And now for something completely different...
(Oh hey, my post this morning on the wearing of the poppy in November sounds so angry! I just wanted to clarify that I'm not angry, I'm just frustrated with people who have the knee-jerk reaction of "war is bad and anything to do with war must also be bad" and thus taking it out on people who only have good intentions. I hope that I didn't come across as some kind of fanatic. >_> )
ANYWAY I just wanted to share something interesting with you guys. As you may or may not have gathered, I'm doing my honour's thesis this year (all 50 intimidating pages of it...) on perceptions and innovations in American Civil War medicine. I've been reading some really cool books with interesting titles, like Microbes and Minié Balls, Gangrene and Glory, The blue and gray in black and white: a history of Civil War photography, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War... Of course, you get the opposite end of the spectrum with books with absolutely boring/uninformative/uninspired titles like The Civil War... which is in fact a brilliantly written book! (If, of course, I'm talking about the one by that title by a man named Paul Cimbala.)
But to get back on track, I just wanted to share a passage with you from a book called Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, by Edmund Wilson. It's bound in a serious-looking blue cover, with very thin pages that actually remind me more of books from the late 1800s, not one published in 1962. This, combined with the title and even the man's name (I always associate the name "Edmund" with sour-faced men with dark goatees), I expected this to be a serious, possibly even depressing, work. And it is. For the most part. Except for this one completely unexpected passage in the introduction in which he makes reference to something completely unexpected, right after talking about having lived through two world wars:
"In a recent Walt Disney film showing life at the bottom of the sea, a primitive organism called a sea slug is seen gobbling up smaller organisms through a large orifice at one end of its body; confronted with another sea slug of an only slightly lesser size, it ingurgitates that, too. Now, the wars fought by human beings are stimulated as a rule primarily by the same instincts as the voracity of the sea slug. It is true that among the animals other than man it is hard to find organized aggression of the kind that has been developed by humanity..."
Holy crap, guys. This author is... I don't even know what to think! I think awesome. He goes on to continue with a pretty serious philosophical/historical point about the inherent evil in humans and why wars are started and perpetuated and such, and he uses long words like "pugnacious" and "Lebensraum" and others, but I cannot get over the fact that he used Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID to start off this discussion.
How did this serious historian, of at least fifty years of age (he lived through both world wars, remember?) encounter this movie? Did he go to the movie theater with his grandchildren with the American Civil War on the mind?
Just thought I'd share.
And always remember, guys:
(Image courtesy of Harkavagrant.com)
EDIT: Wait, upon reviewing some respectable internet sources, I've realized that the Little Mermaid was only released in 1989. Now which Disney film was Mr. Edmund Wilson, the serious historian, referring to? He needs to source his statements better, OMG! :P
ANYWAY I just wanted to share something interesting with you guys. As you may or may not have gathered, I'm doing my honour's thesis this year (all 50 intimidating pages of it...) on perceptions and innovations in American Civil War medicine. I've been reading some really cool books with interesting titles, like Microbes and Minié Balls, Gangrene and Glory, The blue and gray in black and white: a history of Civil War photography, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War... Of course, you get the opposite end of the spectrum with books with absolutely boring/uninformative/uninspired titles like The Civil War... which is in fact a brilliantly written book! (If, of course, I'm talking about the one by that title by a man named Paul Cimbala.)
But to get back on track, I just wanted to share a passage with you from a book called Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, by Edmund Wilson. It's bound in a serious-looking blue cover, with very thin pages that actually remind me more of books from the late 1800s, not one published in 1962. This, combined with the title and even the man's name (I always associate the name "Edmund" with sour-faced men with dark goatees), I expected this to be a serious, possibly even depressing, work. And it is. For the most part. Except for this one completely unexpected passage in the introduction in which he makes reference to something completely unexpected, right after talking about having lived through two world wars:
"In a recent Walt Disney film showing life at the bottom of the sea, a primitive organism called a sea slug is seen gobbling up smaller organisms through a large orifice at one end of its body; confronted with another sea slug of an only slightly lesser size, it ingurgitates that, too. Now, the wars fought by human beings are stimulated as a rule primarily by the same instincts as the voracity of the sea slug. It is true that among the animals other than man it is hard to find organized aggression of the kind that has been developed by humanity..."
Holy crap, guys. This author is... I don't even know what to think! I think awesome. He goes on to continue with a pretty serious philosophical/historical point about the inherent evil in humans and why wars are started and perpetuated and such, and he uses long words like "pugnacious" and "Lebensraum" and others, but I cannot get over the fact that he used Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID to start off this discussion.
How did this serious historian, of at least fifty years of age (he lived through both world wars, remember?) encounter this movie? Did he go to the movie theater with his grandchildren with the American Civil War on the mind?
Just thought I'd share.
And always remember, guys:
(Image courtesy of Harkavagrant.com)
EDIT: Wait, upon reviewing some respectable internet sources, I've realized that the Little Mermaid was only released in 1989. Now which Disney film was Mr. Edmund Wilson, the serious historian, referring to? He needs to source his statements better, OMG! :P