Tradition, Myth and Agrarian Community

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As Louis D. Rubin, Jr. noted in his introduction to the 1962 Torchbook edition, I'll Take My Stand has been "the center of constant controversy" (xxiii). At the forefront of both Southern Conservatism and Agrarianism, I'll Take My Stand-hereafter referred to as ITMS-has been "[r]idiculed, condemned, championed, everything except ignored" (Rubin, Jr. xxiii). While noted for its literary merits and rhetorical construction, the historical and, more importantly, philosophical merits of the volume have remained poorly examined. While Virginia Rock has effectively cataloged and categorized the critical reception history of ITMS-the complete document can be viewed in The Making and Meaning of I'll Take My Stand: A Study in Utopian Conservatism, 1925-1939-she fails to examine critically the critic's understanding of the volume. Her study ends where it should begin: that is, she examines the reception history, only to present the material in mere objective classifications. Thus, this examination extends Rock's by critically challenging the negative reviews of ITMS. It also seeks to examine the most consistently offered criticisms, in order to reveal the critical misunderstanding implicit in the volume's reception history. In doing so, readers will find that far from comprehensive or insightful, the negative critical reception of ITMS is instead misguided. Disregarding the philosophy of Agrarianism, critical reviews and analyses wrongly sought the answer in the volume's supposed economic and political considerations. Wanting charts, graphs and schematics, critics misconstrued the element upon which the volume should be considered: the Agrarian philosophy.