The Teaching Front
Today we covered the Philippine Insurrection and two pieces of literature from the time period. Most students have never heard of the Philippine Insurrection (our Nam before the Nam as I call it) nor do they know about the Anti-Imperialist argument against our involvement there. I spent time on that, telling them that the Philippines were not protected by the Teller Amendment (which prevented us from doing the same thing to Cuba) and we discussed the argument that the Philippines were not ready for self government.
Which, to my ears, sounds very much like the debate about whether or not you could get a Federal Republic established in Iraq. “They simply do not have the cultural experience,” and blah, blah, blah.
According to the research I did for my notes nearly two years ago, over 200,000 civilians were killed between 1898 and 1913. We lost 5,000 troops killed in action (that is more, at present, than we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan) and far more than the 379 lost in combat during the Spanish American War. Granted, we lost 5,400 during the war but most of those were disease and medical mistreatment.
Finally, we discussed two pieces of literature. The first was Rudyard Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden, which is basically an open letter to the United States saying, “Welcome to the Imperialist Club.” Kipling is not often discussed these days because he is politically incorrect, fairly racist in his attitudes (racist insofar as we in the 21st Century judge him, no doubt in the 22nd Century we will be seen as just as racist in our own way) but I wanted to illustrate the Imperialist argument as it manifested itself in literature.
The second was a YouTube presentation of Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens) The War Prayer, which presents the Anti Imperialist side. Now personally, I have very little use for Twain, as a writer or as a political commentator. I also find him to be a chicken shit of the first order. Two reasons for this, the first being that he ducked out of military service before the Civil War truly got started. The second pertains to this very story.
The War Prayer was not published until long after Twain’s death. He was told by his publishers that he was committing career suicide by trying to get this story published. Twain, preferring the comfort of his pocket book, trunked the story.
That I disagree with some of what Twain says in the story is not the main reason I have a problem with the man. The main reason is that he took the easy way, the comfortable way, he slipped away from the Fight just as surely as he did in Missouri back in 1861. If he had the depth of his convictions, he would have said, “Damn the Torpedoes.”
That said, I thought I’d share The War Prayer to you, the Readers of the Pondering Tree. It comes in two parts.
It was animated in 2007 if memory serves correctly, mainly for use as an Anti-Iraq War protest tool. In any event, it allows me to convey the Anti-Imperialist message with far more conviction than I could personally do on my own. I let Twain have his soapbox, even if I find his own conduct as a writer to be rather pathetic.
Photography
Some random shots, some of which will serve as new entry icons.
Yours truly playing a Fencer.
Some personal research shots in New York City.
For those looking for more after action briefs, I’ll try to get to those soon. I’ve been a bit busy with teaching, lecture prep and trying to work the tire off of my body.
Later.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
7 comments
February 20, 2009 at 10:32 pm
BrianC
Whats the deal with a flag that size, I mean you couldnt treat it with the respect a normal flag gets, i.e. when taking it down youd have to know at some point it was going to hit the ground. You couldnt fold it into corners, like i always see on the TV, and sure as sure you couldnt do the snazy 6 man folding thing, maybe 60 man.
Not trying to poke fun of the “symbolism” of the flag. I think however there is a point where it stops being symbolic and simply become background noise. And when its a city block size. thats the point right there.
February 21, 2009 at 12:29 am
uamada
I think the reason Twain never published it, is it just a piece of very bad writing. He was going for an emotional impact and he loses it by spending several stanza’s (is that the right word for a paragraph in a poem?) with the stranger explaining what he is going to say. And it would have been better had the last bit (the part that wasn’t narrated) been left out. A “with that the stranger left, with the same deliberation as he had come, silently back to the night” or something
I have a couple of questions.
I didn’t see the anti imperialism in the poem, I saw an anti war message & preaching about the ills of nationalist fervor, but no anti imperialism. Did i miss something?
&
With regards to the numbers of dead, does that have anything to do with the difference in military strategies and technology between today and 110 years ago or is it a difference between the populaces willingness to commit to a war then to now?
and a statement – Orwell too was accused of racism (and for promoting british paternalist policy) for his novel “Burmese days”, which i think is as misguided as saying Kipling was racist. What Kipling has done, as has Orwell and Twain (and Dickens…I could go on), has given us a historical slice of life and need to be viewed today, in that context. But none of them should be read as the only viewpoint
February 21, 2009 at 1:29 am
Terri
Two points about Twain: He is very straightforward about his brief (1-2 weeks) as a soldier. He makes plain that MANY soldiers in that conflict did not completely understand how, why and against whom they were fighting. I’d likely beg out too without good leadership.
He published, at his expense, Ulysses Grant’s memoirs.
And in order to avoid BANKRUPTCY, he earned back every penny he was in debt. He was entrepreneurial, but hardly a money grubber.
February 21, 2009 at 11:38 am
brian
Every piece of writing has to be understood in context of the times that they were written. Historians see the writing in the mood of the times they were written. . . . and they loose their shine, so to speak. I understand where Murph is coming from in this.
