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Title: War's Culture
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Published: May 10, 2009
Author: Maggie Macary
Post Date: 2009-05-10 21:15:19 by Turtle
Keywords: None
Views: 92
Comments: 4
Paul Krugman, an Op-Ed Columnist for the NYTimes wrote today about Mythic Reality and war. Quoting a book by Chris Hedges, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Krugman comments: War, Mr. Hedges says, plays to some fundamental urges. 'Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours,' he says, 'is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver.' When war psychology takes hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a 'mythic reality' in which our nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who isn't our ally is our enemy. This state of mind works greatly to the benefit of those in power. Krugman: A Mythic Reality You know anything that talk about Mythic Reality is going to get my attention. So I sought out more information about Mr. Hedges book and came across this interview with him at TomPain.com. Hedges is talking about a lot of the same things I am discussing here, the myths of war and how they dominate in a culture (Hedges says they destroy culture, but I'm not sure I agree with that point). Here is what he says about the myth we are currently engaged in: We become the embodiment of light and goodness. We become the defenders of civilization, of all that is decent. We are more noble than others. We are braver than others. We are kinder and more compassionate than others -- that the enemy at our gate is perfidious, dark, somewhat inhuman. We turn them into two-dimensional figures. I think that's part of the process of linguistically dehumanizing them. And in wartime, we always turn the other into an object, and often, quite literally, in the form of a corpse (Hedges) It turns out that Hedges is not merely a veteran war correspondent, he is also a graduate of Harvard's Divinity School and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his participation in war coverage. Part of Hedges' discussion is about the love of war. Which is, a favorite subject of James Hillman. Hillman's most recent book, A Terrible Love of War reminds us that War and Love, go hand in hand in mythology, paired as Ares and Aphrodite. Both of these immortals represent a desire and a passion that is irrational and life-changing. But it goes deeper than merely passion. Ares & Aphrodite represent social constructs that seem outside of culture (and thus they are civilized in Hephastus' golden net in the Odyssey). But the truth is, war and love and their entanglement is at the roots of Western culture. Who you went to war with and how you treated them had to do with whether or not you would exchange women. That is a cultural construct that is deeply embedded in our notions of war. It is, I contend, a central construct of cultural itself. We can no more give up wars than we can give up love. Both are pathological. George W. Bush's Acceptance Speech 2004In this regard, I'm not convinced, as Hedges suggests, that war destroys culture. I would rather say that war reveals culture and that Western culture is itself a war culture. Our western ego with its self-other split reacts favorable to the passionate stirrings of war, easily jumps on the notion of "the other" as the "evil other". And this experience of the abject other fuels our passions. If you have any doubt of this, look at how the Republican convention highlighted itself as a war party and how favorably the people responded to the images of a war-time president whose decisions must be supported at all costs. The selection of John Kerry as the opponent of George W. Bush reflects an idea of warrior versus warrior in a timeless battle for leadership of the troops. The stirring of war-time images interwoven with patriotic images is a staple or our culture. There is no doubt in my mind, that our culture loves war, thrives on war, and develops around the notion of war. Myths of war foster the adoration and the illusions of a nationalist fervor that becomes pathological in its excesses. The images and our reactions to those images reveal the truth of what we as a culture, really are about. The truth is, we abhor peace.
Poster Comment: This was written a few years ago by the late Maggie Macary. One thing that she did not comment upon is that Ares was a coward. One interpretation is that those who love war are cowards, although I believe it's only those who love it from afar, i.e. Chickenhawks. And I think the proper term would be "lust," not "love."
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#1. To: Turtle (#0)
have you noticed how often the president is referred to as the Commander in Chief? this essay reminds me Randolph Bourne's, War is the Health of the State.
The smooth criminal transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama
Casting call now open for: Gray Skies, Bare Trees, and a Jewess.
Men love war because it gives them meaning, importance, and community -- the feeling of living on the edge and feeling truly, intensely alive. That's why the Greeks were tight -- Ares is associated with Aphrodite. Love and war (or as I commented, Lust and War). The Bible's right about "the lust of the eye." Even those jarheads understood it when they called it "eye fucking." Same thing. Now that I think about it, Athena, was the the Goddess of technology, was also associated with Ares, although she despised him, as all the Greed gods did (I think she was Ares half-sister). So there is a relationship between between technology, war, and the love of it. The more advanced the technology, the worse the wars.
I think that's also a large part of the attraction of cities for some.
I love lilacs.
#2. To: Turtle (#0)
#3. To: Prefrontal Vortex, christine (#2)
(Edited)
Dancing Turtles and Bouncing Boobs
...that's Turtle Island.
#4. To: Turtle (#3)
"the lust of the eye."
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