The Anti-Sentimental American

by digby

Knowing I have a penchant for Chayefsky, Arthur sent me a link to his discussion of “The Americanization of Emily” a film I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never seen. I’m going to get it today:

Many of the propagandists for war, 40 years ago and ever since — and up to and most definitely including today — consider Emily to be “anti-American” and “anti-war.” It certainly is all that and more — if your view of war is the mythic one. But Chayefsky rejects the myth and all its various aspects totally and across the board. It is unjustified to conclude that Chayefsky is “anti-war” in the sense of advocating pacifism: such a view finds no support in the film. But what Chayefsky does convey is just as threatening to the war lovers: while he may view some wars as absolutely necessary and required, that still does not make any war a “good” one, in the affirmative sense. Any war, even one dictated by the demands of self-defense, is immensely destructive and causes untold suffering. Much of that suffering is endured by people who are entirely innocent.

Chayefsky’s target is the one identified by Charlie: it is the glorification of war, and the countless ways in which all of us “honor the institution.” We build statues of our war heroes and name streets after them; we erect shrines to the dead. We insist on the “ideals” for which we fought, and the “goodness” of our intentions. Many of us do this in the misdirected and destructive search for “meaning” in our lives: our own stunted souls prevent us from finding fulfillment and happiness in our individual lives, so we look for “glory” by climbing over endless piles of corpses.

And what is lost in all of this is the unbearable horror and pain inflicted on individual human beings, and the particularized, specific costs of our quest for glory, or meaning, or “national greatness,” or honor.

Read the whole thought provoking essay.

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