Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 6, 1994 TAG: 9404080014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARSHALL FISHWICK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The big question: What part do flags, slogans, songs and stories play in a people's traditions? Who can determine when, why and how they should be changed or discarded?
Tradition is the distilled essence of accumulated experience. From it people extract what they find most useful and valuable; the things they think, feel and believe. These things serve many purposes. They give pride to communities, stories to writers, research material to scholars, music to bands and symbols to artists. Because they draw both from fact and imagination, traditions have a super-historical truth, merging with myths. They are slow to form and even slower to die.
Of course they do change, grow and die. No one can stop this transition, though sentimentalists and fundamentalists may try. Tradition, like Old Man River, just keeps rolling along.
Since tradition is so diverse and diffuse, it is hard to define. Yet we know it when we see it - especially when it is carved in marble. For Americans, the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the faces on Mount Rushmore are traditional.
The Virginia tradition involves concepts as well has objects. We speak of the Old Dominion, the Virginia lady, the Virginia gentleman, honor, integrity and civility. We recognize the gentleman and the honor in Gen. Lee, but not in Gen. Benjamin "Beast" Butler. We feel that President Washington, who didn't want to be king, had integrity; we are not so sure about President Nixon. Manners still matter to most Virginians. One still hears elders addressed as "ma'am" or "sir." Others may laugh at this, but the traditional practice continues.
Genuine courtesy and hospitality have been ingrained in this society over the generations. There is a sense of belonging and a pride of place. Traits such as these may not seem important to others, but they do to Virginians. They prefer to honor rather than to forget the past; and they are doing so constantly. Family matters. We know our first and second cousins. Genealogy is a favorite indoor sport. We enjoy climbing in our family trees.
Another enduring trait is the admiration for Mother England. After all, Virginia was named for the Virgin Queen (Elizabeth) and nicknamed the Old Dominion when she stood by the English monarchy during the Cromwellian Rebellion. Good old English names are held in high regard: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lee, Stuart, Byrd. Those names and the families have served us well. Virginia is one of the two remaining American states (Utah is the other) where the ancestry remains "predominantly English."
Tradition is never monolithic. Tidewater Virginia emphasizes colonial times, plantations and the sea. Middle Virginia centers more on antebellum days, the Virginia Dynasty and Greek Revival architecture. The Valley of Virginia has its own historic memories, family farms, Civil War battlefields and barns. Southwest Virginia conjures up the frontier, Appalachia, clog dancing and log cabins. Yet people in these various belts are Virginians. If you don't believe it, just ask one of them.
Many visitors have commented on Virginia's special flavor. When the great Anglo-American poet, T.S. Eliot, came here in 1933, he found the experience "as definite as crossing from England to Wales, almost as definite as to cross the English Channel."
Of course the clear distinctions and characteristics have diminished in recent years, when myriads of newcomers have imported their different backgrounds and attitudes. The "traditional Virginia" of which I write seems to stop now around Warrenton. Northern Virginia is quite Northern. And West Virginia may be wild and wonderful, but it is definitely west of my Virginia.
So what to say of the contested Confederate flag and the embattled state song? Both have fallen on bad days. The Stars and Bars is apt to show up at a Ku Klux Klan rally or a gathering of German pro-Nazi skinheads. No Virginian (or American) could feel comfortable with this.
Everyone knows that our state song, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," contains outmoded language no longer acceptable in an integrated America. In the state assembly, the black caucus demanded that the song no longer be the official one for Virginia. There is irony here - it was written by a black man, James Bland (1854-1911), a talented composer who clearly loved his native land. True, his language bespoke his times - as does ours. Change the words, yes. Ban the song? Is that throwing out the baby with the bath water?
"We intend to keep faith with our Virginia traditions," said James Branch Cabell, scion of an aristocratic Richmond family, "not because we know them to be faultless, but because they are ours." America in the 1990s is a throwaway society. Things come and go with lightning speed, and the devil take the hindmost. Brutality has replaced civility. Computers have replaced conversation. We are so eager for information that we have often overlooked knowledge and abandoned wisdom.
It is not wise to dispose of ancient and honorable tradition, especially in the fast-emerging homogenous Global Village. Modify, yes. Abandon, no. On that principle (to quote a line from another controversial song) I'll take my stand.
Marshall Fishwick is a professor of humanities and communication studies at Virginia Tech.
by CNB