Let me thank all of the participants and commenters for this brilliant virtual seminar:
The Cult of Che - Don't applaud The Motorcycle Diaries. By Paul Berman: The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination...
Matthew Yglesias: The New Phillistinism: Paul Berman's review of The Motorcycle Diaries really pissed me off. Is the difference between an evaluation of the life of Che and an evaluation of a film about a brief period in Che's life really that hard to understand? We don't get a movie review at all -- instead we get a rant about how Che was a bad guy and people shouldn't admire him and put his image on all kinds of stuff. Well, fine, but what about the movie?...
Crooked Timber: Portraying Guevara : There’s a real question, though, about how to portray Guevara and I’ve strugged with writing something about this for a week. I haven’t reached a satisfactory conclusion, just assembled some provisional thoughts partly inspired by Hegel and partly by Alasdair Macintyre. Hagiography should be out, but so should the sort of reaction that just carpingly lists bad things he did or unwise decisions he made. One reaction to that type of braying criticism is Hegel’s discussion of critics of Alexander in the Philosophy of History (scroll down to § 34). But Hegel’s remarks are inappropriate for Guevara because of the way in which he points to Alexander’s success in the conquest of Asia. Lack of success and damaging facts should not necessarily be enough to deprive a hero of heroic status: Achilles was flawed, and Achilles was cruel, and Achilles failed, but we still respond to him...
Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog: Achilles Is Not a Hero: As far as I'm concerned, we "respond" to Achilles--we may even pity him--but we do not admire him. None of us would wish to have the character of Achilles. Hektor is the one we admire. Hektor is the hero of the Iliad. And none of us would wish to have the character of Che Guevara.
Crooked Timber: The Hero as Werwolf : For Brad, a hero is someone whom we should both admire and emulate. Thus, we should aspire to the virtues of the sagacious Hektor, who fights only because he must, and not those of the vainglorious Achilles. But Homer and his interpreters among the classical Greeks surely understood Achilles in a rather different way. To them, he was an embodiment of the arete of the hero bound by his self-understanding and his honour-code to choose glory over a life of respectable insignificance, and to seek retribution for affronts regardless of their consequence (as in Achilles’ vengeance after the slaying of Patroklos). The fate of the hero is bound up in tragedy - he (and it is usually a ‘he’ of course in early Greek thought) does what he must, even when he knows that he will be punished by the gods. He is bound by his fate and his code of honour.... Just because Guevara did “personify a historical moment and he did turn his back on a comfortable future as a communist bureaucrat to pursue the goal of the revolutionary liberation of humanity,” he was a hero in a certain sense, and his fate was precisely a tragic one - it was a direct consequence of his aims and personal limitations. His arete may not be one that anyone sane would want to emulate in today’s world, but it’s surely an arete nonetheless.
Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog: We Don’t Need Another Hero!: three additional points: First, Achilles is certainly the hero of the Iliad that Homer wrote and that the classical Greeks heard and read.... But when we read the Iliad today as a work of literature, Achilles is not the hero: Hektor is. In analyzing the Iliad as a work of historical importance we need to be aware that for the ancient Greeks Achilles was the hero. But we cannot read it that way. Second, in a similar fashion, for Communists, Lenin and Guevara are truly heroic. Standing as they did on the shoulders of the great Karl Marx, they saw deeply into the present and far into the future. They ran great personal risks and stood bravely against their adversaries as they struggled to bring about the revolutionary liberation of humanity.... Third, we cannot view Lenin and Guevara as truly heroic, any more than we can view Hitler and Mussolini as truly heroic. Lenin and Guevara are inept Prometheus wannabees. Their only idea of how post-millennial politics might work is that the wise center of the Party tells everybody what the correct line is. Their only idea of how post-millennial economics might work is that things will function more-or-less the way that General Ludendorff organized the German economy during World War I.... Look for heroes who attempt the liberation of humanity, and you have to start with those whose projects had a chance to succeed...
