I Murder Hate

 I never found "Make Love Not War" to be a very eloquent slogan or an elegant solution to a human dilemma. The notion that the libido can simply be channeled from one outlet to another, i.e. that if people did more f-ing there would be less shooting, has always struck me as a very naïve, hydraulic model of human psychology. 

In truth, the sex drive is no more innocent than the death drive; and plenty of people throughout history have managed to be sexually active at the same time that they were busy butchering other humans. Genghis Khan comes to mind. His prolific career as a mass murderer does not appear to have made him less prolific in other senses.

Still, it's hard not to get behind Robert Burns's treatment of the "Make Love Not War" theme in his "I Murder Hate": 

In wars at home I'll spend my blood -

Life-giving wars of Venus.

The deities that I adore

Are social Peace and Plenty;

I'm better pleased to make one more,

Than be the death of twenty.

Again, I'm not sure there's actually such a necessary tradeoff there. The Khan by all accounts managed to be at once both the death of millions and the maker of perhaps thousands more. (Meanwhile, how many pacifists—"fire-breathing Catholic C.O."s as Robert Lowell once called his former self, in affectionate deprecation—have been monk-like celibates?)

But who with a human heart would not see Burns's point? If one were to have to choose between the two, it is surely better to make life than to destroy it. 

The deaths of seven U.S. service members this week—in Trump's illegal war in Iran—have of course brought forth all the usual rhetoric of "sacrifice" and glory from our leaders (eventually—at first, Trump officials appeared to simply want to ignore their deaths; Hegseth suggested "the media" only drew attention to them in order to make Trump look bad). 

But Thomas Hardy, in his "The Souls of the Slain," imagines what we would learn if the souls of dead soldiers could come back and listen in on what their families and sweethearts actually remember of them after their passing. His point was that it would not be the "glory" of their violent death, but the humble details of their lives that would actually come to mind: 

... then it seems that our glory

      Weighs less in their thought

      Than our old homely acts,

   And the long-ago commonplace facts

Of our lives... writes Hardy.

The Trump administration will try to boast about its battlefield victories and the beautiful honor of those who perish. But in truth it would have been far better to have left these young men and women—who signed up to defend the Constitution that Trump and Hegseth are now shredding—alone in "social peace and plenty," than to have killed them in an unjust war that never needed to happen.

Instead of remaining at home with their loved ones, with the "homely acts" of their former lives—instead of remaining in "social peace and plenty"—instead of making new lives—these seven Americans were cast into an inferno of death and destruction that Trump and Hegseth needlessly, unlawfully, inexcusably willed into being. 

If that is "glory," and "sacrifice," and "fame," what good is it?—Hardy seemed to be asking. 

And Burns too: 

I would not die like Socrates,

For all the fuss of Plato;

Nor would i with Leonidas,

Nor yet would i with Cato:

The zealots of the church and state

Shall ne'er my mortal foe be;

But let me have bold Zimri's fate,

Within the arms of Cozbi!