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Show The Daily Utah Chronicle - Page Five Monday. February 4, 1991 War is experienced on several levels, not just personal "War involves killing, bloodshed, tears, body parts...and ultimate despair" writes Thomas Kenneth Tolman ("Protest to end the violence and destruction," Jan. 22). He is right, of course, if he is referring to a war as experienced first hand. Most everyone who confronts an enemy at close range and kills (or tries to), or anyone who suffers through the terror of bombing or shelling would speak of his or her experience in the same way. Let's call the experience of making war at close range, the Personal War or the Personal Level. War as personal experience is intolerable for all but those few sociopaths who seem to face-to-fac- e, thrive on the danger, the excitement or the blood-lettinAs William Tecumseh Sherman said over 200 years ago "...war's glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell." But happily for some, unhappily for others, war is more than a personal experience. War also g. involves training and education, logistics, preparing endless meals, making sure troops have sheets and bunks, uniforms, hot coffee, medical services, and Bob Hope tours. This kind of war we will call a System War (the System Level) and those who practice it never see blood or pain. They define their experience in terms of a job, a career, fringe benefits, etc. For them, war is not hell, but security, education, a guaranteed income, and a good retirement program. The system aspects of war are the most common but the least exciting. At this level unless you get bombed war is mostly repetitious and boring. There is another kind of war beyond the Personal Level or the System Level. Let's call it the Society Level. Here war is economic growth, geopolitical alliance, technological innovation, national security, "defense of freedom," or "making the world safe for democracy," etc., etc. There is no disputing the fact that out of the experience of war, unfortunate for those who find themselves at the Personal Level, have come technological advances that have changed our lives for the better. In addition, as some economists argue, our nation only recovered the from Great Depression only when we began to manufacture bombs, tanks and with which to destroy f)lanes War, Germany. like most other experiences, can only be described at these three levels. The war experience of a leader in an infantry squad has almost nothing common with the war experience of a United States in Joseph C. Bentley Chronicle Guest Columnist senator debating a resolution on the floor of the Senate. They are literally in two different worlds. The possibilities of one understanding the other is nil, unless, of course, the senator could call up his own personal experience of war. If they were to speak to each other about war and its purposes, they both would end up confused, angry, frustrated, but not enlightened. We are "sense making" animals. Among our most basic and important endeavors is to "make sense" of our experience in order to have a basis for action. We make sense out of what we have experienced as it is interpreted in its present context. Those who protest any war from a Personal Level do so by imagining or remembering the horror, or suffering the pain. Those who support any war from a SocietyNational Level do so by the of realities arguing international politics. Each position "makes sense" when one takes into account the assumptions that lie behind the arguments. For every graduate student who writes his campus newspaper and cries "Protest the War! Bring a halt to this violence and death!" there is a Dynamics their judgments. and what's good for business is "Non ridere, non lugere, ne que destari, sed intelligere" (not to at General or Raytheon (of Patriot missile fame) saying, "this war is good for business, vice-preside- nt good for the United States of America because we will generate tax revenues, and provide jobs," and "we will put some of our profits into Research and Development and deliver even better weapons with which to protect our way of life." For every one who marches at the White House, sincerely believing that the making of war is the ultimate evil, there is someone else who believes that Saddam Hussein must be stopped now, regardless of the cost. Who can say with confidence that his or her interpretation is the correct one? Who is wise enough to impose one solution upon others, equally sincere, equally committed? There are in fact, for any complicated issue, different priorities, different points of view, each valid, each persuasive. If we lived in an ideal world, we might require that those who decide life and death issues of public policy at the SocietyNational Level must have experienced war (or poverty, for that matter) at the Personal Level. If those congressmen and women who voted for war were required to have experienced it personally, then perhaps we would all have more confidence in Alas, we will never live in an ideal world. In the meantime, Spinoza's words may serve us: laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand). I admire the passion and conviction that I seem to find in Mr. Tolman's letter. I am discouraged by the narrowness of his position, by his misplaced idealism, by his naivete. I have never had to fight a war, thank God, but I was trained to do so. And what I saw in basic training taught me that war is hell and must be avoided at all costs. I learned I wanted no part of it. At the same time, many years later, I realize, as T.S. Eliot said, "as we grow older, the world becomes strange, the patterns more complicated of dead and living." Complicated, difficult, problems cannot be easily simplified, put away by passion or outrage, made into something that neither resembles what it is nor takes into account what happens next. Unfortunately, there are not easy answers to the "real" issues of living or dying. Thinking that there are hoping that there are is one of our favorite delusions. Bentley is a professor of management at the Josephy C. University of Utah. Letters Stop abortion with education Editor: Whatever happened to the old idea of being responsible for one's actions? In the old days when mistakes were made we had to deal with the consequences. The results of poor or hasty choices were uncontrollable. If you drove your team of horses too close to a cliff and