| Babson speaker explores war's horror, fascination
By Pat Healy War is a force that gives us meaning. This was not only the gist of the sobering hour-plus speech given by New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges in the Glavin Family Chapel at Babson College last week, it is also the title of his new book. Nearly one hundred Babson College students and community members came to listen to Hedges, who has been a foreign correspondent for fifteen years, covering conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central America. Hedges drove home the point that war is hell, but he also explained its allure. He spoke of myths of heroism and glory peddled by the government and Hollywood, and how he bought into it. He said he longed for a cause and thought he would find it in the struggles against the military dictatorship in Latin America in the early 1980s “No one told me about how fear wraps itself around you like a huge coil and controls you, humiliates you and makes you realize you are not who you thought you were,” he said. “No one told me what war was really like: venal, dirty, confusing, deafening in its noise and as addictive and powerful as any narcotic.” Like poisons such as tobacco and alcohol, war is packaged in the same lies, he said. It is wholesale death, but its enduring attraction is that even with its destruction and carnage, it can give us what we long for in life. “It can give us a reason for living,” he said. “Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations, and increasingly, our airwaves. And war is enticing. It gives us a resolve. It allows us to be noble. “And those who have the least meaning in their lives, impoverished Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, and even the legions of youth that live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world are all susceptible to war’s appeal.” Hedges said he doesn’t miss war, but he misses the sense of purpose it gave him, and he spoke of the similarities between love and war. The initial selflessness of war mirrors that of love, he said. But war also blinds, he said. It imposes a cynicism we confuse as wisdom, and sparks comradeship we confuse for friendship. “In war one can find meaning, but almost never happiness,” he said, and brought up the fact that war vets who get together after fighting together in battle often have very little in common. Hedges, who joined the staff of the New York Times in 1990 and previously worked for the Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and National Public Radio, spoke a great deal about the media’s role in distorting war. He said how the public needs to reclaim its language and not buy into cinematic phrases like “War on Terror” and “Showdown with Saddam,” and stop following these issues like fictitious television serials. He addressed the war on terror, and its name as such. “There is an apocalyptic quality to the war, with the notion that if we get rid of the terrorists we get rid of evil.” The speech, sponsored by the Office of Spiritual Life, directed by the Reverend Dr. Thomas Sullivan, prompted many questions from the audience. Burton Horne of Lexington asked Hedges if he thought President Bush was perpetuating the need for war with Iraq to help him get reelected for another term. In answer Hedges said he thinks that’s only part of the equation, and that he doesn’t think the administration has thought out the consequences of an attack. “One of the things that strikes me in the debate about the war with Iraq is the way that so many people accept the Bush administration’s analogy that somehow this is surgical and that we can use the blunt instrument of war, go into Iraq and cut out Saddam Hussein like a cancer. War doesn’t work like that. Once you open the Pandora’s box of war, all sorts of things can happen that you don’t expect or control.” Dawood Nagda, a sophomore at Babson, asked about Hedges’ views on how America perceives itself. He also asked about America as an empire, and if Hedges thinks that America, like all other great empires, will fall. “We are an imperium, and like all imperiums we want to view ourselves as decent, good, nice people, so we totally ignore what we do in the world, what happens outside of the borders in our name, and the media doesn’t listen to that,” he said. “The media feeds you what you want to see, not what you should know.” That ignorance is dangerous, said Hedges, and he worries very much. “What characterizes the later stages of the Roman Empire is entertainment, and for us that is the same, even news is entertainment.” Renee Hobbs, a professor of communications at Babson challenged Hedges that there are still opportunities to discover truths through the media, and cited the exemplary work of war journalist/cartoonist Joe Sacco. “I don’t think there are a lot of opportunities,” Hedges argued, “because media is pretty much dominated by a few large corporations and I worry a lot that there’s fewer and fewer places to go anymore.” He said that even National Public Radio has gotten soft “If I have to sit through another ten minutes of Susan Stamberg talking about chocolate,” he said, rolling his eyes and sighing. Hedges said America and the American media was closest to self-awareness in the 1970s. “I think after the Vietnam War we certainly became a better nation in our defeat,” he said. “We were humbled, humiliated, and forced to ask questions about ourselves we had not asked before. We were forced to confront our own capacity for evil, for atrocity, and we stepped outside and tried to see how others would see us.” His book, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, is available in bookstores across the country, including Wellesley Booksmith. |
|