"And is he a man to encounter Tybalt?"
(For Sean, Chase, and all my former students now serving our country in the military.)
Last week I was subjected to a rapper’s hyperbolical and foul-mouthed diatribe against U.S. Military recruitment on high school campuses. The rapper made a variety of false claims, the central ones being a) that a cynical U.S. Government uses false pretenses to trick American teenagers into joining the U.S. Military, b) that these duped teenagers are sent to foreign countries to kill innocent families and to be killed, and c) that if only we all say no to campus recruitment, military service, and war, there will be no wars.
The rap song was applauded by a number of seniors who attend a comfortable college prep school in a wealthy and relatively safe neighborhood and who look forward to entering good colleges, graduate schools, and professional careers without the help of the military. Of the military’s part in ensuring their ability to pursue their careers under the rule of law and free from persecution they seem less than fully aware. I found myself hoping that they would remember their history before we are all condemned to repeat it.
Several days later, I had to pick up a book at the local upscale mall where many of these same seniors often shop. There I saw a clerk with a huge red-and-green spiked Mohawk haircut, another clerk with metal-studded black leather clothing and a metal-studded face, a bevy of barely-teen girls in “goth” costume giggling pseudo-witchcraft cant about evil spirits, and hundreds of people between the ages of twelve and thirty wandering into shops to buy overpriced trinkets and clothing imprinted with cartoon images of skulls and monsters.
According to the pop voice of teenage rebellion, we are to believe that war is never a defensive action against villains who wish to oppress or destroy us and other civilized peoples, that if only imperialistic corporate America would behave itself, the Stalinist and jihadist dictatorships of the world would magically shrivel up and blow away. At the same time, America (by this reasoning) having no real enemies, we seem to need instead to cultivate imaginary enemies, like those pictured in the video games, movies, tattoos, 35-dollar T-shirts, and extra-terrestrial costumes that constitute the lucrative entertainments of the malls.
So I ask myself: Is this a culture to encounter the likes of Osama bin Laden or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Romeo did not wake up to the real threat of Tybalt until Tybalt killed Romeo’s friend Mercutio. Mercutio was killed partly because Tybalt was angry and vengeful and partly because he himself was equally rash. But Mercutio died also because Romeo, blissfully in love himself, thought he could prevent others’ violence by being nice. Tybalt stabbed Mercutio under Romeo’s peace-seeking arm.
To be sure, the quarrel between the Montagues and the Capulets was frivolous and unnecessary. But that didn’t make Tybalt any the less deadly. And though Shakespeare, like our rapper, also hated futile and avoidable quarrels, he recognized, as the rapper does not, that not all wars are rooted in such quarrels. Some wars are caused by the evil ambitions of men like Macbeth and Richard III and need to be fought in the name of justice and of that true peace which is not merely appeasement.
We all hate war and would rather avoid it. But there are wars of villainous aggression and wars of legitimate defense as well as wars based on frivolous quarrels. The refusal to distinguish between them invites conquest and catastrophe.
Plenty of young people in our society die for pleasures promised by drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex, mechanical velocity, and street-gang revenge of the sort indulged in by Tybalt and Mercutio. Where are the rappers crying over their deaths? Where are the rappers praising the real courage and sacrifice of the men and women who risk their lives to defend our freedom to say whatever we like about the military and to buy and wear whatever we like at the mall?
A society whose young men are taught that no honorable common cause is worth dying for is not likely to put an end to war. It is far more likely either to collapse of its own self-indulgence or to be overrun by a society whose young men are willing to die—and to kill—for the worst causes of all.
Last week I was subjected to a rapper’s hyperbolical and foul-mouthed diatribe against U.S. Military recruitment on high school campuses. The rapper made a variety of false claims, the central ones being a) that a cynical U.S. Government uses false pretenses to trick American teenagers into joining the U.S. Military, b) that these duped teenagers are sent to foreign countries to kill innocent families and to be killed, and c) that if only we all say no to campus recruitment, military service, and war, there will be no wars.
