Waging war: “total” and otherwise

The New Neo Posted on by

Right now, at the top of the list of recommended reading at Real Clear Politics, are two articles that can be seen as companion pieces of a sort. The first is “Why Iraq’s So Hard” by Ralph Peters of the New York Post; and the second, by Christopher Shea of the Boston Globe, is entitled “War Without Limits.”

The message of Peters’ article can be summarized as, “In the fight in Iraq, we weren’t””and still aren’t””prepared to be ruthless enough to win.” Shea, on the other hand, offers a review of two books that describe the concept of “total war,” and are mainly critical of the concept and the practice.

Are we at fault, as Peters writes, for trying to wage a PC war on the cheap in Iraq? How “ruthless” should we be, and what is the definition of ruthlessness, anyway? And how ruthless are we required to be in order to win a war against an enemy prepared to be utterly unforgiving itself, an enemy that practices as “total” a war as its tools allow it to wage, and that is bent on acquiring ever fiercer tools?

The books Shea reviews seem to be asserting that total war is a product of the advanced technology of the last century or two, and part of the practice is the extension of war to the civilian population. But this ignores the fact that the ancients were no slouches at killing large numbers of the enemy, and ordinary citizens at that, as well as destroying their cities—purposely. Witness the Mongols, the sack of Carthage in the Third Punic War, and countless other incidents in which to be conquered meant to be destroyed.

“Total war” is a term that’s not all that well-agreed upon and ultimately not all that useful. To be total, does a war have to be worldwide in scope? If so, the war again Islamist totalitarianism fits the bill. Does it have to include the killing of civilians? Again, our role in the present war fits the definition, but not if what is required is the purposeful targeting of civilians, which we (unlike the other side) do not practice.

What Peters really may mean in saying we are not ruthless enough in this war isn’t that it should be a total war in the classic sense (if there is a classic sense), but that it should be waged without so many PC considerations, and with less concern for the economic bottom line. He indicates that, had we done both of those things from the start, things would be going much better than they are now.

We’ll never know, because that didn’t happen, although I tend to agree with Peters. But I don’t see this as ruthlessness, simply as common sense. There’s no point in starting a fight with one hand tied behind your back, unless it’s a benefit sporting event that doesn’t matter.

Peters is expressing the Jacksonian point of view that wars should be waged at a high level of intensity. Do Jacksonians advocate this because they are inherently bloodthirsty? No. In fact, as I wrote when discussing that most famous of American’s Jacksonian decisions—the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan—one goal of the intensity of warfare that Jacksonians advocate is to end a conflict as quickly and as decisively as possible, and thus avoid protracted wars that end up causing even more destruction and loss of life.

One of the books Shea reviews in his Globe article is by David A. Bell, on the topic of Napolean’s Europe and birth of modern total war. Shea writes:

In his book, Bell stresses how ferocious nationalism and revolutionary fervor led the French to view their enemies as people who needed to be exterminated, not just defeated — a decisive shift from an earlier Great Power style of warfare…Anti-revolutionary opponents, whether French peasants or Austrians, were now “sanguinary hordes,” “barbarous,” and “vipers”: all deserved disembowelment.

It’s that kind of invective Bell has in mind when he hears phrases like “the evil ones” today.

It seems that the word “evil” itself is now suspect; one can’t use it without being accused of drumming up an imaginary villain. But if the Islamic terrorists and jihadists today don’t fit the defintion of actual evil, then I don’t know what does. My guess is that, if Bell were writing today, calling Hitler “evil” would, likewise, be evidence of a bad mindset on the part of the Allies.

And “evil” is, after all, a mere word. If it’s not acceptable to even use the word “evil” today, how much less acceptable it is to fight evil with vigor. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me, but one wonders sometimes if war critics would prefer that we go back to using sticks and stones.

As Peters says:

We face merciless, implacable enemies who joyously slaughter the innocent with the zeal of religious fanaticism. Yet we want to make sure we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

We’ve tried many things in Iraq. They’ve all failed. It’s a shame we never really tried to fight.

Hate for sale: the thriving BDS industry

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I was in one of those stores that proliferate in the streets of the coastal resort towns of New England featuring items that aren’t at all needed but might be desired by the roving tourist with a heavy wallet: tavern puzzles and hacky sacks, retro postcards, windup toys from Asian countries, ironic baby shower gifts for cynical young folk who are nevertheless reproducing themselves, rubber (or maybe nowadays they’re plastic?) turds for the classic jokers among us.

And, of course, Bush memorabilia. Or rather, Bush paraphernalia of the hate variety: an amazing assortment of stickers, cards, paper dolls, and—most plentiful of all—refrigerator magnets featuring photos of the President with sayings describing how dreadful he is and, by implication, how infinitely wise and compassionate the buyer/displayer is.

