War: in memoriam

As I said, I spent my free time reading Dickens on Monday. Still, I wanted to say something about war. This is prompted in part by a posting (it's PG-13, Ma) at The Rosewater Chronicles about war, but also by a sense of the meaning of Memorial Day. Like Josh, I hate war. I have already said, as I say now, that love is stronger than hate and that it will prevail. And I should add that I love peace more so than I hate war. Yet as I reflected on Josh's acid inspired argument and watched Eisenhower's speech, I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that life, love, and war are complicated.

Some of the operational enthymemes of Eisenhower's speech resonated very strongly with me. How we use our power for world peace and human betterment, liberty, dignity, and integrity, is more important than how much power we have or do not have. When millions of Americans' daily work and preoccupation is arms manufacturing and war strategizing we are on the wrong track. The immense arms industry has economic, political, and spiritual effects which must not be underestimated. The military-industrial complex invades the whole of human life, especially commodifying and dominating the university. Thus, Eisenhower: " . . . a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity." We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren. We must be solvent. We must be a confederation of equals. Peace derives from mutual respect and love. Watch the whole thing:



And part 2:



Peace comes from love and mutual respect. Repeat the refrain. It's certainly possible to imagine a world without war, or a world at peace. At the same time, I remember a great argument with one of my colleagues who claims to be a pacifist. I asked if he really wouldn't use violence to defend his children. He insisted he wouldn't. I didn't believe him then, and I don't believe him now.

I think two paintings by Jacques Louis David point us in the direction of a world at peace, but manage, too, to capture the ambiguity and irony at the heart of human experience. The first painting, The Oath of the Horatii, was painted to depict men willing to lay down their lives for the city. The painting had considerable currency in the years building up to the French Revolution as representing the necessity of defending republican freedom. The father in the center, holding up the swords, is essentially inviting his triplets to defend Rome. The triplets are offering their assent whilst the women weep.


David's next major work, The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, depicts the opposite and inevitable result of the scene above. It is Brutus receiving the return of his sons from war. Once again the father is at the center of the picture while the women mourn. Actually, they hide their faces and cry out with sadness while their children clutch their breasts. The sons return home, in the upper left hand corner, dead.

These scenes capture the heartache and hell of war, but at the same time they reinforce the fact that out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made. No perfect peace; No, thank heavens, total war - at least not yet. And so it goes. And so I hope it always goes on the second count. Yet I think we have to find a way to honor courage and to cultivate a willingness to stand up for what's right - even at the cost of our very lives - even as I recognize that things are not always that simple. The dream of republican courage and of perfect peace are noble.

Still, if I had to choose I'd go for perfect peace. Yesterday I read the original Mother's Day proclamation by Julia Ward Howe. It was tacked to one of the walls at UMD. I'm not sure if it was posted in memory of the recent Mother's Day or to honor Memorial Day, but it's a fitting tribute for both.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.