The rap song was applauded by a number of seniors who attend a comfortable college prep school in a wealthy and relatively safe neighborhood and who look forward to entering good colleges, graduate schools, and professional careers without the help of the military. Of the military’s part in ensuring their ability to pursue their careers under the rule of law and free from persecution they seem less than fully aware. I found myself hoping that they would remember their history before we are all condemned to repeat it.
Several days later, I had to pick up a book at the local upscale mall where many of these same seniors often shop. There I saw a clerk with a huge red-and-green spiked Mohawk haircut, another clerk with metal-studded black leather clothing and a metal-studded face, a bevy of barely-teen girls in “goth” costume giggling pseudo-witchcraft cant about evil spirits, and hundreds of people between the ages of twelve and thirty wandering into shops to buy overpriced trinkets and clothing imprinted with cartoon images of skulls and monsters.
According to the pop voice of teenage rebellion, we are to believe that war is never a defensive action against villains who wish to oppress or destroy us and other civilized peoples, that if only imperialistic corporate America would behave itself, the Stalinist and jihadist dictatorships of the world would magically shrivel up and blow away. At the same time, America (by this reasoning) having no real enemies, we seem to need instead to cultivate imaginary enemies, like those pictured in the video games, movies, tattoos, 35-dollar T-shirts, and extra-terrestrial costumes that constitute the lucrative entertainments of the malls.
So I ask myself: Is this a culture to encounter the likes of Osama bin Laden or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Romeo did not wake up to the real threat of Tybalt until Tybalt killed Romeo’s friend Mercutio. Mercutio was killed partly because Tybalt was angry and vengeful and partly because he himself was equally rash. But Mercutio died also because Romeo, blissfully in love himself, thought he could prevent others’ violence by being nice. Tybalt stabbed Mercutio under Romeo’s peace-seeking arm.
To be sure, the quarrel between the Montagues and the Capulets was frivolous and unnecessary. But that didn’t make Tybalt any the less deadly. And though Shakespeare, like our rapper, also hated futile and avoidable quarrels, he recognized, as the rapper does not, that not all wars are rooted in such quarrels. Some wars are caused by the evil ambitions of men like Macbeth and Richard III and need to be fought in the name of justice and of that true peace which is not merely appeasement.
We all hate war and would rather avoid it. But there are wars of villainous aggression and wars of legitimate defense as well as wars based on frivolous quarrels. The refusal to distinguish between them invites conquest and catastrophe.
Plenty of young people in our society die for pleasures promised by drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex, mechanical velocity, and street-gang revenge of the sort indulged in by Tybalt and Mercutio. Where are the rappers crying over their deaths? Where are the rappers praising the real courage and sacrifice of the men and women who risk their lives to defend our freedom to say whatever we like about the military and to buy and wear whatever we like at the mall?
A society whose young men are taught that no honorable common cause is worth dying for is not likely to put an end to war. It is far more likely either to collapse of its own self-indulgence or to be overrun by a society whose young men are willing to die—and to kill—for the worst causes of all.
posted by G.Rap | 9:36 PM
4 Comments:
Dr. Rappaport,
The "rapper" you are referring to is Ryan Harvey, a folk artist and member of the Riotfolk Collective. It is his spoken-word piece, "A Heart That Beats No More", that you have taken exception to. I have e-mailed Ryan a copy of your entry, and have invited him to reply to it.