you went over you had no choice whether to live or die, you just had to accept the consequences. Your freedom to choose ended with the initial poor decision. Recently the debate has raged in the pages of the Chrony over abortion. Fortunately for those who don't wish to face up to the consequences of their actions, medical science has come up with a way to safely and conveniently terminate one of the results of a bad choice unwanted pregnancy. It is perhaps good that this option exists, for those men and women who would be so irresponsible as to carelessly create and then terminate the potential life of a human being would likely be terrible parents anyways. society Hopefully our will continue on this trend toward ultra-mode- rn irresponsibility. Soon we'll have amnesia drugs that will help rape victims forget the physical and psychological terror of rape so that rapists will have the freedom to Evidently Lynn A. Marlowe ("Humane Society is biased against Chows," Jan. 29) is confusing the Humane Society of Utah with Animal Control. The Humane Society is supported by donations, it is not a government agency and is not supported by taxes. It accepts animals from their owners to be put up for adoptions and rescues animals who are being abused. Stray animals should be turned over to Animal Control, which is run by the city governments (and which destroys them if they aren't claimed within a few days.) I'm sure the SPCA also destroys animals it cannot find homes for, because there are too many animals that nobody wants, and nobody can provide for them all (apart from the inhumanity of W mM,YOWFlPbL TOO choose whether or not to perpetuate their crimes. Mutilated bodies of teenagers killed in drunk driving accidents will be reconstructed and brought back to life so that we can all be on whether or not to drink and drive. New advances in ecological science will purify the air and renew the environment so that we all can be irresponsible about how we treat the delicate world in which we live. Strangely, a movement in Philadelphia and Florida is suggesting a responsible solution to pro-choi- Lcm, ce the abortion issue: Norplant, a trouble free and safe birth control method, that would nip the problem of unwanted pregnancy in the bud. Of course this reversion to responsible habits is lambasted in the Chrony as being non-political- ly correct. Abortion has become so entrenched that it will likely never come to an end through legal means despite the Utah Legislature's recent action. Is it wrong then to seek the end of abortion by educating about sexual responsibility or suggesting effective birth control methods? Label me Michael Hale Senior history Animals' deaths preventable Editor: ON mum keeping them locked in cages at a shelter their entire life.) It's kinder to put animals to sleep than to let it starve, freeze, or be run over. If you want to do something, encourage the pet owners you know to (a) get their animal neutered, (b) keep it inside the house, on a chain, or in a yard with a high fence, and on a leash when off the premises, and (c) put a tag with address and phone number on its collar or harness (cats too), so if it does get lost it can be returned. Don't compound your irresponsibility in letting the animal breed by dumping the puppies or kittens somewhere, figuring someone will give them a home. Kay Argyle Staff Civilians should prepare to die like soldiers Editor: This is to express a different viewpoint about one aspect of the current, or any other, war. Lately, an issue has been made of the "death of innocent civilians" in bomb and missile attacks. I have two objections to this issue. The first is that the term "innocent civilians" seems to imply that military personnel are somehow not innocent, are some sort of criminals, are somehow part of the community of barbarians, whose life is not as dear as that of a civilian. Strategically it may make more sense to kill more of the enemy soldiers than their civilians, because it is the soldiers who have the power to cause damage to one's own side; however, I see no reason to view the death of a civilian as any more of a tragedy than the death of a soldier. My second objection arises from the fact that in a democratic society, the power is with the people. The decision to go to war is taken by the elected representatives of the people on behalf of, in the interests of, and to some extent upon the wishes of, the people. The people have the right to ask their representatives to people, have declared war on the Iraqi government, and therefore on its people. Soldiers do the work of war because they are trained for it, but every citizen is, in principle, a participant in the war. Every civilian citizen, then, has as much obligation to be prepared to die in enemy attacks as does a soldier. Condemning civilian casualties is like saying that in a punching fight, the fighters must punch each other's fists, and not such "innocent" parts as the face. decide otherwise. The American military has not declared war on the Iraqi military. The American government, and therefore its Dhananjay Patankar Graduate student chemical engineering Chows not destroyed because of their breed Editor: Please allow me at once to correct serious misconceptions regarding the Humane Society of Utah that were contained in a letter by Lynn A. Marlow ("Humane some Society is biased against Chows," Jan. 29). Marlow has obviously confused the Humane Society with one of the local animal control agencies, and we would like to make it plain that these are entirely separate entities with different operations, policies, and procedures. First of all, the Humane Society does not make calls to pick up reported stray animals; all animals at our shelter are brought directly to us by the finder or owner of the animal. Secondly, the Human Society does not have policy immediately euthanizing animals because of breed. We immediately euthanize animals only under the following conditions: if they are clearly suffering from severe illness or injury at the time of admittance, or if the owner requests euthanasia. Finally, the Humane Society of Utah is a private institution which is supported entirely from donations from a caring public; we receive no funding from tax monies or any other government source. We are sorry that Lynn Marlow's experience with the stray chow pup was such a distressing one. Gene Baierschmidt Executive director, Humane Society of Utah |