They were various riffs on that old and always-good-for-a-laugh theme: Bush=stupid. Every now and then Cheney came into the picture as well (Cheney≠stupid; Cheney=evil). And there was a new theme—at least new to me, because I guess I don’t have my finger on the pulse of popular Americana: the countdown to the 2008 election.

Like prisoners scratching out on a dungeon’s gloomy walls their time yet to be served, those suffering from (or reveling in) Bush-hatred are charting the hours, days, minutes, and even seconds until their longed-for liberation. Here, for example, is a site devoted to these products and prominently displaying the hopeful countdown clock. Emblazoned with the glorious day, 1.20.09, are the bumper stickers, mugs, t-shirts, keychains, dog biscuits, and combo packs to purchase for the self or for the liked-minded friend or loved one.

I try to think back to other times of Presidential disfavor. Clinton, of course, as well as Nixon, must have had their products of mockery. But I can’t remember anything remotely resembling this cottage industry of ridicule, so casually and readily available in almost every shop. I wonder how well the products are actually selling, and whether people actually find the repetition of the same one-note themes endlessly amusing, or whether they tire of the knick-knacks almost as soon as the goodies are brought home.

I also wonder whether Bush-hatred will survive the retirement of its object from the Presidency on that long-hoped-for and long-delayed day. Will the products go on, always good for a superior laugh? Or will they be tossed into the dustbin of history, the owners not having Bush to kick around any more?

The larger question is whether, on that day of all days, the Bush-haters will get that Democratic President they so desire. If so, will the present BDS wares be replaced by new products featuring the next electee—say, Hillary, who certainly has her share of haters? Or will there be a surprise for the Democrats, and will Giuliani or McCain or Romney or fill-in-the-blank become the new focus of ire and the entrepreneurial spirit associated with it? I guess we’ll find out in (as I write these words) 618 days, 1 hour, 49 minutes, and 49 seconds.

For Mother’s Day: neo revealed

The New Neo Posted on by

Okay, who are these three dark beauties?

A hint: one of them is the very first picture you’ve ever seen on this blog of neo-neocon, sans apple. Not that you’d recognize me, of course. Even my own mother might not recognize me from this photo.

My own mother, you say? Of course she would. Ah, but she’s here too, looking a bit different than she does today–Mother’s Day–at ninety-two years of age. Just a bit; maybe her own mother wouldn’t recognize her, either.

Her own mother? She’s the one who’s all dressed up, with longer hair than the rest of us.

The photo of my grandmother was taken in the 1880’s; the one of my mother in the teens of the twentieth century; and the one of me, of course, in the 1950s.

Heredity, ain’t it great? My mother and grandmother are both sitting for formal portraits at a professional photographer’s studio, but by the time I came around amateur snapshots were easy to take with a smallish Brownie camera. My mother is sitting on the knee of her own grandfather, my grandmother’s father, a dapper gentleman who was always very well-turned out. I’m next to my older brother, who’s reading a book to me but is cropped out of this photo. My grandmother sits alone in all her finery.

We all not only resemble each other greatly in our features and coloring, but in our solemnity. My mother’s and grandmother’s seriousness is probably explained by the strange and formal setting; mine is due to my concentration on the book, which was Peter Pan (my brother was only pretending to read it, since he couldn’t read yet, but I didn’t know that at the time). My mother’s resemblance to me is enhanced by our similar hairdos (or lack thereof), although hers was short because it hadn’t really grown in yet, and mine was short because she purposely kept it that way (easier to deal with).

My grandmother not only has the pretty ruffled dress and the long flowing locks, but if you look really closely you can see a tiny earring dangling from her earlobe. When I was young, she showed me her baby earrings; several miniature, delicate pairs. It astounded me that they’d actually pierced a baby’s ears (and that my grandmother had let the holes close up later on, and couldn’t wear pierced earrings any more), whereas I had to fight for the right to have mine done in my early teens.

I’m not sure what my mother’s wearing; some sort of baby smock. But I know what I have on: my brother’s hand-me-down pajamas, and I was none too happy about it, of that you can be sure.

So, a very happy Mother’s Day to you all! What would mothers be without babies…and mothers…and babies….and mothers….?

[NOTE: This is a repeat of last year’s Mother’s Day post.]

Defeat and defeatism

The New Neo Posted on by

The word “defeat” has been thrown around lately in connection with the war in Iraq; here’s an example.

The title of the editorial is “Vietnam syndrome: the consequences of U.S. defeat in Iraq would be much greater than they were in Vietnam.” I agree with the basic premise; they would. But I disagree with the characterization of what’s going on there as “defeat.”

You may think I’m engaging in useless semantic nitpicking. But I don’t think so. I think what we experienced in Vietnam was closer to defeat than what’s going on in Iraq, but I think both basically come down to a different thing entirely: defeatism, and that it’s a troubling post-Vietnam development in our national psyche.

