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MLA citation for this article: Watson, Robert. "I'll Take My Stand: An Introducton." 25 Aug. 2001. Date of access. < http://www.smarrpublishers.com/stand01.html >.
I'll Take My Stand: An Introduction
by Robert W. Watson
(25 August 2001)
I believe it will be beneficial to critique I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition. There will be a total of thirteen critiques--an introduction and one for each of the twelve essays. Published in 1930, I'll Take My Stand never caught the imagination of the mass of Southerners. This lack of vision convinced Donald Davidson that Southerners were becoming too comfortable with industrialism. The 1930 edition of the book did not enjoy a second reprinting. However, the book was republished in 1962 by Harper & Brothers, and in 1977 by Louisiana State University Press. After seventy years, I'll Take My Stand is being read more than ever, not only by intellectuals, but by the grassroots as well.
Indeed, Davidson believed that eventually Southerners would one day want to break loose from their industrialised chains, because industrialism would prove too oppressive. Even though the book offers few specifics about how to administratively affect the change from an industrialised society to one that is agrarian, the contributors provide the philosophical foundation for the reasons for retaining the Southern culture and for why we should not be so quick to abandon our traditions and institutions. The book's overall thesis asserts that the "theory of agrarianism is that the culture of the soil is the best and most sensitive of vocations, and that therefore it should have the economic preference and enlist the maximum number of workers."
Nevertheless, with its first edition, the ideas expressed in the book remained for the most part within only literary and academic circles. As expected, these groups ridiculed and castigated the essays. The criticism centres on the critics inability to believe that twelve intelligent, scholarly men could possibly espouse the doctrines set forth in I'll Take My Stand. However, what can anyone expect from people who are limited to accepting only their worldview as the moral or viable one? Establishment writers and educators exist solely to justify the policies of the elite in business and government, both of which have become merged together as industrialism works its pernicious work of damning souls.
The genesis of I'll Take My Stand began with correspondence between the several contributors in their different capacities as writers, educators, and critics. These men discovered that they held many common ideas regarding the direction of the South and that they were disturbed about the continuous eroding of Southern culture. Since the beginning of time, life has been explained as a conflict between two opposing forces. Whether those forces are God and Satan, good and evil, individualism and collectivism, or capital and labour, the conflict is always spiritual, but manifested physically. Donald Davidson was able to cast the conflict as industrialism against agrarianism. Therefore, at least in the context of the American empire, the conflict no longer was North verses South, but financial capitalism verses subsistence living. The former relies on human ingenuity by hook or by crook; the latter relies on nature's God. The former destroys culture; the latter develops culture. The Agrarians (as these men were later called) saw industrialism as a threat to humanity, to freedom, and to culture. What worried the Agrarians the most was industrialism's redefining who man was. Man no longer was considered a human being, but a useful tool to be employed to make money. In other words, Americans are deluded into thinking they are free autonomous citizens while in reality they are slaves.
The introduction to I'll Take My Stand serves as the general statement of the principles that the Agrarians believed. While conceding that there are pockets of communities that resist industrialism throughout the world, the Agrarians assert that the overall character of the South is marked by agrarianism. But in order to prevail, the South "must seek alliances with sympathetic communities everywhere." Therefore, the principles in the book are not intended to apply only to the South, but to everyone in every community. This universal appeal is possible, because the agrarian principles support the human desires for life, freedom, and contentment. On the other hand, industrialism maintains death, slavery, and dissatisfaction.
The Agrarians do not oppose industry per se. Small-scale industry is good for any community. What the Agrarians thought to be unwise was the general acceptance of the citizens in the American empire to invest all capital into the applied sciences. The whole point of the applied sciences is to make work easier. This desire to simplify work would not be evil except for the prominent assumption that labour in itself is evil. However, with the increase use of machines, man's labour has become monotonous and dehumanising. Even today in the case of modern education, all of the emphasis in high schools and colleges is occupational training, and most students think that education is to prepare them to get a "good job" and to avoid "hard" work. Because this is true, labour becomes both "mercenary and servile," regardless whether this labour takes place in the office, on an assembly line, or in a ditch. One of the results of dehumanising labour is that most people are dissatisfied with their work; yet a good portion of their life is consumed on the job. It only seems reasonable to expect that labour should be time spent happily and purposefully. In the American empire, labour is considered an evil to be avoided and is only a necessary evil in order to get money to consume on manufactured and unnecessary stuff.
The Agrarians point out that industrialism produces the economic evils of overproduction, unemployment, and an unequal distribution of wealth. However, the industrialists think that these problems are temporary. To the industrialist, the answer is more technology, more machines, and more consumption. It is this faith in everlasting progress that the Agrarians balked at. They insist that it is sensible to have a destination before embarking on a trip. The destination of progress is nowhere in particular. Progress has no goals, no stopping point, no finale. The only solution that the American industrialists propose by default is a world-wide economy that will be fine-tuned by a group of experts. Eventually this organisation will become a world-wide government. In other words, American industrialists are Communists.
Thus, the citizens of the American empire contribute to their own enslavement by participating as corporate workers working as wage-slaves, as mindless consumers trying to stay entertained, and as nationalist soldiers suppressing rebellions to keep the industrialists prosperous. The corporate workers enrich the industrialists as they sell their souls to the highest bidder. The mindless consumers enrich the industrialists as they buy the latest contrivances and junk. The nationalist soldiers enrich the industrialists by shedding their blood on foreign soil in order to expand markets. Thankfully, some folks are beginning to wake up, but not nearly enough have yet thrown off their chains of slavery. Even worse than this slavery is Americans' spending time consuming valueless entertainment with television, movies, theme parks, and spectator sports. All of this wastefulness is a sign of a people who are not having a good time, but who are miserable. As the Agrarians state, "The modern man has lost his sense of vocation." In other words, industrialised man has no purpose or meaning.
