Review of terms from last week:
myth/ mythmakers -- A partial list of the myth-makers we discussed in class today were government(s), the press and media, authors, artists, and family/personal memory. Each of these myth-makers function differently. A family, for instance, could pass down stories, and in the process exagerrate or change those stories. Authors and artists can offer a symbolic commentary on the events and narratives of war. By symbolic, we mean that the artist and the author can use language that is more flexible than so-called 'objective' speech, and thus create meaning differently.
the other -- This is a loaded, kind of catch-all term for those persons or people who are, to varying degrees and consequences, 'different' than 'us.' On the one hand, the term can be an extreme way to categorize someone as enemy or opponent. On the other hand, the term might also be used to define someone with different interests. By interests, we might mean lifestyle, point of view, belief system, or, as one person put it, someone with a different 'future'.
One interesting intersection of the 'other' and mythmaking falls under the schema called ideology. We defined ideology as a real system of living, a lifestyle, that we don't question or that we take for granted. Ideologies are often things a given culture doesn't often consider, but which in fact define and create how that culture works and lives. For instance, here at Queens college we're all basically interested in finding professional careers after college. This same desire is typical among most Americans: make good money, find an attractive husband or wife, and retire early, rich and content. The fact is, these goals and desires are both real and constructed, even arbitrary. 100 years ago, most Americans lived on farms and worked toward the seasonal harvest. 100 years from now, most of us will live on Mars and only eat Snickers. The point is, the life you live today is entirely depedent on the system of beliefs you take for granted while living it. According to some definitions, this is ideology at work.
This concept of ideology intersects with the 'other' by allowing us define some persons as non-persons, as people that somehow fall outside our capacity to understand them. Through language, landscape, or belief, some people find it hard to empathize with persons who clearly exist in a reality differing significantly from their own. This, too, is part of ideology, since ideology seems to limit what kinds of people fall under the category of 'other.'
War is a special and unique time to examine and see ideology at work in a culture or society. Even those aspects of our culture we expect to remain neutral, like the press and media, fall under the spell of war. During war, Hedges writes in
War is a force, "the press wanted to be used" (143). For us, this reflects the fact that war is a business that drives ratings, and the individual journalists in the field are ultimately reporting to their ratings-hungry bosses, as well as the military that keep them charged and safe. This role contradicts our expectations of the news and journalism, which we expect to be objective and keep us informed about how to make personal decisions. One of the most important decisions we can make is about whether or not to support violence against other human beings: war.
In order to get better information, we need to examine different sources of information. We could, for instance, read more than one newspaper, or read different magazines. The problem, however, is that these publications all purport to tell the 'truth,' which we know to be influenced by ratings or pressures from revenue sources. It's also very similiar stylistically. In newspapers and magazines, authors use their single point of view but write in a style meant to convey the truth. This is often misleading.
One way to get better information is, of course, to visit the places you'd like to learn about. In a war, however, this can be dangerous. Instead, we may try to get first-hand information from persons participating in war. This is available through websites, blogs, and, when possible, memoirs, essays, and autobiographies. Although these resources may be lacking 'truth,' they may give us useful and important information.
