iraq?

[stevietheman]

24. You didn't read the article. OK.

And several respected Civil War historians absolutely know (not believe) that Southern honor existed then. Perhaps it's up to debate whether it exists now. But again, please RTFA before commenting.

[hfojvt]

6. I was reminded again of this

"Senator Charles Sumner's two day oration, 'The crime against Kansas,' on May 19 and 20, (1856) articulated Republican frustration...Throughout the debate, Sumner's language was unusally offensive...Another victim of Sumner's vitriol was the elderly South Carolina Senator, A.P. Butler. Butler was known for his 'bubbling good nature,' erudition, and fondness for quoting classical authors. None of this prevented Butler from "flaring up fiercely, to assume the haughty air of a representative of a higher class" when slavery was attacked. In his speech, Sumner accused Butler of having taken 'a mistress...who...though polluted in the sight of the world is chaste in his sight - I mean the harlot, slavery.'...
Three days later Congressman Preston Brooks strode to the floor of the Senate. Brooks, a South Carolinian and relative of Senator Butler ... approached the Massachusetts Senator and struck him over the head and shoulders with his cane. As Sumner struggled under the rain of blows, he wrenched his desk from its bolts...Having sustained severe head injuries, Sumner did not return to the Senate for two and a half years....The news of the attack on Sumner shocked the North...Southerners interpreted the attack differently. They dismissed Sumner as cowardly and accused him of 'feigning illness'. After all, Brooks had struck, 'not ... more than a dozen blows.' Brooks, OTOH, had displayed 'coolness and courage' as well as 'spirit and delicacy of sentiment'. Most of all, Brooks had defended the honor of his family and of the south from Sumner's vicious attack." Bleeding Kansas pp 98-100

[stevietheman]

7. self-kick for new consideration n/t

n/t

[wookie294]

8. It's why I now disagree with the Civil War

The South should have been allowed to become its own country back in the 1860s. Slavery could have been ended via economic sanctions, rather than war, since the North had all the money and economic power at the time. Imagine if we didn't fight a civil war. Vietnam, Iraq and the other unnecessary wars would not have been fought. Incidentally, ending slavery was not the reason Lincoln wanted to fight the South. See my signature.

[Nevernose]

9. Slavery was already almost ended before the Civil War closed

Jefferson Davis was in talks to free all southern slaves before the war was over; Robert E. Lee owned none. There are quite a few more examples. Economics would ahve ended slavery, of that I have no doubt, and you will not find many more DUers more aware of the fact that the Civil War was about a lot more issues than slavery.

However, we are better off having fought the War Between the States. It solidified us into one nation, for one thing: as Ken Burns paraphrased, "before the War, the United States are; after the war, the United States is."

Our current problems are not soming from the South, however, nor are they a result of a twisted Southern "honor."

GWB is from Connecticut, his father was from Maine. Reagan and Nixon were both from "liberal" California (which 45% of the populace thought * was a darn good idea in 2004). The KKK had a heck of a lot more members in Minnesota than it ever did in Texas or Georgia, and Malcolm X held his highest vendetta against the North, seeing their segregation (de jour?) as far worse than the South's de facto segregation.

The point being this: we are one country today, with one common culture, and we are all to blame equally. "We're all in this together" is what it MEANS to be a liberal.

[wookie294]

12. I don't think it was necessary to fight a war to make us "one"

We're not "one" with Canada. So, why should we be "one" with Southerners?

GWB might be from CT, but he has done everything he can to emulate Southerners (including manufacturing a fake Texas accent), which makes him a pretend-Southerner who prefers to uphold the "honor" bullshit. Hell, his being a "Northerner" could make him over-compensate by waging unnecessary war in the name of honor.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Correction: the South had "de jure" ("by law") segregation;

the North has "de facto" ("in fact") segregation.

[stevietheman]

10. The problem with your analysis is that the North got most of its

raw materials from the South (yes, harvested by slave labor), which fueled its manufacturing base. Lincoln *had* to fight to keep the Union together for economic reasons, else the economy of *both* the North and South would have imploded.

Especially note how a great majority of Southern slaves turned into sharecroppers after the war... just slaves under a different moniker, as the North still depended on the South's ultra-cheap labor in harvesting raw materials.

[wookie294]

11. So, you're saying the South had more economic power than the North? nt

[stevietheman]

13. No... but it was a symbiotic relationship. n/t

n/t

[zanne]

28. Watch out. Another "group" will be formed.nt

[AntiFascist]

14. Interesting...

It would also be interesting to study how the Texas oil industry emerged in relation to this culture and how the military-industrial, banking, and political history of the Bush family found a fit.

