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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-May-2011
30-May-11 News -- Decoration Day 2011

Web Log - May, 2011

30-May-11 News -- Decoration Day 2011

Crisis civil wars -- the worst of the worst wars

Decoration Day 2011

Monday is Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. Decoration Day was officially proclaimed on May 5th, 1868, by President Ulysses Grant, to honor and decorate with flowers the graves of fallen soldiers during the Civil War. Later on, this holiday came to include fallen soldiers from any war.

Brownsville, Texas, Decoration Day parade, 1917 (Robert Runyon #01326)

Brownsville, Texas, Decoration Day parade, 1917 (Robert Runyon #01326)

Even today, the American Civil War (or, as some call it, the War of Northern Aggression) stirs great passions and fury, and it's appropropriate to ask why that is, after 156 years. Is the "Stars and Bars" Confederate flag a symbol of heroism or a symbol of racism? It all depends on whom you ask, and don't be surprised if the person shouts his answer at you.

Confederate Reunion. North Carolina Veterans With Flags, 1917 (Harris & Ewing, LC-DIG-hec-08837)

Confederate Reunion. North Carolina Veterans With Flags, 1917 (Harris & Ewing, LC-DIG-hec-08837)

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the reason that it's so well remembered is because it's one of the three generational crisis wars that America has fought -- the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. Other wars -- the Mexican war, even World War I -- are barely remembered except perhaps for their names. (See "Which war came first, Korea or Vietnam?")

Historians always look for the "cause" of a war, as if such a concept makes sense. Was the "cause" of the Civil War slavery, even though Abraham Lincoln had no intention of freeing the slaves? Was the cause economic? Or was there some other cause?

For some wars you can name a cause, but for others you cannot. Leo Tolstoy, in his epic work War and Peace, about Napoleon's invasion of Russia, was completely baffled as to the cause of that war:

"It naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England's intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally seemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war was Napoleon's ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the war was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the war was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals and old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of giving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the need of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of that time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between Russia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed from Napoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178.
It is natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points of view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient.
To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them."

Tolstoy was completely baffled, but from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, generational crisis wars are part of the human DNA, as much as sex is, and it makes as much sense to ask the "cause" of many such wars as the "cause" of why people have inappropriate sex.

A generational crisis war is an elemental force of nature, like a hurricane or an earthquake. In that sense, there are neither "good wars" nor "bad wars." Politicians can neither cause them or prevent them. There are no distinctions over race, religion, creed, skin color, form of government, type of society, or geography. There are only distinctions based on time (generational era) -- a generational crisis war begins only when the generations that survived the previous one are gone.

Civil wars - the worst of the worst

If crisis wars are the worst wars, then crisis civil wars are often the worst of the worst. That's not to say that the Bataan Death March, the slaughter on Normandy's beaches, the firebombing of Dresden, or the nuking of Hiroshima were not horrible events. Atrocities are atrocities, no matter where they're committed.

But what makes civil wars the worst of the worst is that people commit these atrocities on their neighbors and loved ones. How many brothers fighting brothers were among the tens of thousands slaughtered at Antietam or Gettysburg? In Rwanda and Bosnia, populations had intermarried, but that did not stop someone from picking up a machete, going next door, killing the father and children, raping the wife, killing her, and then cutting them all up into mangled pieces.

Of course, we in the arrogant West think we're above all that. People on both the left and right often portray Africans and Arabs as uncivilized tribal warriors who practice slaughter as a way of life, while we would NEVER do anything of the sort. However, the only real difference is that Africa and the Mideast are on different generational timelines from the West. "We" did exactly the same things, but we crammed it all into World War II. And anyway, Belgrade and Sarajevo were not backward tribal cities. They were modern, cosmopolitan Western cities, and still are, if you forget what happened there in the 1990s.

(As an aside, the Sri Lanka civil war that ended in 2009 is under investigation for war crimes. There were plenty of atrocities in the Sri Lanka civil war, but compared to some others I've looked at, it was almost civilized.)

During the 2006 war in Lebanon between Israelis and Hizbollah, I was struck by a quote from Lebanese President Émile Geamil Lahoud:

"Believe me, what we get from [Israeli bombers] is nothing compared to [what would happen] if there is an internal conflict [a new civil war] in Lebanon. So our thanks comes when we are united, and we are really united, and the national army is doing its work according to the government, and the resistance [Hizbollah] is respected in the whole Arab world from the population point of view. And very highly respected in Lebanon as well."

Lahoud was saying that Israeli warplanes bombing Lebanon's infrastructure really weren't so bad, compared to what could happen. He was reflecting on the day in 1982 when Lebanese Phalangists invaded Palestinian refugee camps, and raped, multilated and slaughtered hundreds or perhaps thousands of refugees. At least Israeli bombers weren't doing THAT in 2006. This is the impact of crisis civil wars, and why they cannot be forgotten.

Decoration Day

This brings us back to Decoration Day.

If we're going to send our sons and daughters off to war in an explosion of mutual xenophobia that has no "cause" except the force of nature and the force of hormones on all sides, then we at least owe our veterans their rewards and our care, and our dead soldiers our memories. And Decoration Day is the least we can do for them.

As we approach a new "clash of civilizations" world war, the Millennial generation will be the new generation of Heroes, taking their place as the next "greatest generation."

These Heroes are our young darlings. Some of them have already gone off to war. When the time comes and the nation is facing its greatest danger, these Heroes will go off to war fearlessly and do their duty. Without any thought for themselves, they'll go proudly and valiantly into battle, and they won't even be sad about it. It's their parents and grandparents in the Gen-X and Boomer generations who'll be standing on the shore in tears, waving goodbye as their ships disappear over the horizon, knowing that we'll never see many of them again, but also knowing that there's no choice.

And after it's all over, there'll be millions more reasons for Decoration Day.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-May-11 News -- Decoration Day 2011 thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (30-May-2011) Permanent Link
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Civil wars - the worst of the worst

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