I wasn't actually planning to write about this day, when it always, without fail, rains. But I am glad that I did and thank you for your comment. It does mean a lot coming from a fellow writer.
As someone with no personal experience with war, I defer to those with a first-hand perspective. And this is a very moving and powerful expression of it. Thanks for writing this, Monika.
I'm new to your writing, Monika, and this is the second piece of yours I've read today (the first was Scapegoating). It is a very moving personal account which I wish many others will read. The pathology of war is indeed unnecessary to the clear-minded compassionate and loving person capable of empathy with 'strangers' and humanity as a whole. But I don't believe the architects of war have those qualities, then or now as we face another war, almost inconceivable in its scope and deception.
In hindsight, war can seem a collective catharsis to rid ourselves of anger and frustration, which to many it is. My mother and father both recalled how people became so close during wartime and the immediate years after it. Death was commonplace. You didn't know if you'd see a friend or family member again. Even the next day. There was a sense of closeness, a bonding. And with it a licentiousness and loss of sexual boundaries which I believe came from the primal urge to procreate for all the human losses incurred. But the point is, the sense of physical and emotional closeness that both my parents recollected from the time.
My father was a British Royal Engineer in the North African campaigns. My mother, a Scot, hid from bombing raids with her family in their basement. My supposition was the overall sense of fear, of being attacked, of an evil perpetrator that prompted this deep urge for survival. I feel this is currently in play as we are forced to deal with the evil of tyranny in our world today.
So thank you, again, for this deep and personal sharing.
Another positive aspect of war you might consider- when people returned to civilian life it probably led to a more positive relationship between professional managers and their workforce. For the most part, these were men who shared the same foxholes during war, and it might have helped managerial elites personalise the nameless masses that worked for them. I often wonder whether war creates a kinder period of civil society in its aftermath.
The question is, do we really need war to accomplish this aim? If there was a year of volunteerism following the end of education, regardless of level, it might go along way towards establishing a similar dynamic. We tend to empathise more, when we have deeper personal knowledge of people outside our social class and geography. I've heard there are still substantive cultural differences in attitude between the former East and West Germany's. Perhaps volunteerism which mixed these two groups might build bridges and help people to understand those with different concerns than them.
One of things which my research suggests is that populist movements tend to require both an implicit threat to blue collar interests and economic scarcity. Niall Ferguson talks about in this talk at Google Zeitgeist, shortly before Trump's election: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSLEGafuEd4&t=12s . It should be noted that Australia has seemed to solve the issue by specifically protecting blue collar interests in terms of immigration and adopting an approach of actively recruiting market dominant migration- although, recently they have diluted this policy, and have seen the beginnings of the rise of populism as a result.
I do think soldiers can and are heroic in war- the complete opposite of the vain old men who send them off to suffer and potentially die. But you are quite right about the pathology which seeks war. It's sheer madness.
I wasn't actually planning to write about this day, when it always, without fail, rains. But I am glad that I did and thank you for your comment. It does mean a lot coming from a fellow writer.
As someone with no personal experience with war, I defer to those with a first-hand perspective. And this is a very moving and powerful expression of it. Thanks for writing this, Monika.
I'm new to your writing, Monika, and this is the second piece of yours I've read today (the first was Scapegoating). It is a very moving personal account which I wish many others will read. The pathology of war is indeed unnecessary to the clear-minded compassionate and loving person capable of empathy with 'strangers' and humanity as a whole. But I don't believe the architects of war have those qualities, then or now as we face another war, almost inconceivable in its scope and deception.
In hindsight, war can seem a collective catharsis to rid ourselves of anger and frustration, which to many it is. My mother and father both recalled how people became so close during wartime and the immediate years after it. Death was commonplace. You didn't know if you'd see a friend or family member again. Even the next day. There was a sense of closeness, a bonding. And with it a licentiousness and loss of sexual boundaries which I believe came from the primal urge to procreate for all the human losses incurred. But the point is, the sense of physical and emotional closeness that both my parents recollected from the time.
My father was a British Royal Engineer in the North African campaigns. My mother, a Scot, hid from bombing raids with her family in their basement. My supposition was the overall sense of fear, of being attacked, of an evil perpetrator that prompted this deep urge for survival. I feel this is currently in play as we are forced to deal with the evil of tyranny in our world today.
So thank you, again, for this deep and personal sharing.
Another positive aspect of war you might consider- when people returned to civilian life it probably led to a more positive relationship between professional managers and their workforce. For the most part, these were men who shared the same foxholes during war, and it might have helped managerial elites personalise the nameless masses that worked for them. I often wonder whether war creates a kinder period of civil society in its aftermath.
The question is, do we really need war to accomplish this aim? If there was a year of volunteerism following the end of education, regardless of level, it might go along way towards establishing a similar dynamic. We tend to empathise more, when we have deeper personal knowledge of people outside our social class and geography. I've heard there are still substantive cultural differences in attitude between the former East and West Germany's. Perhaps volunteerism which mixed these two groups might build bridges and help people to understand those with different concerns than them.
One of things which my research suggests is that populist movements tend to require both an implicit threat to blue collar interests and economic scarcity. Niall Ferguson talks about in this talk at Google Zeitgeist, shortly before Trump's election: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSLEGafuEd4&t=12s . It should be noted that Australia has seemed to solve the issue by specifically protecting blue collar interests in terms of immigration and adopting an approach of actively recruiting market dominant migration- although, recently they have diluted this policy, and have seen the beginnings of the rise of populism as a result.
I do think soldiers can and are heroic in war- the complete opposite of the vain old men who send them off to suffer and potentially die. But you are quite right about the pathology which seeks war. It's sheer madness.