In his essential history of the anti-Vietnam war movement, Out Now, the late Fred Halstead tells of the activist newspapers that were written by veterans and, in time, by active duty servicemen, newspapers that detailed the atrocities of war and urged soldiers to resist in ways grand and small.
I can already hear the keyboards chattering, but please, save it. These guys attacked a population with many profoundly vulnerable people inside of it. They did so with maximum callousness and maximum cynicism, stoking exactly the kind of fires that are most professionally useful in our current era. And I got heated. You think this goes too far, it isn't what you paid for, fine. You want to cancel your subscription, go ahead. I am in earnest and I do not apologize.
Thank you for this powerful piece. This is the sort of writing I used to relish from Alexander Cockburn (before he died) and Christopher Hitchens (before he went over to the dark side).
Man.... a whole article painting white male veterans suffering from PTSD as just another form of white identity politics? That's one of those things that sounds like something Sean Hannity would make up. But lo and behold, there it is in TNR.
I've had that feeling A LOT since 2016. I think "Oh no way. That's ridiculous. Sounds like a Fox News parody of social justice." Then I go to Twitter and find it's real.
And people wonder why Trump got more votes than expected in 2020 (I didn't vote for him btw). This Woke shit is the ultimate own-goal on the part of liberals.
This was good. I have, for a long time, think people on the left have developed this really bad habit of using film/media criticism as a way to avoid doing any actual research in regards to history, demographics, or anything else. I'm not sure how this happened, too many English majors who only had those tools in their toolkit (I was one, believe me, I know). Maybe everyone saw Zizek doing it and bastardized it. Who knows? It's as if they somehow forgot that Hollywood isn't what actually happened, or they're frustrated and lazy and the don't want to accept the boundaries of their academic abilities.
Writing, even academic writing is trendy, shallow business. Fashion trends in these circles change just like clothes and music. Right now, the absolute worst sort of liberal idpol is in. Publishing companies are trying to wring every last red cent out of it and writers like this are trying to milk it for all the clout and cultural capital they can. This is another way of saying, they don't even really give a shit about the subject matter they are covering. It's hardly real to them, the sufferings of Vietnam vets are treated as fictional Hollywood films instead of something that affected actual people.
This has gone on too long, but it can't be said often or loudly enough. It's not even really about politics for people like this. Political views are just a biproduct, something produced as secondary to social and economic ladder climbing. It's naked careerism all the way down.
I am a widow of a VN Veteran who died of wounds. He was drafted because he was working class, a carpenter from rural American, not in college. It is Memorial Day and I can't write everything I am feeling just now. Only 30% of the men who served in VN are still alive.
Academic men who taught Darda had student deferments during the VN era so anyone who was in college during the VN era did not go. I have found that the group of men--the wealthy, the college educated-- who avoided the draft found ways to justify. Controlling the narrative as they would, they taught people like Darda. (Darda isn't a minor academic- he has books by major university presses). Also they likely knew ppl on draft boards who controlled who was drafted. The National Guard was an out for those who knew someone like GWBush.
My husband did not want to go to VN. He joined Veterans for Peace when he returned after Tet. A professor at a rally asked him, "was he too stupid to get a college deferment?" It is so much more complicated than Darda knows because he was educated by teachers who had to self justify. (probably alive in much higher numbers than the men drafted). Senator Blumenthal from CT where Darda was educated campaigned as a VN Veteran but was not.
And you are 100% right about _The New Republic_ . Leon Wieseltier was many years their muse. I unsubbed years ago. Thanks for reminding me why I did.
Over on reddit, on one of their leftwing communities that is essentially just screengrabs of woke idiots saying incredibly dim things, someone posted a grab of a tweet from a white woman claiming to have exorcised terms like "summer" from her vocabulary because the global south don't experience the same seasons at the same time, and thus such terminology centres the western perspective.
I wrote what I thought was a clever-arsed but clearly ridiculous response along the lines of "when you're having a heart attack be considerate and ensure you're not centering your medical needs over that of an indigent person of colour. Loudly wailing "it hurts oh god it hurts" while demanding an ambulance when most of the world don't have recourse to emergency vehicular assistance is gross." I hoped it might get a few upvotes and promptly forgot about it until now.
