281 CHRONICLESnit occurs to no one to ask why his dreams should prevail overnthe less grandiose dreams of others. Like all charismaticnprophets, he was the fount of his own authority, and hisnprivate visions were intended to become law for lesser men.nAmong the several hills and mountains that await loweringnby the new god and his gnostic bulldozers is thentradition, common among white Southerners, of displayingnthe Confederate flag in places of honor. Some Southernnstates, Alabama and South Carolina in particular, still fly thenStars and Bars over their state capitols, while the officialnflags of several other Southern states retain its St. Andrew’snCross design in one way or another. The NAACP hasnrecently decided that the flag must go and has given thenproject priority in its current legislative agenda, and innumerablenSouthern schools already have been obliged to givenup the flag as the symbol of their local football teams, alongnwith the playing of “Dixie,” calling the team “The Rebels,”nand other traditional usages distinctive of Southern culturalnidentity.nIn Alabama, state Rep. Thomas Reed threatened to tearndown the flag over the statehouse if it were not removed. Itnwasn’t, and Gov. Guy Hunt had the local head of thenNAACP arrested when he clambered over the fence withnhis merry band of icon-smashers. Alabama Rep. AlvinnHolmes readily compares the Confederacy to Nazi Germanynand instructs the people of his state, “They need tonforget about the Confederacy.” Earl Shinhoster, head of thensoutheastern division of the NAACP, says of the flags,n”They’re racist symbols. . . . These flags stand for racism,ndivisiveness and oppression” and also for “defiance andnresistance to school desegregation.”nColumnist Carl Rowan, who seldom declines to dance tonthe NAACP’s tune, compares the flag to the Nazi swastikanand writes, “Show me a guy who rides around withnConfederate flags flying on his front fenders, and I’ll shownyou someone who thinks the Civil War still goes on. I’ll givenyou a racist who thinks that it is only a matter of time beforenthis nation makes white supremacy its official policy andnreturns to slavery, with black people the God-designatednhewers of wood and drawers of water.” Mr. Rowan apparentlynhas never had a dream of a day when men would notnbe judged by the color of their front fenders.nBut the fact that many Southerners (and some non-nSoutherners) regard the Confederate flag as a symbol ofnthings other than racism — Southern cultural identity, sacrificenfor a cause, an interpretation of the Constitution, ornsimply ancestral piety—does not really help. Mr. Shinhoster,nMr. Rowan, Mr. Reed, and Mr. Holmes all arencorrect that the Confederate flag symbolizes a cause thatnwas defeated in 1865 and which is not compatible with thenworld view symbolized by Dr. King’s holiday. If, as a nation,nwe are going to honor Dr. King as an official hero, then wencannot also continue to honor the Confederate flag and thenpolitical and cultural identity that is the main content of itsnsymbolism.nIt is merely a matter of time before the Confederate flagnis surrendered, along with local statues of Confederatenveterans and heroes, “Dixie,” and most other memorials ofnantebellum civilization. Their passing may not be a cause ofnmourning among many outside the South (or many withinnthe South, for that matter), but the same logic that compelsnnntheir abandonment reaches further. The three most prominentnmonuments in Washington, DC, are those dedicatednto George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and AbrahamnLincoln. Is there a schoolchild in the United States todaynwho does not know that the first two were slaveowners? Isnthere any literate person in America who does not know thatnnone of the three was a racial egalitarian, that every one ofnthem uttered statements that make Jimmy the Greek soundnlike an ACLU lawyer? The same argument that drives Mr.nSnyder from his low but honest trade and pulls down anbanner commemorating the last stand of a desperate peoplenwill demolish the obelisk and temples that memorialize thenmajor statesmen of the American nation.nNor is it merely the physical symbols of the old Americanthat are shattered. Last May, Supreme Court JusticenThurgood Marshall proclaimed in a public speech that hencould not “find the wisdom, foresight and sense of justicenexhibited by the framers” of the U.S. Constitution “particularlynprofound.” Because they did not bow to the egalitariannand universalist idols in the shrines where Justice Marshallnhas worshiped all his life and because they failed to includenblacks and women in the Constitution, the document theyndrafted was “defective from the start.” No doubt it isnastonishing that an associate justice of the Supreme Courtncould say that the fundamental law of the country, which itnis his business and his duty to interpret, is inherently flawed,nbut the Justice merely forces us up another rung on thenladder. We forfeited the right to revere the Constitution, thengovernmental principles and mechanisms it established, andnthe men who wrote it when we put Dr. King into thenpantheon. The federalism, rule of law, states’ rights, limitsnon majority rule, checks and balances, and separation ofnpowers that characterize the Constitution all are incompatiblenwith the full blossoming of the egalitarian democracynthat Dr. King envisioned and which is the completion of thenradical reconstruction to which his holiday commits us.nPolitical symbols in the form of the Confederate flag,nanthems such as “Dixie” and “Maryland, My Maryland,”nand the Constitution itself are not the only roots to benpulled up, however. Last year, the Rev. Jesse Jackson led anprotest march at Stanford University in one of the morenexplicit demonstrations against the humanities curriculumnof the school, giving the chant, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho,nWestern culture’s got to go.” This year the faculty senate ofnthe university considered a proposal to abandon a requiredncourse on “Western Culture” and to replace it with onenentitied “Cultures, Ideas and Values.” The latter containednno core list of assigned readings, and the only requirementnwas that professors include in their assignments “works bynwomen, minorities, and persons of color” and emphasizen”the last six to eight centuries in particular.” One alternativencourse, developed by Prof. Clayborne Carson, director ofnthe Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, required suchntexts as Black Elk Speaks, “Ain’t I a Woman,” W.E.B. DunBois’ The Souls of Black Folk, Frantz Fanon, and thosenlong-neglected Third World persons of color, HerbertnMarcuse and Karl Marx. Whatever merits such writersnmight have over the ancient, medieval, and modern classicsnof the West, it should be clear that the alternative curriculumnwas intended as part of the radical reconstruction of thenAmerican mind and the extirpation of the philosophicaln