culture to glamorise and continue the myth of the Old South as a way to keep the memory alive of a myth that many never had the chance to see themselves. She concluded her argument by quoting James McBride Dabbs theory which rings true for the majority of historians. ‘When a man finds his interpretation of life – that is, of his experiences, his past that does not work, he seeks a new interpretation, moulding the theory to the facts’. 255 Novels and creative interpretations of South keep the memory alive, and allow many, even in the modern day to believe that the romantic and peaceful way of life in the ‘Old South’ was real and glorious. The vices used currently to create and continue the myth of the ‘Old South’ have been both personal and creative, using imaginations to allow it to spread. However, these images of the South, having been weaved in the national stigma of the South’s culture, have henceforth bled in the historical accounts of the Old South being blurred with the memory. It has also allowed the South to maintain itself as a ‘separate entity with its own distinctive culture, economy, and romantic image in the consciousness of Americans’. 256 Henceforth, memory has an increasingly important role in allowing the Old South to be viewed as it is, allowing the blurred vision to continue the myth of the South on for many years to come. Arthur Link suggests that many Southerners suffer from ‘Conservatism’, which as it is generally understood, ‘connotes a tendency to maintain the status quo and a disposition of hostility to innovations in the political, social and economic order’. 257 Consequently, Southerners have been increasingly 255 Smith, p.46. 256 Pat Watters, The South and the Nation, (Toronto, Random House Inc., 1969), p.iv. 257 Arthus S. Link, Myth and Southern History: The New South, ed, Patrick Gerster and Nicholas Cords, (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1989) p.60.
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