The loss of purposeful vocation leads to loss of religion. While agrarian communities and families rely on God for their sustenance, the industrialised society fails to develop and to foster religion. When men are caged in artificial habitats like cities, the God of nature cannot be appreciated, much less worshipped. The subduing of the earth, the paving of parking lots, and the erection of stores give the false sense that nature can be conquered and the awe and majesty of nature and God is irrelevant. As man moves mountains with his earth-moving machines, God moves further from men's hearts. Religion, like the cities, become artificial, and churches become refuges not for salvation and edification, but for entertainment.
The fine arts and amenities of life suffer under industrialism as well, because these qualities affect the soul. Since the applied sciences are used to conquer nature, nature is seen as an enemy that must be subdued. For this reason, beauty becomes rare in the industrialised society. Art ought to imitate and clarify nature. However, if nature is a foe, then art must be suppressed, controlled, and regulated by experts. Art is no longer expected to grace the walls in the homes of citizens but are stored in museums with books in libraries and music in concert halls. Thus, beauty is not intended for the masses. In addition to this, the modern attempts at art have no basis, and instead of clarifying nature, art moves towards more abstraction and disharmony. The true artist is a giver of beauty that enriches the soul; the modern painter, writer, or musician for the most part is a charlatan who produces for a mass market. Thus, the arts become a commodity to be bought and sold, and the modern "artist" is a taker, not a giver.
Regarding the loss of manners, I state in my book, Critique of Pure Education, "Yet ideas like kindness, generosity, and respect presuppose that other human beings are worthy of such values. Tragically, technology and progress fail to offer students the Emersonian foundation of moral sentiment. For the most part, the trained work force consists of alienated men and women, who see themselves as equals in every respect and who find it hard to discover anything to respect in themselves, much less in others." In other words, manners are set upon the foundation of our relationship with men as men. Industrialism destroys manners, because men are not humans but are resources to be used in production.
Arguably, values are derived from how men treat nature. While agrarianism does not advocate a pantheism where nature must be worshipped, nature ought to be seen as an ally and not as a foe. If man is to achieve the good life, then man must co-operate with nature. Yet the pace of man's life enslaved to industrialism is fast and with each passing year has been accelerating. This speeding is heading in no particular direction except towards greater instability and the destruction of entire cultures. The cycles of boom and bust of industrialism emphasise the tenuous foundation that American industry has placed itself on, because production must eventually overtake the sensible demand of consumers. The reason why employees in computer companies are being "pink-slipped" is because everyone who needed a computer now has one. The market in other words is saturated, and if anyone now buys a computer, a microwave oven, or television, it will seldom be for any need, but for a want that is cultivated by advertising or lust. The Agrarians questioned how anyone could support a system that ignores the needs of the worker, the needs of the consumer, and the needs of the community. Perhaps the only answer is that government education has duped millions of students to "sacrifice their private dignity and happiness to an abstract social ideal…." However, the good life does not deal with abstract ideas like "mankind," but with concrete ideas like "neighbours."
The Lord Jesus Christ reminds us that the second greatest commandment is "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." More important than the agrarian concept of working with the land is the agrarian ideal of developing human relationships. The industrialised city does not have neighbours. In fact, one is hard pressed to find any real homes in the industrialised society. Family obligations, like other human obligations, become defined by the industrialised state as a legal responsibility, not a social or even a biological one. The Agrarians argue that the best society to promote the good life for human beings is the agrarian lifestyle that encourages working with the land, "whether for wealth, for pleasure, or for prestige--a form of labor that is pursued with intelligence and leisure, and that becomes the model to which the other forms approach as well as they may."
Of course, to the shallow-minded, industrialised consumer, agrarianism appears to be a quixotic solution to the alienation found within families and among citizens in general. It seems that industrialism with its love for money and pleasure is here to stay. However, progress is not everlasting. Nature teaches us that organisms do not expand indefinitely. Eventually the creature will divide into two separate, viable creatures. The American empire has a choice. It is not a question of whether it will separate or not; division of the empire is inevitable. The issue is how will this division take place--peacefully or violently? While the common folks would prefer a peaceful parting of the ways, the industrialists will prefer bloodshed. Wars create opportunities to profit financially as our history has taught us. After these Communists have enjoyed the fruits of slave labour all of these many years, they will not emancipate their servants without a fight.
Nevertheless, whether we are prepared or not for the breakdown of the American empire, the collapse will occur like a thief in the night. George Washington remarked that men of wisdom will always be prepared for the worst. Our preparedness begins first with a preparation of our heart, the seat of our affections. We must question severely the accepted platitudes and assumptions from our youth and of the present day. Nothing in our politics, institutions, or religion ought to be exempt from the scrutiny of the objective truth as revealed in the book of nature's God, the Bible. Since industrialism has shown itself to be the enemy of man, of communities, and of souls, nothing in the American empire should be taken at face value.
The Agrarians who wrote I'll Take My Stand will argue that it is time to restore the dignity and worth of man as a human being. Even though the words were written over seventy years ago, the ideas are timeless and are even more powerful today than in 1930. Today we have the advantage to know that the Agrarians are not false prophets, but are oracles of truth. However, the agrarian lifestyle will prevail only if the government-industrial cartel can be broken. This will require a return to our spiritual roots grounded in the Scriptures and a relentless advancing of our Southern philosophy of life. The Agrarians have provided for us a blueprint. With the Lord's help and His reviving rains, we can breath the air again as free men as we boldly and courageously build a nation dedicated to God, to our families, and to the soil.
Critical Essays Index | Smarr Publishers' Home Page
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