I hope my account of WWII is a gripping, paper-turning, human-interest story - but I hope it isn't of interest to humans because it is all about humans and all about humans only.
When War History ( capital W, capital H) is seen only through the prism of the clash of human wills, it ends up as just university-level navel gazing : navel-gazing with tenure.
War can be more accurately seen as the clash of various human wills with other human wills and all of these wills clashing with the material limitations of Reality.
I really would have loved to entitle this blog as:
"1939-1945: REALITY's side of the story."
But I feared that it would simply come across as just another tell-all recounting of this perpetually popular 'epic clash of human will' .
Reality merely being a codeword for 'yet newer archival revelations about human conduct'.
Now describing Reality, that Universe we all swim in, as Nature clearly has its dangers.
(Because when Reality is reduced to Nature , it is as if its limitations are seen as existing in a lesser, parallel world from the limitless mental world of us humans.
That is our familiar delusionary world of 'name it and claim it', 'dare to dream', 'mind over matter' , 'where there is a will there is a way' , etc.
Thankfully in much of today's conventional thought , The Natural World is often seen as extending to include everything just short of human mental thoughts - ie it does included our mortal fallible bodies and their material needs.
That is a definition of Nature I can sort of live with, though I personally believe our mental activities are just as much a part of the Natural World as my pet dog's daydreams.
So when reading this blog, recast your image of Nature to encompassing everything in the Universe, including our mental reveries, and you'll do just fine....
Showing posts with label modernity bites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label modernity bites. Show all posts
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
the upcoming "PROGRESS versus the PLANET" conflagration...
NATURE bites back (gently) : "Vita Com Mensa"
World War Two, that Very Bad News War, can now be seen as the peak of NON-RENEWABLE MODERNITY, both the apogee of the Modern Age and also its nadir.
Since then, people have wondered just what belief system would and should replace Non-Renewable Modernity.
I believe Non-Renewable Modernity's best replacement can be described as " VITA CON MENSA" .
That is the view that that 'all Life dines at a common table' .
In other words, Commensality, in its broadest and most generous sense.
Yes I admit much of this can also be seen asPost-Modernity.
But its almost 75 years after Kristallnacht and Munich.
We have been Post Modern almost longer than we have been Modern !
Isn't about time this new era got a name of its own, instead of just being the negation of its predecessor ?
Isn't time for Humanity to admit that it isn't beyond and above Nature and its material limits.
Isn't it past time that we accept that we are embedded in Nature and Nature in us, like it or not.
And shouldn't we accept that all life forms are interdependent on each other for their very survival.
I believe before we can begin saving this burning planet from ourselves, we must learn to think and feel differently.
We must cast off all traces of Non-Renewable Modernity and start embracing Commensality as our new credo.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
That Pitbull Bites --- as did WWII....
Cancer bites - Mosquitoes bite.
Insects, cancer: they all suck, they all bite.
Getting bitten by a pitbull bites.
All these things have two closely related meanings:
They are all metaphorically dreadful and they are all literally painful.
Just as 1939-1945 (aka WWII aka MODERNITY UNLEASHED) was.
WWII bites, WWII sucks, because it bit 60 to 75 million people and bit them to death.
And that sucks, Big Time ----literally and figuratively....
Insects, cancer: they all suck, they all bite.
Getting bitten by a pitbull bites.
All these things have two closely related meanings:
They are all metaphorically dreadful and they are all literally painful.
Just as 1939-1945 (aka WWII aka MODERNITY UNLEASHED) was.
WWII bites, WWII sucks, because it bit 60 to 75 million people and bit them to death.
And that sucks, Big Time ----literally and figuratively....
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
WWII: Modernity Bites. (Until Nature bites back...)
Most people who died because of WWII , died of hunger or the diseases caused by it.
That is more than (a) the number of soldiers and civilians killed in combat or (b) civilians and soldiers killed by execution.
None, or almost none, of these tens of millions who died from hunger would have died if their friends or enemies had had huge surpluses of food bursting their warehouses.
It was FOOD - bog ordinary, plain old food , that dominated WWII - from before the war, to after the war and all points in between.
Food - not Life, not Land, not Oil, not Power - dominated the war
and its decision making.
