The paradox of West Virginia

West Virginia. There is a paradox. A state of natural beauty, glorified by mountains and watered by rivers – including the Shenandoah (surely the most beautiful word in American) – carved out of reluctant nature by hard human labour, then divided by slavery and war, but ending on the Union side – it ought to be an honoured political jurisdiction. But the West Virginians broke away from the rest of Virginia. In its early days, it was governed by cultivated gentlemen, who filled their cellars with fine wine and their libraries with fine books. Yet the way of life which managed this transplant of European civilisation was sustained by slave labour in the cotton fields.

Another paradox. In previous ages, many human beings lived lives in which a cry of pain was never far away: stoicism was a constant necessity; religion an essential consolation. Somehow, high culture survived – but only because sensitivity and insensitivity formed a coalition. That was especially true in antebellum Virginia.

Through all the conflicts of the Civil War, the West Virginians were on the right side. The best that could be said for the other Virginians is that although we would rather have dinner with Robert E. Lee and his fellow paladins of the Confederacy than the rougher West Virginians, General Lee and his associates were romantic but wrong. It is important that they lost. Yet it is as if the West Virginians have never been forgiven for abandoning the lost cause.

Although it is becoming harder under wokery, humour depends on mockery, in which various unfortunate groups are singled out for persecution. Sometimes, potential victims evade this by pre-emptive measures. If ever a race had less reason for laughter, it has often been the Jews, yet their humour is some of the finest in the world.