The Vietnam War

It's well established that America, the benevolent superpower, lost its innocence in the Vietnam War. This was the second time this happened. The first was the Civil War, but that was for the post-revolutionary nation. This was for the industrialized nation. A different beast. 

 

As someone who didn't live through our decades of involvement there, I had not understood what exactly that meant. I viewed Vietnam as one of the Cold War interventions this country undertook, one of the many bad, short-sighted plans with horrific ramifications for non-Americans. The biggest and most notorious one for sure, but in line with the coups and military dictatorships and civil wars and atrocities perpetrated by the US government. I watched Ken Burns' documentary series on the war. Now I think I get it. 

 

This was a war that made Americans question who they really were. The abhorrent brutality and utter disregard for idealized "American" values was public. Citizens were confronted with a reality where they weren't a heroic force saving the day but just another powerful empire ignoring liberty, human rights, justice, freedom, the supposed foundations of their political experiment, in the pursuit of control. 

I knew the war was vicious. But seeing how graphic the televised reports from the field were, film of the horrors of war, which despite the populous' fantasies American soldiers were just as capable of indulging in as any other group of armed young men in human history, I better understand how traumatic this was and is to the national psyche. Scenes of our people torching villages, piled bodies of murdered civilians, napalm-scorched children, were broadcasted onto the airwaves. Direct witness to the primeval violence that emerges in men during war.

Anybody seeing that devastation done in their name would feel the stitches of their society tearing apart. Especially in a self-righteous country like the US. 

The general ineptitude is another jarring aspect of the tragedy. Borne out of arrogance, the perverse military and political leadership through at least 3 administrations (Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy) raised damning questions. How could we logically reach such insanity? How could we fight a war like this, where Vietnamese body count is the metric of success? Does the government truly have our best interests in mind? How can we rectify war crimes undertaken by our democratically elected leaders? 

Without even adding in the other psyche-shattering events of the time (civil rights and Watergate), Vietnam was a monumental heartbreak that we have yet to recover from. 

I think a huge swath of the population concluded they could never trust the government again. In their view, backed by evidence, Washington lies and operates under the rules of power, not the high morals Americans hoped, believed, their country had. Lack of faith in our institutions came from a betrayal.

The war was a tinderbox that blew up our unity as a country. I'm not sure if the cynicism that now separates and individualizes us can ever be breached. The cherished ideas we strived to live by have become cheap, hollow of meaning, naive and ignorant dreams. After what we did to Vietnam (and Cambodia and Laos), we as a body of people could no longer uphold any exceptional claims to dignity.

And if I were Vietnamese, I would say "damn straight!" That they bore the incomprehensible blunt of our internal roils, our ego, is profoundly unsettling. It's horrifying. A quarter of South Vietnam doused in herbicide. The rape and slaughter of innocents. 3+ million killed. Countless refugees, impoverished, shell-shocked, their lives and sanctity irreparable. Watching this series made me feel many emotions, but I think the dominant one is disappointment. 

All that being said, the poor teenagers sent to fight the war on this country's behalf are not the ones to point fingers at. Our institutions deserve the blame as they do for our similarly (though not as collectively traumatic to the US) disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. And as we Americans are the creators and upholders of our governance, the failures of our leadership ultimately reflects on us. We all share the blame. The Vietnam War is who we are. This is the uncomfortable truth.

The Noble Savage

The "Noble Savage" narrative is pervasive in human lore. I got to thinking about it after recognizing its presence in various places with different contexts; imperial conquests, ancient parables, academic fields. The premise is an unexpected depth of character in individuals of inferior, unremarkable background--the surprise being so because of ingrained prejudices of contemporary society, the righteous superiority of prideful condescendents, self-rationalization founded on shaky layers of twisted logic and close-mindedness. We may not use the same term nowadays, but the trope is thinly veiled across our stories too. First the person is framed as an "other," then their qualities are recognized. The initial assumption is a negative one.

I believe our enamoredness with tragedy plays some role in the popularity of this character. They're underdogs, hopelessly outmatched by a greater, more modern enemy. In their perceived less-fortunate circumstance and inevitable defeat lies gripping, enviable martyrdom, an innocence that is lost after the cocktails of power have been drunk. This sentiment is unavoidable when the powerful dominate the weaker, especially when the bullying is unjust and the bullied is undeserving. Guilt cowers not far from sight. 

This makes me think that, maybe, there is a universal shared instinct (apart from the mentally ill whose condition is horrifying because they lack it), a subconscious sense, that can respect admirable qualities in any person when shown those qualities. That there is a true goodness we know when we see. It transcends learned hatreds. It's more real than anything we create. 

The ultimate reason behind promoting diversity is this. It gives people the chance to see that there are no anomalous savages that happen to be the good ones. There's only people: people as varied as the world is infinite who should be viewed in the same, unflinching light, judged by their convictions and character before anything else. 

 

With empathy we should approach fellow man.