celebration, then, that sociology departmentsnare now “thoroughly entrenched”nin the South’s major colleges and universities.nWhat is rather more certain is thatnin those regional institutions there arenfewer of the Howard Odum branch thannthere are thoroughgoing determinists.nThe distinction is one Davidson makesnbetween Odum and others when he seesnRupert Vance, Odum’s colleague andnanother of Mr. Reed’s mentors, as in thendeterministic camp. Mr. Reed recognizesna problem when, in lamenting the failurenof regional sociology as a disciplinenwithin the larger body, he calls it “annunstable and eclectic compound of Nco-nHegelianism and conservative SocialnDarwinism.” Unsound, he says, butn”perhaps worse, old-fashioned.” Butnsuch a mixture of philosophical groundsndoes not become sounder by being morensophisticated, which is to say, morenobscure in its philosophical position.nDespite the new technologies of abstractionism,nparticularly statistical refinements,nsociology has not changed innessence. It is still residually Hegelian.nN o wonder that Columbia Universitynproved more hospitable than VanderbiltnUniversity to the advent of departmentsnand schools of sociology. What then”Southerner” (and in my own essay innW^y the South Will Survive I examinenSolzhenitsyn as “Southerner”) recognizesnin the sociologist’s position as definednby Mr. Reed is that the “empiricalncases” with which he begins are alreadynan abstraction such as that Davis attemptsnto take advantage of in his popularization.nTheoretical categories arenmanufactured by the sociological mindnout of matter not fiiUy digested and bynthe justifications of Hegelian assumptionsnabout man in the world. A “Southerner”nrecognizes them viscerally. Then”underlying similarities,” in consequence,nare similarities of a gnostic manufacture;nabstractions are derived fromnabstractions and then reimposed uponnthe reality they are supposed to explain.nHometown is one example of such an approachnto the reality.nVr e concluded our atcount ofnDavis’s book with a prayer for our ownndeliverance. Here, let us rather pray fornour good neighbor’s delivery—JohnnShelton Reed’s—from entrapment inngnostic categories and for his return tonthe freedom of reality as he knows it deepndown. One has the feeling, particularlynin the essays of the final section, of a spiritnon the verge of discovering it has answeredna wrong professional calling ornhas wrongly answered a valid calling. Mr.nReed is a lover of trees who has come toonnear a slavery to board feet. But the sud­nPenny-Ante ControversiesnMarge Kerqr: Braided Lives; SummitnBooks; New York.nMargaret Atwood: Bodily Harm;nSimon & Schuster; New York.nGeorge Stade: Confessions of a Ladykiller;nAlpha Omega; Medford, OR.nby Edward J. Walshn1 he expiration of the deadline fornratification of the Equal Rights Amendmentnwas a tremendous blow to radicalnfeminism. A second ERA has been introducednin Congress, but it is seen fornthe transparent political sop that it is,nand has received almost no attention,neven from pro-ERA media outlets. Whyndid the ERA lose? Its supporters claimnthat it was murdered by male state legislatorsnwho want to keep women enslavednin the kitchen. State legislators usuallynvote in the direction of the most intensenpolitical pressure. In the case of the ERA,nopposition came from women in Illinois,nFlorida, North Carolina and everywherenelse. Phyllis Schlafly’s organization.nEagle Forum, is well known, and itncounted as allies millions of women whonMr. Walsh is a frequent contributor tonChronicles.nnnden intrusions of very concrete worlds intonhis essays, actions, and sayings are notnfiltered into a single voice, and they comenwith a sudden sense of excitement in thenessayist. He takes on the presence of witnessnrather than of surveyor. Mr. Reed’snobservations about the concreteness ofncountry music are illustrated persuasively.nHow close those songs often are tonwhere we live, to the realities oipersonsnand places rather than to individuals inncategories. From a cultivation of such insights,nMr. Reed, I think, will tell usnmany helpful things about what is goodnor bad in the South. Dnsaw the ERA for what it was: the symbolnof an alien culture. Unfortunately, moderatenwomen who genuinely want only tonimprove the conditions of poorer workingnwomen have been betrayed by thenfeminist radicals. The radicals themselvesnwere used as a kind of politicallynchic camouflage by another culturalngroup (or perhaps subgroup): womennwho write smutty books.nThe left-wing journal The Progressivendeclares that Marge Picrcy’s Braidednlives is the “familiar story of bohemianismnup against social convention madennew.” But there’s nothing new aboutnthis book, except maybe that it showsnliterary feminism to be a scam, a way fornradical women with literary aspirations tonget into print in the time-tested methodnof pulp novelists: write about sex. Piercynfalls into line. However, she also displaysnan unintended clownishness by pretendingnto a serious defense of women’sn”right” to abortion in a book in whichnthe ferhale characters copulate likenrabbits.nBraided Lives is the story of one JillnStuart’s odyssey fi^om an innocent girlhoodnin a conservative Detroit Jewishnhousehold in the 50’s to political awarenessnin the 60’s. Her father is a traditionalistndrudge whose back-breakingnblue-collar job puts Jill in touch withn•MHMlSOnJanuary 1083n