The Quiet American (and the Blackened Canteen)

 

M. tells me he is lying on the couch with a stiff drink watching the movie, The Quiet American. He says, "It reminds me of you." Well, how can I resist? Unfortunately, I don't have a couch, but like many women the world over, I keep a bottle of booze under the sink. Warming up Sachiko's homemade plum wine, I recall the old US Embassy in Saigon. It had clearly seen better days, but as of 10 years ago, at least, it was still standing-- right up alongside the muddy Saigon River.

Yeah, The Quiet American.

Even after all the books I read before the trip, staring up into the glaring sunlight toward that famous flat rooftop, I wondered yet again, "Why on earth did America choose to go to war with Vietnam? What could it possibly have mattered?"

You see, all this talk about universalist and particularist theory has never been about me uncovering the various and sundry looming differences between East and West-- but rather it is a plain and simple distaste for ideology-led policy. For as I always like to repeat, much damage has been caused in the world by the perhaps good-intentioned wish to "share the good news." Whether its the universalist principles in Plato or Christian evangelical philosophies or whether its the kind seen in Marxism or even globalist economic policies, when states attempt to universally apply what are universalist philosophies the results can be oppressive-- especially when seen from the long view. For in the end, as a wise man once said, we cannot save each other, all we can do is inspire and stand witness.

A die-hard existentialist, I guess I stand with the Swiss. I believe that the function of the state is to provide for the people of that state first. Food, water, clean environment, education and social welfare. Humanitarian aid and free trade next. Other than that, when it comes to taking a stand or making an ideological commitment, I am just not sure that is something for nation-states to do-- as I think this is something that each individual person needs to take a stand on. It's bad enough when a state seeks to impose its ideology on its own people but to then export it?

This morning, the Good Professor sent me a copy of Roger Ames's translation of Sun Tzu: The Art of War. He mentions that it could be useful in roughly drawing out the distinctions between ancient Chinese and "Western" thinking, especially as the latter emerges from Greek and Christian thought. In particular, concerning my last post, Plato versus Mencius, I thought this below was pretty illuminating about what I believe is the significant difference between a universalism based on the concept of objective Truth versus a "Confucian sensibilty" based on shared dispositions.

In contrast with its classical Greek counterpart where "knowing" assumes a mirroring correspondance between an idea and an objective world, this Chinese "knowing" is resolutely participatory and creative-- "tracing" in both the sense of etching a pattern and following it . To know is "to realize," "to make real." The path is not a "given," but is made in the treading of it. Thus, one's own actions are always a significant factor in the shaping of one's world."

Is this not the existentialist political manifesto par excellance? A sensibility to shared values and a deep commitment to an embodied realization of subjective truth. Or in the words of Master Yangming, the unity of knowledge and action (知行合一) says in a nutshell, “If you want to know bitterness, you have to eat a bitter melon yourself.”

Human association, community, and personal freedom, stresses Camus. This is the existentilaist credo.

A friend in Japan, Robert Yellin tells me about his father, Jerry Yellin, a decorated soldier in the war against Japan who is now doing all he can for peace and reconciliation. His story as seen in the book video is so very moving and incredibly reminds me much of the small meetings between vets that I heard about or saw in Vietnam a decade ago, which happened on the same local level-- sometimes resulting from just one American vet going back there to find someone or something...Indeed, I will never forget the vets I met or spoke to in Vietnam. An army of amputees, and agent orange bare forests, I don't know how many times Vietnamese people would come up and ask me if I was American. Taking my hands in theirs they would say, it's time for friendship. That was a long time ago and I am sure everything has been utterly transformed. Personally, I will never forget some of the stories I heard from American and Vietnamese vets there. In Saigon, we were staying in a seedy hotel not far from the old embassy (pictured at top) and there was this older American gentlemen down slurping his pho every morning for breakfast. One morning, he suddenly struck up a conversation with me and hearing how he has returned to Vietnam over and over (not easy travel back then from the US)- I asked him why. And he said, "I cannot get the beauty of this place out of my mind." Interesting since he must have seen such horrors there.

