Southern professor, author and conservative political philospher Richard Weaver wrote in his essay “The South and the American Union” (which appears in The Southern Essays of Richard Weaver) of what he saw as the Apollonian worldview of Dixie that its people shared with the ancient Greeks and Romans. Weaver contrasts this with the Faustian mentality of the North:
The Southern world-outlook was much like that which Spengler describes as Apollonian. It knew nothing of infinite progressions but rather loved fixed limits in all things; it rejected the idea of ceaseless becoming in favor of “simple accepted statuesque becomeness.” It saw little point in restless striving, but desired a permanent settlement, a coming to terms with nature, a recognition of what is in its self-sustaining form. The Apollonian feeling, as Spengler remarks, is of a world of “coexistent individual things,” and it is tolerant as a matter of course. Other things are because they have to be; one marks their nature and their limits and learns to get along with them. The desire to dominate and to proselytize is foreign to it. As Spengler further adds, “there are no Classical world-improvers.” From this comes the Southern kind of tolerance, which has always impressed me as fundamentally different from the Northern kind. It is expressed in the Southerner’s easy-going ways and his willingness to let things grow where they sprout. He accepts the irremediability of a certain amount of evil and tries to fence it around instead of trying to stamp it out and thereby spreading it. His is a classical acknowledgment of tragedy and of the limits of power.
This mentality is by nature incompatible with its great rival, the Faustian. Faustian man is essentially a restless striver, a yearner after the infinite, a hater of stasis, a man who is unhappy unless he feels that he is making the world over. He may talk much of tolerance, but for him tolerance is an exponent of power. His tolerance tolerates only the dogmatic idea of tolerance, as anyone can discover for himself by getting to know the modern humanitarian liberal. For different opinions and ways of life he has not respect, but hostility or contemptuous indifference, until the day when they can be brought around to conform with his own. Spengler describes such men as torn with the pain of “seeing men be other than they would have them be and the utterly un-Classical desire to devote their life to their reformation.” It happened that Southern tolerance, standing up for the right to coexistence of its way of life, collided at many points with the Faustian desire to remove all impediments to its activity and make over things in its image.
I don’t think the Apollonian description is comepletely accurate. Afterall, Southerners did seek to expand their domain and were quite inventive in many fields of study. Industrialization and railroads in the South were of growing importance in the years leading up to secession. And racially Southerners were of similar Northwestern European ancestry as the Yankees.
However, Weaver’s point does get at the deep cultural distinctions between the regions and their Modern and Neo-Classical roots. And the Apollonian nature of our culture is another potentially interesting area of exploration for those in the Alt-South.
ALSO SEE: Alt-South: Scientific Racialism, Alt-South: Unique on This Continent, Alt-South: What is Conservative Government and Alt-South: The Myth of American Democracy
NOTE: As Hunter Wallace has explained, “[t]he Alt-South isn’t a membership organization. It is… a space for everyone in Dixie who isn’t some kind of leftist or mainstream conservative (i.e., nationalists, populists, reactionaries) to come together to discuss our past, present and common future. Southern Nationalists [are] at the core of the Alt-South.”
A large component of this discussion is being ignored purposefully: that of religious ideology.
The North was (until its Unitarian apostasy) a hotbed of Calvinist/Independent orthodoxy.
The south, in contrast, was an Erastian/Anglican/state-Church ideology.
And without an analysis that takes into consideration both of these points of view, and their attendant worldviews, you’re going to miss the boat in any analysis of the South… Or the North.
Apollo is the most popular deity in Dixie.
Then they’re all idolaters, frankly. Oh wait -isn’t the vast majority of Baptists, in Dixie too? Q.E.D.
You mean Judeo-Baptists? I passed a house the other day in an all white neighborhood-originally one of the Sundown towns where Negroes were warned not to be in the town after sunset- and I saw a large sign in the yard that said; “This House Stands with Israel!” I am seeing more and more Baptist churches flying Israeli flags. For the life of me I cannot recall one case of whites in the South ever having a sign in the yard saying “I stand with South Africa” when it was under siege by the Capitalist/Communist Coalition. Nor do I recall any Baptist churches flying the old orange,white, and blue South African flag.
I see some Jew worship in my neck of the woods, too.
Christianity, Judaism and Islam come from the Middle East. So all three are a product of Semitic genetics. A European who practices a foreign religion and is loyal to the foreigners that created it, shouldn’t be surprising at all.
If I had my way, all three Middle Eastern religions would be sent back to the Middle East. For the simple reason, if you want to practice a religion created by Semites, you should live in the land of the Semites.
Bring back Zeus, Apollo, Thor and the other gods created by European genetics. Its far more rich culturally than Middle Eastern creations and the best reason of all they are European.
lol
We have written quite a lot about the religious differences between the regions. It is a subject I am sure we will return to quite often.
Weaver is bae tho (???)
Great article Mr. Cushman.
The differences are quite evident in modern multi-regional cities such as Huntsville Alabama. The contrast makes for odd public interactions.
Recent Yankee immigrants boast in their rudeness and desire to look down upon local culture. They are not content in accepting how we do things and only want to change it. I know because I deal with them directly in my company all the time.
Now I’ll give them credit for one virture that we Southerners could benefit from, they don’t have the “ain’t it awful” attitude in which I belive we get from the evangelicals.
Thank you, kindly.
Good article.
This Masood chap has become quite interesting. This is a very convoluted family drama about race I suspect. A mother mudshark a mudshark wife and a Nignog who felt whitey owed him something. Not so much about Religion per se. It’s a nigger going berserk about white women with extra Jihad on the side.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3184170/westminster-terrorist-khalid-masoods-teenage-daughter-headed-to-school-prom-in-revealing-dress-after-rejecting-killer-dads-orders-to-wear-a-burqa/