Thursday, September 07, 2006
Green? Green.
My friend Jim Green teased me about not posting anything new for a while. I blame moving, moving, and hell. But here's something that I wrote quite a while ago:
Hearing from the Florida Supreme Court about their heroes got me thinking about some of mine. Marc Bloch is one of my personal heroes. A Frenchman and fighter in the Resistance in World War II, Bloch was hardly an ordinary example of either. But, I believe that he would like to be described first and foremost that way. An academic, he was one of the most prominent members of the French Annales school of medieval history and a captain in the French Army. He was also a Jew and there is some evidence that he suffered discrimination in Dreyfus Affair era France. Yet Bloch never allowed this discrimination to diminish his patriotism for France. Part of the French Army during its disastrous defeat by the Nazis, Bloch observed first hand its failure to adapt to the challenges presented by the Nazi assault. When French positions were overrun, they followed a standard retreat and regroup protocol. But the protocol was not designed to take into account the then shocking speed of the Nazi blitzkrieg. So the French were never able to regroup. Instead of concentrating their efforts at one point against the Nazis, the French tried to defend every hamlet. Finally, the French were too slow to turn to unconventional warfare to defeat the Nazis. In his book Strange Defeat, written between 1941 and 1944, Bloch indicted all of these factors, but pointed to a more general problem. Problems in French society led to the defeat, principally a tendency to compartmentalize thought and avoid critical analysis. This failure of imagination, as much as any disparity in weapons and tactics, led to the French defeat. Modern America, if we are to take the notion seriously that we are in a bitter and intractable struggle against ruthless enemies, might take heed and pay a little more interest in knowing why they are our enemies. Bloch was apprehended and executed by the Nazis in 1944. His prescient warning lives on.
(The title is a play on the Fifth Element and the catchphrase by Chris Tucker's character.)
Hearing from the Florida Supreme Court about their heroes got me thinking about some of mine. Marc Bloch is one of my personal heroes. A Frenchman and fighter in the Resistance in World War II, Bloch was hardly an ordinary example of either. But, I believe that he would like to be described first and foremost that way. An academic, he was one of the most prominent members of the French Annales school of medieval history and a captain in the French Army. He was also a Jew and there is some evidence that he suffered discrimination in Dreyfus Affair era France. Yet Bloch never allowed this discrimination to diminish his patriotism for France. Part of the French Army during its disastrous defeat by the Nazis, Bloch observed first hand its failure to adapt to the challenges presented by the Nazi assault. When French positions were overrun, they followed a standard retreat and regroup protocol. But the protocol was not designed to take into account the then shocking speed of the Nazi blitzkrieg. So the French were never able to regroup. Instead of concentrating their efforts at one point against the Nazis, the French tried to defend every hamlet. Finally, the French were too slow to turn to unconventional warfare to defeat the Nazis. In his book Strange Defeat, written between 1941 and 1944, Bloch indicted all of these factors, but pointed to a more general problem. Problems in French society led to the defeat, principally a tendency to compartmentalize thought and avoid critical analysis. This failure of imagination, as much as any disparity in weapons and tactics, led to the French defeat. Modern America, if we are to take the notion seriously that we are in a bitter and intractable struggle against ruthless enemies, might take heed and pay a little more interest in knowing why they are our enemies. Bloch was apprehended and executed by the Nazis in 1944. His prescient warning lives on.
(The title is a play on the Fifth Element and the catchphrase by Chris Tucker's character.)
