I saw Gods and Generals today. I had predicted the reaction the film critics would have. It doesn’t matter if the film has artistic merit, which it does in my opinion.

The director, Ron Maxwell, shows the people of the 1860’s as they were, in so far as this is possible. It shocks some that people in the past didn’t have the ironic cynicism of the modern age. But that isn’t the real objection.

The film shows why the South seceded (the upper South in particular). An American President announces war on his fellow Americans. In 1861, that would make many Americans leave the Union. I might add that Tennessee, my home state, was more pro-Union before 1860 than practically any other state. They were again after 1865. Most of East Tennessee stayed with the Union anyway, as did isolated parts of the state.

But the main reason some people hate the movie is simpy the cultural leftism that dominates the country. If you think the cultural left doesn’t hate Traditionalists in the rest of the country as much as they do the South, you are very mistaken. Depicting the “Southern side” is unacceptable today to our “dominant culture.”

I would add that I have no problem with people who think the North was right. I am not nostalgic about the Lost Cause. I consider the War a tragedy that should have been prevented. Thanks for letting me have my say.