I
struggled with finding a subject to write about this week, but, one excerpt did
echo in my head. An excerpt about war.
“It was my view then, and still is, that you
don’t make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect
but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence
in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can’t fix your mistakes. Once
people are dead, you can’t make them undead.”1
I
have never been to war, but there has never been peace in my country and I grew
up surrounded by voices of war and an abundance of war stories. This excerpt
caught my attention not only because of where I grew up and the daily “war
threat” issues I experience/d, but also due to one of the latest global
discussions: whether the powerful nations of the world should intervene in
Syria. I do not mean to involve politics, but rather to illustrate how this
book, and specifically this excerpt, from 1990, is even more relevant than when
it was written.
I
think that here, as in Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, O’Brien is trying to
teach us, to humor us, about a global “truth”. I believe they (both O’Briens)
talk about war, not as a metaphor, but as a constant in human life that cannot
be ignored. If war cannot be ignored, can
we even make a knowledgeable decision about it? Is war something that we choose or
is it something that chooses us, like an illness? Can we be immunized
against war? How can you define justice, a just cause, or even understand these
principles, when the way in which the war will end is unclear? How did the US
define its goal for the unexecuted operation to disarm Syria of its chemical
weapons? Why not try to end the civilian war altogether? Whether its chemical weapons
or artillery, people still die and “you can’t make them undead.”2
How can we define what is a humane way of being killed? And how does the world
determine if the consequences are worth the cause? These are the questions I
carry.
1The Things They Carried, O’Brien, pages
38-39
2The Things They Carried, O’Brien, page 39
*Thank you Burke and John for reviewing my post, and my dad for helping me develop my line of thought.
I like how you describe war as a constant in human life, but I do think you could use it as a metaphor to support your argument. One thing we all carry is conflict. Whether it be an internal decision, contrary ideas, physical feat etc. To support your argument that war is inherently inescapable, you could describe war as a metaphor for the inherent conflict between human beings. I think this conflict illustrates an aspect Vonnegut’s concept of dynamic tension. The conflict is always there, but under the surface, creating the tension. When the tension is loosened, that is when there is chaos; that is when we get vocalized conflicts like war.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree with Hannah about this, I'm actually going to comment about something else. I think it's really interesting that O'Brien makes this comment about something generally viewed and a pointless war. That and your comments made me think about the reasoning behind wars in general and what this could mean as far as O'Brien's point about systems and general. This and the idea that conflict is just another thing to be carried makes me wonder if this doesn't raise the question of why we carry things at all. Perhaps the argument is that we have to, but I wonder if perhaps there is a suggestion that we carry things without reasoning, but we simply assume we must carry them.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating post and I think you bring really interesting insight on the subject matter. I have been to Israel several times and have studied lots of Israeli history and politics and I see it that war is much more of a constant in the lives of Israeli citizens than it is for Americans. While Vietnam is thought of for many as a pointless war, I don't think Israel would ever say they fought a pointless war, nor would there be any negative stigma against the army, as exists in America, because every Israeli citizen serves. I think because of this war "carries" very different meanings for everyone and I think that is also what O'Brien is trying to allude to, as his stories carry weight for everyone, but in drastically different ways.
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