The format of a My Take is 150 words – no more, no less – to express an opinion on a different topic each week. This week’s topic was bystander.
Hollywood has spent so much time and money retelling WWII. Perhaps because the line between goodies and baddies feels clear. The Campbellian hero’s journey, dipping through our darkest, fieriest nightmares to emerge, scarred but reforged, shining in glory.
But WWI is the one that scares me today. A long era of peace and globalized trade, awash in instantaneous information thanks to new communications technologies. Great wars were a thing of the past. They were too sophisticated for great wars. Too invested in perpetual growth and trade to fall into great, barbaric wars like in the past. Generations had lapsed. Technology was so destructive and precise, they wouldn’t dare. Just periodic proxy conflicts on distant fringes. But slightly nostalgic, a bit sad at how progress and peace crowded out true glory, true grit… Stand by. You’ll see. We’ll all be home by Christmas.
Lest we forget.
