Class Notes 3-6: Masculinity and Sacrifice
Today's class began by examining two passages from Victor Frankl's memoir Man's Search for Meaning, which we used to frame and contextualize our reading from Chris Hedges' chapter from War is a force, "The Seducation and Perversion of War." In the first passage, Frankl related how the prisoner in the concentration camp lived in a place where life "lost all value." He also added that the kind of existence he lived was akin to "animal life." These passages represent what it's like to articulate life from the perspective, or point of view, of the "object," and seem to speak broadly for those persons who live through the value-less experience of war life.
War is a time and place that exists without law, rules, codes, norms, or protection. Sometimes, the laws that do exist in war work only for the benefit of those who have power, which might be an occupying army, an insurgent band, or the guards of a prison.
Frankl also related the perspective of the guards, or kapos, that lived in the camp with him and the other inmates. He said that there were essentially three types of guards: the sadists, the "hardened" majority that neither practiced nor prevented sadism, and the small number of those who had "pity." We discussed how all three of these positions entitled the persons in those roles status as "subjects," or people that controlled the "objects"--the prisoners.
In addition, all three of these subject positions translate to various degrees of superiority among the guards. Even those guards that showed "pity" practiced a kind of superiority; to have pity is to, in effect, declare your superiority over another person. It is a statement of power, even if it ultimately has beneficial effects on the person deemed "inferior." For example, the guards gave Frankl an extra piece of bread because of their "pity." In many ways, that pity defines the gray area of the imperial mindset, which sees other persons within conditions susceptible to its own influence, aid, and judgment.
What both the object and subject positions Frankl describes have in common, according to Hedges, is that both the object and subject in war consider themselves "victims." In war, both sides believe they are fighting for the right side. In war, both sides consider themselves in a position to judge the innocence or guilt of the other side.
Hedges believes that the psychology of the war mind necessitates the production of narratives that glorify war. We discussed how wars need heroes, or persons who themselves seem untouchable, immortal, and strong. We need narratives of these persons, usually men, because they act in ways we believe we can duplicate, learn from, and emmulate. The narrative of the hero is critical to how different sides understand the justice of their actions. If the hero is not wrong to fight, how can the fight be wrong?
Hedges also believes that those heroic narratives sanitize the experience of war, and become representations that do not connect to the actual experience of war. He uses the story of Ali, a young Palestinian lured into his death by Israeli soldiers, to explain how in real war there are no heroes, only pathology and victims. Furthermore, Ali's funeral parade produced a scene that was meant to embrace more young men and boys to the fight against the Israelis. The group that produced the parade, Hamas, used consistent messages, dramatic scences, intelligible symbols, and projected media (posters, audio tapes, and, in other cases, video) to convey their message to those men not yet converted to their platform. Their platform was, in fact, to recruit young men to become "martyrs," or persons who die attempting to fight.
We related this method of recruitment to war films, which use similiar kinds of information to attract young men into service, even if they attempt to be anti-war. Both the Hamas funeral and Steven Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan convey the message that our lives depend on the sacrifice of young men who died. Both Hamas and Spielberg use the immediate trauma of conflict to prime their audience for the sacred seriousness of their purpose, either as a parade or in a spectacular opening scene on the Normandy coast. While the film and the parade are different experiences for different audiences, their ultimate goal sanctifies the loss of war into something honorable and worthy of respect. In addition, both films try to emphasize the masculine identity of conflict, and the attraction of war for "testing" manhood and humanity. Even though both the parade and the film emphasize sacrifice, they also use that sacrifice to different ends: Hamas explicitly argues that only through death can boys become men, while Speilberg and Hollywood generally argue that only through killing can boys become men. At any rate, both groups use war as a way to construct the masculine identity of gender.
War is a time and place that exists without law, rules, codes, norms, or protection. Sometimes, the laws that do exist in war work only for the benefit of those who have power, which might be an occupying army, an insurgent band, or the guards of a prison.
Frankl also related the perspective of the guards, or kapos, that lived in the camp with him and the other inmates. He said that there were essentially three types of guards: the sadists, the "hardened" majority that neither practiced nor prevented sadism, and the small number of those who had "pity." We discussed how all three of these positions entitled the persons in those roles status as "subjects," or people that controlled the "objects"--the prisoners.
In addition, all three of these subject positions translate to various degrees of superiority among the guards. Even those guards that showed "pity" practiced a kind of superiority; to have pity is to, in effect, declare your superiority over another person. It is a statement of power, even if it ultimately has beneficial effects on the person deemed "inferior." For example, the guards gave Frankl an extra piece of bread because of their "pity." In many ways, that pity defines the gray area of the imperial mindset, which sees other persons within conditions susceptible to its own influence, aid, and judgment.
What both the object and subject positions Frankl describes have in common, according to Hedges, is that both the object and subject in war consider themselves "victims." In war, both sides believe they are fighting for the right side. In war, both sides consider themselves in a position to judge the innocence or guilt of the other side.
Hedges believes that the psychology of the war mind necessitates the production of narratives that glorify war. We discussed how wars need heroes, or persons who themselves seem untouchable, immortal, and strong. We need narratives of these persons, usually men, because they act in ways we believe we can duplicate, learn from, and emmulate. The narrative of the hero is critical to how different sides understand the justice of their actions. If the hero is not wrong to fight, how can the fight be wrong?
Hedges also believes that those heroic narratives sanitize the experience of war, and become representations that do not connect to the actual experience of war. He uses the story of Ali, a young Palestinian lured into his death by Israeli soldiers, to explain how in real war there are no heroes, only pathology and victims. Furthermore, Ali's funeral parade produced a scene that was meant to embrace more young men and boys to the fight against the Israelis. The group that produced the parade, Hamas, used consistent messages, dramatic scences, intelligible symbols, and projected media (posters, audio tapes, and, in other cases, video) to convey their message to those men not yet converted to their platform. Their platform was, in fact, to recruit young men to become "martyrs," or persons who die attempting to fight.
We related this method of recruitment to war films, which use similiar kinds of information to attract young men into service, even if they attempt to be anti-war. Both the Hamas funeral and Steven Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan convey the message that our lives depend on the sacrifice of young men who died. Both Hamas and Spielberg use the immediate trauma of conflict to prime their audience for the sacred seriousness of their purpose, either as a parade or in a spectacular opening scene on the Normandy coast. While the film and the parade are different experiences for different audiences, their ultimate goal sanctifies the loss of war into something honorable and worthy of respect. In addition, both films try to emphasize the masculine identity of conflict, and the attraction of war for "testing" manhood and humanity. Even though both the parade and the film emphasize sacrifice, they also use that sacrifice to different ends: Hamas explicitly argues that only through death can boys become men, while Speilberg and Hollywood generally argue that only through killing can boys become men. At any rate, both groups use war as a way to construct the masculine identity of gender.
posted by Jrc at 3:25 PM
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