Grim Gets Me Uneasy
I'll be honest: Grim Beorn is one of the bloggers who can raise the hairs on the back of my neck. His piece on
heroic epic warfighting was the first thing I'd seen of his, and it was a doozy.
With that in mind, comes now his latest piece, Knights of the White Cross. It concerns the issue of Denmark and the recent efforts against it in the Arab-Islamic world. There are those amongst the blogging community who have taken up the banner of Denmark due to the publication of cartoon images deemed blasphemous (or something) by Islamic peoples. Grim himself describes it as a "cause I am bound by my heart to support".1
That isn't all that Grim says, though, and it's here that the first hairs stand up, the lips draw tightly, and I sort of look away from the screen:
It won't be forever before the wrathful of the Muslim world notice this. Fate has brought us to where we thought we would not go: we now openly ride under a Crusader's flag.
This is an unpleasant realization. I can cavalierly quip about how this ought to be considered the sequel to "La Reconquista" and so forth, but that's all it is, cavalier quips. Not quite whistling past the graveyard, but not a serious response. I would, in fact, prefer that the billion plus Islamics not think we're on the Next Crusade, because that would play into the propaganda paradigm that I've heard about, where the (Christian) West looks with ravenous eyes upon the holy lands of Islam, or something like that. Such could, theoretically, energize new legions of devotees willing to give their lives in latter-day kamikaze attacks.
Grim also asks if perhaps Deus vult? I don't know how to answer that. Part of me says "I hope not"; what another part of me says is uncertain. He is comfortable to characterize the current struggle in a manner which I am distinctly not. For my part, I am most at ease seeing this struggle through the lens of a cold-eyed exercise in state power and simple theory. "You wish us dead and have taken actions towards that end. Witness the reaction, the response of the most powerful nation on the planet." Nothing more, nothing less.
Grim continues:
I suggest you all prepare for what Fate has brought us. We remain free to choose what we will do with the legacy that this flag will bind to our cause. If we are to be Crusaders, let us take the Cross in righteousness.
It's things like this that make me want to listen for the Hans Zimmer score playing in the background. You know, "Patres!" "Maximus!" "Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops..." The problem is that if I buy into his theory that this is a fated circumstance, my response is not righteousness. Rather, it is ruthlessness, moderated only by the notions of some day being required to explain myself to God and an ends-oriented analysis that asks, "Does this serve our interests in victory, or not?"
Perhaps it is because I am most decidedly not a warrior, either in the figurative or literal sense. Perhaps Grim speaks a language I do not understand, and it would not surprise me if he did. He speaks of a peace between warriors, that of Richard and Saladin. I think of an irreversible, unquestionable victory for the United States and their allies. At some level, my viewpoint may be influenced by what Walter Russell Mead calls the Jacksonian tradition.
Further analysis and reflection largely fail me at this point, because I'm remarkably incapable of putting further words to electrons on this subject. Suffice it to say that I decidedly don't like the idea of taking up the Crusaders' flag. Something seems wrong with it, and I can't articulate why. I definitely am not some weak post-modern cosmopolitan secularist afraid of making value judgments, so it isn't that, but I wonder what it is. Reader response is, as always, welcome.
ADDENDUM: I think I may have thought of a preliminary reason why I am uncomfortable with taking up the flag of the Crusaders. It is simple, and perhaps even at odds with my prior statement of endorsing ruthlessness. I am reminded of the awful things that were done by "our" people---the sacking of Constantinople and the massacre in Jerusalem---and would prefer not to be associated with that. We have enough baggage of our own without having to deal with the historical excesses of eight hundred years ago.
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1 My own preliminary thoughts---not yet a position---on this is fuzzy with competing objectives and interests; suffice it to say that I have not yet endorsed the action taken by the Danish newspaper.
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I didn't realize you were a reader, sir. You deserve a response at length. There are three points on which I would like to answer you.
1) To why 'taking up the Crusaders' flag seems wrong.' It may be that we have been raised to believe that the Crusaders -were- awful. Some of them were, of course; although, indeed, they had been awful before. One of the great boons of the Crusades from the Church's point of view was that it got all those rampaging knights out of the countryside for a while and let them have some peace. However, I think that the best historians have to say that the truth is that Crusaders were probably better than other knights, mostly; that the usual reason for taking the Cross was a desire to reform rather than a desire for wealth; and that the Muslims they fought were at least as bloodthirsty and given to brutal conquest as any Crusader.
As such, I have to view the Crusades as at least a mild improvement in the human condition of the time. The wars were brutal, but the previous and subsequent wars at home were just as brutal; there were awful things done, but there were awful things done by all such men in all places in those days.
Yet my argument isn't that we should have taken up the Crusaders' flag. It's that we have. When it becomes an issue among Muslims, we can't throw the Danish flag, which was also the flag of the Knights Hospitaller, back down again. We can't, because it now symbolizes not only those things, but also the whole tradition of freedom of thought and speech and conscience.
If we are stuck with it, then, we had best prepare to defend it on the terms that will be required of us. That, at least, is Jacksonian: we have a fight whether we wanted one or not. We had best get ready for it.
Posted by: Grim at February 07, 2006 09:52 AM (WSfW1)
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2) "The problem is that if I buy into his theory that this is a fated circumstance, my response is not righteousness. Rather, it is ruthlessness..."
You have hit upon a real concern. The Crusade as a kind of war presents particular problems in just war theory: essentially, if you believe that God is on your side, you are justified in anything and everything (see Kierkegaard). This is exactly the problem we face with our adversaries, who do believe that.
The solution is to insist on the concept of just war in any war -- and indeed, the concept has its roots in medieval Catholic thought, informed by the Crusades and the other wars of the day. It is possible to believe both that God is on your side, and also that God will remain on your side only so long as you bear yourself honorably on the field.
