I think reading stories like Beloved by Toni Morrison can help us battle this fake nostalgia through preserving the reality through emotion. We want to paint the past as something we want to see for the future. , In her searching analysis of changing American attitudes toward World War II over the course of 75 years, she. Smith's reporting is excellent, and discussion could go on and on, but his main thesis is that nostalgia brings people to forget the past and what it really meant. Samet will make plenty of people angry with Looking for the Good War. Yet that doesn't stop the fact that 'appropriating the stories of men like Poplar is a way to protect the Confederacy's legacy.'

In fact, the historical record shows him to be a cook who wasn't allowed in the army. He takes the example of Richard Poplar, who many supporters of the Confederacy claimed was a officer who fought willingly for the South. He finds that there is a mix between nostalgia, wishful thinking in wanting to paint their ancestors in a good light, and appropriation. This is in contrast to facts in the history books, where, for example, 'the Confederate vice president, Alexander Stephens, said, adding that the Confederacy was founded on 'the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.'' Among other very obvious historical records, how then, do people believe that the war wasn't fought over slavery? The myth asserts that the Civil War was fought by honorable men protecting their communities, and not about slavery at all. The myth was an attempt to recast the Confederacy as something predicated on family and heritage rather than what it was: a traitorous effort to extend the bondage of millions of Black people. It was then, in the late 1800s, that the myth of the Lost Cause began to take hold. What he discovers, through both in-person and historical reporting, is that after the war, the rhetoric of why it was waged changed drastically. This launches him into contemplating, and asking the White Southerners he comes across, what they think the reasons were for the Civil War. And there are no hourly tours for people to remember the dead. There are far fewer tombstones than at Blandford. Smith's contemplation on why people hold on to the myth of the Confederacy, then, is a good one.Īfter traveling to Blandford Cementery in Virginia where it's essentially a memorial for the Confederacy and what they fought for, he travels to People's Memorial Cementery in the same town and contrasts it with the former. But if the past few years have told us anything, the feeling of nostaglia and 'superiority' of Whiteness has led to some serious problems in recent politics. As we'd drive down the road and see Confederate flags on people's houses, or painted on their trucks, we'd laugh it off as ridiculous. As a child of northern parent who grew up in the South (North Carolina), my family was always concerned with anything Confederate-related.

It's obvious that Clint's article approaches the 'myth of the Lost Cause' with skepticism and even outright disbelief.

Looking good real war says nostalgia