The Nationalist Myth, War and "Vintage"

[Undertow]

Have you ever wondered why a sub-group of people would be so interested in a time in world history underlined for its brutality; i.e. WWII? Have you ever wondered why modern culture has suddenly taken to "vintage" clothing and ocassionally pines for "the good old days"?

I wonder these things, of course, and as I was reading a book War is the Force that Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges, I found an entry particularly interesting.

Do you think what he says has any bearing in your life? Or perhaps this doesn't reflect on us, the Fedora Lounge, so much, but maybe it explains levels of patriotism after 09/11 and the seemingly constant upheaval of culture after each conflict in which we're involved?

"Art takes on a whole new significance in wartime. War and the nationalist myth that fuels it are the purveyors of low culture - folklore, quasi-historical dramas, kitsch, sentimental doggerel, and theater and film that portray the glory of soldiers in past wars or current wars dying nobly for the homeland. This is why so little of what moves us during wartime has any currency once war is over. The songs, books, poems and films that arouse us in war are awkward and embarrassing when the conflict ends, useful only to summon up the nostalgia of war's comradeship."

What are your thoughts?

 

[sheeplady]

"Art takes on a whole new significance in wartime. War and the nationalist myth that fuels it are the purveyors of low culture - folklore, quasi-historical dramas, kitsch, sentimental doggerel, and theater and film that portray the glory of soldiers in past wars or current wars dying nobly for the homeland. This is why so little of what moves us during wartime has any currency once war is over. The songs, books, poems and films that arouse us in war are awkward and embarrassing when the conflict ends, useful only to summon up the nostalgia of war's comradeship."

What are your thoughts?

He's got an... interesting definition of low culture. I wonder what he considers high culture to be? Choosing the term low culture (rather than popular culture) in itself is obviously choosing a loaded term for a certain purpose.

As far as the movies and books about the war, those went on after WWII for decades. And they are some of the most popular movies still to this day, so I don't agree with the embarrassment part. Yeah, embarrassing stuff comes out of conflict, but embarrassing stuff comes out of everyday life too. I can name a couple movies I am embarrassed to have ever seen (and I personally think are embarrassing that they were made by Hollywood) but that is personal taste. And they aren't war movies, either.

I don't feel like we're a country at war, certainly not at the same level as previous conflicts/wars. Following 9/11, I saw no signs our country was at war as far as it impacting everyday lives of civilians without a military connection. Comparing the U.S. homefront experience now to WWII is like comparing apples to station wagons. I don't think people in WWII US ever forgot there was a war raging; but I question how many current US people even recognize on a daily basis that we are a country at war.

 

[Metatron]

Interesting, but doesn't that quote contain a contradiction? That on the one hand the sentiments of patriotism are embarrassing and that they summon up nostalgia? Why would you be nostalgic about something that you think is embarrassing?

These are my thoughts: Woe to the defeated. Most Germans are thoroughly embarrassed of 'the things that moved them during wartime', meanwhile Stalin is enjoying a resurgence of popularity in Russia.

Not trying to be controversial, simply pointing out two cases where 'embarrassment' is fully justified, but only those who lost feel it. I suppose victory partly erases crimes and defeat puts them under the microscope.

 

[John in Covina]

War like that on the scale of WWI & WWII are going to have a weight on the world for some time to come. Those that participate in war as combatants and those that must service the returning veterans are tired of war and need no reminder until a time comes where they can live with what they were called to do. My dad (99th Infanry Bat.) said that he did not need much reminder of WWII and tended to disdain any WWII comedy because it was too serious to made fun of. We continue to lose WWII vets at a staggering number every day and when they are gone will it take another Ken Burns documentary to make it seem real.

We release the past very readily, many people in high school and college have little or no knowledge or are filled with half truths and outright lies about the past.

For many of us there is also little connection to the present actions, we have no sense of urgency, no hardship at home, no shortages or morale participation. It is similar in weight to a clinical item of gossip, learning your great uncle has to go in for a "medical proceedure." There is no worry or connection to banal phrases and little to make it real to others.

There seems to be a move to disconnect. No American Exceptionalism, no greatest generation just an impatient need to get the latest I-phone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The War -- and it was always called The War, because no other descriptions were needed -- was the defining event of an entire generation in a way that no single event has defined a generation since, because it directly touched *everyone.* We now live in an era in which wars are neatly compartmentalized, and to the comfortable middle-class American, they are fought by Other People. If it was the sons and daughters of Upscale Suburbia who were dying in Afghanistan, you can be sure the experience wouldn't be written of in such an offhand manner as it tends to be today. But we've got a system now that ensures that that won't happen. Let the Other People worry about such inconvenient situations.

 

[dhermann1]

And even today, almost a lifetime later, it's the biggest single event in the history of the world.

 

[Flicka]

It's certainly a very Americo-centric view... If I look at Swedish culture, we weren't in WWII and we're not at war now so I can't really see how the upsurge in interest in 'vintage' has anything to do with that. If anything, here, the interest tends to be linked not conservatism but a political and social radicalism - a wish to start over and erase much of the post-war materialism.

