They kill and die to protect our “freedom.†But what can freedom mean if the prime instance of the exercise of such freedom is to shop? The very fact that we can and do go to war is a moral necessity for a nation of consumers. War makes clear we must believe in something even if we are not sure what that something is, except that it has something to do with the “American way of life.â€
And therein lies the heart, in my estimation, of the SIN of this endeavor; that it is all about “us”; OUR way of life, and if, in the pursuit of the protection of that “way of life” (whatever that is), someone else gets shoved aside, hurt, or killed, then we warp that up in the same blanket of “righteousness” (the “righteousness or justice of our cause; and therefore, it is a JUST war. Mainly because…..why? —-well it JUST IS. It’s what WE want. I’ve been quite depresed about this since the study came out that pointed to deaths mnay tens of thousands higher than the “official figures” (when we DO get them), and then again since the “all-out” assault of Fallujah began.
Heck, we are also promising when all is said and done and we get them to where we want them to be, they too, can have a “way of life”; they too, can shop.
I know I’ve said this before, but I’m so stoked you’re reading Hauerwas!
Man, I just responded, a nd then MT lost my comment login and lost my post in the process….so here goes again:
Haerwas is like required reading for me right now, and especially in light of the Fallujah offensive that just started. I jumped to the last two essays on 9/11 after I read the first section of chapters on “Politics and Truth”
See my next post on looking for a good “Bonhoeffer Collection” to follow up Hauerwas’ tribute to him.
Glad you’re “stoked”. I was glad to find this book on the occasion of looking for the DVD. The DVD was a great baptism into the life that kicked off the “Confessing Church” movement.
Dale
The middle sections (the largest part of the book) are “Truthful Perfomances” and “Performing Nonviolence” ) I’m just starting the explanation of what is meant by describing the faith as “Performance”.