this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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I agree that the Lost Cause myth is romantic, and I'd say that Whedon used it very effectively as a theme.
I can't really agree with Feral Historian's take that this myth was 'kinda true' for the south as that seems to suggest that southern fighters are somewhat absolved of guilt. "They were just trying to preserve their way of life!" When that life revolved around assisting plantations in maintaining control over their slave populations, often by hunting down slaves, or acting as overseers of their work, rings hollow to me.
It reads the same as anyone who's kept their head down to get by in an unjust system. You are culpable. And then fighting to try and preserve that unjust system makes you even more culpable.
Maybe I misinterpreted what Feral was getting at, but at least from my reading of it, he's saying the myth was 'half-true' in the sense that that propaganda was effectively sold to the lowly enlisted/conscripted men to give them self-justification to fight. Whereas the truth was indeed that the whole thing was just for slavery. The myth then became even more useful after defeat to help them accept it 'honorably'. His conclusion about what people believe and feel ultimately having a larger impact than the actual truth seems to confirm that reading, but I could be wrong.