Unhappy Memorial Day
Several times today I’ve heard someone (mostly just radio DJs) say, “Happy Memorial Day.” That doesn’t make sense to me. What could possibly EVER be happy about calling to memory our fallen troops? In addition to the obvious point that we should ruminate on this more than one day per year, on this Memorial Day we should remember those who have died in all our conflicts, but we should not think back on them as having died gloriously fighting for our country but rather as having been taken from us prematurely by acts of government aggression. There is nothing glorious about war, regardless of the inclinations toward which some of our baser instincts may lead us (especially after a devastating attack like 9/11). As I’ve pointed out before, few American conflicts aside from the original Revolution could really be considered defensive conflicts.
The fact is that large-scale war between nation-states is an artifact unique to (surprise!) nation-states. It’s clearly sometimes unavoidable in the world we find ourselves in, but that doesn’t make it any better. Many of our conflicts have been fought by people drafted into service by force, an unconscionable state of affairs wholly opposed to the idea of a free society on which this country was founded. Even many of those who choose to join the military end up fighting and dying in wars that they know are wrong and in which they would not have chosen to fight if they’d had the option. It’s true that many people voluntarily join the armed forces and even approve of the conflicts in which they end up dying, but there’s no avoiding the fact that, in the absence of the state’s war-making, those individuals could have had much longer lives, engaging in valuable production, exchange, and personal fulfillment.
I was fortunate to not lose any of my fellow soldiers with whom I served overseas during the deployment of my National Guard unit, but we all still suffered by being there. Many endured a reduction in income, lost career opportunities, strained family lives, and some even missed the births of their children. Several even lost marriages over problems caused by the deployment. When the state makes war, it destroys not only the lives of enemies and innocent bystanders but also the lives of the very troops who do its bidding. We should memorialize the fallen not as glorious war heroes but as innocent victims of the state.
Randolph Bourne famously said, “war is the health of the state.” Very true. It could equally be said that peace is the health of a free and prosperous society. Don’t fall into the trap laid by the government, which wants us to continue the primitive tradition of glorifying military action (which in turn means glorifying government itself). It’s all very clever and takes advantage of our inborn desire to see ‘our side’ beat the crap out of the ‘other side.’ But it’s my view that, as a species, we’re advanced enough now to not be taken in by such tricks and to not have to rely on involuntary coercion (the government) to solve our problems, either internal or external. It’s high time we stopped allowing the government to manipulate us into continuing to support it through the mythos of the ‘glorious sacrifice’ in war.
So, unhappy Memorial Day to everyone.
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