Our need for violence

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@attano,

attano;162520 wrote:

You touch many interesting themes here.

WWI, the shift to the war of XX century - at least until Vietnam, that changed the paradigm again - offers many path for historico-philosophical reflection (or speculation).

First of all, what made those men so prone to kill in those days?
For the vast majority I guess the answer could be decency. Men had to go to war as citizens, not as men. It was their duty. (Nations that have some "You shall" embedded are clearly more ready to become magnificent soldiers...). This would open a whole new thread of discussion about the modern state, at least in the form we have known in Europe since the French Revolution - and it'd be off-topic.
Other element to consider is that death was a lot more present in the daily life back then. I have no exact knowledge of the statistics, but I guess that only a new-born out of two could expect to become forty-years old. "A clean death, a soldier's death" was a way to cheat fate, somehow.

And, yes, bravery was a factor too. But what is being brave?
We have focused mainly on violence here, but violence it's not an aim - at least it used not to be.

I think that the last intellectuel that actually carried a reflection of this sort was probably John Milius.
A movie like The wind and the lion shows well what was driving them when engaging in a fight. The film represents a sort of clash of civilizations, 3 actually: Europe, the Arabs (ethnically Moroccans are not exactly Arabs, but the civilization footprint fits the description, compare with Lawrence of Arabia), and the rampaging US, waving Teddy's big stick.

Notwithstanding their differences, they share common values in the fight, based on chivalry and honor, where violence was only a side effect. (The duel scene between El Raisuli and the German officers is very telling in this sense). In a way the film asserts that their common chivalry code is what unites them in mankind.

IMO their honor code represents a common need, felt by youngmen of then and now, for a trial, for an initiation, for taking part into some event or process that truly achieves the biological growth of the boy into a man. It's a symbolic sacrifice where men put their life at stake in the attempt to become true men ( I am just trying to guess their perception - axioms?, I am not saying that warriors are the only true men). By they same process these men would also achieve recognition by their peers, become active memebers of their community and get somehow, like Iliad's heroes, one form of eternal life accessible to mankind.
Without disrespecting current opinions on war, I find this initiations a more authentic growth of man, not purely intellectual and/or economical as nowadays. Because it does not take only the mind to make an adult, the trial implies a radical know-yourself experience which is ultimately unspeakable.

Milius is also the author of the screenplay of Apocalypse Now. This is, inter alia, a deep reflection that from violence shifts to the nature of man, which comes to annihilates himself looking deep down in the abyss of horror - or down the abyss tout-court, horror emerges as the radical essence of man and being.

Is violence the exertion of the connection between a subject and his true being?
Ever thought that violence is the more radical form of knowledge? As some Oriental doctrines affirm, annihilation is the ultimate knowledge/experience for the sage?
These are my thoughts, whenever I watch the last awesome (no other word is possible) scene of Apocalypse Now, when Kurz is killed - indeed a sacrifice offered to the abyss, where Kurtz is the willing victim.

This philosophical trip was clearly not in the mind of the average soldier of WWI, or preceding wars. Still, I can't help drawing a line between this and the metaphysics in the Birth of Tragedy.
Maybe this thoughts - which are not really such, rather a sort of general feeeling about everything, a radical reset of all belief and expectations, maybe even a wholly new nihilistic Weltanschauung - could explain how come Rimbaud stopped writing poems and eventually started trading weapons (and maybe this thoughts would explain why Rimbaud wrote his poems in the first place).
But this cupio dissolvi is probably specific to Europe, I don't know how much it's been exported elsewhere in the world - although Jim Morrison, somehow, knew all this.

This reminds me of Hegel, as many things do. How can man transcend the status of animal? To risk annihilation for beings which isn't spatial. To die for an ideal is to die for "nonbeing." It seems that religion and war are close allied. D H Lawrence argue that the Christian Nation is an oxymoron. Nation qua nation is war. Or the potential of war. To give your neighbor a coat when he asks for shirt (to loosely paraphrase) is suicide. As your neighbors will not get tired of asking.

I think the duel is a great thing to mention. If a man allows himself to be insulted out of cowardice, does this apply a greater attachment to security than dignity? The code of honor strikes me as a religious code, as a balancing sort of religion to true Christianity, which is radically forgiving. When Anna K's husband tries to forgive her, this pains her, perhaps disgusts her. You probably like Dostoevsky. That monk the Brothers K becomes a Christian after scheduling a duel, but shows up to the duel anyway, to risk the bullets without intending harm. It's only after he takes this risk that he can tell his regiment that he's going to become a monk. Because otherwise his conversion will look like cowardice. Interesting. ANd then there is that sublime duel in Demons, when Stavrogin fires into the air, which pisses off his enemy to the greatest degree yet. And it's hard to tell if this is not his motive. By the way, Demons is about as good as any novel I've ever read. Jesus. Have you read it? Revolution and Religion, Saints and Murderers, the collision of opposites in one man.

I agree about initiation. I think certain men put needles in their arms for the same reason that other men have fought duels. It's hard to dissociate risk and masculinity. I have argued and still hold that the concept of "Man" in the sense of a blues song, for instance, is a religious notion. "A MAN doesn't stand for such sh*t." Of course there's a certain justice to mocking this sort of thing, but also a certain hypocrisy. Our movies again and again present us with heroes whose heroism is a refusal to compromise, an engagement of risk.

Have you seen Life Is Beautiful? A shocking movie! A strange and beautiful sort of protagonist. A saint with balls of steel, the perfect father. It will rip your heart out. It's a work of genius.

Apoc Now is a great movie. Potent indeed. And it does tie in to Rimbaud. I feel a vague understanding of Rimbaud's conversion. The artist is, as Nietzsche says, a bit of a prostitute. Why not just live with full intensity? Does Rimbaud radically embrace his finiteness? It's quite likely that the species will be utterly erased at some point, and that all dreams of artistic immortality are just that. Of course I think this realization can improve one's art, and lead one away form vanity.

Milan Kundera wrote a great book called Immortality. Would a man rather spend a night with (Famous Hot Woman) and never be seen with her, known to have possessed her ...or the reverse. He can parade around as if he is her lover but never physically possess her. Kundera thinks us moderns would chose to show her off, prefer the bluff. And this shows that our vanity is stronger than our lust? Or is Kundera right?

Another irony is that a Conscientious Objector might very well be twice as brave as the men who "do what they are told" without believing in the justice of it, who will risk death rather than be "mistaken" for the cowards they are arguably being in such a situation.

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