A couple of days ago I landed upon an episode of The Day Today from 1994, in which a scandal breaks out when the Queen and John Major get into a punch-up. As the Queen rides en route to Downing Street in order to formally reciprocate the drubbing, a patriotic feel-good film is broadcast to placate the outraged masses. The film ends with two brawling men hugging at the sight of a union flag. The calming voiceover says something like "this is Britain and we know that conflict will always perish in the brotherhood of flags" and I had a chuckle at how prescient the programme was at predicting what British politics would descend into 30 years later. These days satire lasts about 30 seconds before it's superceded by the insanity of our reality.
I have a more meta question that came up as I was reading this piece.
You begin by stressing the importance of individual choice (in particular the moral choices made by veterans). You then, later in the piece, go on to stress a materialist conception in which people's choices are (to be reductionistic) a function of their material circumstances. So, I'm uncertain how to square these two viewpoints? I've only been following you for a few months now, so maybe you've already written about this somewhere else but it does seem to be a tension.
(My--scantily substantiated--theory is that it follows from your commitment to existentialist-type views which I gather you hold given your admiration for de Beauvoir and more traditional materialistic leftism)
God, Freddie, this was magnificent. Truly. When I was 18 I was drafted to serve in another war, and 40 years later the emotional scars are still with me. So, thank you. (My only small quibble is that from what I've read by him, I am not sure Serwer deserves to be named in the same article as these two.) Thanks again.
Christ Freddie. This is horrifying. I read as much of this despicable article as I could stomach, and your take is correct. Thank you bringing it to light.
Please let anyone who objects to your characterization respond. It’s time to start addressing this mindset.
Freddie, this is one of the best things I have ever read. I am going to re read and digest, and make a more thoughtful comment later. But this hits on the head the nail i keep swinging at. thanks
I can already hear the keyboards chattering, but please, save it. These guys attacked a population with many profoundly vulnerable people inside of it. They did so with maximum callousness and maximum cynicism, stoking exactly the kind of fires that are most professionally useful in our current era. And I got heated. You think this goes too far, it isn't what you paid for, fine. You want to cancel your subscription, go ahead. I am in earnest and I do not apologize.
Serious inquiry: what publications, if any, are capable of doing the kind of sympathetic, humane, well-written work you're espousing for here?
Thank you for this powerful piece. This is the sort of writing I used to relish from Alexander Cockburn (before he died) and Christopher Hitchens (before he went over to the dark side).
Well, and necessarily, said, Freddie.
Man.... a whole article painting white male veterans suffering from PTSD as just another form of white identity politics? That's one of those things that sounds like something Sean Hannity would make up. But lo and behold, there it is in TNR.
I've had that feeling A LOT since 2016. I think "Oh no way. That's ridiculous. Sounds like a Fox News parody of social justice." Then I go to Twitter and find it's real.
And people wonder why Trump got more votes than expected in 2020 (I didn't vote for him btw). This Woke shit is the ultimate own-goal on the part of liberals.
This was good. I have, for a long time, think people on the left have developed this really bad habit of using film/media criticism as a way to avoid doing any actual research in regards to history, demographics, or anything else. I'm not sure how this happened, too many English majors who only had those tools in their toolkit (I was one, believe me, I know). Maybe everyone saw Zizek doing it and bastardized it. Who knows? It's as if they somehow forgot that Hollywood isn't what actually happened, or they're frustrated and lazy and the don't want to accept the boundaries of their academic abilities.
Writing, even academic writing is trendy, shallow business. Fashion trends in these circles change just like clothes and music. Right now, the absolute worst sort of liberal idpol is in. Publishing companies are trying to wring every last red cent out of it and writers like this are trying to milk it for all the clout and cultural capital they can. This is another way of saying, they don't even really give a shit about the subject matter they are covering. It's hardly real to them, the sufferings of Vietnam vets are treated as fictional Hollywood films instead of something that affected actual people.
