Laurie Penny, Hyperbole, and Remembering the War Dead
Laurie Penny, on what for her constitutes "form" and for most other people hysterical, nonsensical hyperbole:
'Sacrifice' is the word continually used to associate this cynical and relentless carnage with public nostalgia for the glory of past victories. There are, however, two meanings to the word 'sacrifice.' One can sacrifice, in the sense of willingly giving one's for a cause, or one can be a sacrifice, offered up for slaughter by one's betters in the name of god, or greed, or homeland.And this is news precisely how? Undoubtedly, some people in almost every war there has ever been have been sacrificed for whatever cause was being fought for. That is the nature of war - it is unfair, and it is unpleasant. But then again, it is war - what the hell were you expecting? A walk in the park?
And there are other reasons why people fight and are forced to fight - not just greed, good or homeland. World War Two would be the classic example here - sometimes, people fight for survival. That has nothing to do with being "offered up for slaughter by one's betters" - instead, it has everything to do with not being dominated by a totalitarian nightmare. I'm opposed to war - to some extent I am instinctively a pacifist. But at some point you have to fight, or risk being dominated by those you might abhor.
It is this second understanding of sacrifice that we should bear in mind this Poppy day. Even in the Great War, not all of the men and boys shot by their own side for cowardice or driven out 'like cattle', in Wilfred Owen's words, in front of the German machine guns, died with future generations in mind. Not all of them bled willingly, for king and country; some of them simply bled because they had been seriously injured, because their leaders deemed it appropriate for them to die in pain and terror. A million cardboard flowers, rooted in the dark earth of this country's frantic military self- fashioning, will never be enough to mop up the carnage.
And in this paragraph we see that Laurie has completely missed the point of Remembrance Sunday (not "Poppy day" - let's call it by a more proper name, shall we?) It isn't about political point scoring, it isn't about class strife. It is about remembering all those who died -whether they did so willingly, or under duress in a state of terrified anxiety.
And the Poppy is not meant to to mop up the carnage - it is a symbol, to remind us of that carnage and those who died. And it should also remind us to reflect on why those wars happened, and what we can do right now to prevent future devastating conflicts.
But thus far in her article, Penny has been restrained. She's flirted with the idea of class conflict and its impact on the choice of those who were sent to fight in the First World War. As always, she saves the best - and most offensive - to last:
But thus far in her article, Penny has been restrained. She's flirted with the idea of class conflict and its impact on the choice of those who were sent to fight in the First World War. As always, she saves the best - and most offensive - to last:
As we celebrate another memorial Sunday, we should remember that the politicians wearing red flowers in Whitehall have cheerfully authorised the decimation of jobs, welfare and public education in order to defend Britain's military spending and nuclear arsenal and offer tax breaks for business. They have sacrificed the life chances of a generation of young and working-class people whilst making rhetorical sops towards "the national interest", and that is not remembrance, nor is it any way to honour the memory of the Great Generation. That, in fact, is "just show business".
Yes, what we should do is remember, on Remembrance Sunday, not those who died in war but rather the actions of politicians with whom Penny does not agree. Yes, that's the fucking point of Remembrance Sunday, isn't it? To agree with Penny's crass political point scoring. Don't think about the war dead, for God's sake. Think about the fact that a feckless and hopelessly naive young journalist writing for The New Statesman doesn't like spending cuts.
And how offensive is it to compare a generation who may have some of their number adversely affected by the spending cuts with the generation sent to die on the battlefields of the First World War? How crass can one person be? That is no way to honour the memory of those who died. In fact, it too is "just show business" - it is taking an event, and twisting its meaning to back up whatever toss Laurie Penny happens to be thinking at any given time. It takes Remembrance Sunday, and debases it. It turns it into the sort of cheap political point scoring that shows what an ignorant idiot that writer actually is.
Labels: Idiots, Penny Red, Remembering, War
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 10:40 pm
7 Comments
7 Comments:
And while we're on the subject of class and war, check out the survival rates for young officers in the trenches and compare them with that of young Privates.
"Their betters" led from the front.
