Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism - 4. The Changing South - 5. Southern Liberalism
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
466 An American Dilemma
American—is, of course, the very thing to be educated away. But in the
initial effort at change, this docility gives the public agencies the oppor-
tunity to use an element of patriarchal compulsion in the right direction,
which speeds up the educational process. The poorest farmer in the Scan-
dinavian countries or in England—or in the Middle West, for that matter
—would not take benevolent orders so meekly as Negro and white share-
croppers do in the South. But if use is made of dependence and paternalism,
the aim is independence and self-reliance. It has to be remembered that
these people have lived in still greater dependence before, and that their
close supervision by federal agencies is to be regarded as a weaning process.
If we note further that the long-run trend in the South toward a higher
level of general education and cultural participation of both Negroes and
whites is steadily proceeding, we have accounted for the main dynamic
factors in the Southern political situation. They all accumulate to bring
Southern conservatism into a process of gradual disintegration. In this
period of accelerated change, the Second World War has come to America.
Some of the specific New Deal policies are being discontinued. Undoubtedly
this War will have some of the usual effects of all wars in the direction
of cultural and political reaction.^® It is reported that the Ku Klux Klan
is preparing for a new and glorious comeback after this War is over. But,
more fundamentally, the War will probably work toward a still greater
speeding up of most of the changes under way. And the War is fought for
democracy, for the “American way of life”—which is certainly not Southern
traditionalism.
In these changes, the various areas of the South are proceeding at
different levels. The Deep South lags somewhat behind the Upper South,
the Southwest, and the Border states, just as these are not as advanced as
the Northern and Western regions of the country. These regional dif-
ferences give us a sort of observational check in our analysis of the changes
in time 5
they are especially useful in foreseeing the future of the Deep
South.
No Yankee will be tactless enough to mention it, in so many words, and
no Southerner can afford to admit it, but the main thing haffening to the
South is that it is gradually becoming Americanized.
5. Southern Liberalism
Southern liberalism is not liberalism as it is found elsewhere in America
or in the world. It is a unique species. It is molded by the forces of the
region where it carries out its fight. As an intellectual and ideological
phenomenon it is, as we shall find, highly interesting. But in spite of its
local, not to say provincial, character, it has always had its chief strategic
function as a liaison agent with the North. It gets its fower from outside
the South. For decades Southern liberals have been acting as the trusted
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
