Tribal War (In memory of Shelby Foote)

[mnaz]

Shelby Foote passed on recently. His writings formed the backbone of a popular series on public television about the American Civil War, in which he dutifully narrated scene after scene of mass-produced savagery in his gentle southern inflection, aged to a wisdom of experience and compassion for his subjects which seemed beyond reproach.

Shelby Foote knew the warrior class. He buried himself in that damn war. He visited the sites. He relived Pickett's Charge and Gettysburg, where fifty-one-thousand believers were laid to waste simply because they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their belief. He explained how battlefield strategy lagged behind the latest technology-- in those days a new, more powerful and accurate rifle. That is an ongoing ebb and flow, though strategy is forever resigned to play catch-up with innovations of state-sanctioned mass-manslaughter. But the warrior class, on the eve of battle, cannot afford such concerns; not when good and evil have a score to settle, and they are so clearly identified.... not when there is history to be made.

Shelby Foote gave a high-minded interview shortly before his passing.... War is often said to settle nothing, though his war in fact settled a great deal. The country was at impasse over the extent and future of basic civil rights.... human rights. War was the only way to break this impasse. He spoke of the utter waste and vile psychology of this horrific war.... how Lincoln, the great Emancipator-- he of unfaltering moral courage-- was demonized, south of the Mason-Dixon line for his troubles. Surely the South was on the wrong side of justice in this blood-soaked, crippling war.

But Shelby Foote suddenly reversed course. Larger principles of justice came crashing to earth in a hurry. He would have gone off to fight for the South, had he been alive at the time. Why? Because they were "his people".... principles and justice be damned.

So once again..... once more, for the record.... all war is tribal.... the one essential mechanism required to spread the plague.

[mtmynd]

Interesting post, em-naz. Robert E. Lee did the same saying he'd stand behind his beloved Virginia.

I think most stand by their 'tribe' for better or worse at least in hopes of belonging... that and, if worse, things will be better.

[mnaz]

It was like whiplash, to hear his words.... after his tone of compassion and reflection on the needless waste, and his acknowledgment that, essentially, his side was wrong in this conflict.... to hear how quickly he would have joined "his people", in their morally-deficient cause, with little or no thought applied to the matter....

Perhaps it's a harder question than I make out to be.... but really, I don't see it that way.

A related question comes up when a family member has committed a serious offense.... say, first-degree murder. Should family stand by each and every family member unconditionally, regardless of their actions?