Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Mike Frentz <mfrentz AT bbn.com>]

Karey L. Perkins wrote:

In this case, Newsweek quotes from Will's Lanterns on the Levee to describe the liberal/progressive part of the state in contrast to the more conservative/backwards northern Mississippi, with which Lott associates himself.  Will Percy describes, and the article quotes him, that part of the state as "ill-dressed, unintelligent and slinking -- the sort of people who lynch Negroes, attend revivals, and fight and fornicate in the bushes afterwards."

 

However, Newsweek misses the better quote in capturing a Percy opinion -- Walker Percy's himself.  His Signposts essays dwell considerably on racism and segregation -- timely of course considering the era of their writing -- and the Life in the South section was immensely illuminating to me, as a non-Southerner, on the problem Southerners had with integration (which Percy was for, of course).  His discussion of the fact that the South had no public space probably goes as far to explain the problem as any I've heard yet.

I think the South's history of racism, his family's political heritage of political activism and "noblesse oblige" as he himself calls it, northern Mississippi's "backwards" political agendas that his southern-born relatives spent their lives battling, the fact that just a few years ago the Germans just barely failed attempt to decimate an entire race (and the U.S. did not enter the war to save the Jew, but for other interests), the heated racial conflicts and out-and-out riots of the 50's/60's, and the fact that much of this was playing out on his home state's front yard, such as James Meredith entering U. of Miss. -- all of this caused Percy to be intensely concerned about racism. 

 

Hogwash.  I can't help but feel sometimes that peopleon this list believe
that if Percy were alive today he would be a Democrat.  Even I was a Democrat
(Deathocrat, Damnednocrat..) around the time Percy died.  Percy certainly
did not fit the demographics of the current Democratic party if you can believe
the color chart from the 2000 election (big city, Northeast or Pacific coast).
 And his beliefs were adamantly pro-life (e.g. Signposts 340) (which is why
I had to finally switch parties in '92, also flushing 100+ years of still
rabid Democratic heritage down the potty).

 I think Percy was most interested in justice, not political labels ("If
you want peace, work for justice"  JP II). That's why Catholicism was so
important to him.  Catholicism is about the pursuit of truth, wherever it
goes, rather than wherever it "was".  (BTW, most fervent Catholics are now
Republicans if you believe the polls)

 The Republicans also did not start the Civil War to free the slave, yet
they did.  Go figure on Lott's remark, it is certainly not representative
of the Republican party.  Good riddance if there was any truth to it.  Nor
are the Democrats symbolic of progressive thinking (anymore) -- they now
represent the special interests that are the same bigoted special interests
that Percy's ancestors fought.  Only the color has changed.


Mike