On the Banning of the Confederate Flag

On the Banning of the Confederate Flag

　 I remember a kid in my bunk at camp when I was either 12 or 13 who came from one of the Carolinas. We used to call him Johnny Rebel (something like that) affectionately. For all of us from the Northeastern states, the losing cause of the South, "the lost cause" was identified with, not good or evil, but a rebellious spirit, something that used to be admired in America, wherever you came from. With it was a sense of a war fought bravely by two sides. Lincoln's "with malice toward none" resounded in a sense of history ("not hatred"). The South was defeated and occupied. Some of America's greatest writers, afterward, came from the South. They had a sense of the tragic in life, of "the lost cause" not associated with Slavery but with Defeat in War. It was a consciousness shared by the heirs of the victors, but with the Southerners it was palpable. Today the banning of the flag represents the ascendency of Political Correctness, not Freedom but Totalitarian rule, Tyranny. It's astounding to me how many don't "get this". America's lost its mind, unable to tell that a symbol may mean different things to different people and many things to one person. A symbol is not synonymous with any particular thing. It is a surface, emblematic of depth. Superficiality and self-righteousness rule the day. It is human quality to be conscious of Day and Night at the same time. It is bound up with intellect and language. America has sunk to the level of the animal, knowing only either/or. The sense of both has been lost.