Can a person enter a war as an act of cowardice?

Chris OConnor

Can a person enter a war as an act of cowardice?

This discussion question was found at http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780767902892&vi ew=rg

In "On The Rainy River," we learn the 21-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage: "Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory." What might the 43-year-old O'Brien's theory of courage be? Were you surprised when he described his entry into the Vietnam War as an act of cowardice? Do you agree that a person could enter a war as an act of cowardice?

Saffron

imnosalinger · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:19 am Post subject:

It actually wasn't just O'Brien the character who allowed fear of what others though to force him to go against his personal convictions and enter a war he didn't agree with, it was O'Brien the author as well.

I think what he's trying to say is he was justifying his lack of courage. I also think this quote reveals, perhaps, that when confronted "with the day when the account must be drawn down" he still found fear, that there really hadn't been enough left in the account.

I think it's rather a strong statement to call entering the war because of societal pressures an act of cowardice. By that rule of measure we are all cowards in some degree or another because we all allow society to influence the way we act and the things we choose to do or not do.

But yes, I do agree that a person could enter a war as an act of cowardice, because they fail to find the courage to stand up for what they believe in.

Ophelia · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject:

imnosalinger wrote:

imnosalinger · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 3:22 pm Post subject:

The Things They Carried deals with this. It talks about soldiers who shot off their own toes to be able to go home, and their fighting that desire, how it would be easier to put a bullet into their own body than continue their daily lives in Vietnam.

Easier to suffer the one time shame of blowing off your own body parts to avoid war than the day to day shame of fear and reactions to what's going on around them.

These were some of the things they had to carry.

Very interesting, really.

DWill · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 7:53 pm Post subject:

What seems to make it possible even to consider that bravery would consist in refusing to go to war, is that we have a tradition of individualism and the primacy of the individual conscience. I'm not saying
most Americans believe that the individual should decide for himself what is right, but it is at least there somewhere in our history. The Amercian Revolution is to some extent a case in point. Without this tradition, it would sound loony to say that refusing to fight the country's fight could be the braver choice.

Contrast this situation with that of the Bagavadgita, in which Arjuna has refused to fight out of problems with his conscience. There is no recognition of a tradition that might legitimize his decision to abjure war. Krishna shows him that the higher wisdom is actually not to listen to one's inner voice, but to entrust one's actions to the call of tradition.
DWill

Saffron · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject:

Saffron · Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:23 pm Post subject:

Here is a link to the biographical information page on Tim O'Brien's web page. I thought it would be especially useful in light of O'Brien's blending of biographical information and fiction in The Things They Carried.

Biographical Info

I clipped this from WWW.PREFACE.CALPOLY.EDU profile of O'Brien.

....O’Brien was drafted into the army. Already involved in anti-war demonstrations, he remembers the time prior to induction as “a horrid,
confused, traumatic period – the trauma of deciding whether or not to go to Canada.” “Horace’s old do-or-die aphorism – Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – was just an epitaph for the insane,” O’Brien wrote in his memoir If I Die in Combat Zone , Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973), but the prospect of separation from family and friends, and alienation from the country he knew resulted in his service with the U.S. Army’s
Fifth Battalion, Forty-Sixth Infantry – the “America Division – from January 1969 to March 1970. In a terse summary of his time “in country,” O’Brien says, “I was a coward. I went to war.”

GentleReader9 · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:38 pm Post subject:

I believe what O'Brien is saying about how his decision feels to him when he goes back over it in story.

His description of being near the Canadian side of the Rainy River with Elroy Berdahl and not being able to do the border crossing, even though it felt like the moral thing to do, to him, personally, because of his human connectedness to people who disagreed with him and would not understand, really clearly describes something true to my experience.

He seems unflinchingly to try to tell the truth about his inner experiences as he does about the world that can be quantified, weighed and carried; he cares not only what, but how he sees. He tells like a true storyteller, that is, a person whose life depends on getting the telling right, who believes the lives of others may depend on it. He admits to telling stories over and over, differently each time to try to tell the truth right.

I choose to believe, if he tells me that he was motivated by a kind of moral cowardice, that this is true. I believe it and don't think less of him for it, because I think I know something like what he means myself. The courage is in his telling us (and himself!) this truth which would be so easy for some people to lie by keeping silent about it and not even noticing it. This "cowardice" is why the war story is also a love story.

He gives us Elroy as the figure of an ideal reader who understands:

DWill · Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 6:47 am Post subject:

O'Brien the fictional narrator feels that his decision not to go to Canada was cowardly. That is the way he felt about himself, he says, and we probably must accept that. But his feeling that way is different from what an evaluation of his action might determine, for whatever that is worth. I would never say that cowardice fits him in this instance. Cowardice is essentially selfish and at the expense of someone else. O'Brien the narrator was simply pulled by very basic and powerful influences, none of them shameful. He had conscience weighing on both sides, and chose the side whose pull was the more powerful.
DWill

Saffron · Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:20 am Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 8:19 am Post subject:

Saffron · Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 11:47 am Post subject:

GentleReader9 · Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:49 pm Post subject:

On Oct. 13th, D. Will said:

Dissident Heart · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:52 pm Post subject:

Individuals may enter a war for many different reasons: some of which may be in deep contradiction and inconsisten


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