About book War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning (2003)
Curious title, isn't it? If war is a force that gives us meaning, how does it give us meaning? The answer lies in the underlying myth that supports it, and has supported it, from the dawn of the human species. This is the Warrior Myth, and it is part of every culture and society. We see it in familiar stories of great warriors, heroes, heroines and gods, all of whom fight great battles to defeat "the enemy". In these tales, it is the warrior that is held up to be emulated by the young, especially young men. 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. 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. 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). 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. Anyone who questions our collective behavior, motives and the Warrior Myth is labeled as foolish or dangerous -- an enemy, an outsider who is, at best, shunned. A myth is a traditional story that is accepted as history, a story that explains the origins and the world view of a people. In America's national myth, ugliness, brutality and meanness are denied, or are romanticized, explained away and justified. 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 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. Myth, and more particularly the Warrior Myth may make great drama, but it is lousy history. As Chris Hedges powerfully illustrates, it is destroying us and the planet on which we live. 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. 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. As a veteran war correspondent, he has lived it, and it shows. 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. 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. Set in medieval Wales at the time of the Plantagents, I read until I literally could not read any more. "Nothing," I told my wife, "has changed in the last five hundred years, nothing except our weapons, which are worse. 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? "To survive as a human being is possible," Hedges writes, "only through love. 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. And to recognize love in the lives of others -- even those with whom we are in conflict -- love that is like our own. It does not mean that we will avoid war or death. It does not mean that we as distinct individuals will survive. But love, in its mystery, has its own power. It alone gives us meaning that endures. It alone allows us to embrace and cherish life. Love has power both to resist in our nature what we know we must resist, and to affirm what we know we musts affirm. 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. 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. But it is a must read for anyone who wants a better future for those we love.
Chis Hedges was a war correspondent for the New York Times in many of the defining warzones of our times: the Balkans, Central America, and the Middle East. He has reported on wars from the inside, surviving ambushes, diving for cover alongside his military escorts, and witnessing the aftermath of every atrocity imaginable. The psychological scars from knowing the face of mass produced death are still with him. In his travels around the world he’s found a recurring dynamic at work, the addiction of soldiers and citizens to the ecstasy of war. Hedges covers this topic exclusively in his book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning.This book is journalistic, philosophical, and part social critique. It is effectiveness rests in analyzing the myth of war. He explains how it’s created, who perpetuates it, how it’s disseminated in society, what function it serves, its psychological effects, how it’s maintained, and what happens when it’s finally punctured by the undeniable reality of war. He cites his own experiences and the accounts of soldiers and citizens in war to illustrate where and how these recurring themes unfold in real life. These accounts include graphic accounts of murder, rape, torture, suicide, genocide that deflate the glorious lie which herds generations of men into battle. Yet amongst all this carnage there is a lust for combat and its incomparable rush that fills the emptiness felt by entire nations. No longer is anyone insignificant in the theater of war, we are elevated to the calling of destiny, and to push back against it feels almost impossible. To avoid its intoxicating effects is outright hopeless.I have often wondered how people I’ve greatly respected for their intelligence and wisdom, people I have personally known, would become incapable of discussing war in any rational way. Their responses on every aspect of the War on Terror would be variations of the empty, clichéd reasons parroted mainstream media; “they hate us for our freedom”, “Muslims are evil”, and “torture is permissible when we do it.” I wouldn’t accept such absurd reasons for going to war, and so I turned away from the news and began reading writers like Noam Chomsky who gave a grimmer picture of what’s going on. When I approached people with this newfound evidence they’d dismiss it all and hold tighter to robotic ways of thinking. I increasingly became an outsider, an intellectual minority. The whole time I’ve been wondering what this hypnotic like way of thinking is. Could it simply be effective propaganda? The answer is that war is a force that gives us meaning. It is a longing for death that is inside us all. We decorate and justify it with patriotic and glorious gestures, but that death drive is always there. This is a work that lays bare our naked desire for death and recognition. Nobody in our generation can afford to miss out on this highly enlightening work.
