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War, What is it Good For?
War, What is it Good For?!
By Laslow Poke
The debate on the necessity of war is an ongoing one. People will debate the idea that there are basically two camps of thought, those that believe war is not the answer and those that believe it is. Upon examination of the facts, though, there is a fairly large and outspoken third party that has developed. This third party encompasses those against war, but acknowledge it as a necessary evil. Through the writing of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and Alfred Bester`s “Disappearing Act,“ people are given insight into the horrors that war can bring to the individual, but also, the prosperity it can spearhead for the rest of humanity, or the unifying powers that it can hold. However, while both delve deep into the ideas of wars necessity, yet ludicrous nature, they both explore the different effects on society and two almost polar opposites for the conclusion that man comes to through his barbaric actions.
The Forever War paints a future in which only bright men are recruited for the task of fighting an alien menace. However, despite the forethought and thorough planning that goes into the cultivation of the war, the source of the conflict is lost as the war crosses the ages. By showing the war through the perspective of William Mandella, the true horrors of war are experienced as the reader is drawn into a narrative in which lives are lost and through every victory, there is an underlining sense of defeat. Despite these feelings, there is a necessity to the war. While started over nothing more then a failure of communication, the war is something that earthlings needed. Without the war, humans would have been lost in an economic drought, as well as been stuck in a stagnation as a race, divided amongst itself and incapable of self growth. Through the alien threat that is presented in the book, though, humanity is able to come together in the face of a adversity.
The character of Mandella works to symbolically show the effects of humanities actions. In the beginning, as a private, the ruthless nature and cold math of war is shown as he is sent for training and told half of his crew will probably die (Haldeman 12). He thus resents the officers and rightly so. As Mandella matures in the story, though, he sees that it was necessary to act in such a way towards the new recruits in order to prepare them for what lied ahead. After this realization, he then works to emulate what the upper ranks had done to him. It is this cyclical sense that is at the base of the story. It is mentioned in the story that while Mandella is fighting the war, the Earth tends to go through cycles (ex. from heterosexual, to homosexual, to heterosexual again). The Earth and its inhabitants must undergo dramatic changes in order to persevere. Whatever is best at any given time may seem strange to a person from another time, but without the adaptation, survival would not be possible. Mandella, the pacifist, must adapt to a soldiers life in order to survive. The people on Earth must adapt to a shortage of food and warlike state with scavengers in order to survive (Haldeman 115-117). Most importantly, Mandella must adapt to the worlds he is presented with in order to survive, living through not only his own mistakes, but those around him as well as the war progresses.
The idea of adaptation is also explored in Alfred Bester's "Disappearing Act." Within the context of the story, General Carpenter unites people through the ideal that they are fighting to preserve the American Dream (Bester 315). They are fighting to preserve the good things in life, such as poetry. As a result, in order to protect this specific ideal, all the people in America must adapt to a war time mentality. People become strategists, psychologists, doctors, all the jobs necessary during a war time situation. However, by adapting to this war time mentality, there are no longer any poets, or songwriters, or creatively minded people. Due to the war, creativity is lost. It is at this point that the two stories diverge in their message and the effects of war. In the end of “Disappearing Act,” the world is left without a spark of creativity (Bester 333), the adaptation that has occurred has robbed the earth of what had cultivated so many civilizations, leaving it as nothing more then a husk of world, devoid of anything but wartime specialists. In this bleak outset, man survives, however, the price is one he is unable to comprehend, and true to real life, this is often the cause. Despite how much adaptation might occur to allow humanity the chance for continued existence, there is a loss to the soul of man through it, leading to a questioning of whether it is worth fighting, knowing that some part of humanity is lost in the balance.
