National Narratives
“Historical communities are constituted by the stories they recount to themselves and to others,” writes Richard Kearney. By telling and retelling stories, communities, like individual people, narrate their identities. Indeed, my own personal identity is in part formed by the community in which I live: its origin, history, narratives and mythology contribute to and shape my story. Who I am is not a matter of mere fact, but a matter of storytelling, the telling of multiple and sometimes conflicting stories by myself and by others. My nation is likewise a no mere historical and social entity; it is also a product of competing and conflicting narratives. Some of these stories reveal great achievements. Others conceal, dissimulate, and produce false consciousness. The same story may both reveal and conceal.
The telling of grand national narratives and modest tales of personal sacrifice accompanied this past Memorial Day, a holy day recognized by our national community that serves as an occasion for telling stories that define ourselves, our families, and our country. We related our memories of heroism by those we love and honor. We praised them for what they did and why they died. We remembered and expressed our thanks, our gratitude, our appreciation. The stories we told helped define not only those we remember, but also the causes and community for which they sacrificed. On Memorial Day, we speak not only of the dearly departed, but also of the country and its larger narrative. It is here at the meeting of the personal and the national that we are perhaps most tempted to conceal, dissimulate, and produce false consciousness regarding our national identity.
In honoring the fallen, we often want to believe that they died (or killed) for a righteous cause, and so we may be inclined to narrate our memories in the best possible light. We say they gave their lives in the service of freedom, or some such ideal, because we wouldn’t wish to say (or think) they died for the expansion of land, for pursuits of power, or for corporate profits. Of course, those we remember may well have died in the service of freedom, perhaps at least in the particular circumstance in which they gave the greatest gift, but not all those who gave their lives in war were sent to war because freedom was at stake. Yet when we remember all the fallen as having died in the service of freedom, we speak as if freedom really was contingent upon their sacrifices. In speaking thus, we perpetuate a grand narrative about our nation: that it fights always for the good, always for freedom, never unjustly. And this grand narrative, if we believe it, clouds our moral sense. We become disposed to believe a false myth about our country and ourselves, and therefore we become inclined to avoid moral criticism of its and our actions. We legitimize State violence itself and place it beyond the realm of criticism.
None of this is to say that we should not have national days of remembrance. It is to say, however, that we would do well to be mindful of the stories we tell, how our stories define ourselves and our communities, and what the consequences our narrated identities have for ourselves and for our world.
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In honoring the fallen, we naturally want to believe that they died (or killed) for a righteous cause, and so we may be inclined to narrate our memories in the best possible light.
I don’t see that this assumption, and thus what follows from it, is necessarily correct. Especially given the history of Memorial Day itself, which has its origins in “Decoration Day”, a day for remembering the dead of the Civil War, which began in the North but became a national holiday in which the dead on both sides were remembered.
The holiday was further formed (and gained a number of international cousins) in the wake of WW1, after which Memorial Day was made a day of remembrance for all those who died in war.
In this regard, it seems to me that the anti-human, ideologically driven narrative is that which seeks to hide the human stories and identities of all those persons caught up in the collective tragedy of war, and instead place over the entire event some sort of ideological meta-narrative — whether a pacifist one or a militaristic one.
Christians should completely ignore Memorial Day.
Darwin,
I meant to speak generally. I concur that the belief of which I speak isn’t always held by those who remember those who died in wars. An anti-war activist might remember a fallen loved one while believing that the war his loved one died in was unjust.
I agree as well that we find dissimulating national narratives that begin on high from some abstract ideology. We find these in addition to dissimulating stories that begin with specific remembrances of real people.
Michael,
Would it be possible in your view to have a national day of remembering the fallen – a “memorial day” – that avoids legitimizing State violence?
Kyle – From where I stand, I think that’s very difficult to do under the nation-state system. Canadian “Remembrance Day” maybe comes as close as possible, but even there you get a strong whiff of civil religion. Canada’s involvement in war has been very different from the u.s.’s of course.
Let me share a photo I took last year, at Omaha Beach, Normandy. Quite a difference from 1944…..
http://files.me.com/geraldnaus/u1ds33
I agree with Michael J.
Kyle,
An anti-war activist might remember a fallen loved one while believing that the war his loved one died in was unjust.
I would argue for pushing it farther than that: That it is deeply human (and generally the practice) to remember those who have fallen in war for one’s country regardless of whether you knew them/are related to them, and regardless of whether one is for or against the war. In this regard, I’d again point to the fact that Memorial Day has its origins in remembering those who fell on both sides of a civil war.
In human history, war is one of the great constants. It is the center of the earliest works of literature, and it remains so down to the present day. (For instance, the frequent reference even of strongly anti-war authors to the Lord of the Rings, which is, after all, the chronicle of a war, written by a veteran of the war that arguably created the “modern world”.) Thus, by recalling those who have died in wars, we remain in contact with one of the elemental tragedies and realities of our natures.
In this regard, it is deeper than questions of pro or anti war sentiment, and more human than the ideological questions of which side in a war we sympathize with.
Michael,
Perhaps moving beyond the basic Canada vs. US duality would be helpful. I should think you would have no problem with Volkstrauertag.