Later generations see that that writing in a different way.
In the end – Twain and Kipling were supplying a ready market for their work. People were willing to buy it. Its silly to condemn it, without also condemning the period. May as well condemn Shakespeare for writing elitist plays that had to pass the test of a censor AKA Master of the Revels iow the work had to be politically correct and support the current regime. (duhh!) These guys weren’t political or social activists.
February 21, 2009 at 2:39 pm
sfmurphy1971
BrianC, I am fairly certain that the flag is a big sort of Middle Finger to the terrorists of 09-11. Frankly, I find a fair amount of symbolism in that little block as depicted by the pictures I chose.
1. There is the house of money, which has a neo classical feel to it.
2. George Washington’s statue is across the street where he took the very first oath of office for the Presidency.
3. Just down the street, easily visible and powerful inspite of being dwarf by larger buildings is the Trinity Cathedral.
Money, Religion and Politics, all within one block or so, all with deep historical roots in our history.
Anyway, the size of the flag does not bother me. As a fiction writer, I see a lot of potential in that flag and where it is placed.
uamada, I think the casualties are striking because the Insurrection lasted longer than the Span-Am War did. It is a forgotten conflict (literally a forgotten conflict) which means those five thousand Americans and 200,000 Filipinos may as well have dropped into the memory hole. Given my field’s habit for making a lot of noise about genocide in the last decade or so, I’m often a bit surprised that no one talks about this particular event.
As for sheer numbers, I think part of the civilian death count is due to the relative lack of restraint among US forces. That is just a guess on my part and I’d have to read more on the military side of it to tell you for certain. Of late, I find myself drifting away from the military history aspect because the students resist it mightily (programmed I guess) and my peers would prefer (with some justification) that I not focus on military history to the exclusion of all else. A point I’ve long since conceded to them.
Per Kipling, I think you might have me confused.
Kipling equals racist/imperialist (in our eyes, not his per se).
Twain equals anti-imperialist.
Twain’s tack is pretty easy to see, an argument against the glory of war (something he got right in The War Prayer). It is early in the morning and I am still not awake. Maybe I’ll try a stab at this later.
Terri, I know Twain gives a pretty good account of his two weeks at playing soldier. Though if memory serves, he wrote this years after the fact and his is our only account. I find myself a bit suspicious of his motives when he wrote that piece.
As for why troops were fighting, I think the motivations vary. In some clear cases, troops were fighting to defend their homes. Some were fighting to preserve the Union. Some were fighting for States’ Rights (thought that probably pertained to officers and political leaders). Some were fighting to free the slaves. The list of reasons is fairly well endless.
Some fought out of fear of being called a coward and were forced by peer pressure of their community to go. I suspect Twain probably falls into this category. He showed up, forced by peer pressure to put in some time and slipped away the first chance he got. As a soldier myself, I’d have been glad to get rid of someone like him.
Sure, he did help U.S. Grant, ironic given that Twain served (very briefly) for the South. But I don’t think I was implying that Twain was a money grubber.
What I was implying was that Twain always made the safe choice. Knowing the back story of The War Prayer dimishes its power for me because he trunked the story at the time when, apparently, Twain felt such a story was needed the most. Instead, it doesn’t see print until the 1920s.
Twain could have gambled that his reptutation as America’s foremost writer would sustain him through whatever criticism he suffered. He could have done that but he did not.
Which is one reason I think less of him.
Respects,
Murph
On the Outer Marches
February 21, 2009 at 11:22 pm
uamada
I certainly wasn’t having a go – my point was that all writing needs to be viewed in the context of the time it was written, which is what you said and i got that. I mentioned Orwell, because his politics could never be considered slightly right wing, however some academics have used Burmese days, clergymans daughter and a couple of others to attempt diminish his messages from 1984 and Animal farm. Or they did when i had my ill fated jaunt in academia (i got hammered when i compared “keep the aspidistra flying” to “day in the life of ivan denisovitch” – one of the reasons i left uni).
And thanks for the explanation about the numbers and “the war prayer”, I’ll defer to you that he got it right, even though i disagree – it needed some editing – but the imagery was spot on when he got there. I listened with my eyes closed, so I didn’t see the animation until the second go through.
February 22, 2009 at 3:56 pm
sfmurphy1971
Uamada, I think what you are referring to per the right of center types and Orwell is the perception that he was offering a critique of Stalinism. On that score, I think they are probably fairly accurate. I also know that Eric Blair/Orwell was not enamored of the slavish unquestioning obedience of many socialists and communists to the Stalinists of his era. He also didn’t have much use for pacifists and appeasers during World War II.
I think the message everyone should take away from Orwell is to watch for the erosion of one’s personal liberties and to avoid group think. The problem these days is that the Left, especially the American Left, trot out Orwell to serve their needs. I’d be a bit more agreeable to that if there wasn’t as much group think on the Left.
I think I’ve read Ivan Denisovitch once upon a time but I barely remember it. I have no idea if you or the instructor is right.
Respects,
Murph
On the Outer Marches