[lit-ideas] Re: European Vietnam?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:27:22 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Fri, 11/2/11, Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> A history professor once told me:
>
> If you have difficulty understanding Europeans, their
> cynicism and distrust combined with unrealistic
> counterclaims, you have to remember that they had their
> Vietnam a long time ago. Their Vietnam was the Great War,
> where incompetent generals sent millions to die using
> outdated tactics. Their Vietnam was considerably worse than
> ours and so was their disillusion.
The effect of the Great War on the European mindset was doubtless momentous.
The disillusion was surely realism. They came to see not only the incompetence
of way the war was fought ["incompetent generals..outdated tactics"] but that
the war could and should have been avoided - that it was fought on
insufficiently just cause. The latter disillusion was arguably the more
important, as it is easier for the powers-that-be to dupe us that our military
are now fully competent (despite past failures) than to dupe us that cause for
the next war is sufficient, and so this disillusion operates at a deeper and
more longstanding level.
If the European disillusion was realism, then arguably the U.S [or, more
precisely, the powers-that-be responsible] could and should have learnt more
from the European experience.
It is vital to distinguish whether the U.S. misadventure in Vietnam was a
failure of competence or lack of sufficient just cause or both. What kind of
analogy we make with the European experience depends on whether, as with the
Great War, it was both.
It is unclear what specific "unrealistic counterclaims" are meant. Perhaps one
could be specified for discussion?
It is doubtless true that some, if not most, European thinkers regard the U.S.
as not sufficiently heeding the lessons of European history.
Perhaps that explains, in part, why they might wish to undercut the 'grand
narrative' approach to American history?
Donal
London
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