Perhaps moving beyond the basic Canada vs. US duality would be helpful.
Where did I say anything that would suggest a dualism? I simply happened to experience four Remembrance Days while living in Canada, so it was the first example that came to mind.
I don’t disagree with what you write, Darwin. We just seem to be coming to this issue from different angles, focused on different things.
Why can’t the loved one just be mourned on a personal basis? Why must it be in the context of glorifying, or legitimizing, or accepting the inevitability of, war?
The pernicious thing that Kyle mentioned – “not having died in vain” is the fuel that keeps the war machinery going. “We must keep fighting so those who died didn’t die in vain.” in reality, that means that more will die in vain.
Nations are ideological constructs to begin with, usually results of war. People who hadn’t viewed themselves as a nation all of a sudden claim that their respective area/culture had been a nation since, say, the 12th century.
Yale prof Merriman showed this beautifully in his western civ class (available on iTunes), by showing how very recent many national identities are. France, where I’m headed soon for the fourth time, had a minority of French speakers, with countless patois and languages (almost) eradicated, eg, Occitan by the Albigensian
crusade. A language is a dialect with an army (“high German” comes from the dialect of Saxony, English from London and surroundings etc. The invention of movable type (Luther’s Bible, eg) and centralism greatly advanced these most powerful dialects. In turn, this standardization greatly aided nationalism, whereas the old lingua franca, Latin, transcended borders.
Lastly, we have the invention of the standing army (Netherlands & Sweden, later, most importantly, Napoleonic France and Prussia
(called “an army with a country”)). The concept of the citizen made people identify with these results of war we call nations. Before, mercenary armies with no loyalties abounded, esp. In Renaissance Italy. Of course, in the USA we’re headed back in a comparable direction, American warfare, esp. Logistics and more-than-usual cruel tasks. Blackwater (now Xe) and Halliburton are the prime examples. So, in a way, we now got the worst of both ages. A powerful state outsourcing military tasks, at taxpayer expense, in sweetheart deals for rich donors. A mercenary national army like the US Armed Forces is the best guarantee for perpetual warfare. The vast majority of people isn’t affected and those who signed up have, understandably, a hard time accepting reality. Thinking that someone died “for his country” is more soothing than the cold hard, corporate, truth: (Dropkick Murphys)
We’re the first ones to starve, we’re the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And we’re always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat’s about
And when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who’s given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
Though we’ve never owned one lousy handful of earth?
Rodak,
Why can’t the loved one just be mourned on a personal basis? Why must it be in the context of glorifying, or legitimizing, or accepting the inevitability of, war?
My argument would be that that the point of national remembrance days is primarily to remember the dead who are not one’s loved ones. Why?
Well, I would argue that a country is a real thing that exists, and thus that we do have a connection with people unrelated to us, who we never know, who died in the American military. Not because we necessary gained “freedom” or some other specific good due to their personal sacrifice, nor because were necessarily fighting for a good cause or were personally “heroes” or good people. But because death in battle is noteable for its impersonal nature and loneliness, and I think that as people who are residents of that country which sent them off to die, we owe it to them to remember them.
As such, I think the important thing is those who died be remembered — and the fact that many people die in war be remembered.
Nor, I think, should only ties of nationality be recalled. I was deeply moved looking at the World War One memorial at Balliol College, where Balliol graduates who fought for England and for Germany were mixed together, listed alphabeticaly. And if I was in another country on a day of remembrance I would happily recall their war dead — even if they had died fighting the US.
But hey, I’m a softy for the remembrance thing. When I was in Ravenna I made a trip to go pray at the tomb of Theodoric at my dad’s request — because he’d always had a soft spot for the Goth who died repenting of having had Boethius executed, and he figured that not many people take time out to pray for Theodoric.
As for “not having died in vain,” all one has to consider is the word the G.I.s in Vietnam took to using in reference to the deaths of their fallen comrades–”wasted.” Says it all.
There’s something underneath the business of “died in vain” which I find difficult to articulate, but I’ll try anyway.
What is opposite of “die in vain”: “die for a purpose,” “live for a purpose” or “live in vain”? The common-sense opposite I hear in our culture is “die for a purpose” and this is a central element of how our Christian community has metabolized the crucifixion from the first days and years down the centuries to our own time. Many arguments about Christ’s divinity and nature pretty much boil down to this process of extracting meaning from a brutal and brutally common event.
My preferred antipode to “die in vain” is “live for a purpose” because that’s what I can do right now. I don’t like to face this fact, but if I live for a purpose and give myself to that purpose, then it is completely OK and to be expected that without contradiction I will die in vain and without purpose.
Projecting some kind of purpose and meaning onto my physical death is the “final” ego trip to spiritual death. My thoughts go to Hitler, Goebbels and their wives as presented in the movie Downfall (a.k.a. Untergang).
Traditionally, one might say that a soldier who learns valor in battle, dedication to comrades and compassion for the enemy has lived for a purpose. And such is true. In this post-modern world, we recognize infinitely more varied manifestations of “purpose” in life, all given through Grace. And in the end, it doesn’t matter whether a soldier’s life ends with an IED blast, an AK-47 round in his head or an overdose of heroin — purpose cannot be taken away.