War and a Sustainable Society

I had a strange experience yesterday that I thought I’d share.  It had nothing to do with renewable energy, but it lies at the core of our notion of a sustainable society.

I attended a wonderful staged reading of four passages of the ancient Greek tragedians at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.  In deference to Veterans’ Day (which we celebrate in the U.S. each November 11th ), each of the passages dealt with war: how warriors of old dealt with the physical and emotional traumas of combat, and how their lives changed once they returned home. 

The readings delivered some of the most intense drama I’d ever witnessed.  I noticed that some members of the audience (which numbered about 150) audibly wept during and after the performances.

The “strange” part, however, came in the Q&A session afterwards. Two of the four actors were themselves veterans (both had fought in Vietnam), and the discussion, which lasted about an hour, focused on the realities of the way we in the U.S. regard our returning vets.  The core point was that we’re not doing enough to glorify the accomplishments of our warriors.

I know this is a tough and controversial subject, but I couldn’t wonder:  isn’t there an atom of anti-war sentiment in this entire auditorium?  There wasn’t a single syllable spoken to the effect that war itself might not be such a great idea.

At the close of the event, one of the vets left us with this:

In the roughly 5000 years of recorded human history, there have been over 46,000 wars.  Until about 1850, humankind went to enormous lengths to lionize its soldiers, but since that time, sadly, our society has ceased to venerate its combatants as we had in former times—and we need to return to those days when participants in war were more highly praised and better regarded by society.  

I didn’t bring it up publicly, because I thought the mood could turn ugly (even in liberal-minded Santa Barbara!), but I asked the event’s producer as we were leaving: “Are you sure our civilization needs to celebrate war more vigorously?  Wouldn’t we all (especially the combatants) be better off if we could go the precise opposite direction, and actively try to get rid of this mode of dealing with international disagreements?”

She acknowledged that I had made a good point, but explained that she didn’t want to make the event political.

While I didn’t pursue this with her, I was thinking:  I’ve got some news for you: the concept that we need to heighten further our reverence for killing and destruction is, in fact, very much a political statement, albeit not a very civilized one.

Sustainable Society