Your points about street-gang culture are well-founded: I myself am perplexed at the demi-god statuses of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. However, I am not sure I understand your assertion that society teaches young men like myself that "no honorable common cause is worth dying for." My grandfather was one of the first men in San Diego to enlist and fight in World War II. If I were to ever feel my country, my family, and my beliefs were at risk, I would immediately join the armed forces. I would have fought in World War II with pride. I believe that Ryan and many other artists are conveying the message that the war in Iraq is not a war for freedom. If you can conclusively prove to me that the war in Iraq is one worth dying for, one that Senators and Congressmen would have their children shipped overseas for, then I will enlist. If you can prove that the country was not misled about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, then sign me up for the Marines. "The pop voice of teenage rebellion" may indeed claim the idealistic views you state; the true voice of "teenage" rebellion (the very statement reeks of ageism) strikes much closer to reality.
I agree that $35 is a ludicrous amount for a t-shirt, but I am not certain that I play videogames or enjoy Star Wars for some sort of need for imaginary conflict and opposition. Believe me, the fog of war rarely clears from the battlefield of my mind, multivariate ideas whizzing like bullets towards preconceived notions, often missing but occasionaly piercing through in blasts of insight. I have no argument with your position on malls; I view shopping as a maudlin task, hardly one to be enjoyed and looked forward to. But what is wrong with someone sporting a colored mohawk? What is the problem with piercings and black leather clothing? Do you truly think that the pre-teen girls you saw at the mall were Wiccans? You seem to be attacking specific cultural/musical subcultures, namely punk and goth. As a fan of both genres, I'll have you know that there is far less to fear from a goth girl than your average sorority co-ed or fraternity member. American society, youth culture in particular, is self-indulgent and excessive, and quite liable to collapse upon itself. Nevertheless, if you were to study a few of the tenets of the subcultures your mall patrons are apparent members of, you would find that it is exactly this exorbitance that punks and goths are reacting to. It has always perplexed me that people skim over the all-too-clear debauchery of the "mainstream" teenager to criticize those who have found a seperate outlet. Sentimentalism is dangerous, rebellion without a cause is wasteful, and yet outright hedonism, in my opinion, is a far worse cancer to society. It's easy to point an accusatory finger at those who dress and act differently. Cartoon and monster images on clothing are vacuous, but the average Abercrombie or Hollister shirt bear sexually suggestive slogans that are sure to land wearers in the Second Circle.
Response to Dave:
Thanks to your email, Ryan Harvey did respond to my blog. Some of his comments and my responses follow. Thanks to Dave for putting us in touch.
Dave writes, “I am not sure I understand your assertion that society teaches young men like myself that ‘no honorable common cause is worth dying for.’” What I wrote was, “A society whose young men are taught that no honorable common cause is worth dying for is not likely to put an end to war.” Our society is divided, obviously. My comment was directed at the society that Ryan Harvey’s rap implied would be preferable to the one we have. I am glad that Dave would be willing to fight in a good cause, and obviously many of our fellow citizens feel that way. The disagreement lies in whether the present conflict is a good cause.
Obviously good and patriotic people may disagree on the validity of our fighting in Iraq. I happen to believe that we were not lied to about the potential for WMD’s in the hands of Saddam Hussein and that though the war is not going as well as it might have had we been smarter about our enemies, it is nonetheless a necessary struggle against a growing strategic threat not only to our own society but to the West’s commitment to religious, political, and other (including academic) freedom. Our invasion of Iraq, like that of the English into Scotland in Shakespeare’s MACBETH, was not a war of imperialist aggression or revenge but one of justice. And our remaining there, trying to find a way to help a nascent democracy survive in an atmosphere of sectarian and tribal violence and revenge, is not only a noble effort but a strategically important one. I see failure here as hastening a third world war of unimaginable destructiveness. Of course I could be wrong. No one knows the future. But even one who believes the war to be folly need not accuse all those who believe otherwise of cynical carelessness about the lost lives of our soldiers, as Ryan Harvey implies about the U.S. government and military.