In contrast, The Forever War offers up the idea that adaptation and survival will lead to a golden age in the end. While Mandella is returned to his home base (Stargate) after the best years of his life to defend Earth, he finds himself once again alienated by all the changes in society, though he is presented with an almost utopian society (Haldeman 248). The world he returns to is one of a lost individuality, but peaceful existence where all humanity shares a sentient existence. Similar to how General Carpenter was unable to perceive the death of poetry, Mandella is incapable of predicting the death of individuality. However, Mandella is given an escape. He is given the chance to unite with the people of his own age and live a life similar to the one he had once had. While still not overly optimistic, it offers insight into the idea behind many of the veterans groups across the nation. With all that has happened to him, Mandella does not wish to once again place himself into an alien society, he wishes to be removed from it with people of a like mind and experiences. He wishes to return to a place where he is not outdated. Mandella, through all of his experiences, wishes to live in a less then ideal world where his ideals are preserved.
As such, Mandella seems to lose parts of himself throughout the story. The basis of his existence in the beginning is survival, to finish out his time in the war and return to normal life. As the story progresses, though, the war becomes an escape from the reality of what is happening to the world. When he is in battle, he is able to temporarily escape the fact he is one of the last heterosexuals on the Earth (Haldeman 181). He is able to forget that the only woman he feels anything close to love towards is probably long dead. The war becomes symbolic of escape for him. As long as he keeps on fighting, he can escape the world he has helped to create. As such, despite the horrors his war has created, it becomes the only way in which Mandella can function. So, while the war destroys the world he once lived in, it also manages to provide a purpose and a temporary escape from reality for him. As well, he understands the wars signifigance to his race. In the stories end he states
“The fact was, Earth's economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it.” (Haldeman 250)
The true question that begs to be answered through all of this is whether the positive is worth the negative in regards to war. In the case of Bester, the reader is given a united society fighting a pointless war over a false concept. However, the idea brings unity to an entire nation. It allows people to rally behind an idea and be given a purpose in life. The cost is the disappearance of culture. It begs the question, if the idea had never been brought up, would anyone even had noticed? One can be led to believe not. True, a part of humanity is lost, but given the joy and purpose it brings to life, is it not a valid sacrifice? Perhaps after the war has passed, art may find a way of returning, and even if it didn't, would the newly evolved society even care? What seems to be the problem with the story is the idea that to people from outside the narrative, the loss of poetry is a fatal one. However, to those within the story, it is merely another adaptation to the world around them. With adaptation, there must often be sacrifice, and typically, it is only those outside of the adaptation that regret the loss. So while not seeming positive to the reader, it should be explored through the perspective of one involved in the war, one of the specialist who has changed their mentality to survive. To one such as that, the sacrifice would be perceived as necessary.
While the reader must perceive Bester's story one way, Mandella in Forever War helps to show the reaction one would expect to see. Being a man lost in the changes of time, he has everything he had once known and loved taken away from him. The world around him has ultimately been changed for the better, though. A universal peace has been created. While the war stemmed from a linguistic misunderstanding, the armament of Earthlings led to them surviving up until the age of tranquility. As well, by fighting in the war, Mandella managed to avoid some of the horrors that occurred on Earth, such as the food rationing and the gang formations that he ran into during his brief hiatus on Earth (Haldeman 142-146). While not giving Mandella all he wanted in life, such as the teaching position he desired at the beginning, the war gave allowed him to make life better for the people on Earth. While conditions on the Earth swung between bad and good, things would have been far worse, most likely leading to war amongst earthlings, if the alien war had not occurred. As well, the story ends with Mandella at least being able to return to his lover and comrades, as such, a return to his own peace.
While both authors offer up fairly bleak portrayals of war, the purpose and fulfillment the war brings to the life of people helps to justify the horror. However, it is this thought process that has led to such tragedies as World War II. With Germany in the dire straight it was in following the first World War, war was one of their only options to try to improve their state. While the idea of purpose for a greater good or temporary stasis is good in theory, it is the actual implementation that shows how war, in any form, is horrible. In The Lost War, the effects on a singular person are explored, while in “Disappearing Act” the effect on society is explored. Neither ends on a completely positive note and this is simply due to the fact that war can not lead to a perfectly happy ending. While it offers a temporary solution to some problems, the fact of the matter is the cost, be it lives, money, or culture, is often times hard or impossible to justify
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