[Peace-discuss] "The War" by Ken Burns

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

Laurie,
     Once again, you have made a salient and timely point.  I would point out that my discipline, sociology, 
as one that should offer a healthy critical perspective with which to engage society, has utterly failed in 
this regard in the classic canons of its American intellectuals.  Their loyalty to logical positivism and their 
promulgation of speciously "objective" rational choice accounts of human social behavior in institutions 
damages the historical perspective of American sociology.  Luckily, I attend an institution steeped in the 
traditions of Critical Theory at the New School for Social Research....

      However, people like Goffman and perhaps even Mead can be read into a critical framework, albeit not 
without great effort and specific application.
            Nick


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "Laurie" <laurie at advancenet.net>
To:      <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] "The War" by Ken Burns
Date:    Sun, 7 Oct 2007 21:42:15 +0000

> Carl,
> 
> While your points have validity, both you and John fail to notice one
> significant factor.  Ken Burn's work purports to be a historical documentary
> while the other works referred to by John are anti-war novels.  Novels make
> no claim to historic or "factual" accuracy or any degree of completeness of
> perspective and coverage; documentaries do either implicitly or explicitly.
> 
> As a side note, it appears to be a characteristic of Americans to take
> things out of setting or context and treat them in isolation as
> atomistically as possible, ignoring the interconnected and interrelated
> aspects within the general context historic or otherwise.  Our esteem for
> immediate gratification is only trumped by our lack of historic perspective
> and acknowledgement of interdependence.  We also have a propensity to reify
> what typically are abstract typifications and treat those typifications as
> concrete factual objects and events.  Thus history becomes an ahistoric and
> acultural series of finite events rather than an infinite continuum of
> ongoing processes and phenomena.  In part, this may stem from the positivist
> philosophy that underlies the scientific method and enterprise which the
> Western world has totally embraced and popularized as well as the Western
> world's (as exemplified by the US) focus on empirical science and practical
> engineering and away from theoretical science and analytical interests.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
> > bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook
> > Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 3:51 PM
> > To: Peace-discuss
> > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "The War" by Ken Burns
> > 
> > It was generally asserted that irony was over after 9-11, but John it
> > seems didn't get the memo.
> > 
> > He also apparently chooses to ignore the strong implication of both
> > novels, that the situation that causes the protagonist's suffering
> > arose
> > from a failure of historical and political analysis.  Each is a strong
> > if futile plea that that not happen again.
> > 
> > However tacit, Trumbo's political lesson was so clear that the book was
> > removed from publication, probably by Trumbo himself (an anarchist who
> > joined the US Communist Party during WWII), on the eve of US entry into
> > the war.  (The CPUSA went from a pacifist to a pro-war position in the
> > summer of 1941, with the German attack on the Soviet Union.)  A few
> > years earlier Remarque had had his German citizenship revoked because
> > of
> > the political implications of his books.
> > 
> > Burns' apparently apolitical approach is of course thoroughly
> > political.
> > 
> > As Mark Twain pointed out, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does
> > rhyme.  --CGE
> > 
> > 
> > John W. wrote:
> > >
> > > I've just recently read two anti-war novels written many years ago:
> > > Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, and All Quiet on the Western
> > Front
> > > by Erich Remarque.  They too are failures, unfortunately, because
> > they
> > > also don't delve deeply into exquisitely detailed historical and
> > > political analysis, but merely present the human effect of war.  It's
> > > appalling, really, that so many authors and filmmakers don't
> > recognize
> > > the obvious necessity of proper, correct political analysis.
> > >
> > > John Wason
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > At 01:45 PM 10/5/2007, you wrote:
> > >
> > >> [Burns' account of WWII appears to bear as much relation to the
> > facts
> > >> as TV sitcoms usually do to family life.  Here's a typical critique.
> > >> For a partial corrective, see
> > >> <http://www.chomsky.info/articles/196709--.htm>  "On the Backgrounds
> > >> of the Pacific War: The Revolutionary Pacifism of A.J. Muste."  --
> > CGE]
> > >>
> > >>         Critique, "The War" by Ken Burns
> > >>
> > >> Don't know how many readers here spent 14 hours over the past couple
> > >> of weeks watching the PBS documentary on World War II by Ken Burns.
> > I
