A key quote from the “Introduction: A Statement of Principles” in the book, I’ll Take My Stand:
All the articles bear in the same sense upon the book’s title-subject: all tend to support a Southern way of life against what may be called the American or prevailing way; and all as much as agree that the best terms in which to represent the distinction are contained in the phrase, Agrarian versus Industrial. …Opposed to the industrial society is the agrarian, which does not stand in particular need of definition. An agrarian society is hardly one that has no use at all for industries, for professional vocations, for scholars and artists, and for the life of cities. Technically, perhaps, an agrarian society is one in which agriculture is the leading vocation, 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. But an agrarian regime will be secured readily enough where the superfluous industries are not allowed to rise against it. The theory of agrarianism is that the culture of the soil is the best and most sensitive of vocations…”
I’ll Take My Stand is the book that really defined Southern Agrarianism in 1930; however, it is just the beginning. It is our starting point. It is the cornerstone of a magnificent building – not the building itself.
Think of this as a journey that begins with shedding the trinkets and trappings of what currently passes for Post-modern Western culture. The Greek philosopher Hippocrates, who is considered to be the Father of Medicine, said it well:
“Before you heal someone, ask him if he is willing to give up the things that made him sick.”
Hippocrates
- Reject the global – embrace the local.
- Reject the urban – embrace the rural.
- Reject egalitarianism – embrace hierarchy.
- Reject the temporal – embrace the timeless.
- Reject the profane – embrace the pure.
ꔷ Not for Our Time, but for All Time ꔷ
ꔷ Not for All People, but for Our People ꔷ
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