Armed Liberal: Chris Bertram Challenges Paul Berman on Che: From Isaiah Berlin: "You would have found common sense, moderation, was very far from their thoughts. You would have found that they believed in the necessity of fighting for your beliefs to the last breath in your body, and you would have found that they believed in the value of martyrdom as such, no matter what the martyrdom was for. You would have found that they believed that minorities were more holy than majorities, that failure was nobler than success, which had something shoddy and vulgar about it."... Bertram admires Che because of, not in spite of, his attachment to the 'ideals' as opposed to the mundane.
Read the whole thing--hard to do, I admit, since it's multi-threaded and in many places, but it's much worth reading.
Sing, O Muse! Sing of the wrath of Che Guevara, friend of Fidel--that wrath that brought countless ills down upon the Cubans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades. Many and many a hero's body did it leave the food of dogs and kites!
And I do want to add my favorite passage from the Iliad:
Posted by DeLong at October 11, 2004 11:27 AM | TrackBackHector stretched his hands out for his son,
But the boy shrank back and clung to the breast
Of his richly-girdled nurse, crying out.
He was terrified at the sight of his own father,
terrified of the bronze helm with the fearful horse-hair plume.
Hector laughed, Andromache too.
And glorious Hector pulled his glittering helmet off
He set it on the ground. He kissed his dear son,
Holding him in his arms. Then he prayed.
This was his prayer to Zeus and the immortals:
"Zeus and all you other gods grant this my prayer.
Grant that my son, may grow up to be, like me
First among the Trojans, as strong and brave as me.
Grant that he may rule Troy with strength.
And grant that men shall say of him,
'He is a far better man than his father.'"
I don't see what Che's later career has to do with appreciating the message of "The Motorcycle Diaries", which is pretty much what he said in his toast to the staff at the leper colony. At that point, he was a noble soul worthy of emulation.
Posted by: Bob H at October 11, 2004 12:13 PMBrad, don't you find Hector, a guy who chooses to die fighting against an invincible enemy even if doing so condemns his family to death, a bit suicidal? I mean, he could have tried to escape or surrender (maybe in exchange for his family's safety) but he didn't. Both Achilles and Hector are tragic, doomed figures who bring death and destruction to those who surround them. The romantic attraction of figures like the Che may be a bit irrational, but if you plan on having political success you must deal with the fact that most people are irrational most of the time. Repeating over and over the "Pragmatic Code of Honor" and "Romantic revolutionaries are bad!!" isn't very effective you know... A lot of what we admire is essentially irrational; most of the important work in a modern war (even WWII) is done by guys who face relatively little physical risk (artillery, tanks, planes). But most "war hero" movies focus on the least important and effective of all forces, infantry. We value physical courage for itself. I would think that a citizen of a nation so militaristic as the USA would understand the powerful magnetism of the heroic warrior (Example: Democratic 2004 convention).
Posted by: Carlos at October 11, 2004 12:14 PM"countless ills down upon the Cubans" yeah ! Papa Doc.
Posted by: Hans Suter at October 11, 2004 12:42 PMJames Redfield wrote a brilliant book on the Iliad titled, "Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hektor." Point for Brad. I think one could make a fair argument (because I make it every time I teach the Iliad, nevertheless, that the Homeric tradition used Achilles to problematize the warrior code of honor as much as to reinforce it.
Posted by: Pudentilla at October 11, 2004 12:42 PMSlick inside Harvard joke, Brad.
Posted by: El Gringo Loco at October 11, 2004 12:46 PMI agree with the post above that we simply don't have to consider Che's later life to appreciate The Motorcycle Diaries.
It might even be better served to have just changed the names. This is a coming of age meets Don Quixote story....... Enjoy it for that.
I'm sure I would have liked Boogie Nights just fine even if one of the characters had been W.
Posted by: Jon-Erik at October 11, 2004 01:21 PMBob H above has inspired me. The movie about Che could have been tragic. I have not seen the movie, but "Portrait of an Idealistic Revolutionary as a Young Man" showing the seeds of the future monster might have been a purpose.
I was thinking of the movie "Another Country" with Rupert Everett, which attempted to say that the British public school system help create a traitor and a spy.
Can anyone think of other pieces of tragic literature in this vein?
Posted by: bob mcmanus at October 11, 2004 01:22 PMI thought copyright law as it pertained to the Iliad required that rosy-fingered dawn had to make an appearance whenever the epic was quoted.
