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There is no question that this is a book all citizens should read. Maybe they will then regard war as something that should be the last option, not the first. War is glamorized, when the reality is something else.
In Japan it is the samurai and his code; in America it is the pioneers, the adventurers, the men and women who fight our wars, and the war heroes. Unfortunately it is not a book that those in whom the Warrior Myth is most embedded, most especially our leaders and those dependent upon it for their livelihood, are likely to recommend or read. This is the myth that says that our side is goodness incarnate, and their side (the enemy) is evil incarnate and must (and will be) destroyed, since the gods (or God) is on our side (the side of virtue and goodness). Underlying the Warrior Myth are two underlying assumptions that are woven so tightly into it that they reveal the great myth that underlies and defines it. Set in medieval Wales at the time of the Plantagents, I read until I literally could not read any more.
In America's national myth, ugliness, brutality and meanness are denied, or are romanticized, explained away and justified. I recall reading "The Brothers of Gwynedd", three historical novels by British writer Edith Pargeter, and having to stop midway through the second novel because the stupidity and carnage of battle was too overwhelming. If you doubt this, look back over the past seven years of the Bush Administration's "war on terror", in which every single act, no matter how questionable legally, has been justified as right and good, and all who have questioned it declared to be irrelevant buffoons or traitorous. Love has power both to resist in our nature what we know we must resist, and to affirm what we know we musts affirm. The answer lies in the underlying myth that supports it, and has supported it, from the dawn of the human species.
"War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"Chris Hedges, Anchor Books, 2003Curious title, isn't it. We see it in familiar stories of great warriors, heroes, heroines and gods, all of whom fight great battles to defeat "the enemy". "Nothing," I told my wife, "has changed in the last five hundred years, nothing except our weapons, which are worse. One of the chapters, and the longest one (Chapter 4: "The Seduction of Battle and the Perversion of War") which shows graphically the lie of "purity" that is embedded in the Warrior Myth, was very difficult for me to read. Anyone who questions our collective behavior, motives and the Warrior Myth is labeled as foolish ord dangerous -- an enemy, an outsider who is, at best, shunned. The Warrior Myth devours the soul of our humanity, destroys countless lives (including those who return from combat, and those civilians who have survived it), and has morphed into a huge, powerful automated machine that has proven almost impossible to shut down because our society and our culture has become dependent on it.
We declare our motives to be pure, we set our heroes on pedestals, and we parade the veterans of our wars up and down streets on national holidays, all in the service of the great, underlying myth that we are paragons of virtue who do not and never have engaged in questionable or wrong behavior. If you don't think so, review the history of the past thirty years, or the past sixty years, in which our acts have uniformly been presented as necessary and good, and their acts as unnecessary and evil. This is the Warrior Myth, and it is part of every culture and society. It does not mean that we will avoid war or death. "To survive as a human being is possible," Hedges writes, "only through love. We must change ourselves before we destroy ourselves, either accidentally or on purpose." But, as Hedges and others show, the march goes on.What is the solution. A myth is a traditional story that is accepted as history, a story that explains the origins and the world view of a people. As Chris Hedges powerfully illustrates, it is destroying us and the planet on which we live.
It does not mean that we as distinct individuals will survive. If war is a force that gives us meaning, how does it give us meaning. And to recognize love in the lives of others -- even those with whom we are in conflict -- love that is like our own. And, when Thanatos" (the death instinct) "is ascendant, the instinct must be to reach out to those we love, to see in them all the divinity, pity, and pathos of the human. As a veteran war correspondent, he has lived it, and it shows. But love, in its mystery, has its own power. And love, as the poets remind us, is eternal" (pages 184, 185).This is an important book for your future and for mine, and for our grandchildren. In these tales, it is the warrior that is held up to be emulated by the young, especially young men.
It alone allows us to embrace and cherish life. Myth, and more particularly the Warrior Myth may make great drama, but it is lousy history. Myth is self-justifying, self-reifying.and in the case of the Warrior Myth, also self-destroying on a massive, impersonal scale."War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" is not an easy book to read, because Chris Hedges presents war in all its grisly, ugly and senseless detail. It alone gives us meaning that endures. But it is a must read for anyone who wants a better future for those we love.
Take a chance. The man knows whereof he speaks. I'm always interested in questioning assumptions; this book is guaranteed to shake up the way you think about war. If you don't want to read it you can listen to Mr Hedges reading it to you, Tantor has it in mp3 format. In a way, listening to him read his own work offers something extra.
You will not serve patriotism, nor any similar higher ideal. I believed in the myth, tried to live up to it, saw the myth come crashing down, and experience great trouble as a result.
As one could extrapolate from the title of the book, it is a force that gives us meaning. It provides a feeling of serving a higher, worthy, purpose, it provides in its life and death struggles a kinship felt nowhere else, and can become a powerful, addictive "narcotic." At the same time, in order to justify the inhumanity of war we exaggerate those positives to the point that they do effectively become a myth while ignoring the ugly (what Hedges terms "sensory") reality of war.
In this book Chris Hedges does an excellent job of describing what he accurately terms the "myth of war" and why that myth has been, and is, so prevalent in human culture. Those who have seen the "sensory reality" of war are ignored and vilified by the very people whom they volunteered to serve.This book means a lot to me because much of what he articulates has happened to me over the last several years.
Hedges argues that this myth is perpetuated willingly by the state because popular belief of this myth is required in order to provide willing volunteers for the meat grinder of combat, and my personal experience gives me cause to agree with his thesis.What I found most interesting are his words regarding what happens when the myth breaks down, both among those who have done the fighting and the society on whose behalf they fought. The collective amnesia, rewriting of history, all a willing coverup to protect the myth.
Unfortunately I believe that people like me are the only ones who will find value in this book, as the endurance of this myth throughout the entire history of human civilization gives me no cause to believe this myth will evaporate anytime soon.If I had any advice for someone who still believes in the myth, it would be this:Do not risk your life, based upon your limited, flawed, Hollywood understanding of battle and desire to fill the shoes of the "greatest generation" that lived before your own, in order to produce through force of arms the political aims of the powerful elite who control our government. You will serve only the murderous desire of your superiors at your own expense.
Chris Hedges isn't an armchair commentator. It provides a mirror to the bleakest parts of the soul of humanity. He gives the perspective of an observer thrust into the center of the maelstrom of war time and time again. Out of it he brought some new and powerful insights about why the human race -- even the supposedly most "civilized" elements -- hasn't been able to extract itself from the endless cycle of war. If enough of us would listen and understand, this book could begin a process to break the cycle. It's one of the most powerful anti-war books I've read.
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