The Art of War

Label me a cultural paradox. I am member to a dying breed whom weep from the death of theater. Yet, I seem to share no commonality with those who shed the same tears. True, I’ve never met anyone sharing my ideals; not to my knowledge, at least, but I am privy to the stereotypes. Mostly, modern media, and other varieties of fictional entertainment, portray people that ache for theater’s return as social outcasts. They’re fanatics who pray for the past’s return and plot for the present’s demise. Oddly, the other stereotype of theater fanatics are not fanatics at all. These characters are the metaphorical crème de society. Rich folk that sit around sipping tea while discussing the grand shows of ancient times. I fit into neither classification. Though my ideas make me a bit of a social misfit, I would not classify myself an anarchist by any rights. And though I plan on being financially well off before too long, I would love to see the majority of the top one percent have a list of their humanitarian crimes tattooed to their backs shortly before stripping them naked and casting them into a neighborhood full of the bottom one percent.

The more I analyze the world, and myself, I find I’m more a distant, black-sheep cousin to the human herd rather than a member, which is more than fine by me. I resigned from the flock long ago. I do not follow the social pack; they just happen to being walking in the same direction. But as usual, I digress, which shouldn’t be surprising with the severity of my ADD and other mental curiosities. The point, and yes there was a point, to the seemingly pointless text above was to caution against judging me too quickly just because I happen to share an unpopular passion with lunatics and socialites.

Now, I know having some twist left unrevealed until several paragraphs into the paper is a no-no according to the accepted rules for good writing. I should know; these rules were drilled into my brain by one of the best universities and some of the best professors in the country, and unlearning them took me forever. There is a point to that seemingly pointless text, also. The aforementioned relates to the fact that, when I say theater, I’m not speaking of Broadway, the Greek theater, or anything of the kind. The theater my artistic side cries out for is “The Theater of War.” Don’t try to turn what I just said into some politically correct metaphor. I meant exactly what I said. I miss “The Theater . . .” something that is watched for entertainment, usually having actors playing roles on a stage; “. . . of War”: usually defined as when two or more countries, or other large groups of people, attempt to kill each other for whatever reason. I want wars to be like they were in the past: fun to watch. If you’re like most people, you’re trying really, really hard to be disgusted right now. You want to be a good, decent human being, and admitting that you, too, enjoy watching people actually kill and be killed doesn’t fall under the popular notion of what is and what isn’t decent.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Very few people, that I’ve met any way, will admit that they like seeing people kill each other. That’s not a normal thing to say. That’s a sick thing to say. Normal people don’t view death as entertainment. Sick people view death as entertainment. Good, decent men and women don’t watch movies and TV shows where dozens, hundreds of people get “killed” every ten minutes; these people don’t slowdown to catch a glimpse of auto accidents. Only sick, twisted, mentally deranged psychos would watch hours of news programs showing stories filled with accidental deaths, murders, and war casualties. Only a truly fucked up society would have a correlation between the news programs/networks that covered the most human death and the ones with the highest ratings. If you haven’t gotten my point yet, go to the dictionary, look up “sarcasm,” and reread this paragraph.

To what amount and what extent of gore is unique to each individual; regardless, people like to read about, hear about, and see dead people. Generally, people also like to see other people die. This has been a human trait throughout history. Watching executions used to be wholesome family fun. Civility has evolved; we haven’t. The only difference between “back then” and “right now” is that casually mentioning the fact that death is a great form of entertainments while chatting with friends at the local Starbucks will mostly be looked down upon, outwardly in any case. On the inside, your friends’ heads are going up and down like one of those bobble head dolls on a dirt road.

I am cultured in my tastes. Common homicides and random pedestrian hit-and-runs don’t interest me. I don’t even slow at most car accidents like the majority of rubber-necking ass-monkeys. My needs are more refined. I like mass destruction, enormous catastrophes. Raging forest fires, towering tsunamis, head-on collisions between fifty-car trains racing at 80mph: that’s good stuff. And don’t give me that innocent victim crap. Anyone over the age of eleven is guilty by association. Just for the record: no, I don’t want my friends or family to die. I sure in the hell don’t want to die. Of course that’s hypocritical, but what’s your point? Clarifications made.

