"What is the South?" they always ask. It's a question never answered, not completely, but invariably asked. Usually by some Northerner with a taste for literature. Or by sociology students in search of a thesis. Or by a college roommate at Harvard. (See Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom.") I was first asked the question by a fellow graduate student at Columbia. ("What's it like, growing up in the South?") He asked it in the same tone one might inquire, "What was it like, living on Mars?" Southerners remain a fascination to others - almost as great a fascination as we are to ourselves.

These days, as we lose our distinctiveness, the question of Southern identity seems to be raised most by Southerners, who return to it like the tongue to an uneven tooth. As if we wanted assurance that we still exist. We know there's no sure answer to the question; we just delight in asking it - for the comfort and fellowship and pure pleasure of thinking about the South.

On this Lee's Birthday, the South seems only a lingering shadow of the great civilization-and-barbarism she once was, but that ended when? April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse? With the last great Southern novel, and which was it? When cotton was dethroned? When industry overtook agriculture, when the city took over from the country? Did the South end with the coming of air conditioning or of the two-party system? Or when the race issue ceased to be The Issue, and became just another Northern-style ethnic competition and/or collaboration?

The answer to that question always seems to come down to this: The South ended with the previous generation - which fits in well with the common perception that each generation becomes a little less Southern, a little more Americanized. It's like Zeno's Paradox about the hare who always halves the distance between himself and the tortoise, yet never catches up: Southernness is always fading yet never disappears. Our children will doubtless say it ended with us even as it continues in them.

Just as there are many Souths, so there are many Southernesses. And entirely too many simulacra. The Br'er Rabbit stories of Joel Chandler Harris become the cartoon characters of Walt Disney. The culture that was, or perhaps never was except in retrospect, leaves behind its faux ruins and living fossils. Phony artifacts litter the landscape: minstrel shows, accents you could lay on with a trowel, and all the other Gone-With-the-Wind routines for the tourist trade. A picturesque past replaces any usable one.

For a conquered people, there's always the satisfaction of hating. And so the Confederate battle flag may be waved at a racist rally. Or it may be tacked on or removed from a state flag for separate but equally confused reasons. Is there any symbol of the South - from "Dixie" to the Southern belle - that has not been commercialized, burlesqued, exploited, debunked, by turns celebrated and frowned on?

Yes. There is one who has withstood it all: Robert E. Lee. Not that there aren't always those who would use him for their own purposes, whether high or low. One is not sure who's worse: the professional Southerners who hide behind Lee or the professional debunkers who are always trying to expose him. In both cases, it is the use of Lee for some mundane polemical purpose that is the sin. Happily, there is always something unconvincing in such efforts. They inevitably fall flat, like a contrived moral attached to a fable so whole and complete that to comment on it seems superfluous, even sacrilegious.

Lee is present still, but not in the way other historical figures are. The mention of his name inevitably elevates, shaming his critics, calming his admirers, reminding all of what is truly important. Not victory or defeat but honor.

It's not clear just when the general left history and entered myth, but it is clear that he represents something more than the sum total of his battles or even his life. In the end, it is not what Lee did or did not do that explains his appeal. It is what he was, and still is. At least to some of us, the few of us left. You know who you are. And even if we were Legion, it would still feel as if we were few. Every January 19th, a stillness comes, and vainglory departs. A certain perspective sets in.

It is not his victories that elevate Lee. It is Lee who elevates his victories, and in the end elevates his defeat. It is his acceptance of all things with honor that makes the conventional meaning of victory and defeat inapplicable in his case. He was the same Lee after Chancellorsville as he was after Appomattox. Continued...