Selective Nostalgia and Localism

In a few weeks, the Front Porch Republic will be hosting a conference on localism at the University of Louisville titled “Making a Home Fit for Humans: Localism Beyond Food.” I greatly encourage all who can attend to be there. Wendell Berry will be giving the keynote address and he will be surrounded by great panelists who will discuss the role of localism in politics.

This semester I have the privilege of studying the history of the Southern United States. One of the books I’m reading for the class, Honor and Violence in the Old South by Bertram Wyatt-Brown, does a great job of presenting the paradox of liberty in the Old South. Why do I bring this up?  We conservatives often view the Old South and localism through a lens that blocks out the injustices or negative aspects of society at that time.

Yes, the Old South had a strong love and defense of religion, virtue, community, and family; yet, simultaneously, there was a great deal of violence and little to no private life, blacks were enslaved and mistreated, and women did not have the autonomy they do today.

Wyatt-Brown gives us a perspective that is often missing from our localist thought. For example, he describes the evaluation of Southern honor and reputation this way:

The following elements were crucial in the formulation of Southern evaluations of conduct: (1) honor as immortalizing valor, particularly in the character of revenge against familial and community enemies; (2) opinion of others as an indispensable part of personal identity and gauge of self-worth; (3) physical appearance and ferocity of will as signs of inner merit; and (4) defense of male integrity and mingled fear and love of woman.

In Fidelity, a collection of short stories, Wendell Berry writes about the return of Art Rowanberry to the Port William community after his service in the war. While Art is welcomed home by his father with loving arms and ultimately integrated back into the community, something is troubling him. In battle he had seen “tatters of human flesh hanging in the limbs of the trees along with pieces of machines. He had seen bodies without heads, arms and legs without bodies, strewn around indifferently as chips. He had seen the bodies of men hanging upside down from a tank turret, lifeless as dolls.” It can only be expected that Art would feel like a stranger upon his return home.

For many of us, there is no going back to our “Port William.”  Is American society willing or able to go back to the days when localist values prevailed? I would say probably not. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid embracing and exploring the truths that have been maintained in the move from community to society, and preserving them.