I prefer to remember all the people who fell, and my friends who are still putting themselves in harms way.
Good fisking of a girl who gains more traction than she deserves for her "thoughts".
I applaud you for rightly ripping into this socialist fool for clumsily shoe-horning anti 'cuts' rhetoric into such a loosely related issue.
However I feel she makes a valid point questioning justifications of war. The state manufactures false justification for its warmongering which is only ever motivated by their own interests. For instance the phrase 'defending British interests overseas' are these my interests? Yours? The soldiers'? Or those of some politically supported corporation? You fail to see or disagree with this point (a point LP has in common with libertarian thought).
You suggest we fought ww2 for our survival. That may be true of the latter and larger part of the war after our overlords dragged us in but it is not true of why our overlords dragged us into the conflict initially. Germany had no intention to fight or invade Britain when it annexed its neighbours. Germany fought us back when we tried to uphold our promises to Poland. Then when it was clear our overlords would not allow Germany to exist in such a form as long as we existed then Germany began to fight for its survival by challenging our continued existence. So our entry to ww2 was never, as our overlords have since painted it, about survival or even about defeating a totalitarian regime.
Same with Afghanistan, Iraq, ww1 - there was no direct threat to us the British people within our sovereign territory until we intervened and stirred it up. Some 'noble cause' is always invented post facto in justification. Women's rights in Afghanistan for example.
Interventionist and preventative militarism causes problems which justify perpetual increasing militarism. See how British involvement in the middle east where no British citizens were under threat generated hatred that lead to the London bombings that actually did kill British citizens. Protecting Poland led to the blitz. Whupping the kaiser led to versailles which led to facism.
Libertarians should always oppose extra territorial war. It fucks the liberties of those being bombed, those in the bombers shot down and those forced to pay for the whole fuck up.
The state always grows during war at the expense of liberty.
I've posted variations on this argument several times on several libertarian blogs. I've been told 'you can't defend from the goal line' well I know you can. To continue the footballing analogy imagine all 11 players filling the goal then try and put it past them. In real terms look at Switzerland - it doesn't play by the statist rule book of its neighbours yet everyone knows it would be a right mess to invade. Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden etc all play nicely with everyone and don't get any trouble. No Belgian involvement in the greater middle east and no Belgian 7/7. So whose 'defence' forces are better defending their own territory us or Belgium? Us flying all over the world pissing everyone off with the US imperialists or the swiss staying at home sharpening their bayonets and mining their bridges?
The point I have clumsily tried to make is that war is un-libertarian. Extremely violent self defence is libertarian. The begining of the LP article suggests that the state dupes us into going to war. It is therefore immensely important to disconnect the compassion for soldiers as individuals from the pomp and circumstance of pro war propaganda. The money you donate when you buy a poppy is the compassion and the parades and glorious sacrifice bullshit is the crap that keeps war increasing and liberty decreasing. Those individual we are told made sacrifices were duped by the state into dying for something that had nothing to do with them and never would. That's why I donate and remember and why I don't wave the flag and swallow the glorious sacrifice bullshit.
Have to say, spot on to anon here. WW1 was all about the ruling houses of Europe who wanted a spat but were too damned cowardly to fight themselves. Far better to throw other people into the fray to do your dying for you.
WWII was a knock-on from unfinished business from the previous one. On both occasions, it would have been better if we had stayed well out of it. WW1 would probably have seen a swift German victory a la 1870 and a settlement between France and Germany. Much of the disruption of the 20th Century may well have been avoided.
We should not have gone to war in Afghanistan or Iraq and the justifications for both fail to stack up.
So, yes, I remember the dead and the sacrifice they made, but it was a sacrifice made for the politicians who regard the lives of others as expendable.
Wow. Three thoughtful and thought -provoking comments. A wonderful rarity...
Ok, so, the First World War. It was caused by hopelessly naive politicians playing chicken with other hopelessly naive politicians - all of whom failed to understand the devastation that the then fledgling modern warfare could have on those fighting. Once the carnage started, those leading seemed to turn their face against the facts, and continued to fight despite the cost. But as Jackart points out, this was not a class conflict - there was still a sense in which the Rupert Brookes of this world were willing to die for their country, despite their relatively high positions in the social hierarchy. It was, as Longrider points out, about politicians regarding the lives of others as expendable. Which is a key point against Penny and her assertions that this was about class conflict.
