Heroes in Blue and Gray

Heroes in Blue and Gray

There are many facets of the world that don't really make sense, but we accept nonetheless because it's just the way that the world is.  But since human beings are born with a blank slate, we must learn everything that we eventually accept as reality...somewhere...sometime. Sometimes it is caught, through a series of unintentional observations.  Sometimes it is taught, indoctrinated as a part of one's culture that is deliberately passed on to the next generation.  Either way, there is usually a point where the blank slate of a human mind is presented with a perplexing new concept and a set of beliefs about that concept, and we are forced to establish a belief about that concept.

At about the age of eight I was introduced to the concept of war through a civil war book called Heroes in Blue and Gray.  It detailed the various war heroes of the Northern and Southern armies and their respective achievements that made them widely admired.  War didn't make much sense to me because I couldn't understand the idea of killing another human being to establish supremacy. I was told that the object wasn't to kill, but to maim or injure the fighting force until victory was procured... but this explanation was lacking to say the least, and clearly didn't make sense to me then.  Nor does it today.

Now, strange as this may seem coming from someone writing a blog for others to read, I've never been much of a reader.  At least not a book reader.  So while I don't think I ever actually read the book that I referenced above, the subject matter contained therein did prove to be an excellent source of discussion material between myself and several adults who were in my life at the time.  Those discussions taught me a lot about the concept of war - particularly 18th and 19th century warfare.

One of the things that amazed me at the time was how "civilized" armies would wage war, lined up in squares facing one another and charging right into one another.  It seemed to be a surefire death warrant for the ones on the front lines and I could not for the life of me understand how they could co-opt soldiers to march straight into almost certain death.  Further, once they did get to the "middle" to fight, I wondered aloud how they could tell who were the so-called good guys and who belonged to the opposing army.  In other words, how did they know who to kill?  I was informed that one of the ways they knew was - like modern sports teams - the soldier uniforms were different colors (thus "blue" and "gray").  Easier to know who to kill when you can look at the color of their clothing.

Similarly, in pre-radio naval battles, I wondered how did one ship know if they should fire upon another ship or if that ship was an allied ship?  Presumably the ships would fly a flag (still true today) to identify the ship crew's allegiance.  With the flag displayed prominently, it was easy to see who was on your team and who was not.

I'm sure this is an oversimplification of the realities of war back then, but it's probably not too far off from the truth.

My eight year old mind quietly pondered these things, and once I had determined that the way to win a war was to inflict the highest number of casualties upon the enemy I came to the conclusion that the way they were fighting was stupid.  If one really wanted to hurt the enemy, I wondered, why would they not dress in the same clothing as the enemy to more easily infiltrate their ranks and attack them by surprise?  Or if by sea, why would they not simply fly the flag of the enemy on their ship so that they could attack more easily and by surprise?

Little did I know at the time that I was describing a war tactic called a "false flag attack" where the enemy infiltrates their opposition by wearing the clothes or flying the colors of the opposition so that they could attack from the inside.

As I view the news today, it becomes more and more obvious that what my eight year old mind saw so many years ago is the tactic du jour in modern warfare.  First we must divide people into groups.  If they don't self identify with a group, then we will create groups and assign people to them by certain beliefs, geographic regions, languages, or skin tones.  Then we generalize and de-individualize the members of those groups so that we make it seem like they all believe the same thing about everything.  Commonality is de-emphasized, and difference is emphasized.  Pit one group against another to create instability and a vacuum, making sure the media is present with sufficient coverage and a pre-ordained narrative to foment and cement the instability, then we sweep in to fill the vacuum. If we are unable to sufficiently egg on one group to violence against another group, then we will infiltrate their peaceful rallies and created violence in that group's name - then cover it extensively with the media. Rinse, repeat.

The world is not made up of groups, it is made up of individuals.  Mohandas Gandhi once said of religion, "In reality, there are as many religions are there are individuals."  The same is true with any number of beliefs.  Assigning people to groups is a way to reduce someone's independent individualism to a dehumanized group more easily susceptible to demonization.

They believe that we are all fools.  The only way this stops is if we realize that we are being played, and stop playing.

Right now, I think they may be right.  We might be fools.