As for teen culture, I am certainly not going to defend hedonism. Nor am I much worried about any real movement toward witchcraft. I am not afraid OF these teenage girls but afraid FOR them, and for their future children. Dave writes, “Nevertheless, if you were to study a few of the tenets of the subcultures your mall patrons are apparent members of, you would find that it is exactly this exorbitance that punks and goths are reacting to.” I agree. But it is just their reaction that indicates what is wrong with the culture, and their reaction to it is no improvement. The embrace of this darkness of clothing, monsters, and self-mutilation is not only a reaction against Abercrombie hedonism but a dramatic sign of it. The problem is that we have no either/or here but both/and. These “subcultures” (to glorify them more than they deserve) move kids in the direction of deeper despair, not of some valid alternative. I do not blame the kids. I do partly blame the adult promoters of the music they listen to.
Accused of corrupting the youth, Socrates asked, “why would I want to live in a polis of which the youth had been corrupted?” Our entertainment moguls—selling sexual license and valueless despair whether in Abercrombie ads or goth T-shirts or “reality TV” or the majority of movies, CDs, and video games—make billions of dollars by appealing to the lowest things in defenseless youth, believing that they themselves will be safe in their gated mansions from the corruption they foment for the sake of their own version of the very self-indulgent hedonism that characterizes the shoppers and anti-shoppers Dave mentions.
I am not “ageist.” I am not attacking the youth. I’m trying to defend them against the forces, both within and without them, bent on their destruction.
The following are some excerpts from Ryan Harvey’s comment. I’ve excerpted them because the whole comment is a long anti-American diatribe containing historical interpretations and inaccuracies I don’t wish to bore my readers with or even to publicize. However, those points that bear responding to I offer as written:
Mr. Harvey writes, “A student sent me a link to your article about my poem and your blog. I thought I would respond and give you some of my personal feedback. First off, I was surprised that you said my arguments were ‘false claims’, as they are opinions not facts.”
Mr. Harvey calls the words of his song “opinions” rather than “facts” because he knows that “everyone is entitled to his or her opinion” is a sacred text for Americans. I called them false claims because the words of the song stated what the American military as a whole was doing. If I say “America is sending me to war to destroy innocent families,” I am not merely expressing an opinion. I am stating what I believe to be a fact that I want you to believe too. If it were a fact, fine. But it is not. It is an opinion stated as if a fact, and therefore I call it a false claim.
Mr. Harvey goes on to describe the unfortunate cases of four young veterans he knows who were recruited out of high school and are now suffering from homelessness, lack of work, and post-traumatic stress. He recommends we read about “veterans against the war.” To this I respond that I am sorry they are suffering, both from their own personal agonies and from disillusionment about the validity of the war. But the suffering of these particular individuals cannot be grounds for being against the war. War is hell. No one denies that. A war is not justified by whether the returning soldiers have had not too unpleasant a time of it. To send young men to war is the most agonizing duty of a government, and to fight in war is the most agonizing thing that can happen to a young man. No one comes out of either situation unscathed. But the degree of those agonies does not determine whether or not the war is worth fighting. That can be decided only by political wisdom, not by measure of the amount of pain.
Mr. Harvey also points out that there are recruiters who lie or exaggerate to prospective enlistees about what the military will do for them later. I grant it. But his accusation was sweeping, a broad generalization tarring every recruiter and every enlistee with the same brush. I realize he was engaging in hyperbole for political purposes. He is against the war. Fine. But his song ignores and so denies the reality of those military personnel who choose to join up, some to become recruiters, with their eyes open, not for what they can get out of the military but for the fulfillment of a felt duty to their country. He may believe they are wrong. But that does not make them either liars or dupes.
