I know that irresponsible and
stupid war lovers, like William Randolph Hearst, do all they can to get the
rest of us to join them. I know
they appeal to primitive emotions, like the male desire to protect women and
children. I know all about how
Hearst got us to go to war with Spain by playing up the way dirty, mustachioed
Spanish men mistreated their sweet, innocent women. There it is on the front page of the New York Journal, a drawing of them strip-searching poor Clamencia
Arango, standing naked before them.
I am professionally against
appeals to the primitive emotions.
As an academic I taught appeals to reason. As an English teacher I taught students to analyze appeals,
exposing the irrational ones and developing the rational ones. My fellow teachers and I scorned all
experts in irrational appeal — Hearst, Murdoch, Limbaugh — and competed with
each other at lunch for the best example of their sob-sister absurdity and
danger. These heart-wringers were
our natural enemies. Educate
readers' hearts to be more careful and we'd drive them out of business.
Now, on the front page of
yesterday's New York Times, I see
this picture of Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old Muslim girl who wanted to go to
school in Taliban country. They
boarded her school bus and shot her.
I see big, strong, dirty, bearded men crowding past terrified little
children to get to her. In the
six-month-old picture the Times
supplied the eyes looking at me from under the headscarf are sweet and
gentle. There is none of the
exaggeration of the Journal picture
(which in crucial respects was false).
This happened as reported and the Taliban, through a spokesman, verified
it and claimed credit. "Let
this be a lesson."
Of course I want to go to war
against the Taliban, and what I want done to them in that war is inexpressible
in civilized language. I know
there are ironies in this but I don't care. If there are clever heart-tugs in this Times story too (as analysis would surely show) I don't want to
hear about them. Analyze,
schmanalyze. I want to castrate
these bastards.
Both the Journal and the Times
rouse me to defend women and children from foreign brutes but there is a
difference: the Journal rouses me to
a fight we can win. We so far outgun Spain that it will be a romp, a little
imperialist romp, a testosterone blowoff.
The Times rouses me to plunge
my country into a quagmire.
So I, the Times-reading
professor, am a more dangerous citizen than the Journal-reading lout.
Quagmires are worse than romps.
And my emotion — surely the best, the most humane— has to be suppressed
more firmly. Goodness has nothing
to do with danger.
OK, so I'll do my best to suppress
this good emotion. But you know
what? I already know I'm not going
to succeed. One glance at Malala's
picture tells me. Nature,
selecting for male protectiveness, is way ahead of me. And, I see, ahead of me not just on
this narrow front, but over the whole field, male aggressiveness.
Testosterone.
This whole thing, going to war, is
probably out of my hands. Professors
and louts, both helpless. Poets
too. Oh poets. A. E. Housman, living through the
height of British imperialism, saw his Shropshire lads marching to one war
after another, and grieved over their fate:
East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades
slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten,
None that go return again.
Yet he, lying on his "idle hill of summer," knows
he can't help joining them:
Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.
Opium War, Boer War, World War, First Crusade, Second
Crusade...you can't fight testosterone.
This was excellent and moving, thank you.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I read poetry or literature dealing with the travails of war I think of General Patton's "Through a Glass, Darkly". It is a reminder that some our species do not find mortal test of arms to be horror filled and tragic, that some of us actually relish it.
On the off change you have not read the poem, I'll just copy it here.
----
"Through a Glass, Darkly"
General George S. Patton, Jr.
Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
I have fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.
In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.
I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.
I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.
I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.
I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.
Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.
In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.
While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.
Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.
See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.
Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.
Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.
I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.
Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy's field I lay.
In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.
Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.
I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.
And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.
Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.
So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.
And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.
So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCan this be the Patton I read about in Time magazine, taking Palermo and breaking through at St. Lo? Time never mentioned this. But in '43 and '44 I guess there was no reason to. Thanks.
ReplyDelete