• “Reawaken[ing] the Confederacy”: The Lost Cause and the Culture Wars
• Erik J. Chaput (bio)

In 1961, the poet, novelist, and literary critic Robert Penn Warren argued in a long meditation, a prose poem of sorts, that the Civil War was our “felt history—history lived in the national imagination . . . this fact is an index to the very complexity, depth, and fundamental significance of the event.” The story of the Civil War often found its way into Warren’s writing. His grandfather, a native of Kentucky, fought alongside the notorious Confederate commander Nathan Bedford Forrest. According to Warren, the Civil War was “an overwhelming and vital image of human, and national, experience,” for somewhere in our “bones,” most Americans had a wealth of “lessons.” As he noted in a later poem entitled “Shoes in Rain Jungle,” history is something we cannot “resign from” as much as we might want to try.¹ Warren’s words were prescient in the early 1960s. But now, seventy years later, they have startling relevance for the current age. These lessons are playing out once again in our political culture.

More recently, historian David Blight, a student of Warren’s writings, argued that the legacy of the Civil War “sits like the giant sleeping dragon of American history ever ready to rise up when we do not expect it and strike us with unbearable fire.”² In August 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, that dragon awoke. The civil religion of the Lost Cause emerged anew, manifesting itself in a politics of rage fueled by President Donald Trump’s rise to power. A [End Page 49] rally organized in opposition to a plan by local officials to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville turned deadly. For white nationalists and neo-Confederates, the statue of Lee took on a symbolic status as a talisman against the forces of liberalism and modernity. Confederate battle flags dotted the landscape. James Alex Fields, Jr., a 20-year-old white supremacist, drove his car into a crowd in the streets of Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old antiracist protestor Heather Heyer and injuring nineteen others. The night before this horrible tragedy, a large crowd had gathered under the mantra of “Unite the Right,” circling around the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the campus of the University of Virginia and raising their torches high.

In the aftermath of the tragic events in Charlottesville, President Trump told reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” Trump, who built a part of his political base with besieged whites who were frightened of change and seeking a refuge in the color of their skin, refused to condemn the actions of those who trafficked in hate. Throughout his presidency, Trump endorsed the Confederate battle flag along with Confederate monuments and military bases named after Confederate leaders. This is in stark contrast to President Barack Obama, who, at the end of his presidency, maintained that the removal of the Confederate battle flag was a necessary “acknowledgment that the cause for which [Confederates] fought—the cause of slavery—was wrong, the imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong.”³ Trump prefers a different understanding, an understanding rooted in the tradition of the Lost Cause updated for the 21st century.

In his announcement signaling his official entrance into the 2020 presidential race, former vice president Joe Biden specifically cited Trump’s remarks as one of the central reasons he was joining the crowded Democratic primary field. “We are in the battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden said in a video message. “I believe history will...

• “唤醒同盟”：失落的原因与文化大战
• 埃里克·查普特（生物）

1961年，诗人，小说家和文学评论家罗伯特·佩恩·沃伦（Robert Penn Warren）在漫长的沉思中（一种散文诗）辩称，内战是我们的“毡史”，历史源于民族想象。。。这一事实表明了该事件的复杂性，深度和根本意义。” 内战的故事经常在沃伦的著作中找到。他的祖父是肯塔基州人，与臭名昭著的同盟指挥官内森·贝德福德·福雷斯特（Nathan Bedford Forrest）作战。沃伦（Warren）认为，内战是“人类和国家经验的压倒性的，至关重要的形象”，因为在我们的“骨头”中，大多数美国人都有很多的“教训”。正如他在后来的题为《雨林中的鞋子》中的诗中指出的那样，历史是我们无法“辞职”的东西，正如我们可能想要尝试的那样。^1个沃伦（Warren）的话是有先见之明的，始于1960年代初期。但是现在，七十年后的今天，它们对当今时代具有惊人的意义。这些教训在我们的政治文化中再次发挥作用。

最近，历史学家戴维·布雷特（David Blight）是沃伦著作的学生，他辩称，内战的遗产“就像是美国历史上沉睡的巨龙，一旦我们不期望它，它随时准备崛起并用难以忍受的火力袭击我们。” ² 2017年8月，在弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔的那条龙醒了。《失落的原因》的民间宗教重新出现，体现在唐纳德·特朗普总统上台后激起的愤怒政治中。A [结束第49页]反对当地官员计划从夏洛茨维尔的解放公园移除邦联将军罗伯特·李的雕像的集会变成致命的。对于白人民族主义者和新同盟国而言，李的雕像具有象征性的地位，是抵制自由主义和现代主义力量的护身符。邦联的战旗点缀着整个景观。二十岁的白人至上主义者小詹姆斯·亚历克斯·菲尔兹（James Alex Fields，Jr.）将自己的汽车开到夏洛茨维尔大街上的人群中，炸死了32岁的反种族主义抗议者希瑟·海耶尔（Heather Heyer），炸伤了19人。在这场可怕的悲剧发生的前一天，一大群人聚集在“团结起来”的口号下，在弗吉尼亚大学校园的托马斯·杰斐逊雕像周围盘旋，高高地举起了火把。

在夏洛茨维尔发生的悲剧事件发生后，特朗普总统告诉记者，“双方都有很好的人”。特朗普与被围困的白人围困的白人建立了自己政治基础的一部分，白人寻求庇护他们的肤色，他拒绝谴责那些贩运仇恨者的行为。在整个总统任期内，特朗普都认可了邦联的战旗以及以邦联领导人命名的邦联纪念碑和军事基地。这与巴拉克·奥巴马总统形成鲜明对比。巴拉克·奥巴马总统在任期结束时坚称，撤下同盟国的战旗是必要的“承认同盟国为之奋斗的原因-奴隶制的原因-是错误的。 ，内战后对吉姆·克罗（Jim Crow）的强加³特朗普偏爱另一种理解，这种理解植根于21世纪更新的《失落的原因》传统。

前副总统乔·拜登（Joe Biden）在宣布他将正式加入2020年总统大选的公告中，特别提到特朗普的言论是他加入拥挤的民主党初选领域的主要原因之一。拜登在视频信息中说：“我们正在为这个民族的灵魂而战。” “我相信历史将会...