[H2O Man]

15. You might enjoy

a couple of chapters in "Farewell America": chapter 9 is "businessmen"; 10 is "oilmen"; and 11 is "Texans."

[AntiFascist]

27. Wow, Farewell America: The Plot to Kill JFK

Will order from Amazon, thanks H20 Man!

On Edit: Can't stress enough how wowed I am:

The authors ("James Hepburn" is a pseudonym) conducted clandestine research among KGB and Interpol agents and French petroleum espionage specialists...
Most of the text is a damning jeremiad, portraying pre-1964 America as a vicious, discriminatory oligarchy controlled by alliances of Big Steel and Big Oil, the military and organized crime, which all had reason to fear JFK's proposed reforms. According to "Hepburn," these interests combined with ultra-right-wing paramilitary groups like the Minutemen and Cuban exile groups to plan the assassination.

Considering that this was originally published in Europe in 1968, it seems very relevant to understanding the Bush family.

[marions ghost]

16. BS and more BS

Blame it on the Texas oil bidness but not something as nebulous as Southern 'honor.' (Civil War tied to Vietnam and Iraq? I don't think so).

It's more like the Wild West domination mentality.

[stevietheman]

18. Have you read the article? n/t

n/t

[marions ghost]

21. yes OK I read it

and didn't find much to convince me that there's more than a loose general relationship between the concept of "honor" behind the three wars in question.

The writer asks us just to assume that "southern honor" is different from any other kind that leads us into wars. There are no precedents given, no evidence, no basis for the assertion that the South has a 'warrior ethic.' It's just pulled out of a hat. To link the Civil War with Vietnam and Iraq you would have to do a far more in-depth study than this. Historians get into this kind of clever linking without real substantiation all too often.

The writer says "Southerners convinced themselves that in going to war, their soldiers would be honorable, honest, moral and virtuous whereas the foe had to consist of mere desperadoes and dangerous men." Now isn't this the same kind of "otherizing" of the enemy that goes on in ALL conflicts? How was the 'honor' of Americans different from the 'honor' of the Viet Cong?

The writer says that "it would be wrongheaded to claim that Bush made Osama BL a secondary target and concentrated on Saddam Hussein's overthrow simply for honor's sake....It was more like vengeance in the style of ...Tony Soprano." (Now THAT I agree with). So the author refutes his own assertion.

I am assuming you buy into this writer's theory since you call it a "great" article. And so what are we supposed to conclude--that there is some kind of Southern 'honor' that is at the root of all recent war-mongering evil? Bah...what's wrong with us is all too human and American. This 'southern honor' thing is just more scapegoating of a kind I do not think you would really want to promote.

[stevietheman]

25. You don't know what you're talking about. n/t

n/t

[marions ghost]

29. Gee thanks for

your blanket insult--and for not responding to my points after I took the time to read your extensive article in depth. So much for discussion -- obviously you just want approval.

Sorry but this writer is full of BS (nothing personal to you of course). I don't care how many Civil War historians want to promote this line, but there is just not enough substantiation in THIS article that you posted. To argue that any group has a general 'nature' or set of traits is tricky territory. Show me HOW this so-called Southern 'honor" differs from the kind of honor that is whipped up as justification for ANY war. How is it different and where did it come from?

This needs the kind of analysis that takes into account the origins and justification for an assumption of a psychological-social mindset that is purported to be quite unique. The implications otherwise are negative and could be seen as trumped up. Historians are not without bias. I cannot buy the argument based on this article alone.

But I see I am not allowed to disagree. MORE reason to be suspicious of this theory.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

20. It's a bit odd that someone could ascribe so much to a society

less than 100 years old at the time of the Civil War.

IMHO, the Southern "Honor" described is nothing less than left over ideas of Chivalry left from Southerner's European roots.

Read some Sydney Lanier for a prime example.

[Joanne98]

22. This is a very important subject! It goes back to early.....

immigration. The North and the South came from different parts of Great Briton. The South believed in Aristocracy. There's a book, the fighting something, which gets into the whole history.

[BooScout]

23. What a load of horseshit...

What is it............Bash the South Day?

FYI........Johnson did not start our participation in Vietnam......he merely escalated it....which Kennedy well might have done had he lived...something we will never know.

FYI.......Bush is no Southerner.....he's a Northerner by birth and he was raised in Northern Prep schools. "Adoptive Southwesterner" is merely twisting something to make it fit facts not in evidence.

Don't blame the South for the woes of Americans being pigheaded macho idjuts......there's plenty enough of them to spread around from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico.

[JCMach1]

26. No, the problem is AMERICAN and it is profoundly rooted in

the 20th century...