The higher the body count, the better the show; hence, few shows are greater than war. That’s why it’s called “The Theater of War.” But the shows of the modern era have pretty much been flops. There hasn’t been a decent production since Vietnam, and even that was iffy because it was hard to tell who was playing what role for which side. Leave it to the Vietcong to spoil a good time. I blame the sharp decline of quality on two arenas: bureaucracy and technology.

Back in the good-old-bad-days, people knew the motive behind the battles; the soldiers and people back home knew “why.” Countries fought for land, raw materials, supply routes, trade blocks, better economies, defense, or just to have a bigger fucking empire. Wars were simple, relative to today. Country A has a trade route that gives them quick access to Countries X, Y, and Z. Country B can’t get to Countries X, Y, and Z as fast as Country A. Both Country A and Country B grow the same cash crop. If Country B takes over Country A’s hold on the trade route, Country B becomes richer at Country A’s expense. Even less complex: Country A is big. Country B isn’t. Country A borders Country B. Country A destroys Country B. Now Country A is bigger. Being a history hobbyist, I came to realize that, as a general rule, the earlier a war occurred, the simpler the motive. Wars were about increasing land holdings for crops and hunting. Then natural resources were a concern. Religion and monetary wealth entered the picture along with their buddies alliances and political ties. Add in public opinion, government kickbacks, arms deals, top-secret information, and revenge, and all the plot becomes too complicated to follow. Even if the audience could keep track of all this, there is so much “disinformation” now that the true plot line is likely never uncovered; the true story never revealed.

CYA: the golden rule of politics. Countries have to appear nice while playing dirty, seem honest while telling lies, look charitable while thieving indiscriminately, show weakness while being strong. The image of the country relies on the image of its leaders. The image of the leaders depends on the image of their actions. If the image of our leaders depended on their actions and not how their actions are spun to the public, both nationally and internationally. Even I wouldn’t chance a guess, but my heart flutters thinking about it. Because of this new need for the world’s superpowers to at least seem philanthropic, there can be no such entity as a conquering nation; not as far as the world is concerned. Take the war in the Middle East, aka The War on Terrorism. Some jackasses high jacked a couple planes armed with box cutters and slammed them into the Twin Towers, big builds that represent our wealth and power. In doing this, they killed a shit load of civilians and service people. The Middle East also has many, many oil fields. We like big SUVs and cheap gas prices. Seems logical enough to me that the US turns that over-sized sandbox into a sheet of glass. That’s wrong though. Attacking an entire region because of an isolated group is unethical; claiming their oil fields and breaking up the world monopoly on our favorite fuel is extremely unethical. Bring in a dozen spin doctors with six-figure salaries, presto, “The War on Terror.” Has a catchy ring to it. The US isn’t fighting for revenge or wealth. No! The US wants to make the world safer for us and the rest of the world, and us, and the oppressed people of the Middle East, and us, and democracy, and us, and FREEDOM, oh, and us.

Where did this necessity for a goody-goody, “Superman-esk” façade spawn? Technology. Clubs, swords, axes, spears, and arrows have been replaced with pistols, machine guns, high-explosives, and missiles. Warriors used to ride on horseback or thunder through the mountain side on elephant. Soldiers now lumber through the desert in tanks or fly in by jet. In major battles, armies dismembered each other hand-to-hand and could look their enemy in the eye. Major battles in modern time are Nintendo Warfare. Pilots drop bombs from miles up and ground troops shoot missiles from miles away. “Nothing personal. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m just pushing this little red button. It’s their fault if they happen to be standing where this machine is shooting this rocket.” That’s not theater; that’s a sitcom.