War has always fascinated mankind, just like murder has. Humanity has a need to process horrors by experiencing them vicariously, not ghoulishly, but in order to comprehend the incomprehensible. WWII was such a staggering experience that of course it fascinates us. How could it not? But wartime art being embarrassing? Is Rosie the Riveter considered embarrassing? I've personally never heard anyone say that.

Again, our experience is different, but whenever I have spoken to someone who lived through both wars, the term 'The War' was always reserved for WWI. That was the experience that defined 'war' for them. There's a big upsurge in interest in WWI now, but not the chauvinistic aspects, but in the horrors and injustices. If anything, I interpret that as a sort of wave of pacifism.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

In the immediate aftermath is what he's talking about, and specifically clears that up by saying that "useful only to summon up the nostalgia of war's comradeship." Yes, the rhetoric, the overt nationalism and xenophobia we see during war (when that kind of propaganda has discrete, defensible purposes), and have been bombarded with for the past 10 years of "not-really-war,-but-war-all-the-same,-when-it-suits-us-to-describe-it-as-such" IS embarrassing to those of us who do not subscribe, even though we may support the wars and the goals of those wars.

"Low culture" is a specific academic term, with a specific meaning, hence he used it, and described exactly what he was talking about.


I'm not sure about the proposed link to vintage clothing, though. It would be like suggesting those who are into 1960s vintage British menswear are nostalgic for a period of almost universal economic depression and poverty. When in fact their into it for the aesthetics.

 

[1961MJS]

And even today, almost a lifetime later, it's the biggest single event in the history of the world.

and we can be VERY thankful that's still TRUE.

Later

 

[sheeplady]

"Low culture" is a specific academic term, with a specific meaning, hence he used it, and described exactly what he was talking about.

But it's fascinating that he choose that term given the fact that low culture and high culture have become incredibly blurred in the past 50 years- at least. Some have argued that high culture and low culture, as separate and discrete things, doesn't even exist anymore. That's not even going into the whole academic debate about using the term in the first place, given it's negative connotations. Which I am sure, if this writer is an academic, he is well aware of.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Folk culture," "mass culture" and "popular culture" have been the politically-correct terms for "low culture" for the better part of the last fifty years. It's "folk culture" if the academic in question is Fetishizing the Exotic, it's "mass culture" if the academic is a Marxist, and it's "popular culture" if the academic in question is getting paid to read comic books.

As for low culture itself, it has a way of turning itself into high culture as soon as everyone who enjoyed it when it was new is dead.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

"Folk culture," "mass culture" and "popular culture" have been the politically-correct terms for "low culture" for the better part of the last fifty years. It's "folk culture" if the academic in question is Fetishizing the Exotic, it's "mass culture" if the academic is a Marxist, and it's "popular culture" if the academic in question is getting paid to read comic books.

As for low culture itself, it has a way of turning itself into high culture as soon as everyone who enjoyed it when it was new is dead.

Ha...now that's a great explanation..!!
HD

 

[herringbonekid]

Have you ever wondered why a sub-group of people would be so interested in a time in world history underlined for its brutality; i.e. WWII? Have you ever wondered why modern culture has suddenly taken to "vintage" clothing and ocassionally pines for "the good old days"?

you need to ask the war re-enactor crowd about that. there are many of them on here.

personally, i'm interested in the art deco inter-war period for the aesthetics. the fact that the period was bracketed by two world wars isn't part of the attraction.

 

[sheeplady]

"Folk culture," "mass culture" and "popular culture" have been the politically-correct terms for "low culture" for the better part of the last fifty years. It's "folk culture" if the academic in question is Fetishizing the Exotic, it's "mass culture" if the academic is a Marxist, and it's "popular culture" if the academic in question is getting paid to read comic books.

As for low culture itself, it has a way of turning itself into high culture as soon as everyone who enjoyed it when it was new is dead.

lol to your last line. Very true. Look at Shakespeare, probably the definition of the "highest" of culture to most people.

I can't read the original author's use of the term low culture as anything but very purposefully choosing a loaded term to incite debate.

When I think of "folk culture" I see whittling and hear fiddle music, because to me that's what folk are. I've always thought that mass culture is the best term, but then I come from the perspective of communications- so we use the term mass for everything. Mass advertising. Mass communication. Mass appeal. Mass blah, blah. The opposite of mass being niche.

 

[Flicka]

you need to ask the war re-enactor crowd about that. there are many of them on here.

personally, i'm interested in the art deco inter-war period for the aesthetics. the fact that the period was bracketed by two world wars isn't part of the attraction.

I agree; I'm not particularly interested in neither WWII nor the '40s. And I don't think of the periods I am interested in (primarily the first three decades of the 20th century) as "the good old days". I think of them as "interesting times" and we all know what they say about those.

But I'm definitely interested in more than the aesthetics. I'm just now reading an essay on the organization of Germany's industry pre-1914 (with tables on stuff like inflation and output), that's how interested I am!

 

[Godfrey]

As for low culture itself, it has a way of turning itself into high culture as soon as everyone who enjoyed it when it was new is dead.

