The Art of War

[Ian Livingston]

Is war Freudian? Attempts at return, or mimicry of the return to the
mineral stasis through disintegration and decay?
I wondered sometimes as I watched young students who had enlisted
prepare to ship out whether it was duty or the hope for death that was
the call they answered--a convenient and socially condoned suicide
attempt. A way out for misfits who couldn't opt for the arts as a way
to dump the parents, like Jim Morrison, etc. If you can't beat 'em,
die. All the young men and women coming home now, alive by some ill
fate, who turn the barrel back on themselves out of despair at having
survived. There's a hole in the American heart.

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 10:30 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Americans love war
>
> is this not Major Marvey at least in tone and vernacular?
>
> http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/General_George_Patton/
>
> second point: big commercials for Call of Duty: Special Ops where you
> and your colleagues at work along with Kobe Bryant and other celebs
> can act your own "special actions" with high power weaponry including
> the shy little officer secretary who after blasting away with her
> automatic weapon is seen with smile in the advanced throes of some
> sort of orgasm. there is no blood, there are no bodies, just the
> sexual impulse directed elsewhere, towards a destruction with no
> consequences which some may argue is a fine metaphor for recent
> American foreign policy--rape, fuck, maim, and then love.
>
> third point:  America is a country, still in infancy, who has
> benefited from the folly of other generations, without earning
> outright such privilege, and youngsters with means and no experience
> is no different from the arrogant little shits who we worship as
> celebs whether within the beltway, in hollywood, or with birds on
> their shoulders.
>
> last point: for the child to be born which do we want it to be:  the
> savior or just gas--that old Globocnik trick.
>
> it's been the gas for far too long
> rich
>
> On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 5:47 AM,  <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:
>> There is the "original" by Sun Tzu, of the 6th
>> century- still popular with west point and wharton
>> types.
>>
>> Then there is art about war- too many novels
>> to name, GR may be one, and also, artists
>> unabashedly in love with war, for example,
>> the romantic Herman Melville. See especially
>> Melville's poetry. He was, like most americans,
>> truly smitten.
>>
>> There are war parasites, like Chris Hedges-
>> didn't we see an incarnation of Chris, at
>> dinner in GR, just prior to the Pus Pudding?-
>> who have made a nice living and garnished
>> a reputation covering war, only to change
>> hat's when the opportunity presented itself.
>>
>> (But I'm unfair. We should all be free to evolve.)
>>
>> Any art is subject to  aestheric considerations,
>> and war, like politics, is no exception. A good
>> primer, in that regard, is Walter Benjamin's
>>
>>  The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
>>   Reproduction
>>
>> Definitely worth the effort of a close read- it
>> should be required for any course on Pynchon.
>>
>> Recently, of course, there was the widely hyped
>> "Mother of War," or, "Mother of All Wars." Which,
>> I guess (conveniently leaving Adam out of it),
>> might be construed to be Eve- or at least
>> Roger Mexico's grandmother, or something.
>>
>> I keep thinking about Hamlet's mom, not quite
>> Swedish, but a sucker for convenience, and, I'm
>> told, able to whip up a shortstack second to none.
>> {But don't get in her way when she's got that fryin'
>> pan handy!)
>>
>> Peace. In small homeopathic doses...
>>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."