Dixie in Decay

The following is an abridged summary of the first three chapters of Dixie in Decay (and How to Heal Her) by Elias John Ryan

Dixie is in decay. Our tradition of self governance is being flattened by an overreaching federal government. A once vibrant culture is being overridden by technology and mass immigration. Our economy is being corrupted by crony corporate interests. The land our forefathers farmed is being poisoned en masse by careless carpetbaggers. These problems and many more are dealing great damage to our homeland. There is, however, an even greater threat to Dixie than any of these. The greatest threat facing the Southern Homeland and Tradition is the rotting of the Southerner himself. While the troubles plaguing the Southerner are numerous and seemingly inevitable there are three struggles well within his control that keep him shackled to a depressed mediocrity. The three primary challenges ahead of the southerner are obesity, a lack of strength and cardiovascular endurance, and addiction. It was once said in the great literary classic Gone with the Wind that “One Southerner could lick twenty yankees!”. This confidence in the toughness and ability of the average Rebel was a large part of the confidence southern leadership had in their secession effort. If the southerner of the mid 19th century had the robustness of his flabby and weak descendant in the modern south, such a revolutionary effort would have never been conjured up. To solve the problems that decay Dixie, we must liberate ourselves from the shackles of our own flesh.

Obesity, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), is having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of greater than 30kg/m^2. BMI is not a flawless metric as it begins to lose precision at extreme heights and musculatures but it shall serve as a reasonable starting point for our purposes. Using the CDC’s metrics, a man who stands at 5’9 (the average height of an American man) who weighs 203 pounds or more would be categorized as obese. How many men do you know who meet that standard? If you are reading from Mississippi 40% of the people you share a home state with are obese. The numbers across the rest of the South are not much better. Below are some disturbing figures.

Obesity as a percentage of population:

Alabama – 38.9%

Arkansas – 38.9%

Florida – 29.6%

Georgia – 35.4%

Kentucky – 37.2%

Louisiana – 39.2%

Mississippi – 40.4%

North Carolina – 34.5%

South Carolina – 34.6%

Texas – 35.6%

Virginia – 32.3%

*Data for the State of Tennessee is insufficient*

Only a single southern state can boast an obesity rate below 30%. According to CDC data, the average obesity rate of the American South is 36%. More than ⅓ of southerners are so overweight that they are considered high risk for Diabetes, Osteoarthritis, Stroke, Sleep Apnea, and many more preventable diseases. Obesity is not merely an aesthetic shortcoming that makes one less desirable on the dating market. To relegate physical fitness to mere appearance is to pridefully misappropriate the blessings God has bestowed upon us. Obesity is the symptom of an undisciplined mind and spirit. To reach a level of body fat so excessive as to be considered obese, one must choose gluttony consistently. Obesity is not an accident. It is much like C.S. Lewis’s famous route to Hell.

 “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts”.

This is the ethos behind Southern obesity. It is not that the southerner has selected the lifestyle of the obese in some kind of perverse rebellion against beauty standards or societal expectations. Nor have we been victimized by mere circumstance. Rather, the southerner has been dejected and depressed, thus choosing the soft and sloping path toward self destruction.

