By Benjamin Giltner
November 11 marks Veterans Day. Before 1954, Veterans Day was known as Armistice Day. Armistice Day — the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month — marked the end of World War I in 1918. The new Netflix adaptation of the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” reminds us of the gore and human tragedy embedded in World War I and all great power wars. As Scott Strgacich points out, the viewer of this film gets a sense of the anti-war spirit. However, having a moral aversion to war is not enough to stop it. Instead, a combination of moral values, not wanting war, and practicing restraint is needed.
One of the most important lessons in the film is that decision-makers will attempt to make rational justifications for irrational situations. Two leaders serve as examples of this point in the movie. The film’s antagonist, General Friedrichs, launched a final offensive on France’s trenches minutes before the Armistice went into effect. On the opposite end, French General Ferdinand Foch ignored the pleas of the German peace delegation on the consequences of the harsh peace terms. Was it rational for General Friedrichs to order the slaughter of German and French soldiers minutes before peace? Was it rational for General Foch to insist on peace terms that would contribute to the rise of Nazism and Adolf Hitler years later? Objectively, none of these decisions were rational.
Yet, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in “Notes from the Underground,” “…man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.” Carl von Clausewitz explained in “On War,” “instinctive hostility and hostile intentions” are the two main causes of war. In other words, every person has some sort of bias toward situations and will seek to justify those biases. To avoid war, Americans need to be skeptical of their leaders, especially their biases and passions.
This piece was originally published in Inkstick on November 11, 2022. Read more HERE.