Mr. Harvey gives the example of Steve, not a cold-blooded killer, who in Iraq had to kill teenagers and watch his best friend be killed, and who asked a crowd (presumably at a Ryan Harvey concert) “how do you tell your mother that you shot a child in the face?” Harvey claims the killing of innocents in Iraq to be common, not the exception, and quotes the Johns Hopkins University estimate of the death toll among Iraqis as a result of the war. To this I have to say again that no one thinks war, even just war, is not hell. In every war, just and unjust, there will be errors, horrors, avoidable deaths and unavoidable killing of innocents. But the Johns Hopkins figure has been seriously disputed by reputable organizations, and the vast majority of the killings in Iraq have been those committed by Iraqis against one another: Sunnis against Shias, and vice versa. The reason we are there is to try to substitute such barbaric carnage with a civil government that trains its people to work out differences civilly without succumbing to the barbarism of either Baathist-Stalinist dictatorships (like Saddam’s or Assad’s in Syria) or Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
Mr. Harvey goes on to claim that “the war is about killing massive amounts of people and securing the country for U.S. companies” like Halliburton. From there he launches into a standard Marxist diatribe against America of the kind we hear from the far left regularly. I don’t want to enter into a debate with that viewpoint here. Read David Horowitz’s book called LEFT ILLUSIONS.
Next Mr. Harvey offers this wisdom from a veteran: “Tariq, a student and veterans who I travelled with [sic], explains how the military completely breaks down the individual. You cant question the war, the president or give your real opinions publicly on base about anything political that might question the military way. You have no freedom of speech, movement or expression. You are offered a choice on Sundays during basic to either go to a Christian church or clean the barracks. Tariqs says ‘How can people with no freedom go and give other people freedom? That’s ridiculous.”
I would say that it is ridiculous to think that ANY military organization could possibly operate without a strict code of discipline, or that war has never resulted in freedom. Mr. Harvey says, “Freedom doesn’t derive from soldiers with machine guns, it derives from social movements struggling for justice in their communities. Sometimes these groups are armed, but usually they are unarmed and even pacifistic. Slavery in this country was not abolished when some invading army came and killed or imprisoned all the slave-holders.”
This is such simplistic thinking that I don’t know how to begin responding. Of course war never happens in the absence of social and political movements. But who says it does? But to imagine that slavery would have been abolished without the North’s winning of the Civil War is simply moronic. It was the winning of the war that allowed those social organizations that wished to give former slaves a humane future to succeed in the long run.
Says Mr. Harvey, “No one thinks Stalinist or fascist dictatorships just shrivel up and die, but a lot of people agree that it [is] not a government[’]s role to intervene in the affairs of other places. While the example of Hitler is nothing I would argue with you about, the examples of many others are much more comparable to Saddam Hussein. . . . Milosevic wasn’t overthrown by a war (though we tried that...) but by students and workers who united in the streets, with the police and military breaking ranks at the end and joining the movement.”
Again, this is shallow. It certainly is our business to intervene in the affairs of other places if we offer the only hope of those places for redemption from genocidal violence and if we can do it successfully. Mr. Harvey wants the U.S. Military to intervene in Darfur. He seems to ignore the fact that our interference succeeded in World War II (about which he doesn’t want to argue, I hope not because he thinks, especially after Pearl Harbor, we should have stayed out of that one), that U.S. military strength, this time NOT having to fight, brought down the Berlin Wall, that we saved great numbers of Bosnians from annihilation at the hands of Milosevic. Does he really think those students and workers would possibly have succeeded if there had been no war? Does he think the Afghanis should have been left to overthrow the Taliban with “social movements”?
There follows a litany of America’s sinful “track record,” as interpreted by the standard leftist propaganda. We have propped up a long list of evil dictators. He ignores the particular situation of the various times he is talking about, the Cold War, and so on. Certainly the U.S. has at times been guilty of the unjust propping of unjust men, nor have our reasons always been savory. But please, compared to any other country in the world, the U.S. has engaged in by far the most humanitarian actions, both peaceful and military, of any nation in the history of the world, and since the 19th Century we have not done so for territory or to convert people to any religion or to rule the world. We have done so, admittedly not entirely, but mostly, out of our faith in the value of the human individual, of democracy, and of freedom.
