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#17

I can't tell you how many times I've read a book or watched a movie about war, then read criticism on it that touted it as "one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time," then wondered why I never noticed the underlying anti-war message in the first place. Sometimes the anti-war sentiment is there, of course. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes the book or movie is simply about war and is too involved with the more compelling dilemmas of its characters under extreme circumstances to be concerned about making trite political statements such as, "War is bad." But to any critical analysis of these works, any narrative about war is one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time. I'm going to write a pro-war novel someday where war is portrayed as a glamorous thing, and all the soldiers run around saying, "Yes! War rules!" and the teenagers back home lament that their friends got drafted and they didn't. When I do that, I think every critic in the country would hail it as, by its satire and sarcasm, one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time. It's all a conspiracy. Somewhere out there, there's a Secret Organization Of Critics Of Literature And Cinema Whose Purpose Is To Call Other People's Art Anti-War Whether It Really Applies Or Not whose members worm their way into influential positions at newspapers and magazines and literary conventions to promote their cause. I think this is a pretty good idea, but their organization is too chicken. They should call stuff like "Green Eggs and Ham" one of the greatest anti-war pieces of our time, but they don't make observations quite that far off the wall because they fear they might be found out. But I have no such fears. I'm all for it, for reasons that will come to me.