The Second World War was created in the "peace" that ended the First World War. But, whereas the latter was avoidable, it created the set of circumstances that made the Second World War both inevitable and a fight for survival. We should not underestimate the ambitions, or the immoral, murderous foundations of the Nazi regime. The best chance we had of stopping Hitler in his tracks was when he remilitarised the Rhineland in 1936. Had we united with, say, France then and routed the Nazis, Hitler would have been discredited and his party heading for a change of leadership at the very least. But we held on, and drifted towards the start of war in 1939. Even if we had not declared war then (and we didn't do so for reasons of survival for sure), we would have ended up having to fight Nazi Germany at some point anywhere, since its contradictory, nonsensical structure demanded future expansion across Europe, and across the Channel. It was a totalising regime; it was also a hideously aggressive regime.
In short, we didn't need to fight WW1, but we did need to fight the war created by the Treaty of Versailles. Iraq and Afghanistan are wars we did not need to fight; I hope they are not precursors to a wider war we need to fight for survival.
But all of this is simply a side-step to what the post was about. Those who died did not do so with these sort of historical, after-the-fact analyses in mind. And they certainly do not deserve the treatment dolled out to them by the ever idiotic LP - they did not die as part of class war, and they are not comparable in their sacrifice to those who have less money to spend owing to the coalition. It is the latter point I find so offensive, and it is that which pisses on the memory of those who lost their lives in war.
TNL
Just to clarify - I wholeheartedly disagree with the main point of the LP piece.
I fully agree with your post TNL and the comments of jackart and longrider. I subscribe to this blog and have a lot of time for the ideas posted on the blog and in the comments.
Apologies for diverting discussion from the main point (nasty habit of mine when I get distracted by a related detail).
I was trying to draw attention to the brief and easily missed point at the beginning of the LP article that the language of 'sacrifice' should be watched as emotive propaganda. I feel this should be highlighted and libertarians be more strongly antiwar.
I did not mean to indulge in hindsight or revisionism (neither necessarily bad) but was trying to argue that the compassion for victims of the tragedy of war has been hijacked by those who initiate and benefit from war.
Politicians and military and religious leaders will all call on us to remember absract nonsensical ideals such as sacrifice that are far from the truth of why those individuals died. Sacrifice will be used as a euphemism instead of death. These individuals were killed. They were the recipients of lies and then violence not the much more positive givers of sacrifice. In other words the state actively encouraged or forced them into harms way where someone actively killed them. Do you see the huge difference this active/passive positive/negative give/receive linguistic swap makes?
As LP said right at the begining before all the other rubbish
"'Sacrifice' is the word usually used to associate this cynical and endless carnage with public nostalgia for the glory of past victories."
This age old linguistic deception will continue to form the basis for future state warmongering and taking of liberties.
We must be aware of it and disconnect it from our compassion for the dead.
There is little talk of glorious noble sacrifice in the works of Sassoon or Owen.
I don't usually post anonymously. My phone was playing up which is also my excuse for such terrible prose
Remember too, remembrance day is to remember all who fell.
Will,
I agree with your thoughts on the word "sacrifice". It is telling how often our politicians use it when they are requiring others to sacrifice rather than themselves. And yes, it reaches its most odious level when heights when politicians talk piously of the sacrifice of soldiers in war. They let other people fight their wars, they let other people sacrifice themselves on their behalf.
Furthermore, I'd argue that many words are now corrupted by our political elite. The word "security" is a great example - just how often are we told that some new illiberal policy and/or the latest power grab by the government is to make us ore secure? And how often do such government policies make us less secure?
In fact, one of the most terrifying phrases in modern politics is "we must make sacrifices to be secure". It is that rhetoric that means we lose liberties, and that rhetoric that takes us into unwinnable wars that we just should not be fighting.
TNL
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