The Purpose of Remembrance

By Charlie Standen, First Year History Student

“War is God.”

So began Judge Holden’s incredible speech in Cormac McCarthy’s 1985 thriller Blood Meridian. Here Holden, an inordinately intelligent and possibly psychopathic scalp hunter, looks to understand the origins of war. He regards it as old as man himself. Man, Holden argues, is made for games and war is the ultimate game for it is played for the ultimate wager. Life.

Thus, war proves the ultimate test of humanity. It is certainly persuasive that the virtues of humanity are best exemplified in such scenarios of danger. These ‘eternal’ moments fascinated the Greek interpretation of history. There is a reason that The Iliad, The Aeneid, The Song of Roland and many other great works from the ancient period to the medieval and onwards glorify virtuous individuals in a context of war. 

Yet modernity has changed this outlook. Our society, both secular and individualist, looks at war through an increasingly rational lens; not one that values glory or the eternal. We see waste and destruction rather than beauty and fame. This is because we no longer believe in the causes that wars have been fought for, and we are far more sceptical of the eternal. Ultimately, are not all modern wars fought for temporal power? Few would argue otherwise. If the oppositions lunge for power genuinely threatens the native populace, is it completely necessary to fight down to the last man?

The strength of the obligation of man to die for his state has waned as our outlook has developed. The works of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, eye witnesses of the destruction of the Great War, despairingly illustrate this disillusionment.

With such a disillusionment comes a multitude of lessons. We must be wary of the state: of its messages, of its intentions, and we must call it to account when it asks too much of us or when it misguides us. The state today is more entrenched in public and private life than ever before as it has embraced more responsibility. For example, take the birth of the welfare state or widespread surveillance. With this comes greater power and responsibility. Some argue this has reached an Orwellian extent and thus, we must prevent a dystopia from actualising. This must be done with a wariness of encroachments on civil liberties and ready voices must accuse the state when it breaches its functions.

Moreover, modern civilisation is not beyond terrible violence. Narratives of modernity are eager to declare all history as a linear progression to this point. That from barbarism we have reached civilisation. Maybe this is true. Maybe not. What it is clear is that modern ‘civilisation’, however rational and tolerant, is not incapable of brutal violence. The move from swordsmen cutting one another down with heavy blows to the bespectacled bureaucrat ordering the deaths of thousands of Russian PoWs in Buchenwald is hardly a moral improvement. Violence is rife in humanity and we must ensure that it cannot break out as catastrophically as it did in the Twentieth Century. Such violence is generally, in modern terms at least, born from prejudice and we must root this out wherever we can.

Finally, we must be wary of the imposition of ideologies by political parties. Fascism and communism collectively killed millions throughout the twentieth century. This was through the fashioning of ideologies and doctrines that were either born out of prejudice, as was Nazism, or gave far much too centralised power to the nation state, as did communism in the USSR. The common denominator here is a lust for power: whether that be through the extermination of a race and the conquering of a Lebensraum or absolute control over the native population. Ideologies are not incorruptible. As long as there is power is to be obtained, men will search for ways to grasp it. Ideologies proved a popular way to achieve the personal ends of man. 

Fundamentally it seems to me that we must not overstep ourselves. Significant progress and development, capitalism, industrialisation, secularism etc., do not make us exempt from the evils that have permeated throughout history. Generally, these evils seem to derive from prejudice and a desire for control. We must continue to make efforts to extinguish them. The Great War and the Second World War exemplify this clearly.

The purpose of remembrance is twofold. Firstly, it is important for us to establish a connection with that which came before. To appreciate the unimaginable hardships and terrors our predecessors were subject to. This is not only important in terms of showing gratitude but also in placing ourselves in a historical context to better understanding the position we find ourselves in today. Secondly, it is a reminder of modernity’s capability and appetite for destruction. Remembrance calls on us to actively build on those lessons gained at the expense of the blood shed by millions.

Cover Image Credit: Aliceloves on unsplash