Patton vs. Bradley
George Patton was Munchausen: bold, self-possessed, and a
little demented. His strategy was to push forward boldly, quickly,
without always paying adequate attention to supply lines and coordinated
strategies. Sometimes his approach clearly cost lives unnecessarily,
but he was also enormously successful on the battlefield.
Omar Bradley, on the other hand, gave a good deal of
weight to the idea of minimizing casualties. He knew the war was won--
it was won the minute American factories kicked into the production of war
materials on a grand scale-- and he didn't always think it was necessary or
desirable to race to the finish. Bradley cared about his men. He
was also a fairly rational, logical strategist.
You might think Patton's approach was better-- didn't he
win the war? Patton, also like Munchausen, tried very
hard to project an image of himself that was much larger than reality.
He also appropriated supplies, especially fuel, that was intended to serve
the needs of other divisions besides his. He also had the benefit of
superb intelligence-- the allies had cracked the Enigma machine and Patton
knew what the Germans were planning at every stage of his advance.
Most of all, Patton had the huge benefit of massive supplies and support,
through the industrial might and economic capacity of the entire United
States, Canada, and Britain. The Germans were said to have been
frightened of Patton-- but they probably should have been more frightened of
Bradley, whose patient good sense kept Patton's recklessness in check.
Patton might have been lulled into an improvident move, a reckless gesture.
Not Bradley.
Don't we all usually regard
as artistic and ingenious those artists whose views of the world happily
coincide with our own prejudices?
And yet, "12 Angry Men" is one of the most popular
movies on IMDB. Are any of the people watching this movie any less
inclined to believe the government needs to get even more tough on crime?
That those who are accused are almost always guilty? That accusers
never lie?
Terry
Gilliam is one of a few directors I both admire and disagree with. His films are often
wildly inventive, original, and satisfying, yet I find myself disagreeing completely with
what he is saying. His message is very clear: Reason sucks; go with your feelings.
The most definitive expression of that philosophy is the scene in the theatre
in Baron Munchausen, when the heroic soldier (played by Sting) is brought in to meet the
mindless functionary, The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson (Jonathan Pryce) who is running the town.
It seems the soldier risked
his life to lead a bold counter-attack to drive back the enemy and rescue his comrades. The
functionary orders him executed. You can't have idiots like that going around demoralizing
the rest of the troops by making them feel inferior, can we?
The functionary is the embodiment of the "Age of Reason", given as the
time period of the events of the movie (at half past ten). We are
given to understand that he aspires only to reasonableness, and tries to do
what is logical and rational.
There's something repellent in
this characterization-- I immediately thought of all the soldiers who die when fanatical idealist
leaders, delusional, faithful to their ego-centric visions of their own greatness, order troops to
attack against overwhelming odds, in defiance of "reason".
Like? Like Napoleon, with his vision of defeating Russia? His
dream of a greater France dominating the world?
In "Baron Munchausen", there is a traveling theatrical group in town and it is performing a play
based on wildly improbable exploits of Baron Munchausen. The real
Baron shows up too, and stops the production to lecture the audience on
what "really" happened. Munchausen has a soft spot for the ladies, and
a hint of dementia. When Horatio Jackson's efforts to save the
town from the Turks fail (Munchhausen is also, incidentally, responsible for
the Turkish attack), Munchhausen makes a balloon out the ladies' underwear
and sails off to fetch help. First stop, memorably: the moon.
Gilliam might argue that the millions who died in the Soviet Gulags, died in the name of "Reason".
Dialectical materialism. They certainly died in the name of
collectivism, but then, all nationalist philosophies are, at heart
collectivist. I might argue
that the millions who died in the two world wars died in the name of
romantic, nationalist feelings. A core component of
Nazism, certainly, was a romantic belief in Germany's "destiny", in the cultural and intellectual superiority of
the German peoples. The Nazis also believed in science-- conducting
medical experiments on many of their victims. But then, so did the
allies-- inventing and using the nuclear bomb.
Or is it more prosaic than that? Would you rather live in a world
of logic and order, or a world of feeling and surprise?
We always use examples of the worst extremes to prove our points. The odd thing about Gilliam is that he mocks reason because
he doesn't believe in it. If you scan the history of satire in the western world, most of the mockery is directed
at people who claim to be rational but, in fact, are not. No--
Gilliam doesn't believe in reason. He believes in magic.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds out that she could have returned home
any time she wanted to, by simply clicking her heels together and repeating
"there's no place like home" to herself. That's the bourgeois
fantasy of people who find exciting, daring adventures entertaining because
they never actually live them. In a reasonable world, Dorothy needs to ask for directions, and then follow them.
But it's the dominant belief of our time-- if you want something, go after it, keep at it until you
succeed, and never give up.
William Blake said "the road of excess leads to the palace of
wisdom". Or, better: "Art is the tree
of life. Science is the tree of death."
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© Bill Van Dyk
2009 All Rights Reserved
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