In fact, the medievals believed just this. If you read through Sir Thomas Malory's _Le Morte D'Arthur_ you will find Arthur warned that God has turned against him now and then for various causes -- excessive bloodthirstiness at war being one of them.
However, again, my argument isn't that God wills us to fight to the last. It is that there seems to be something unusual in the fact that this flag, which has become our symbol, has the particular history that it does; that we are being pointed to recognize not only the present values we ascribe to that flag (freedom of speech and conscience, etc.) but also the history and tradition that gave rise to those values.
Those freedoms arose in the West, not elsewhere; and they rose there for a reason. If you read some of the exchanges in the comments of recent posts, you've seen what I think the reasons are: a unity of a pagan tradition that began with Plato's teacher (whose name, for some reason, trips your comment spam filter), and the Christian tradition that began with Jesus. The two are alike in that -- to put it in unreligious terms -- they felt called by higher powers to question the roots of their society, and their societies destroyed them.
The Catholic Church (of which I am not a member, to be clear) has been unfairly mocked as an enemy of free inquiry and thought, when in fact it was the main shelter for such things in the Middle Ages. It protected the University of Paris in its early days, the first such institution on earth; it protected Thomas Aquinas, who rethought the foundations of much of the theology. It struggled against various heresies, but only sometimes violently, in what was a violent world; mostly through argument.
If we're taking up the flag, we're called to look at the tradition behind it. It is not just a Christian symbol or tradition: Plato's teacher was a pagan; Denmark today is broadly secular. The freedoms it symbolizes go to everyone, regardless of faith.
Yet the tradition is important, and perhaps it is time we rehabilitated the Christian elements of it in our minds. Perhaps it is time for Denmark to look again at its heritage; and Europe, also. I think that's what we're being called to do: to look again at our ancestors and our traditions, and find pride in them.
Posted by: Grim at February 07, 2006 10:13 AM (0y+ms)
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3) 'Peace between warriors.'
You say that the article I wrote causes you to hear the theme from _Gladiator_. I've never been a big fan of that movie; in fact, I don't really like war movies in general. I am big fan of Westerns, though.
Consider _Hondo_. The Apaches are outraged because a treaty was broken; they come down to destroy the families in the area. They hold their hand from one family because a boy fights fiercely to save his mother; their chief is impressed by his courage, and accepts him as a warrior who merits respect.
John Wayne's character knows and understands the Apache tradition. He is not an Apache -- he is prepared to fight and kill them, and his first loyalty is to the Americans -- but he is capable of meeting them on their terms. As a consequence, they come to respect him ("You have a good man. Treasure him," the chief Victorio says to the woman of Wayne), and as long as their leader lives, they leave him and his alone. Indeed, if it hadn't been for the fact that the wider forces were breaking treaties and fighting wars, such a peace may have been lasting.
It was based on family ties: the boy's becoming a blood-brother to Victorio; Wayne's marrying the woman who was the boy's mother. It was based on his keeping to a code of honor that both societies, being warrior societies, could respect. It was also based on strength, as both sides recognized the other as formidable in battle.
In the crusade of Richard the Lionheart, Richard and Saladin almost concluded a peace of this type. It revolved around a proposed marriage between Richard's family and Saladin. But it was based on the mutual respect that the two generated between each other in the course of the fight. They were brutal -- both sides were brutal -- but they came to respect each other.
The marriage fell through; there were no blood ties to support the peace. It's interesting to think how things might have gone if the peace had been concluded. Richard's importance as the carrier of the blood tie would have elevated him to a central position among Europeans, whose other leaders instead saw him as a threat and sought to remove him; he and Saladin might have created a genuine peace. It might have failed for other reasons, of course; but it might not have. We might today be in the position of not having Islam view the West as an implacable enemy.
If we're going to proceed forward with an eye toward peace, I don't think we do it by punishing Muslims and leaving; that creates failed states which are classic havens for terrorists to shelter and train. Neither can we expect to conqueor and rule Islamic countries, which we don't wish to do anyway.
Our best diplomats are our soldiers and Marines, but not just because of the damage they can cause. It's because of the impression they can make, out there among the people of Iraq helping them stabilize their society, or carrying food and relief to Aceh, Indonesia. By bearing themselves honorably in battle, generously in peace, they create ties and impressions on which a real peace can be made.
So again it is astonishing to find ourselves under the flag, not just of any Crusaders, but of the Knights Hospitaller. This began as a nursing order, and became military; it retained the ability to do both. It, and the Templars, won real respect among the Muslims -- and built ties, so much so that the Templars at their height could call upon even the Assassins and have their requests honored.
As we find ourselves under their flag, we might wish to consider that part of the heritage as well. We have no wish to conqueor or rule, and we can't simply punish and withdraw in the age of easily-mixed explosives and global airline tickets.
We can make a peace between warriors, so that Islam respects us and understands us to be honorable and fearsome. We can show ourselves to be generous friends and terrible enemies. That, I think, is the only way to achieve a real peace.
Posted by: Grim at February 07, 2006 10:38 AM (vfDxP)
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Sir:
Thank you for your kind remarks. I _do_ have some sort of response underway, but it will not be as easily(?) produced as was yours. That's a poor way of saying, "I have to think".
I appreciate your commenting here, and I appreciate (even when I don't particularly understand) your publication. I figure it as getting some culture on my part.
Posted by: The Country Pundit at February 07, 2006 11:40 AM (xZ4PU)
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I feel sure that if you're not understanding anything I write, the fault is mine and not yours. I'm always glad to engage other bloggers, though -- sometimes it's hard to make yourself clear the first time out.
Let me know when your response is done.
Posted by: Grim at February 07, 2006 09:19 PM (u2aRf)
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