Posted by: Linkmeister at October 11, 2004 01:45 PMI always thought the hero of the Illiad was Odysseus. AT any rate, I was always the most interested in him, glad he got his own book! It was a very interesting discussion, brad, and well worth reading. thanks for putting it all in one place.
Kate
Posted by: Kate Gilbert at October 11, 2004 02:33 PMI dunno... I thought that Odysseus was the hero of the whole war, though perhaps not the Illiad. He recognized the stupidity of the war to begin with, and opposed the whole venture, but he was more responsible for anyone than making sure the Greeks won in the end. Granted, he may not have been as noble as Hector, in the family values, patriotism, and honor department.
Posted by: Julian Elson at October 11, 2004 03:48 PMWhat?! I swear Kate's post wasn't there when I posted that! Well, anyway, what she said.
Posted by: Julian Elson at October 11, 2004 03:51 PMGeorge Bernard Shaw's play "Arms and the Man" pokes fun of the idea of martial chivalry and heroism, that Achilles seems to represent. Heroism of the Achilles kind is an ultimate form of megalomania, wherein the hero's self importance is more important than the lives of the collective. Seen in this light , it is not very different from the psychology of a Lenin or Hitler. I agree that Hector is the true "hero" of the Illiad and insofar as the Illiad could be said to have a villain, Achilles is it.
I think that this is generally indicative of the problems with idealism. An idea or a set of ideas that an individual has are pursued at the cost of other's lives and livelihood.
Posted by: vkr at October 11, 2004 04:02 PMAmazing, that is my favorite passage in the Iliad too and I never knew it was yours.
Posted by: Robert Waldmann at October 11, 2004 06:33 PMWell, I've only known you for 26 years...
Posted by: Brad DeLong at October 11, 2004 07:16 PMThe last couple of times I read the Odyssey, I noticed that Odysseus is never called "honest Odysseus" or "teller of truth Odysseus". And that in his most heroic acts, not only is he the narrator, but the only living witness. And he always has an excuse ("I was asleep") when his crew gets slaughtered.
I can't help but admire him - although you have to start to worry about the navigational skills when your captain makes a pit stop in Hades for directions.
Carlos:most of the important work in a modern war (even WWII) is done by guys who face relatively little physical risk (artillery, tanks, planes). But most "war hero" movies focus on the least important and effective of all forces, infantry.
While I understand your wider point, this is just not true. You can win battles without tanks (they played very little part in the Falklands, for example, where they served mostly as mobile artillery on the British side and were completely absent on the Argentinian side). You can win battles without artillery - again, Goose Green in the Falklands was fought without significant arty support, except for light support weapons such as antitank missiles and mortars, carried by the infantry themselves. You can certainly win battles without planes. Waterloo, for one; in the modern day, close air support played little part in many of the engagements in the Falklands. But you cannot win without infantry. Even the armoured engagements of Gulf War I involved dismounted infantry - for example, to clear bunkers.
It is true that artillery does 90% of the killing in modern war, and infantry takes the bulk of the casualties - but that is not the same as saying that artillery is the most important.
Question: does that mean that Achilles, killer of men, is artillery? Would the Greeks have seen the artillery as the heroic arm? Or would they have viewed it in the same light as Paris, the cowardly archer?
Posted by: ajay at October 12, 2004 02:56 AMajay,
There's a good chance that slingers and bowmen had a similar function to modern artillery - killing in as many as possible from a distance before foot soldiers engage. For all that Homer's age elevated prowess with a sword or spear, they threw rocks at each other whenever they could.
Posted by: kharris at October 12, 2004 11:34 AMFilm criticism aside, history should be a tool to improve our judgement not a chance to display it.
Mining history to sit in judgement on its participants is a questionble endeavor. Those who do so always say far more about themselves than thier subject. If that is the goal why not cut the charade.
We never REALLY know what happened because stories change with the telling. We never really know the context of even those thing we are pretty sure happened. We rarely understand the true motives of all the participants even when they try to state it for us. To make gods of ourselves with unequivocal pronouncements of the good or evil of another person seperated from us by time space andcircumstance is not the best use of any historical investigation.
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