July 24, 2004
DEFEAT: AMERICAN IDOL?:
Hating America (Bruce Bawer, Hudson Review, Spring 2004)
This long and fascinating piece is a must-read if you want to understand European anti-Americanism, but this passage struck me as worth a comment:
Herman Willis’ Ich Bin Ein Amerikaner caught my eye at an Oslo bookstore ...
The closest Willis comes to a thesis is a not altogether tidy theory that he concocts after hearing an American refer to soldiers dying for “others’ freedom.” Like many Europeans, Willis doesn’t get this “very American” thing about fighting and dying for freedom, and he figures that behind all the talk of freedom there must be some other, more comprehensible motive or value. Pondering the insights of a friend who defends the French Empire as an admirable “attempt to spread French civilization and culture” but who condemns American wars as being “only about money,” Willis decides that this business about “freedom” must, indeed, have something to do with money—specifically, with the American drive to succeed. But at this point Willis introduces a twist: deep down, he says—and he plainly thinks this is a major insight—Americans aren’t preoccupied with success but with failure. Why, after all, do Europeans erect monuments to military victories, while Americans build memorials to their war dead and require children to memorize the Gettysburg Address? Because, Willis says, Americans “worship defeat.”
Mr. Willis approaches insight but doesn't quite reach understanding. He was right to conjure the word "worship," but he should have recognized that Americans worship not defeat in general, but a particular defeat -- the defeat suffered by Christ on the cross, which is a defeat in the world's eyes but a victory in God's, a dying that brings life to the world. And we honor our war dead because they died as Christ did, giving their selves lovingly for their friends and neighbors that we might live, and live more abundantly.
Posted by Paul Jaminet at July 24, 2004 1:49 PM
Democrat Americans (at least the current ones) do indeed seem to worship defeat. The way they cling to Vietnam as if it were a great success for them and the way every soldier dies a victim (even in the course of a historically brilliant victory like the fall of Baghdad) rather than a hero are just two of the examples I can think of off the top of my head.
Posted by: NKR at July 24, 2004 1:56 PMGood point. There does seem to be a strong strain of self-loathing in much of the West, but it is concentrated on the left.
Posted by: pj at July 24, 2004 2:25 PMIf the French didn't have monuments to defeat, they wouldn't have any monuments at all.
In fact, perhaps the most startling monument to individual soldiers' defeat is the 'chaussee' at Verdun, the row of bayonets sticking up from a file of poilus buried in a trench by an explosion.
If you're going to expatiate from the particular to the general, it helps to get the particulars right.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 24, 2004 2:50 PMAnd we honor our war dead because they died as Christ did, giving their selves lovingly for their friends and neighbors that we might live, and live more abundantly.
I can understand the sentiment.
I can also understand the desire and the faith behind the sentiment. And I can respect those.
But such an explanation is far too particularistic for a nation such as the US and I would go so far as to say may even in some cases insult those who died in its defense of its values, at least those who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus (though they may not care much about it either way at this point).
Perhaps these are latter are less equal than others or perhaps they died not knowing what they were doing.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at July 24, 2004 3:04 PMBarry - Of course Jews and atheists who died for America, liberty, and their countrymen are every bit as holy as Christians. I am not saying that people gave their lives out of conscious Christian faith, though no doubt some did; but that America has been through its history so thoroughly imbued with the Judeo-Christian spirit that people lived the spirit, whether or not they went to church or consciously believed.
And it is their living of the faith that we honor, not their beliefs.
Another way of putting this, without any God-talk, is that we honor their goodness and their generosity. But if the writer is right that America, relative to Europe, gives more glory to those who died than to the battlefield fruits they won, is that not saying that we honor goodness and generosity more than Europeans?
Agreed.
Americans do not "worship defeat" (a truly absurd notion only a perverse variety of intellectual could possibly hold). But Americans are certainly cognizant of the awful sacrifice that victory often entails, and they are aware that to forget such sacrifices cheapens such victories and threatens those values that helped achieve them.
I read the atricle several days ago and am still pondering its wide breath and analysis.
The article covers many differnet writers and their views on america but the most interesting were the writing of europeans and their views in the early part of the last century. These views than as now still look at america as not of the 'european civilization' america is still like a 'teenager' an ongoing revolt against normalcy, it's entire view if one of faith of a better future even for those non believers in religion.
teenagers believe everything right or wrong with a passsion as it their lives depend on it, america is the worlds teenager it looks at hope, faith, future, at whats possible. Europe is too afraid to think or dream; it believes in conformaty and normalcy. america is structured for permanent 'revolution' look at its constitution' its election process every two years, its welcoming of the worlds brightest and best and those from other nations who want to dream of possibilities, because so many have come there with nothing other that hope, faith and a dream
but the best comment he had was the absolute drival and conformaty at what passed for news, analysis and intellectual though. it is as if europe has without cooercion adopted the Soviet approach to publc comment and discourse.
regardless of the nutty rants of mr moore, none can even come close to the discourse and commentary as from america.
anyways it is a real good article.
The only significant difference I know about between how Americans and Europeans (and others) treat soldiers is that we are very upset when lots are killed at once.
Set aside the Civil War, and no more than about 2,000 American have ever been killed in one battle. And how we howl when it happens. The casualties at the crossing of the Rapido (about 500) resulted in a major political crisis for us.
Europeans are accustomed to losing 5,000 at a whack without flinching.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 24, 2004 9:35 PMUS Navy and Marine Corps Personnel Casualties in World War II
Here's even more interesting list--
Equivalent Army casualty figures will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Spread 'em out and you get more tolerance. Most Americans are innumerate, so they have no idea of a total if it takes more than a day to accumulate.
Works on the stock market, too.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 25, 2004 2:23 AMIf America worships defeat, then we surely are a perverse lot, winning the vast majority of wars we've undertaken.
Perhaps we're merely following a hardflint Calvinist tradition of delayed gratification, awaiting our assured humilition in Heaven while bearing the burden of assured victory on Earth.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at July 25, 2004 2:36 PMThe Battle Hymn of the Republic
Julia Ward Howe
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on.
[Chorus]
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish`d rows of steel,
"As ye deal with my contemners, So with you my grace shall deal;"
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel
Since God is marching on.
[Chorus]
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
[Chorus]
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
[Chorus]
Q.E.D.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at July 25, 2004 7:02 PMFew men fought in the Civil War for that reason, Robert.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 26, 2004 12:17 AM