Why?

[poliphilo]

Why so solemn around the war dead?

I'm sure most of them liked a laugh when they were alive. I'll bet most of them said, "Fuck". I'll bet most of them said it a lot. I'll bet most of them hated being soldiers. I'll bet most of them liked singing "Mam'selle from Armentieres" better than they liked singing hymns.

Why transubstantiate them from cheeky chappies and working stiffs and aspiring poets and good husbands and bad husbands and all the other things they were into these gloomy ancestral ghosts?

I know the answer. And it's not a whole lot to do with them.

It's to do with a combination of grief (fair enough) and survivor's guilt (which doesn't do anyone any good)- and the desire to keep on polishing the War Machine.

Comments

[qatsi]

Remembrance is a festival that always makes me uncomfortable, which I think is probably the best reaction to it. I agree with both your conclusions - on the subject of grief it's fair enough as you say, but I think a lot of the enforced ceremonial is as if two minutes' slience and some wreaths is all it takes to assuage some sort of societal guilt. I'm not a pacifist but if we took the message seriously we'd do rather more to avoid conflict.