“The Southerner must know, and in fact he does very well know that his antique conservatism does not exert a very great influence against the American progressivist doctrine. The Southern idea today is down, and the progressive or American idea is up. But the historian and the philosopher, who take views that are thought to be respectively longer and deeper than most, may very well reverse this order and find that the Southern idea rather than the American has in it’s favor the authority of example and the approval of theory. And some prophet may even find it possible to expect that it will rise again.”
– John Crowe Ransom
Notice that liberals no longer want to be known by that term but instead have renamed themselves “Progressives” In Soviet speak a Progressive was one who supported the party line whereas those who opposed it were reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries.
Sort of like Native Americans have renamed themselves “First Nations” people as it is apparent now the Solutreans were here before them.
I agree with the statement. The problem is that immigration may very well make the second coming of the South impossible, which is probably part of the reason for our immigration problem. Prog support for immigration would also mean that progs also largely agree with the statement.
Ransom is right – because, no matter how to what bleak point the stock of an idea tumbles, it will rise again – often in unpredictable times and ways.
Ideas, unlike people, do not die.