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This is a very well written book that explores and examines war, its meanings, reasons and justifications. It tries to take on all sides of war, the victors and the victims and how they view the outcome of their struggles. I liked how the author discussed the ways in which war allows those who wage it to see the world in as black and white, absolutes with little shades of gray in between. "They" are bad and "We" are good. This kind of thinking allows the suspension of introspection and make many feel free not to question their side. The author also discusses the veneration of "our" side and "our" deeds as noble and righteous while "their" side is evil and morally bankrupt, a fact that our news organizations, especially in America, further with their coverage. Wars become mythic in their essence as event are imbued with meanings that are supposed to signify something monumental(remember the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue?). This book cover so much and does it quite well. My biggest critique was that I felt that the author focused more on eastern europe, which is his area of speciality, more than he did any other place and that for me made it a little less comprehensive. Also he lacked a connective thread between the anecdotes relayed and it felt episodic in a non cumulative way. He also seemed to be trying too hard to reinforce his initial arguments in a way that made chapters despite being autonomous become repetitive. But this is a great book and I think it would be an enlightening read for most.
—Trishnyc
The imagery and polemic of this book are strong. His take on war is brutal and honest enough that I found myself deeply affected at many points. And his prose is wonderful. Ergo, I can't say I didn't like it, but I wanted to like it more than I did.But the style was off-putting to say the least. Like any good journalist, Hedges does an excellent job relaying experience and retelling stories from others. But each chapter is filled with episodes he recounts, that seem haphazardly thrown together. The thesis of the book (its title, but dripping in bitter irony) is repeated in different forms so often that I found myself wishing someone would just cut every tenth sentence. Each chapter, despite ostensibly having its own independent theme, seems to repeat much that belonged -- and was included -- in other chapters.Hedges' biggest problem is a failure to decide whether he wants to write a philosophical examination of war or an anecdotal, case study-driven book about it. I am moved by the anecdotes, and I find myself agreeing with his dispositional statements. I think Hedges is correct. The book just didn't build the case well.
—James
Read this book to be disturbed. The author is a seasoned war correspondent who's been in the thick of warfare from El Salvador and Guatemala to Iraq and Bosnia. It is an anti-war treatise by a man who admits being addicted to war.Hedges describes that he is "hooked" on the narcotic of war, on the rush that it gives. It's a world where power is all that matters. The meek do not inherit the Earth; they are murdered, and then often mutilated. The book is a philosophical inquiry into What War Is. It feels like it gives meaning to the lives of the men fighting it, he says, but it does so by playing to our most animal instincts, and by obscuring and numbing all that make our regular lives joyful. And by destroying individualism, turning people into objects, and life into a myth.I read the book with a yellow highlighter in one hand, to mark the passages that really stuck with me. One: "The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. . . . It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble." (page 3)Another: "Most of those who are thrust into combat soon find it impossible to maintain the mythic perception of war. . . . Wars that lose their mythic stature for the public, such as Korea or Vietnam, are doomed to failure, for war is exposed for what it is - organized murder." (page 21)Here is a description of what war does to us: Our minds, our culture, our love of our fellow man. It makes us lie to ourselves and to each other. The book was published in 2002, after the 9/11 attacks, and just on the eve of America's invasion of Iraq. It describes how a culture can censor itself into believing a great cause and squash the speech of any who disagree (e.g., Scott Ritter, or The Dixie Chicks). Another quote: "By destroying authentic culture - that which allows us to question and examine ourselves and our society - the state erodes the moral fabric. It is replaced with a warped version of reality. The enemy is dehumanized; the universe starkly divided between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. . . . Cultural or national symbols that do not support the crusade are often ruthlessly removed." (page 63)Genocide, ethnic cleansing, mutilation, the killing of innocents; it is all the side of war unseen to those supporting it. The war is enabled by myth, and the myth is a lie. The lie is captivating and grabs us all. Every nation feels like it is fighting the ultimate evil, and they have no choice but to defeat it. The war will only end when the lie has collapsed under overwhelming evidence - hard-fought, over a long time. All that is left when the lie disappears is guilt, and shame, and the holes in people's lives where loved ones used to be. And the anger of the victims: The seeds of the next war.
—Ryan
