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War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris Hedges
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy New: $12.64
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Avg. Customer Rating:  113 reviews
Sales Rank: 251619
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 1
ASIN: B0006I7EXW
Publication Date: August 31, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.”
Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting the most basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 108 more reviews...
 Hawk or Dove: Read this book July 26, 2008
The man knows whereof he speaks. I'm always interested in questioning assumptions; this book is guaranteed to shake up the way you think about war. Take a chance. If you don't want to read it you can listen to Mr Hedges reading it to you, Tantor has it in mp3 format. In a way, listening to him read his own work offers something extra.
Illuminating June 20, 2008
In this book Chris Hedges does an excellent job of describing what he accurately terms the "myth of war" and why that myth has been, and is, so prevalent in human culture. As one could extrapolate from the title of the book, it is a force that gives us meaning. It provides a feeling of serving a higher, worthy, purpose, it provides in its life and death struggles a kinship felt nowhere else, and can become a powerful, addictive "narcotic." At the same time, in order to justify the inhumanity of war we exaggerate those positives to the point that they do effectively become a myth while ignoring the ugly (what Hedges terms "sensory") reality of war. Hedges argues that this myth is perpetuated willingly by the state because popular belief of this myth is required in order to provide willing volunteers for the meat grinder of combat, and my personal experience gives me cause to agree with his thesis.
What I found most interesting are his words regarding what happens when the myth breaks down, both among those who have done the fighting and the society on whose behalf they fought. The collective amnesia, rewriting of history, all a willing coverup to protect the myth. Those who have seen the "sensory reality" of war are ignored and vilified by the very people whom they volunteered to serve.
This book means a lot to me because much of what he articulates has happened to me over the last several years. I believed in the myth, tried to live up to it, saw the myth come crashing down, and experience great trouble as a result. Unfortunately I believe that people like me are the only ones who will find value in this book, as the endurance of this myth throughout the entire history of human civilization gives me no cause to believe this myth will evaporate anytime soon.
If I had any advice for someone who still believes in the myth, it would be this:
Do not risk your life, based upon your limited, flawed, Hollywood understanding of battle and desire to fill the shoes of the "greatest generation" that lived before your own, in order to produce through force of arms the political aims of the powerful elite who control our government. You will not serve patriotism, nor any similar higher ideal. You will serve only the murderous desire of your superiors at your own expense.
A Powerful Book That Should Be Required Reading June 9, 2008
Chris Hedges isn't an armchair commentator. He gives the perspective of an observer thrust into the center of the maelstrom of war time and time again. Out of it he brought some new and powerful insights about why the human race -- even the supposedly most "civilized" elements -- hasn't been able to extract itself from the endless cycle of war. It provides a mirror to the bleakest parts of the soul of humanity. If enough of us would listen and understand, this book could begin a process to break the cycle. It's one of the most powerful anti-war books I've read.
Interesting theory June 1, 2008
I finished reading War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges. It is a very interesting book. Chris Hedges is a foreign correspondent that specializes in war correspondence. In the book he makes some very true statements:
"We are tempted to reduce life to a simple search for happiness. Happiness, however, withers if there is no meaning. The other temptation is to disavow the search for happiness in order to be faithful to that which provides meaning. But to live only for meaning - indifferent to all happiness - makes us fanatic, self-righteous, and cold. It leaves us cut off from our own humanity and the humanity of others. We must hope for grace, for our lives to be sustained by moments of meaning and happiness, both equally worthy of human communion."
I recommend the book for those who wish to understand the meaning of war and how any people react to war.
"An Enticing Elixir" May 10, 2008
This book is one of the most disturbing and unsettling books I have read since I examined "The New Pearl Harbor" by David Griffin. It was written by a Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent who has covered wars for more than 20 years. It isn't the rantings of an ivory tower academic. He has covered wars in El Salvador, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Iraq and elsewhere. He has been imprisoned, beaten by military police and attacked by death squads. His perspective deserves to be taken seriously and soberly. This book is neither a diatribe against war nor an argument for pacifism. His claim is that he "wrote this book not to dissuade us from war but to understand it. It is especially important that we who wield such massive force across the globe see within ourselves the seeds of our own obliteration. We must guard against the myth of war and the drug of war that can, together, render us blind and callous as some of those we battle."
He points out how, rashly and quickly, only three days after 9/11, the Congress granted the President the right "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks." This resolution was passed unanimously by the Senate and with only one dissenting vote, from Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, by the House of Representatives. She warned that military action could not guarantee the safety of the country and, "as we act, let us not become the evil we deplore."
He sets down the basic premise of the book with these words. "The enduring attraction of war is that it can give us what we long for in life, even with its destruction and carnage. It can give us purpose, meaning and a reason for being. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised north African immigrants in France and even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war's appeal...."
Before I could recover from his assault on my ill-informed conscience, I remembered how evangelical religion has given sanction and certitude to the war in Iraq. This haunting word, reported in "Utne," of Sam Ross, a paratrooper wounded in Iraq is a vivid testimony to the truth of his thesis. "I lost my left leg, just below the knee. Lost my eyesight....I have shrapnel in pretty much every part of my body. Got my finger blown off...I had a hole blown through my right leg....It hurts a lot, that's about it. You know, not really anything major. Just little things....It was the best experience of my life."
This book is a clear call to us to understand just what continues to take place in Iraq as President Bush refuses to end it. My guess is that he finds meaning in that conflict. Hedges says that it gives us meaning! But there is another force, maybe even a new and unsuspected force. It is love regardless of the violence inflicted upon us. There is meaning in a life lived differently. I suggest that you read this book carefully.
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