I don’t respond to many worldly issues anymore, simply because they are not the “BIG idea” to me anymore.
I am not motivated to cynicism, nor am I motivated to “nationalism”. Therefore, I am not motivated to the physical (carnal) arguments that shall continue in perpetuity.
My recent reading of two Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poems has opened my eyes to some thoughts on war/anti-war issues, that are at least as old as the Victorian age.
Many ideas if not the exact words within the varied anti Iraq War blogs are ‘one and the same’ from Tennyson’s Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886).
So, what has changed, in the last 100 plus years? The poet is long since dead.
But, his words are replayed,over and over through the so many wars that have taken place since his pen left the paper. His words are my words also.
The unique thing about this poem of Tennyson’s is that he wrote prior to the USA being considered a world power. In fact, the USA was not a world player in any measurable sense, until after the Spanish American War.
Yet, Tennyson is able to point to “USA prototypes” through ancient history, up to and including the UK of the Victorian age.
Do we need to save/restore the USA? Is that what we are supposed to do? I ask, I have an answer that I believe is right, but I don’t force that answer on any. I just ask.
Did Tennyson see his mission as saving/restoring the UK? I don’t know, but my assumption is that he did. Most poets and literary figures that I’ve studied in English Literature do have a “mission” of reformation or restoration of the Nation and political system that they cherish.
Tennyson’s speaker, in this poem, did not omit any human ethnic group from his criticism on war and death.
All are “man” and all are equally ‘fallen’ stars with varying degrees of stripes. (lines 93 and 94 from Locksley Hall Sixty Years After)
- 93 Have we grown at last beyond the passions of the primal clan?
- 94 ‘Kill your enemy, for you hate him,’ still, ‘your enemy’ was a man.
This is the crux of the issue for me, my vision, sees far beyond carnal national policies of ‘who kills who’.
Death is not the enemy in the crucial fight, the real “ultimate fight”.
The enemy, to me, is fear of death or possibly even just the forestalling of death and thinking that this has defeated ‘him‘ in some tangible way.
We shall not defeat death by forestalling death for 100 million people for thirty years. Death is still coming to those 100 million souls. If they are not prepared for their conference day with him, he will rule over them for eternity.
Caesar shall be Caesar.
No one shall prevail in convincing Caesar to be something less than Caesar. This is not a profound statement; it’s just the way of carnal man.
God bless,
DSM
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