War is a force that gives us meaning

[Today we have another guest post from our regular contributor, John Hess.]

In her remarkable study of our westward expansion, The legacy of conquest: The unbroken past of the American west, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues that the values the pioneer Americans attached to westward expansion persist even today, in cheerful defiance of any contrary evidence.

Among those persistent values, few have more power than the idea of innocence. Americans moving west did not see themselves as trespassers or criminals; rather, they were pioneers. The ends, to them, abundantly justified the means.

Personal interest in the acquisition of property coincided with national interest in the acquisition of territory, and those interests overlapped in turn with the mission to extend the domain of Christian civilization.

Innocence of intention placed the course of events in a bright and positive light.

This innocence is preserved and the nation regenerated through violence, its guilt and failings purged and cleansed through blood. As Chris Hedges puts it in War is a force that gives us meaning:

“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destructiveness and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidity of much of our lives become apparent….And war is an enticing elixir. It allows us to be noble” (p. 3).

“War makes the world understandable, a black and white tableau of them and us. It suspends thought, especially self-critical thought. All bow before the supreme effort. We are one. Most of us willingly accept war as long as we can fold it into a belief system that paints the ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good, for human beings seek not only happiness but also meaning” (p. 10).

“The goal of such nationalist rhetoric is to invoke pity for one’s own. The goal is to show the community that what they hold sacred is under threat. The enemy, we are told, seeks to destroy religious and cultural life, the very identity of the group or state” (p.14).

No wonder we salute people like Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Eva Mozes Kor, for they are, sadly, extraordinary.

John Hess, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

[By guest author, John Hess.]

I was stunned by the title of a post on Engaging Peace. “Recovery through forgiveness” contrasts so greatly with Regeneration through violence: The mythology of the American frontier, 1600-1860, the first volume of Richard Slotkin’s trilogy on American culture.

Slotkin’s argument is similar to that advanced by Christopher Hedges in War is a force that gives us meaning.

Specifically, nations often seek to work out pressing internal problems and bring about national unity through violence directed at an adversary who is portrayed as “the Other,” an embodiment of evil.

The U.S. used this approach in justifying the “War on Terror,” and later the Iraq War:

Us against them
Good against evil
War against those who hate our way of life and want to destroy it.

The first major example Slotkin discusses in Regeneration is King Philip’s War. That 1675-6 conflict is said to have been, relatively speaking, the most destructive war ever fought on (what became) American soil.

Puritanism was then in the throes of a spiritual crisis, with many of the more intransigent ministers claiming there had been a “falling away” from the fervor and purity of the original colonists. At the same time, the New England colonies were rapidly expanding, which led to a demand for more land. This in turn brought them more and more into conflict with the Native tribes, who were on land the Puritans desired.

Puritan thinkers increasingly came to portray the Natives as their direct opposites:

Where the English were Christian, the Natives were pagan
Where the English were civilized, the Natives were savage
Where the English were the new Chosen People, the Natives were not
Where the English were doing God’s will, the Natives were certainly on the other side.

John Hess, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

The enduring attraction of war (Portraying “the Other,” Part 3)

Us versus them (Portraying “the Other,” Part 1)