I don't agree. I think culture is 'revived' when it responds to something missing in society and can be formed as high or low culture. William Morris and others revisioned the middle ages and renaissance long after any of it had faded from any version of living memory. For a while medieval was high culture. If you dropped into a 1990's shop and saw a repro of the 'lady and the unicorn' tapestry on a cushion you would known this wasn't high brow - but also wasn't to bad. The designation high brow, low brow, mass culture, etc is I think a failure to recognize that our progress is through seeking, through the dress up box of human experience, to find what is missing in today's society and then make something new. If you picked me up and popped me down in 1932 I stick out like a sore thumb (a happy saw thumb though!). My version of vintage is something that takes the values I need from the period - integrity, duty, personal care, thrift, and style - and applies it to my modern life.

Academics make a fine living out of classifying - something profoundly vintage. This is a way to reduce the complex and living and pin it in a box with a nice label. A smarter academic seeks to explain the complexity of the systems we live within - and revival, vintage, folk, etc is a response, a process and an inspiration for thought and change.

 

[WH1]

The War -- and it was always called The War, because no other descriptions were needed -- was the defining event of an entire generation in a way that no single event has defined a generation since, because it directly touched *everyone.* We now live in an era in which wars are neatly compartmentalized, and to the comfortable middle-class American, they are fought by Other People. If it was the sons and daughters of Upscale Suburbia who were dying in Afghanistan, you can be sure the experience wouldn't be written of in such an offhand manner as it tends to be today. But we've got a system now that ensures that that won't happen. Let the Other People worry about such inconvenient situations.

Lizzie while I agree with some of what you say I have to take some exception to the characterization that the only people fighting and dying in Afghanistan are from the lower classes. I did 2 tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Iraq as a Marine, combat arms all 3 times and while there were a large number of blue collar, lower income, there were an equal number of middle class citizens serving. My Marines were a fairly equal mix of classes. Even had a couple of ivy leaguers. The all volunteer military of the last decade or so is very different from the military that served in vietnam. While you may not see the children of the Rockefellers in the ranks you will find a sizeable number of young men and women serving who come from what are traditionally termed middle class homes. The sad thing is these wars have been swept out of the American mind set from the suburbs to the projects. Even worse is the amnesia about them when they get home. Down range is easy compared to coming back to the states and trying to reintegrate to this society. Suicide rate is rising among veterans due to their alienation from all classes of American society. I have been home just over a year from the last deployment and I recently saw "the Best Years Of Our Lives" again and almost all of the storyline is still current.

 

[sheeplady]

Lizzie while I agree with some of what you say I have to take some exception to the characterization that the only people fighting and dying in Afghanistan are from the lower classes. I did 2 tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Iraq as a Marine, combat arms all 3 times and while there were a large number of blue collar, lower income, there were an equal number of middle class citizens serving. My Marines were a fairly equal mix of classes. Even had a couple of ivy leaguers. The all volunteer military of the last decade or so is very different from the military that served in vietnam. While you may not see the children of the Rockefellers in the ranks you will find a sizeable number of young men and women serving who come from what are traditionally termed middle class homes. The sad thing is these wars have been swept out of the American mind set from the suburbs to the projects. Even worse is the amnesia about them when they get home. Down range is easy compared to coming back to the states and trying to reintegrate to this society. Suicide rate is rising among veterans due to their alienation from all classes of American society. I have been home just over a year from the last deployment and I recently saw "the Best Years Of Our Lives" again and almost all of the storyline is still current.

I'm not trying to start anything, but being an ivy leaguer says nothing about class. I graduated from an ivy league school, and I knew people from all over the socio-economic map- people who's parents didn't graduate from high school and people who's parents bought them a new lexis every year. I even knew one individual who had been homeless most of her life; and I know she wasn't the only one. I knew people who grew up in public housing. Granted, I did go to one of the least class-exclusive universities, but we were a good mix.

I do agree with your entire assessment about our society's view of the war. I have no idea why it is this way, but it is wrong. The high suicide rate and the fact that this isn't within the country's consciousness of top 10 most important issues facing this country is disturbing. I have some ideas why this is, but I think this isn't the appropriate forum for that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I hope I'm wrong about this, I really do. But that said, I have to say that I don't personally know a single middle-class person of current military age -- and by that I mean a person raised in a middle-class environment by middle-class parents, with a middle-class worldview, middle-class attitudes, and a middle class education -- who is actually serving in any branch of the armed forces. I know they're out there, statistically they have to be, but every single person I've personally known who has served in the armed forces since the end of the draft -- with the exception of two doctors'-sons who got into West Point and retired as mid-grade Army officers -- has been of working class background. The middle class kids I know, and have known, for the most part come from families where military service would be very very strongly frowned upon, especially if it was a choice made in lieu of college. "You're better than that," is the phrase that might most often be used.

 

[WH1]

didn't mean to imply that ivy league were only from the "upper" classes more that the stereotype is that they are less likely to choose military service. and I welcome any comments given as one of the things I have always valued on the lounge is our ability to have reasonable, grown up conversations with the occasional childish comment to lighten and liven it up. Makes for a good exchange of viewpoints and ideas.