Years later, I would meet the leader of a WWII veterans group in Japan through an introduction of my Aunt's who is active in an airforce widow's association in Honolulu. For years, this older gentleman and I corresponded--his Japanese was so formal and old fashion, it was pretty much impossible to decipher. But he always repeated how happy he was that now instead of war between our countries, there were weddings. This is not surprsingingly the title of Yellin's more recent book, Of war and Weddings.

**

Links:

Jerry Yellin's The Blackened Canteen (the video is very moving--I just ordered the book)
Carthage at war (I am re-listening to the Hannibal lectures) and always up to chatting about the Punic wars
The Iliad and What it Can Still Tell us About War
Coady's Just War on Philosopher's Zone

Also a link to a petition against a planned aquarium in Kyoto which goes against public sentiment (they are planning to build in where a public park now stands!)

On knowing as doing and doing as being, see Master Yang's unusual epistemology

1945 Outstanding Gun Camera Raw Footage from Japan

 

Comments

[M.W.Nolden]

I intend to read Greene's 1955 book since I was, indeed, mildly buzzed (just enough to round off all the day's sharp edges…) & kept dozing off. As detrimental as that might have been to the movie ~ it made for an interesting dreamlike experience. I suppose I should watch the film again as well…

Of course I thought of you because I know you have a geographical soft spot for Vietnam & the film seemed to touch on some of the points you & the guys had been exploring in the Bell post. The film has really stuck with me & I just can't stop thinking about all the moral questions, all of the grey areas; none of which are actually resolved, as so often happens in the real world. The American is dead, the Vietnamese girl disappears back into the hostess bars of Saigon & the Englishman is left alone with guilt as his only companion… It's interesting that in the 1958 film (there is a 2002 remake as well) the negative aspect of the American's ideology was played down (he was presented in a way that suggested perhaps more of an ideological naiveté) as we were at the height of the Cold War so many of the events/factual characters were still in the news & the studio didn't want to rub anyone (Washington) the wrong way politically. I suppose one could, on a certain level, consider "The Quiet American" historical fiction as well as astoundingly prophetic ~ ten years later the Americans would be replacing the French. Greene acknowledged that this book contained more reportage than his other novels ~ it was also his personal favorite.

Like you, I never understood the real reason we stuck our American noses in Southeast Asia. At the time Korean War was still lingering in everyone's minds & it was the "Domino Theory": if Vietnam fell to the Chinese, then all of Asia would end up under Communism. That bit of propaganda turned out to be as true as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I think I'm beginning to ramble so I'll end here.

I love that you read "The Quiet American" in Saigon…

[Peony]

Hi MW!!

Vietnam really does have a special place in my heart-- in fact, Hanoi is a place I'd very much like to visit. I suppose no one is ever going to answer my question about the reason why Aeneus really seems the anti-Hero. Did you remember that discussion at Gawain's? It was one of my favorites. It's too bad he is off the air, huh?

Speaking of Vietnam, did you see my "hannoi jane" photo on facebook?

[M.W.Nolden]

I've been meaning to ask you about that photo ever since you put it up…
Is that actually a tank in the foreground?

Yes, I too miss reading Gawain…

[Peony]

I actually had my sister take that photo of me to send to gawain last year... I thought he would have something funny to say about it since I am popping out of the tank, and he did have something funny to say-- which unfortunately I cannot remember what it was (so maybe it wasn't so funny afterall??). But the picture was taken at an airshow at a small airport near my mom's place in LA. Adonis loves it because there is a small restaurant right up along the runway so as you eat you can see the planes taking off and landing.... On a recent visit an ex-Polish or ex Czech military fighter plane comes in for a landing (!!).

I almost fell off my chair.

Out pops this man with a beautiful woman and they head into the restaurant to have breakfast. I guess he had flown down from SF for breakfast-- can you imagine? It must take like 5 minutes to fly down after attaining a really high altitude?? How much does that even cost, I wonder...

Gawain of course was not interested in any of this...Why do I bother?

How was your party? Is it still cold there? It was gorgeous here today-- took a long walk listening to the rest of the Dreyfus lectures about poor Dido...

This In Our Time program was good too.