Remember that we had been disengaged from active fighting in the war in Vietnam for years when we abandoned that country in early 1975. I’ve written about that process so extensively that I’m not going to go into it again here (see this, this, this, and this). What’s important, though, is that we gave up when we were undergoing very little risk and when the cost of continuing was low. Even though we were merely subsidizing the fighting of others in a cause for which fifty thousand Americans had already given their lives, we had grown weary of what was perceived as an endless conflict, and it was that psychological defeatism that led to our pulling the plug on the still-fighting South Vietnamese themselves, who then—and only then—were in fact defeated.

We have lost relatively few casualties in Iraq, our economy is still thriving, and we’ve experienced no increase in terrorist attacks here. There has been no military defeat, just a psychological one, and it is self-generated.

In a way, though, my distinction between “defeat” and “defeatism” might be moot: in the end they both would have the same effect on the Iraqis. They would/will also have the same effect on the international perception of our ability to keep our word and to persevere in a struggle, an important part of deterrence of future conflicts.

They look different domestically, though; we have not experienced anywhere near the suffering and decimation involved in an actual defeat. Ask the elderly Germans or the Japanese what that is like.

In fact, the US has never suffered a defeat. The only part of the US that has is the South during the Civil War and its aftermath, the traumatic process of Reconstruction. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons the word “defeat” is now thrown around so readily; many of us don’t quite understand what it means.

Bye bye, Blair: more change across the pond

The New Neo Posted on by

Not unexpectedly, Tony Blair has called it quits as Prime Minister. His farewell speech was relatively short, and some thought it too emotional and quasi-apologetic on Iraq.

I only read it in print, so perhaps it was different when he delivered it, but it didn’t really seem either to me. Surprisingly, though, for a man known for his eloquence, it didn’t have much rhetorical flair. Perhaps after ten years he’s tired, much more tired than Obama, and for that he can be forgiven.

Yes, Blair does end his speech on an odd note, with an apology. In context, though, it’s a blanket apology for the times he had “fallen short;” people can decide for themselves what times those may have been. The bulk of his speech is actually about changes for the better in the British economy and its sense of itself as a leader nation during his tenure; he says only a little bit about international relations or Iraq.

As far as Iraq goes, Blair alludes to the fact that many people hold the opinion that the aftermath of the war in Iraq—what he calls the “blowback from global terrorism”—“simply isn’t and can’t be worth it.” But then he says:

For me, I think we must see it through. They, the terrorists, who threaten us here and round the world, will never give up if we give up. It is a test of will and of belief. And we can’t fail it.

It doesn’t seem all that equivocal to me. The war in Iraq has been, if anything, even more unpopular in the UK than it is here, and that was true at the beginning of the conflict as well as now. Blair had to buck public opinion from the start; as he says, he did what he thought was right in leading the country in that direction.

Blair’s most likely successor is his deputy, mystery man Gordon Brown. To some, Brown appears to be pretty much an Americaphile, and although he has a history of supporting Blair’s position vis a vis Iraq, no one is at all sure what he really thinks.

After reading five or six articles on the man, I can honestly say that the picture I get from all of them is a murky one; Brown appears to be an enigma even to those far more familiar with his record than I. Apparently he has purposely kept his positions somehwat ambiguous, the better to change them as the situation might warrant.

His personal style is very different from Blair’s: no charm or charisma here. The New York Times quotes the Sunday Times as describing Brown in an editorial as “a blank sheet of paper,” and that pretty much sums up the views of many who have watched him over the years.

So I won’t even venture a guess as to which way Brown will turn, except to say that he will probably seek to prove he’s not Bush’s poodle (the epithet that dogged Blair’s footsteps) by emphasizing whatever differences in policy do exist.

And by the way—what’s up with all these single-syllable leaders whose name starts with a “B”?

Congress, the President, and the polls: a game of withdrawal chess

The New Neo Posted on by

Headline in the Washington Post: “Bush would veto new Iraq bill.”

Ya think? Surely this isn’t a surprise (it’s a sort of “dog bites man” story) although of course the Post and the rest of the MSM are required to treat it as newsworthy.

The new bill would fund the war only through September, and even that would be contingent on a report this summer to Congress on whether the Iraqi government has met certain security benchmarks. Then Congress would vote again as to whether to actually release the funds or not.

Congress continues to play political games here. I guess at this point that’s pretty much its raison de etre. But still, the sponsors of this bill had to know that it would be vetoed. So, why continue this approach?

The struggle between Bush and Congress has always been couched at least partly as the Democrats trying to chip away at Bush’s popular support. But surely they know that, at this point, Bush is beyond such considerations. The word “Bush” is probably just a cover for the word “Republicans”—after all, it’s other Republicans, who must go on record as either voting or not voting for this bill, who need to run again in 2008.

