[x]

This story reminds me of a theory I've had for years: that (some) people who identify with a certain group (whites, blacks, latinos, Evengelical Christians, Muslims, etc) exhibit symbols and figures to express their hatred of others or their frustration with their station in life (more perseption than reality). These symbols (or symbolic behaviors) are expressed, by many, in leau of threatening others, outright discrimination they wish were publicly acceptable or outright violence itself.

George Orwell's Notes on Nationalism has been posted here in previous years. His theory of "transferred nationalism" is an interesting look at how some people choose a group which they don't belong to as a proxy to express their own feelings and attachments. Either they see in such a group virtues that their own people no longer possess and they use that people as a stick to beat their own group, or they identify with the sufferings or threatened position of the other nationality.

And to Mr. Kalajian: Not everyone who flies the Confederate Flag is a white supremist, just as not everyone who wear the black or white caps of the Nation of Islam, or every woman who wears a veil, supports Al'Qaeda.

True, but some of the rationales people develop to justify the use of such symbols can draw them closer to that sort of movement. If one is forever trying to explain why the Battle Flag is okay, one may give in to feelings of victimization and self-righteousness, and end up minimizing or overlooking what was wrong about the Confederacy.

[lentulusgracchus]

Either they see in such a group virtues that their own people no longer possess and they use that people as a stick to beat their own group, or they identify with the sufferings or threatened position of the other nationality.

Or perhaps, like Tacitus, without feeling any particular attachment to the group in question, they simply point out that group's virtues which their own people formerly, but no longer, exemplify.

[lentulusgracchus]

If one is forever trying to explain why the Battle Flag is okay, one may give in to feelings of victimization and self-righteousness, and end up minimizing or overlooking what was wrong about the Confederacy.

Why don't you simply state your thesis in straightforward, declarative clauses? You think Southerners are, and always have been, morally wrong, and simultaneously morally retrograde for refusing to accept the moral "wrongness" assigned them by the triumphalist, nationalist propaganda you were fed in school.

Too bad they refuse to validate your prejudices about the South. Have a nice day anyway.

[eagle11]

George Orwell put it much better than me....I should read up on the subject. This tendency is universal and very much human nature.

[wardaddy]

True, but some of the rationales people develop to justify the use of such symbols can draw them closer to that sort of movement. If one is forever trying to explain why the Battle Flag is okay, one may give in to feelings of victimization and self-righteousness, and end up minimizing or overlooking what was wrong about the Confederacy.

PsychoPap X....you can do much better. If folks defend their lifelong appreciation for their culture when it's attacked or denigrated then they become oblivious to ambiguity...do you think we are all stupid? (don't answer that..lol)

BTW...do you feel the same neurosis happens to folks who defend Old Glory and they forget her plentiful warts?

Do you think defenders of Southern Heritage are akin to Al Queada as well....Eagle11 and Quidniuc have both alluded to such.

I find those fighting accusations from punks.