Huxley and Barak on War

Huxley and Barak on War Language

The facts of war, according to Aldous Huxley, are "revolting and horrifying," and so as a result of that nations have to make war seem less evil than it is. How do nations do that? "By suppressing and distorting the truth," he continues, in his essay "Words and Behavior." He goes on to suggest that our "sensibilities" and our "self-esteem" are preserved when we lie about the facts of war.

Societies that try to hide the brutality of war are exhibiting "stupidity" - and moreover, the most shocking thing about waging war, Huxley continues, is that "its victims and its instruments are individual human beings," not machines or tools of destruction. The political system, which Huxley calls "monstrous conventions" because they condemn human beings to murder "or be murdered" in "quarrels not their own."

The writer is clearly opposed to the whole idea of war, but in this essay he takes great pains to attack the language that is used to describe and justify war. His semantical attack on the language of war is very specific and very effective. Reading his essay it reminds a person that there are plenty of euphemisms used in modern warfare to make the reality sound not as bad as it truly is, and those will be presented a bit later in the paper.

But meanwhile, Huxley dislikes the informality of "the enemy" and how the enemy makes "his" plans and strikes "his" blows. This is a personal character transformed into "collectivities" and to "geographic expressions" that become not humans but "institutions." The use of the literary style of personification - making a non-human item into a human entity - should be used legitimately, Huxley insists. For example the day doesn't have human attributes but a writer could say, "The warm sun was smiling down on her as she pushed the baby cart along Main Street."

But the war makers and politicians use personification "for the purpose of concealing the fundamental absurdity and monstrosity of war." And when writers and war makers personify opposing armies or warring nations it helps the war makers to give the impression that it is a battle between individuals, which it is certainly not, he adds.

A little barroom fight between to men is not a bad thing, writes Huxley; a "bout of fisticuffs in a bar room" is just that but the men who make the language of war are really talking about "mass murder, deliberately organized." But if the language put out by the media or the war perpetrators were honest, and explained war as the bloody mass murdering machine that it really is, "would therefore be inconvenient." Because once citizens understood the full impact on the human race and the society those citizens would make effort "...to get rid of the abominable thing."

Another thing that bothers Huxley is when those who create the language of war conceal the reality of war through "picturesque metaphors." The first example of those metaphors is the air force spokesman who is waiting for the manufacture of warplanes that are capable of going out to "destroy the hornets in their nest," as though the enemy were a hive of bees. He deplores the hiding of true violence. That hornet reference really came down to this, Huxley says; "in other words, to go and throw thermite, high explosives and vesicants [i.e. chemical weapons...] upon the inhabitants of neighboring countries before they have time to come and do the same to us."

Another pet peeve of Aldous Huxley is the use of abstract entities like "man power" and "fire power"; and he dislikes the abstraction used often, "force." "You cannot have international justice...unless you are prepared to impose it by force," he hears the political leaders say. Democratic countries must be protected, the politicians say, by "use of force." After all, the author continues, "force" - when used in reference to human relations - has no "single, definite meaning." After all parents use "force" they insist that their children act in a certain way, but it does not imply that they are beating up on the children. They "force" their daughter to go to church with them, for example. There is of course the "police force" and there are the police who need to use "force" when they are trying to control a crowd.

In war, "force connotes violence" and yet it is such a benign word, he explains. All of these things that Huxley brings up can be made modern when the present day war conducted by the U.S. In Iraq is examined. The killing of Americans and the killing of combatants in Iraq, whoever they happen to be, is all just part of the "war on terrorism." Because the United States was hit with a major act of terrorism in 2001 (September 11), the military actions now taken in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere is attributed to the "war on terrorism" and it justifies the spending of billions of dollars and the loss of 4,000 lives (in Iraq) by the Americans.