War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - Chris Hedges [78]
If anything welcome or pleasing, Calvus, can be felt
by silent tombs in answer to our grief,
from that painful longing in which we renew old loves
and weep for friendships we once cast away,
Surely Quintilia does not lament her early death
as much as she rejoices in your love.17
To survive as a human being is possible only through love. And, when Thanatos 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 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 must affirm. And love, as the poets remind us, is eternal.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Orwell, George, 1984 (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1949), P. 35.
2. Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Stanley Lombardo (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000), p. 138.
3. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), pp. 380–381.
4. García Márquez, Gabriel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (New York: Knopf, 1983).
CHAPTER 1
THE MYTH OF WAR
1. LeShan, Lawrence, The Psychology of War (New York: Helios, 1992), Chapter Two.
2. Weil, Simone, ‘The Iliad’ or ‘The Poem of Force,’ (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Pamphlet, 1993), p. 11.
3. Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida–“Dramatis Personae,” (Boston: Riverside Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin, 1974), p. 448.
4. Ibid., Act V, sc. ii, p. 486.
5. Caputo, Philip, Rumor of War (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1977), p. 345.
6. Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida, (Boston: Riverside Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin, 1974), Act I, sc. i, p. 450.
7. Mowat, Farley, And No Birds Sang (Toronto: Seal, 1987), p. 195.
8. Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida, (Boston: Riverside Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin, 1974), Act V, sc. viii, p. 490.
9. Weil, Simone, ‘The Iliad’ or ‘The Poem of Force’ (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Pamphlet, 1993), p. 36.
10. London Observer, November 18, 1822, quoted in Samuel Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale (New York: Penguin, 1997), p. 17.
11. Myrivilis, Stratis, Life in the Tomb (London: Quartet Books, 1987), p. 137.
12. Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 72.
13. Orwell, George, Homage to Catalonia, quoted by F. Dyson, Weapons and Hope (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), p. 129.
14. Lasch, Christopher, The Culture of Narcissism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979), pp. 7,15.
15. See Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One, Henry IV, Part Two, and Henry V.
CHAPTER 2
THE PLAGUE OF NATIONALISM
1. Kiš, Danilo, On Nationalism, in the Appendix to Mark Thompson’s A Paper House (London: Vintage, 1992), p. 339.
2. Todorov, Tzvetan, Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps (New York: Metropolitan /Owl Books, 1996), p. 228.
3. Levi, Primo, The Drowned and the Saved (I Sommersi e i Salvati) (London: Abacus, 1991), quoted by Todorov, Tzvetan, Facing the Extreme (New York: Metropolitan/Owl Books, 1996), p. 238.
4. Duras, Marguerite, The War: A Memoir (New York: Pantheon, 1986), p. 48.
CHAPTER 3
THE DESTRUCTION OF CULTURE
1. Ignatieff, Michael, The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), p. 56.
2. Shakespeare, William, Othello (Boston: The Riverside Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin, 1974), Act IV, sc. i.
3. Sachs, Susan, Newsday, October 22, 1995, p. A04.
CHAPTER 4
THE SEDUCTION OF BATTLE AND THE PERVERSION OF WAR
1. Bartov, Omer, Mirrors of Destruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 45.
2. Remarque, Erich Maria, All Quiet on the Western Front (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1975), p. 114.
3. Browning, Christopher, Ordinary