A Book Review of Chris Hedges’—War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

Recently, I re-read a book that I have in my collection for quite awhile. I do this to remind me that not everything is in black and white and that myths are often the beginning of the narrative and not the end.  The books that does this for me is Chris Hedges's -- War is a Forcing that Gives Us Meaning.


One immediately knows where Chris Hedges’ stands on the view of war. One does not have to guess. Unlike some writers, who obscure their views in pomp,fluff, and circumstance, Hedges’ treatise on war is cathartic as well as from a“real life” perspective. Hedge's life as a war correspondent brings an authentic, passionate, and rational survey view of the trials of war.   


Chris emotionally conveys  his discourse on war, while  presupposing three points:

·       The “culture of war” is a living organism unto itself that propagates and consumes.

·        There is “addiction of war” once it begins  is like a “drug addict trying to chase after a bigger high.”

·       The “myths of war” is a narrative that is full of heroic epics, which hypnotizes the masses in popularizing unforgivable acts against other human beings.

In essence, these are some of the element within the  organism’s parts that bring about the “fate” of the culture in order to secure the continuation of hostile acts. The twin sisters, if you will, are really subsets of the umbrella of the actual “culture of war. These subsets deepen and ingrain the institutions of war and makes it easier  for the perpetrators to commit heinous crimes over and over, while the citizenry looks the other way. For example, the processing the extermination of a “prisoner” in a concentration camp, or the act of “ethnic cleansing” such as that in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia relies on the surreal perspective of the myths of war.  The separation of the myth and reality are contingent on cognizant dissonance of the public, and in part, governmental officials.

Hedges describes the distinction in how the myths of war relies on the culture of war to impart the “lies of heroicisms” and therefore must be separated from those who have actually participated in a war, in order for the state, the government, to be given the ability to recruit and pander to the public and the creation of the “addiction of war.” The myths of war allows those in charge to change the language itself. Instead of gray broad strokes there is refinement of colors.  Colors that are simple and not complicated;  and, most often separated  into a false paradigm of two colors that of black and white. In that, in the terms of simplicity for the audience, their can be only two alternatives.

These paradigm can be explained this way-- it is not the party of “Left,” nor the party of “Right that are most politically correct, but is the rights and wrongs for the drug stupor mind that either is or becomes addicted to the culture of war. Their argument, of course, for what is right and wrong shifts the entire paradigm of war into the realm of simple logic, morality, and ethics. The difference of the latter two; ethics is a representation of one’s personal code. The rules that  aspires one to live out their daily lives by an orderly construction of the self.  Moralities, on the other hand, are those standards, in which, “we" as a culture apply to the individuals, groups, or citizenry values in order to construct a more “orderly” civilization; and then, these individualistic codes are consolidated into a social contract of behavior, which seems to come to some people divinely  coded.

Chris Hedges book, he speaks of a code that demands us coming to terms with the “sins,” some out of necessity admittedly, of war—but the ones that were not necessary during the commission of the war, their acknowledgment and the reconciliation thereof. Furthermore, Hedge’s book is a revealing autobiography of his raw emotion; strike that, a cold analysis of his “sensory” perception of events of El Salvador, Angola, Sudan, and Balkan Wars. Sensory is to mean in “real time,” watching events as they happen.

One would presume his passivism.  Yet, after Hedge's strident testimonials of the horrors of war that he himself has witness, he should be yelling from the rafters for immediate—peace, . not so! His thesis, or treatise, in regards to how we hold dear those principles, moralities, and ethics, in which “we as a culture,” as a “nation” prosecute the war; in that, we should remain principled in the discipline, in the remembering and reconciling our humanity. And when the time to cease, or at least transform the “culture of war” into cessation of hostilities, it is our duty to ourselves to bring back  not only our humanity but those we have demonized as the other.

Hedges’  clarion call is foreboding. It foretells the possibility of a darkness if we fail to do so, yet at the same time communicates about the “addiction” and “myths” in the culture of war. He wishes to remind of our own humanity, which in turn, will lead us “home,” and through to the eventual loving of ourselves and of the “other.”

I highly recommend this book to everyone, even for those who are the hardliner war types. It is a thought provoking book, which challenges ones perspectives, values, beliefs, and ideals. To me this is what a book is suppose to do .