Yes we have failed time after time to live up to our own ideals. But name a nation that has done any better or has not done far worse. No such nation exists. The list of America’s damnable actions would have more force if there were any serious comparison offered to the behavior of the other nations of the world throughout history. But no such real historical consciousness counts for the leftist anti-Americans of Mr. Harvey’s ilk. All other nations are to be left to their own devices, and only America is to blame.
Mr. Harvey reveals his political-agenda driven imagination in refusing to address my example from Shakespeare. “I'm not going to responded to your Romeo and Juliet paragraphs because I don’t seem [sic] them as relevant. This is a fictional story written long ago. My stories are derived from real people right now.” So much for the power of art to illuminate life.
Mr. Harvey then exposes his and his friends’ abysmal ignorance of history. “You show me a war of ‘legitimate defense’ in the modern era and I'll consider the idea. Neither myself nor my Iraq Vet friends could name one. If the U.S. intervened in the genocide in Darfur perhaps I’d say something different, but the U.S. doesn’t do things like that obviously... so it’s a bit of a mute [sic] point.”
America doesn’t do things like that, like spend billions in foreign aid each year, or help people recover from Tsunamis and earthquakes and so on. Ok. Let’s look at wars of legitimate defense (not just American because Mr. Harvey is suggesting NO war is legitimate): The American Revolution (defense of freedom from tyranny), the British and Russian war against Napoleon (defense against tyranny), the American Civil War (defense of the union and of black slaves from slavery), World War II (defense of civilization against pseudo-religious genocidal totalitarian barbarism), the Israeli War of Independence (defense of a UN-established free country against annihilation), Korean War (defense of free Korea against Chinese communist totalitarianism of the kind that has given us North Korea), the Cold War (defense of Western democracies against Soviet communist totalitarianism), the Israeli Six-Day War (defense of the existence of the only democracy in the Middle East against annihilation), the Yom Kippur War (defense of the only democracy in the Middle East against annihilation), the first Iraq war (defense of free Kuwait and of the oil interests of the free world against a Stalin-style Baathist dictator threatening to hamper international trade), Bosnia (defense of Muslim minorities against ethnic cleansing), Panama (defense of free world trade against totalitarian dictator), Afghanistan (defense of America against further terrorist attacks and of Afghanis against religious totalitarian brutality), and second Iraq war (protection of the free world from being held hostage to Stalin-style Baathist dictator with WMDs).
Mr. Harvey asks “how much hiphop have you heard? Hiphop is full of people talking about the dangers of the drug-game, the dangers of HIV/AIDs, the injustices of the prison industry and the creation of ghettos by slumlords and real estate developers and praise for street heroes like the black panthers who offered hope to the oppressed in this country.” I am all for talking about the dangers of drugs and HIV and about the real injustices in the prison system and about the real crimes of slum lords and real estate developers. I’m glad if that’s what the hiphop artists are doing. But slum lords don’t create slums alone, and not all real estate developers are villains. The devil is in the details, and Mr. Harvey, awash in Marxist rhetoric and class-struggle historical analyses, can see nothing of America but evil empire. And calling the now utterly discredited and murderous Black Panthers “street heroes” shows how steeped is Mr. Harvey in leftist “political correctness.”
Consistency in hating America is his purpose. Not, however, consistency in argument. For after telling us that it is “not a government[’]s role to intervene in the affairs of other places,” he condemns the U.S. for not condemning the Mexican government’s suppression of the “Democratic Teachers Movement” in Oaxaca, or, presumably, for not acting to support that movement. With what? With soldiers? In short, by definition the wars America does fight are imperialist; the wars we don’t (but should) fight are not.
Mr. Harvey concludes as follows: “Sorry to rant but that's the situation. I hope you take what I say seriously and consider some of my points... A student from my high school was killed in Iraq early on, and 3 others from my town have suffered the same fate. A very close friend, my old childhood neighrbor who taught me how to tie my shows, was killed July 26th. I am not a stranger to this war. These are unacceptable deaths and we are socially responsible to our friends, neighbors and our students to understand the situations we may be encouraging them to particiapte in...[sic].