Food - in its very materialness - dominated a war and a world that had predetermined that in a Modern Age, the Mental Will dominated over a Material World.
The mind was over and above and beyond the material world.
If WWII established one thing , it was that this simply wasn't so.
Mother Nature - in the form of the annual weather - casually tossed the wartime ambitions of Humanity about like they were kids' toys.
Good weather/ good harvests and millions of those intended for deliberate death might get an additional lease on miserable life.
Bad weather/ bad harvests and governments found ever more diabolical ways to export hunger onto those less powerful .
And make no mistakes, ALL governments exported hunger onto the weak : Axis, Allied and Neutrals alike.
There were foodie heroes everywhere throughout the war; heroic individuals who never fired a gun to defend their land but who nevertheless ignored government callousness and worked to feed all , weak and strong.
We should honor them but we don't - not until more women write the big books about World War Two.
By big books, I mean those books that try to see the big picture of the war ; those works of synthesis that get at those overarching
issues that rise above all the individual incidents that made up the war.
Food - the largest motivating force animating WWII - simply doesn't interest many men : its just there; laid on by the womenfolk, like washing-up.
Most male historians prefer to write about guns rather than butter but if female historians won't write about butter, then who will ?
Adam Tooze and Lizzie Collingham for a start: two historians (one male, one female) who have ordered their global histories of
WWII around weather and harvest yields.
THE WAGES OF DESTRUCTION and THE TASTE OF WAR are two books I recommend all read: Collingham's book is a much easier read but Tooze's book gives the dollar and cents figures to back up Collingham's more impressionistic claims.
Read them both and you will never again look at WWII through the eyes of the mainstream mythology.
They will make you very angry I hope - this is good - anger can lead to activism.
Time is short, we have a burning planet to save , to save from ourselves.
Because we must first change how we think and how we feel, before we can hope change how we can co-exist within the world....
That is more than (a) the number of soldiers and civilians killed in combat or (b) civilians and soldiers killed by execution.
None, or almost none, of these tens of millions who died from hunger would have died if their friends or enemies had had huge surpluses of food bursting their warehouses.
It was FOOD - bog ordinary, plain old food , that dominated WWII - from before the war, to after the war and all points in between.
Food - not Life, not Land, not Oil, not Power - dominated the war
and its decision making.
Food - in its very materialness - dominated a war and a world that had predetermined that in a Modern Age, the Mental Will dominated over a Material World.
The mind was over and above and beyond the material world.
If WWII established one thing , it was that this simply wasn't so.
Mother Nature - in the form of the annual weather - casually tossed the wartime ambitions of Humanity about like they were kids' toys.
Good weather/ good harvests and millions of those intended for deliberate death might get an additional lease on miserable life.
Bad weather/ bad harvests and governments found ever more diabolical ways to export hunger onto those less powerful .
And make no mistakes, ALL governments exported hunger onto the weak : Axis, Allied and Neutrals alike.
There were foodie heroes everywhere throughout the war; heroic individuals who never fired a gun to defend their land but who nevertheless ignored government callousness and worked to feed all , weak and strong.
We should honor them but we don't - not until more women write the big books about World War Two.
By big books, I mean those books that try to see the big picture of the war ; those works of synthesis that get at those overarching
issues that rise above all the individual incidents that made up the war.
Food - the largest motivating force animating WWII - simply doesn't interest many men : its just there; laid on by the womenfolk, like washing-up.
Most male historians prefer to write about guns rather than butter but if female historians won't write about butter, then who will ?
Adam Tooze and Lizzie Collingham for a start: two historians (one male, one female) who have ordered their global histories of
WWII around weather and harvest yields.
THE WAGES OF DESTRUCTION and THE TASTE OF WAR are two books I recommend all read: Collingham's book is a much easier read but Tooze's book gives the dollar and cents figures to back up Collingham's more impressionistic claims.
Read them both and you will never again look at WWII through the eyes of the mainstream mythology.
They will make you very angry I hope - this is good - anger can lead to activism.
Time is short, we have a burning planet to save , to save from ourselves.
Because we must first change how we think and how we feel, before we can hope change how we can co-exist within the world....
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