The Rebuke of History: The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought

 By J.B. Aitken - Posted at The Nature of Permanent Things:

Murphy, Paul. The Rebuke of History: The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought. University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Southern Agrarianism was an identity in search of a history. Perhaps like the family in a Faulkner story, it was a glorious tragedy, with the emphasis on the tragedy. I discovered the Agrarians twenty years ago and began an on-again, off-again relationship with them. As much as I wanted to be an Agrarian, it was not realistic to move to the farm, which was probably a good thing since I know little about farming. But there was something to the Agrarian vision that rightly compelled me to them. Defining what that something was, on the other hand, was no easy task. Whatever definition one gives on this point probably colors his definition of conservatism in general. So it did for Paul Murphy.

On one level this is a survey of several key Agrarian thinkers: Andrew Tate, Donald Davidson, Robert Penn Warren, and John Crowe Ransom. And those parts are depressing, since some of these figures were moral failures (e.g., adultery).

Radical Conservatism of I’ll Take My Stand

Agrarianism certainly includes living on the farm and rejecting city life, but that does not define it. Indeed, it was never clear what defined it. The original agrarians would never overcome that difficulty. Compounding the problem, despite their eloquent attacks on materialism, both the philosophical and consumerist varieties, they never could develop (or find or be found by) any robust form of Christianity. To be sure, Allen Tate converted to Catholicism but only after his life was in shambles. John Crowe Ransom defended a form of theism, but it was one that any Neo-Orthodox could embrace.

At this stage, the early Agrarians gave a vigorous, if flawed defense of the Old South. But that raises another conceptual problem: was that really the way the Old South was? Almost certainly not. To be sure, there were continuities, most notoriously its racial past.

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