1A Lesson for "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"

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One. Why is war a “potent, lethal addiction?”

1. War “forms its own culture,” meaning it’s a lifestyle and when you develop a lifestyle eventually you cannot learn to live any other kind of life. Over time, you lose the free will to do other things. See page 369, bottom paragraph.
2. The media and other war addicts endow war with a powerful mythology, attributing qualities to war that war does not really possess: excitement, nobility, transcendence, adventure. See page 369, bottom paragraph.
3. For all its carnage and destruction, war gives us a powerful, singular purpose, a powerful meaning to fill the void, the meaninglessness, the triviality that too often defines our lives. See page 370 top.
4. War galvanizes support by becoming a rallying cry, a crusade or a jihad. It brings people together with a unified purpose. See page 370.
5. War simplifies the good guy and El Otro, the Other, the demonized essay. And loving ourselves so grandly while hating others so completely becomes a narcotic. See page 371 top. Also see page 374 where Hedges argues that war “makes the world understandable, a black and white tableau of them and us.”
6. Violence becomes an addiction so that even a civilian like Hedges is overcome with bloodlust. See page 371 in which he fights with an airline clerk, is stabbed in the cheek and proudly wears his blood stains on the plane.
7. War provides a time to embrace heroism and comradeship and false unity, which combats the banality and emptiness of existence. See page 372 top as war survivors acknowledge the hell they went through but at the same time long for the war days.
8. War produces a dramatic, Hollywood-like statement that exhilarates us. See page 372 bottom.
9. War produces patriotism, which is a thinly veiled form of self-worship. See page 374 top.
10. War is a god who demands the living sacrifice of our young people, a sort of sick rite of passage. See page 374.

 

Part Two. The Impulse for War Is Irrepressible

Humans are at their best when faced with conflict and when confronting a challenge. The solution to Hedges diagnosis that we addicted to war, therefore, is to re-direct the war impulse to productive pursuits such as the following examples:

 

1. We wage war against overeating and being fat.
2. We wage war against mindless watching of TV, mindless consumerism or some other addiction.
3. We wage war against our violent temper that causes us to go into road rage.
4. We wage war against our cynicism and judgmental attitude that compels us to unfairly castigate, mock, and condemn others.
5. We wage war against our pathological need to lie to others, or at the very least, to hold up a false image of ourselves to the public.
6. We wage war against our proclivity for procrastination, which compromises our academic performance.

 

Part Three. Essay Option:

Compare Christopher Hedges’ essay to a war film: Born on the Fourth of July, The Deer Hunter, or Platoon.

Method:

In a page, summarize the major points in “Love Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,” emphasizing the mythology of war that becomes so addictive. Then in another page summarize the major developments of the film you’ve chosen. Then write a thesis that argues that the film shows us the mythology of war followed by our disillusionment with war’s mythology. Your body paragraphs will show the mythology and the de-mythology of war as dramatized in the film.

Part Four. Some similar revelations soldiers made when returning from Vietnam (some say there are parallels to current Iraq occupation) in the films referred to above:

1. The soldiers could not transition back to civilian life and be functional members of their family and society.
2. The soldiers found out that the government lied to them—about the war’s objectives and the government’s care for the soldiers after they were used.
3. The war ended up being about nothing except corporate profits.
4. Many soldiers fought with guys who were taking drugs and not fighting according to laws of combat but committing atrocities: murder, rape, and torture of innocent civilians.