Why This War? Why Any War?
Those who continue to argue in favor of the
Iraq War seem incredulous that anyone could doubt its essential rightness and
gloriousness. Wasn't Saddam a uniquely evil dictator, and toppling him a supreme
good? Yes, there were no WMD, and due to Rumsfeld's theories about a "lean,
mean" military, there weren't enough invading troops when the government was
toppled to prevent looting everywhere and keep a resistance force from
organizing. But before long everything will get properly organized (somehow) and
that country will inevitably become a brilliant beacon of freedom in the Middle
East! Abu Ghraib? What was that? Almost everyone in the U.S. has forgotten about
it already. (And very few realize that the inhumanity it epitomized has been
much more widespread than that handful of incidents.)
And in any case, it is a well known fact, an a
priori truth impossible to doubt, that anyone who opposes a war while it is
being fought is nothing but a traitor and the source of all evil, whom all true
patriots and friends of liberty must shun and shout
down.
We "enlightened" opponents of the war may titter a bit at this attitude; we might be inclined to consider it rather cliched and philistine. But one thing we must never do is be surprised at it. Every war is accompanied by this fixed conviction, especially on the part of the civilians who stay and home and cheer from the sidelines, that it is the height of civilization and the epitome of all that is right and good.
There is little doubt that humans fought with each other in small groups even before war in the proper sense was invented, at the point that states were first organized in Sumer and other parts of the world. So the problem of overcoming the habits of war has been with us quite a while, and might well seem insoluble.
Humor may help. Mel Brooks, early in his career, had a routine called "The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Man," in which he played a surviving "cave man" who was interviewed by a reporter, played by Carl Reiner. "Do you remember how countries got started?" the reporter asked him. "Sure I do! We didn't have countries; we had caves. But they all had their flags and anthems." "Do you remember your cave's anthem? Could you sing some of it?" "Well, as I remember, it went something like this: 'They can all go to hell except for Cave Seventy-Six!' " [Not an exact quote from the routine, but as close as I can remember it. Get the DVD and check for yourself.]
The problem for sincere seekers of peace, as always, is to push, pull, or nudge a world divided into quarreling "caves" towards one in which allegiance to one's own cave is at least slightly less prominent in everyone's mind. Randolph Bourne, a World-War-I-era intellectual, confronted this same problem, and analyzed it in a brilliant series of writings, including War is the Health of the State, War and the Intellectuals, and Twilight of the Idols. Before the Internet, it was not easy to find these seminal essays in print, but we are fortunate today to be able to read them with a few mouse-clicks. Please do so, and take advantage of the wisdom this great American thinker, who sadly died at 32 in the flu epidemic of 1918, can still give us.
Besides these links, visit the Randolph Bourne Institute site, as well as Antiwar.com, one of its projects.
We "enlightened" opponents of the war may titter a bit at this attitude; we might be inclined to consider it rather cliched and philistine. But one thing we must never do is be surprised at it. Every war is accompanied by this fixed conviction, especially on the part of the civilians who stay and home and cheer from the sidelines, that it is the height of civilization and the epitome of all that is right and good.
There is little doubt that humans fought with each other in small groups even before war in the proper sense was invented, at the point that states were first organized in Sumer and other parts of the world. So the problem of overcoming the habits of war has been with us quite a while, and might well seem insoluble.
Humor may help. Mel Brooks, early in his career, had a routine called "The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Man," in which he played a surviving "cave man" who was interviewed by a reporter, played by Carl Reiner. "Do you remember how countries got started?" the reporter asked him. "Sure I do! We didn't have countries; we had caves. But they all had their flags and anthems." "Do you remember your cave's anthem? Could you sing some of it?" "Well, as I remember, it went something like this: 'They can all go to hell except for Cave Seventy-Six!' " [Not an exact quote from the routine, but as close as I can remember it. Get the DVD and check for yourself.]
The problem for sincere seekers of peace, as always, is to push, pull, or nudge a world divided into quarreling "caves" towards one in which allegiance to one's own cave is at least slightly less prominent in everyone's mind. Randolph Bourne, a World-War-I-era intellectual, confronted this same problem, and analyzed it in a brilliant series of writings, including War is the Health of the State, War and the Intellectuals, and Twilight of the Idols. Before the Internet, it was not easy to find these seminal essays in print, but we are fortunate today to be able to read them with a few mouse-clicks. Please do so, and take advantage of the wisdom this great American thinker, who sadly died at 32 in the flu epidemic of 1918, can still give us.
Besides these links, visit the Randolph Bourne Institute site, as well as Antiwar.com, one of its projects.
Posted: Sun - April 17, 2005 at 01:45 AM | |
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Published On: Dec 09, 2005 10:19 PM
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