This has gone on too long, but it can't be said often or loudly enough. It's not even really about politics for people like this. Political views are just a biproduct, something produced as secondary to social and economic ladder climbing. It's naked careerism all the way down.
Awesome. If this article were a song, I'd say it's a banger and it slaps.
I think that's what I'll say about it as an article too, actually.
I am a widow of a VN Veteran who died of wounds. He was drafted because he was working class, a carpenter from rural American, not in college. It is Memorial Day and I can't write everything I am feeling just now. Only 30% of the men who served in VN are still alive.
Academic men who taught Darda had student deferments during the VN era so anyone who was in college during the VN era did not go. I have found that the group of men--the wealthy, the college educated-- who avoided the draft found ways to justify. Controlling the narrative as they would, they taught people like Darda. (Darda isn't a minor academic- he has books by major university presses). Also they likely knew ppl on draft boards who controlled who was drafted. The National Guard was an out for those who knew someone like GWBush.
My husband did not want to go to VN. He joined Veterans for Peace when he returned after Tet. A professor at a rally asked him, "was he too stupid to get a college deferment?" It is so much more complicated than Darda knows because he was educated by teachers who had to self justify. (probably alive in much higher numbers than the men drafted). Senator Blumenthal from CT where Darda was educated campaigned as a VN Veteran but was not.
And you are 100% right about _The New Republic_ . Leon Wieseltier was many years their muse. I unsubbed years ago. Thanks for reminding me why I did.
Over on reddit, on one of their leftwing communities that is essentially just screengrabs of woke idiots saying incredibly dim things, someone posted a grab of a tweet from a white woman claiming to have exorcised terms like "summer" from her vocabulary because the global south don't experience the same seasons at the same time, and thus such terminology centres the western perspective.
I wrote what I thought was a clever-arsed but clearly ridiculous response along the lines of "when you're having a heart attack be considerate and ensure you're not centering your medical needs over that of an indigent person of colour. Loudly wailing "it hurts oh god it hurts" while demanding an ambulance when most of the world don't have recourse to emergency vehicular assistance is gross." I hoped it might get a few upvotes and promptly forgot about it until now.
A couple of days ago I landed upon an episode of The Day Today from 1994, in which a scandal breaks out when the Queen and John Major get into a punch-up. As the Queen rides en route to Downing Street in order to formally reciprocate the drubbing, a patriotic feel-good film is broadcast to placate the outraged masses. The film ends with two brawling men hugging at the sight of a union flag. The calming voiceover says something like "this is Britain and we know that conflict will always perish in the brotherhood of flags" and I had a chuckle at how prescient the programme was at predicting what British politics would descend into 30 years later. These days satire lasts about 30 seconds before it's superceded by the insanity of our reality.
I have a more meta question that came up as I was reading this piece.
You begin by stressing the importance of individual choice (in particular the moral choices made by veterans). You then, later in the piece, go on to stress a materialist conception in which people's choices are (to be reductionistic) a function of their material circumstances. So, I'm uncertain how to square these two viewpoints? I've only been following you for a few months now, so maybe you've already written about this somewhere else but it does seem to be a tension.
(My--scantily substantiated--theory is that it follows from your commitment to existentialist-type views which I gather you hold given your admiration for de Beauvoir and more traditional materialistic leftism)
God, Freddie, this was magnificent. Truly. When I was 18 I was drafted to serve in another war, and 40 years later the emotional scars are still with me. So, thank you. (My only small quibble is that from what I've read by him, I am not sure Serwer deserves to be named in the same article as these two.) Thanks again.
Christ Freddie. This is horrifying. I read as much of this despicable article as I could stomach, and your take is correct. Thank you bringing it to light.
Please let anyone who objects to your characterization respond. It’s time to start addressing this mindset.
Freddie, this is one of the best things I have ever read. I am going to re read and digest, and make a more thoughtful comment later. But this hits on the head the nail i keep swinging at. thanks
ric
Wonderful writing style.
Magnificent writing. Thank you.