Firefly and the Lost Cause
Firefly and the Lost Cause
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Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.
I just watched Alien: Resurrection for the first time last night. You can really see the direction Whedon was going with that script.
I find it interesting how many pieces of media have been inspired by the book Killer Angels. Firefly joins Gettysburg (perhaps that one is obvious), and even Ken Burns sprawling Civil War Documentary.
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.
We may have lost, but I don't think we are on the wrong side.
Just to clarify, I did not post this as an allegory for the election loss, we don't need any myths to soothe our conscience. It just popped up in my subscriptions and thought it was interesting enough to post.
If anything, I think its conclusion about feelings and beliefs ultimately trumping objective truth is quite applicable to MAGA.