In 1862 Confederate Major General Stonewall Jackson marched his men 646 miles over the course of 48 days during the now famous Shenandoah Valley Campaign. That is 13.5 miles per day. If your state asked you to do it, in an effort to defend her, could you march 13.5 miles per day for 48 days? Let’s take that one step further. If your own wife’s safety depended on your ability to run a 5k would she survive? Statistically, the answer is likely a resounding no. According to Fitness Network, only 10-15 percent of Americans have ever run 3 or more miles in their life. Our collective cardiovascular shortcomings are not our only handicap in the realm of resistance exercise. Long gone are the days of a rugged self reliant lifestyle that demanded of our bodies pushing, pulling, and laboring generally. If challenged today, could you do 10 pushups? Gymless, a fitness blog and website, reports that only half of Americans can do 10 pushups. Surely, you must be thinking, “all of those soft handed yankees are dragging our numbers down”. I wish that were true. On the contrary, a complex longitudinal study by Nursa created a Fitness Index which used metrics like heart rate, strength metrics, and level of physical strain at work to create a numerical scoring system that plots the relative average fitness of an individual 1 through 10. The average scores of participants were then divided by state. It brings me no joy to report that the top 10 does not include a single southern state. Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi were all among the worst 5. How would you explain to P.G.T. Beauregard that his home state would go on to produce the least impressive people in the entirety of an unathletic nation. Our collective inability to perform physically is an immediate barrier to effectually changing our homeland for the better. We Southerners must conquer our own physical bodies in order to resist tyranny. It is no longer acceptable for us to drown our disappointment in sweet tea or cheap beer from gas stations increasingly owned and operated by foreigners. In times as tumultuous as these it becomes our social responsibility to literally trim the fat and build a muscular foundation on which we can once again erect a beautiful and productive Dixieland.

“He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls”. This piece of wisdom comes from the 28th verse of the 25th chapter of the book of Proverbs. Never has it been more painfully pertinent than in the context of addiction in the American South. Despite our reputation for being in the Bible Belt, we constantly exhibit a lack of the fruits of the spirit, especially self control. Let’s take a look at the rates of addiction for various vices sorted by state.

Top 5 rates of cigarette smoking (American Lung Association)

1. West Virginia
2. Kentucky
3. Tennessee
4. Oklahoma
5. Louisiana

Top 5 rates of Internet porn searches (Soul Refiner)

1. Mississippi
2. Texas
3. Arkansas
4. Louisiana
5. Tennessee

Top 5 rates of self admitted gambling addiction (WalletHub)

1. Nevada
2. South Dakota
3. Montana
4. Mississippi
5. Louisiana

These statistics are disturbing for many reasons. Addiction is not only a physical ailment, but a mental and spiritual disease as well. Cigarette smoke fills the southerner’s lungs. Notifications from online sports books nag at his eyes and ears. Pornography depicting young women in vulnerable positions corrupts his soul. All the while, foreign investors and corrupt officials profit from the spiritual enslavement of the descendants of George Washington. Obviously, partaking in a given vice in healthy moderation is not only acceptable, but optimal. I personally enjoy a pipe filled with Virginia Red Leaf tobacco on the porch now and again. It is not occasionally partaking in a given risque activity that warrants contemplation. It is a daily failure to seize agency that results in the crippling of a nation’s people. The Southerner, beaten down by the media, educational institutions, and the Government, has relinquished his control of himself to institutions that hate him. A man addicted is a man forlorn. The Southerner, battered by addictive vices like pornography, has been seized like the proverbial city without walls.

Dixie is in Decay. Every day farmland is paved over. Rivers accumulate trash and pollution. Small businesses shrivel and die. Statues and monuments are torn down. Sovereignty is trampled on. All of these nightmares are tragic enough on their own to justify further analysis. Each of these, however, is a symptom, not a root cause. Our environmental, cultural, legal, and financial failures are symptomatic of the decay of the Southerner himself. The malignant growth of self-pity has metastasized throughout the Southern population and rendered us weak and sickly. This is perfect for the agents of tyranny in both the governmental and corporate realm. Just as hyenas gang up on the slowest and sickliest zebra, crony elite villains jump at the downtrodden Southerner, seeking an easy meal. It is up to us, each of us as individuals, to make the decision to steel ourselves. Before we can entertain conversations about radical political reform or massive cultural restoration, we must reverse the rot within our homes and bodies. Every Southerner has the responsibility to harken unto the wisdom of the Good Book. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says it quite succinctly. “Therefore strengthen your hanging hands and feeble knees”. Lose weight. Build your strength. Recover from addiction. These are the first steps on a long journey to heal a decaying Dixie.

The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.

Elias Ryan

Elias Ryan lives in South Carolina with his wife and family.

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