Ryan Harvey”
Well, Mr. Harvey, I agree it was a rant; I have considered your points; I am very very sorry that your friends were killed; I completely agree that we are socially responsible for the good of our whole community, both friends and others; and I agree that we ought to understand the situations we may be encouraging them to participate in.
Where we differ is in what it means to “understand.” To you it means seeing every fact in the light of almost religious anti-American fervor born of Marxism and living on despite the profound alterations in the larger picture of the world we live in. To me it means trying to remain just in a world that has always been unjust and to foster the best American ideals that many have died to preserve in the face not only of greed at home but of the far worse tyrannies of nihilism, fascism, communism, and fanaticism abroad.
Time alone will tell whether or not our war in Iraq will have led to the betterment of mankind. And disagreement over whether we should be there, in the absence of prophetic powers, is perfectly understandable. But to engage in the kind of rhetoric that reduces to nothing the heroism and self-sacrifice of those who still believe that America is the best hope for the world, to imply that anyone serving in the U.S. military is either a fraud or a dupe, is to become exactly the kind of truth-bending, self-serving propagandist you claim to hate when it is spoken by those in uniform. I hope you will yourself take what you say more seriously. Get past your temptation to propagandize and try, for a change, to sing the truth. It’s a lot harder to do. But it’s the only way to decrease rather than increase the likelihood of yet another war.
Ryan Harvey, our friendly anti-war rapper, whom I respect for the pain he has suffered and for his willingness to discuss these matters, has responded to my last comment. My response follows:
Dear Ryan,
Thanks for your comment. Let’s look at your points one by one:
“The thing is . . . violence just leads to more violence. If hippies taught me anything it’s that Jesus talked a fair amount about the futility of violence.”
It is true that violence leads to violence. But not all violence is the same. Some violence can be stopped by non-violence, for example the British Raj in India, or the violence against African-Americans in the post-Civil-War American South. However, the non-violence of Gandhi and of Martin Luther King, Jr., worked because the oppressors remained civilized people who could be shamed by the non-violence of the oppressed. But to recommend non-violence to Jews in Nazi Germany or the millions liquidated at the hands of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, or Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and Yassir Arafat, is not only immoral but nearly psychotic. Sometimes the ONLY way to defeat evil violence is to fight.
It is true that Jesus taught non-violence. But he was preaching an ideal spiritual path to a powerless minority. Against the Roman legions no violence could possibly have achieved anything. But as St. Augustine realized when Christians themselves began to rule the Roman empire several hundred years later, rulers MUST use temporal power justly against villains who would use it unjustly against the innocent.
“As a man who has never been in war do you really feel comfortable criticizing the left for a message of peace and reason? Not to point too sharp a barb at you, but from the luxurious campus of [your school] it’s fairly easy to say how the world should be.”
America is a nation of voters and responsible citizens. We are ALL responsible to know as best we can what is going on and to vote our consciences. To say that only those who have been to war have a right to an opinion about which of our wars are just and which are not is to say that only military personnel and veterans should decide such things. Would you really want such an America? The vast majority of those who strove against the war in Vietnam had never been in the military either. Were they unqualified to have an opinion? And I would be willing to bet that if you put a vote to the military of the U.S. today, the vast majority would vote to win this thing, not to pull out non-violently. And as it happens, most of my colleagues would probably agree with you on the matter rather than with me. In my comfortable surroundings, not my ideas but yours are in the majority. Your “barb” is toothless.
I do not criticize anyone for being in favor of peace and reason. I object to sentimental ideas of achieving peace through wishful thinking WITHOUT reason and without a balanced knowledge of history and of the cultures involved in the conflicts we are discussing.