> > >> think I have now seen it all -- given our local TV's rebroadcasts, I
> > >> think I have pieced in the parts I missed initially.  I expected so
> > >> much more, and I feel deeply disappointed.
> > >>
> > >> I have three big objections.  The First is the decision before the
> > >> documentary was really made to avoid or eliminate any discussion of
> > >> both politics, political leadership, and strategy and the makers of
> > >> strategy which would be the military leadership.  For the most part
> > >> the documentary managed this, which contributes to it's failure.
> > >> Without a political framework virtually none of the combat makes all
> > >> that much sense.  For it is persons in power through political means
> > >> that have the ability to attack this today, and something else
> > >> tomorrow -- and there is no way to comprehend a war without the
> > >> element of who was in power, and who had the political means to
> > direct
> > >> combat.  Ken Burns lost this one before he began if he made that
> > >> decision early on.  (Does one think one eventually will be able to
> > do
> > >> the History of the Iraq war without really comprehending the nature
> > of
> > >> the Bush Administration?)
> > >>
> > >> This Documentary was advertised as about the impact of the War on
> > >> various local communities -- Luverne Minnesota, Waterbury Conn.
> > >> Sacramento Calif, and Mobile Alabama.  What did we really learn
> > about
> > >> these communities?  Well, they all were letter writers, and they
> > >> followed the news and they collected scrap metal -- but we learned
> > >> little else.  Minnesota Public Radio talked with some of the Luverne
> > >> Witnesses, and they were disappointed that Burns had not included
> > >> their community canning operation.  They actually replaced
> > commercial
> > >> canned commodities with their efforts.  Corn, Beans, Beets, Peas,
> > >> Tomatoes, Potatoes, Carrots, -- they canned it all, and exchanged
> > with
> > >> other communities who could do peaches and cherries further south,
> > and
> > >> they were proud of this accomplishment.  It got left out.  If the
> > >> Documentary was to be about the Home Front -- this was a huge part
> > of
> > >> it, and they apparently are upset that it was dropped from the film.
> > >>
> > >> Third, in line with the promise that the Documentary was to be about
> > >> the home front, I expected it to include much more about
> > sociological
> > >> change.  The Documentary went out of it's way to avoid this.  Part
> > of
> > >> this is the timeline used in the film.  The Period for the war
> > begins
> > >> with Surprise Pearl Harbor, and ends with the surrender of Japan,
> > the
> > >> implications of change did not become apparent in this timeline. Not
> > >> only does this avoid all the politics, and the process by which
> > >> Americans moved toward war from let's say their position at the time
> > >> of the fall of France in June, 1940, or the Nazi Attack on the
> > Soviet
> > >> Union in June, 1941, to the position of probable support (by 66%)
> > for
> > >> war in October, 1941, (last poll before Pearl Harbor), it totally
> > >> avoids discussion of the dynamics of that change.
> > >>
> > >> Otherwise, I object to Ken Burns periodization.  For the vast
> > majority
> > >> of the combatents and the victims, the war began in 1939 -- but
> > Burns
> > >> sticks with the American Timeline that begins Dec. 7, 1941.  I
> > object
> > >> to his failure to comprehend that American Generals such as George
> > >> Marshall were convinced that there would be another World War as
> > early
> > >> as about 1923, because the conclusion of World War One had been so
> > >> flawed, and they saw the seeds of the next one in the failure of
> > peace
> > >> making in the wake of the first.  Burns decision not to insert the
> > >> positions of politicians and Generals into the mix because it was
> > >> politics or strategy means that those watching his documentary are
> > >> denied both what they knew and anticipated.
> > >>
> > >> Likewise, Burns ended his work at least with reference to Europe
> > with
> > >> the surrender, and then a short shot of Potsdam.  Marshall's
> > doctrine
> > >> was that wars were about politics, and that the conclusion of a war
> > >> was about finding a means for fixing the politics. on your terms.
> > that
> > >> had caused the war.  If you failed at that, forget the glory of your
> > >> combat victory.  In my mind this is the only principle that applies
> > to
> > >> Iraq even at a distance.  By not dealing with Occupation, and the
> > >> aftermath, Burns essentially blanks out the possibility of drawing a
> > >> useful comparison.
> > >>
> > >> But what really bothers me is the Burns Trademark on this totally
> > >> inadequate film.  I know all too well that these days, High School
> > >> Teachers do not really teach the Civil War -- they give the kids
> > hours
> > >> of Burns films on that subject.  I fear that will happen with this
> > >> latest effort.  And this latest effort is profoundly off key.
> > >>
> > >> <http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/10/critique-
> > the-wa.html>
> > >>
> > >
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