It's emblematic of something larger, I think, an unwillingness on the part of some to valorize the heroic virtues, the ones often associated with masculinity and - truth be told - war. I think it was Jonah Goldberg who noted that we have not seen any real "war" movies emerging out of our struggle with Islamic radicalism - and those that do touch on it peripherally (Syriana, Munich) are more interested, it seems, in "problematizing" the conflict than anything else. Imagine if someone made a movie in 1942 exploring the difficulties of being German in the pre-war Sudentenland or making the war in the Pacific out to be the product of conspiring oilmen, eager for Indonesia's riches. A bit odd, no?
We used to admire people who claimed to fight the Nazis. Now we admire people who claim to have fought their own drug addiction -- and we really, really admire them if they beat up priests, fight with cops, frequently find themselves covered in vomit and spend lots of time in jail while doing so.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Fashions in Falsehood
A very good column by Anne Applebaum on the whole James Frey mess. Here's the ending:
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6 comments:
A friend last night asked me if there were any situations where liberal democracy had essentially been imposed from without on another country. His implication was that Iraq thus became questionable in the extreme if there had not been such places. I immediately listed two:
The American South
and
Japan.
Of course, we don't wage total, will-breaking, resistance-destroying war any longer and we don't have a basically patriotic press. If the current situation had been in place post WWII, we'd still be trying to get Japan and Germany straightened out.
The American South
Not only did the South have a multi-generational history of democracy, it had its own democratic institutions in place. The same is true of Germany during WWII.
Japan
Japan is an interesting case. There was a unique cultural milieu at work in Japan. They truly respected and admired America's economic might and quickly adopted a similar system. Having been defeated in battle, their culturally instinctive response was to figure out where they went wrong.
Of course, we don't wage total, will-breaking, resistance-destroying war any longer and we don't have a basically patriotic press.
I think you're wrong, but I don't have time to get into it. But I also think it would make for an interesting discussion.
War is evil. How dare you "valorize" it.
War is evil. Only a fool thinks otherwise. That said, there are qualities in men and women that emerge during such times of strife that are worthy of lauding, and we should not let those qualities be eclipsed by the negative qualities that also emerge. It is important to acknowledge both, and to be frank about both. I would agree that Hollywood has taken its “realism” meme too far and broken through to the other side. Many films and shows, so aware of the shiny, glossy coat placed on war and violence in the yesteryears, have lost sight of the balancing counterpart to ugly violence – the courage, self-sacrifice, and virtue that does become apparent in times of strife.
JC, you should totally watch American Ninja 4.
Buzz, perhaps you recall how the Nazi party took control in the first place? They won elections.
And twenty years is not a blink of the eye on the human scale. That's enough time for three generations to get used to democracy.
You're also forgetting your Reformation history.
Iraq's had a little over a month, James. Geez.
As for the Reformation, it's taken Martin Luther 500 years to reform the Catholic church, and he ain't done yet.
And he's wrong sometimes, just like much of the West, which has thrown its babies out with the bathwater. They do not want to become Amsterdam, and I for one don't blame them. Give 'em another month or two anyway.
As for the Reformation, I fail to see what Martin Luther and the Peasants Revolt he helped to brutally suppress has to do with 20th century democracy, in Germany or elsewhere.
You're right. I should have been clearer. The Peasant Revolt carried within it a number of the seeds of democracy that would later germinate during the Enlightenment. I was trying to point out that German culture was, even then and especially post WWI and WWII, not inimical to democratic ideals. Sorry for being so vague.
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