“Perhaps it would be beneficial to think less in terms of good/evil, West vs. Islam. As you say ‘the devil is in the details’.”
Those who refuse to think in terms of good/evil have allowed millions upon millions of people to perish at the hands of evil. You are determined to criticize the U.S. for its sins. Fine. I would accept that criticism better if your voice were equally critical of the vastly greater villainies of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea (where thousands of people are starving because their “leader” wants to have nuclear weapons), Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia (which funds the teaching of violence in madrases all around the world). Do you really think all these villainies are a result of America’s choice to be violent? Do you really believe you have no duty to protect, with violence if necessary, the innocent and non-violent from murderous tyranny?
”My father died in Vietnam. I suppose the purpose of his death was to stop the spread of Marxism, which you really seem to hate. Do you understand the pain of losing someone to an ambiguous cause seemingly at the whim of some political leader’s egos?”
I am very sorry about your father’s death. I don’t know the story of his life or what he thought he was doing in Vietnam, but I can see why you feel a personal antipathy to the idea of America’s sending soldiers to fight in useless causes. Perhaps Vietnam was a useless cause; perhaps it was not. And yes, I too know what it means to lose people to useless causes perpetrated by political leaders’ egos. Not only my students are at risk in the present conflict, but almost daily my fellow Jews die because of the whims of terrorist leaders who find it useful to their selfish ambitions to send suicide bombers to blow up Israeli school busses and to launch missiles against civilians instead of coming to the negotiating table. Such madmen want the annihilation of Israel, not peace or territory. But how would non-violence in the face of their aims reduce violence in the region?
As for Marxism, I don’t hate it just to hate. I object on moral grounds to its reduction of human beings from ends to only means. I object to its treatment of people as things in order to further a fantasy agenda based on false ideas of human nature and disingenuous interpretations of history. And I object to its responsibility for the fruitless deaths of vastly more people than those who have died in all America’s wars combined.
“I am someone deeply entrenched in the political after effects of American governments supporting dictatorships, b/c they were the alternative to Marxism. I have known many lives wrecked by these actions.”
I do not doubt this, and I don’t justify the evils of the dictators we have propped up in the resistance to communism. You are an unfortunate victim, as many have been, of moral, amoral, and sometimes immoral efforts to make the best of a bad situation. But I’m afraid you are not acknowledging the scale of the destruction of human lives by those communist regimes against which we were struggling. How many young men like you lost their fathers to the Soviets, to the Chinese cultural revolution, to the Kmer Rouge, to the invasion and decimation of Tibet, to any number of other murderous regimes? And yet you focus on America’s crimes. I find it to be unjust of you.
If your father went to Vietnam fight for anything, I presume that at least his own intention was for his country’s good, however he defined it. And his country is one whose ideals, if not always its behavior, are justice, democracy, freedom, and peace. These were not the ideals of North Vietnam at the time— when we left Vietnam to the North Vietnamese, millions of South Vietnamese were slaughtered—nor are they the ideals of China, North Korea, the Taliban, Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia today.
What I am arguing is not that we are sinless. I am only arguing for the principle that sometimes, against evil regimes, it is necessary to fight. I don’t like that fact any more than you do. But I have to acknowledge it because it is true. Not to acknowledge it is to become enablers of murderers. Yes there are venal and cynical Americans who have been equivalent to murderers. And yes we must defeat them. But NOT by pretending that burying our heads in the sand about foreign murderers will put an end to war.
“Be well. P.S. By the way, the civil war was not fought to end slavery. That is a modern interpretation of a conflict with distinctive economic roots, though you ma[y] think that a tad too Marxist.”
It is your interpretation that is modern. The Civil War was fought for many complex reasons, economic among them. But the root of the conflict was slavery, as a thorough study of the documents and debates of the time (rather than of modern Marxist historians) will reveal. I beg you to do some homework on the subject.
You be well too. I appreciate your willingness to engage in this discussion.
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