Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

 

Remarque’s book is still read today because its ideas and sentiments still are found as nations go to war. Think of what might be applicable to our present war in Iraq.

 

Some historical notes on WWI :  Will be presented in class.

--impact on Austro-Hungarian Empire
--German Empire
--Russian Empire
--Turkish Empire
--8,500,000 dead

1. Note the characters:

Paul Bäumer
Kantorek the teacher
Detering
Kropp
Himmelstoss
Müller
Katezinsky
Leer
Westhaus

2. Movies/Novels and war genre:

--after WWI
--after WWII
--after Vietnam
--after Gulf War and now Afghanistan/IraqII

3. Basic themes and questions: Note the answers reflected in the novel.

--why war?
--who benefits?
--what happens to soldiers?

--what is the “lost generation”?

-- personhood lost – how is this meant by the author?

--what is meant by being rootless upon return?
--what perspective on authority is presented by the author?

--why does the author refer to “words, words”? ---how do words influence how we think about war? How does this theme apply to the present war in Iraq? [Note various examples of words used and how they an be interpreted in different ways depending on who is doing the interpreting.]
--war = politics by other means – Clausewitz –Is this true or is this when politics fails?
--why the comment that ideals yield to “facts”?
--what significance for the author that politicians start wars?
--what significance to comradeship?
--why the concern expressed in the idea that the army is mindless?
--what really is the horror of war? how does one know it?

-- hospitals and war – how do people not in war attain this sort of insight?
--note the depictions of civilian life and gulf between people back home
--what are examples of how a word makes others enemies ?
--words make war refined  -- what examples contemporarily?
-- why the comment about the factory owners?
--what is the knowledge one doesn’t want to know in war according to the author?

 

4. Just War Theory: 

 

5. War, in its realistic calculations involves costs and benefits. What are the costs and benefits concerning the present Iraq war? Be sure and note the two sides of the argument with differing versions of costs and benefits,  but some costs are absolutes [e.g., financial, lives, injuries] and some are interpretive [e.g., peace, security, etc.]. Values enter as to whether costs are “worth it” [worth what is the key question both in terms of the value sought and the possibility of achieving the objective] and whether they are good trade-offs for the opportunity costs.

 

--Web Sites for data on Iraq:

 

National Priorities Project Database –[opportunity costs estimates]
National Priorities Project Cost of Iraq War Notes and Sources

Iraq Body Count

Casualties in Iraq - 2006   [anti-war site]

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Time for Another Body Count in Iraq [information on Lancet numbers of Iraqi deaths, including methodology]

Richard Nadler on Iraq on National Review Online  [critical of Lancet estimation of deaths –too high, he argues --NR is an acknowledged "conservative" publication --Lancet is the major journal for the British Medical Association. ]