So the Democrats don’t really need for the bill to actually be signed into law. It will function as a litmus test for members of Congress, and the Democrats are betting that it’s a winner for their side in the elective sense.

If one reads the news summaries of the latest polls, one could easily think the Democrats are right. It seems like a no-brainer: 6 out of 10 Americans want to see a timetable for withdrawal no matter what. What could be clearer? The Democrats would appear to have the majority strongly with them.

But go to the Gallup site and read the actual results. Hmmmm. It turns out that the all-important question was worded thusly:

If you had to choose, which do you think is better for the US—to keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years, [or] to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time?

Why didn’t the pollsters ask whether people favored immediate withdrawal, withdrawal in a certain number of months, or whether they favored the bill as written (the poll was asked May 4-6, so the information in it could have been quite current)? Well, I don’t read the minds of pollsters, and I guess they were looking at exactly what they wanted to be looking at, which was the support for a timetable versus no timetable at all.

But the distinction isn’t a very helpful one when that’s not the choice being faced at the moment. It’s the addition of that telling phrase “even if that takes many years” that even I, a non-pollster, can tell easily could be skewing the results. And it doesn’t take training as a therapist to see that, either. I’m sure the pollsters knew it themselves.

Other parts of this and other recent polls ought to give the Democrats pause as well, although I doubt they will. A poll in late April asked certain questions that the Gallup folks apparently decided not to include this time, but the findings then were that only 30% of Americans would like to see troops beginning to return home within six months, with an additional 27% wanting to see withdrawal start sometime next year or beyond, and 39% against any such deadlines.

Hmmm, once again.

In the most recent poll, Americans believed 50% to 46% that a withdrawal would embolden Iran and North Korea to see it as evidence of US weakness, and to challenge us with threats. Hmmm again.

And then there’s the fact that majorities see a likelihood of negative consequences for a pullout: as increased threat of civil war in Iraq, al Qaeda setting up shop there, and increased threats of terrorist attacks in this country.

Again, I would exercise caution: polls are polls, and often not all that worthwhile. But if one is relying on them in order to gauge public opinion for a coming election—and I have little doubt that that’s exactly what the Democrats are doing—one should at least take a good, hard, and careful look.

Sanity Squad: Sarkozy on the couch

The New Neo Posted on by

The Squad takes on mon petit chou Sarkozy and what his election might mean for France, the US, and the world. Join Siggy, Dr. Sanity, Shrink, and me as we opine on matters small and great.

Oh, and it’s okay now to have some French cheese and drink some French wine as you listen. But just a little of the latter—you’ll want to keep your mind clear enough to appreciate the fabulous wit and wisdom of the Squad. Or something like that.

Obama and the “tired” factor: making excuses

The New Neo Posted on by

I have to admit I’ve got a ton of sympathy for Presidential candidates. The campaign seems at times to be a two-year marathon of travel, speeches, handshaking, exhaustion, and exposure to the howling wolves of the press who are always waiting for the first little slip to pounce and devour their prey, even one so favored as Obama.

Yes, you might say the candidates all asked for it; nobody is forced to run for President. And at this point, no one can plead ignorance of the process. But still, the actual experience—like having a baby and needing to get up five times a night to feed it—is probably far more grueling in the actual doing than it appears in the prospective contemplation thereof.

So when Obama made his slip-up and overstated by a factor of 1000X how many died in the Kansas tornado, I’m inclined to say it’s amazing such errors don’t happen more often to all the candidates, given the circumstances. But his excuse—that he was tired and weary—doesn’t sit all that well with me, although I have no doubt that it’s both true and understandable.

The problem is twofold. The first is that it may indicate not only a certain lack of toughness on Obama’s part, but a willingness to offer up excuses too easily. It’s okay for a Presidential candidate (or President) to be tired, but I’m not so sure he should be so eager to excuse himself on that score. I’ve often thought that, if the campaign is a grueling marathon, it’s probably a (pardon the phrase) cakewalk compared to the actual Presidency.

Just as the Presidency is not for the shy or those tortured by ambivalence, just as it requires a certain amount of narcissism (perhaps more than is healthy in ordinary life), it also requires true grit and enormous—almost superhuman—endurance. And if the President doesn’t feel up to it all the time, he/she is supposed to shut up about it and not let others see.

No excuses, although of course Presidents make mistakes. But, as Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here” for the President—and for the Presidential candidates.

In a larger sense—and perhaps I’m overdoing the analogy here, but what the hey—Obama’s willingness to admit to exhaustion mirrors the Democrats’ willingness to admit to being so weary of Iraq that they want it to be over, and immediately. Arguments about the pros and cons of the war aside, in strategic terms the clamor for the pullout signals a lack of stamina that can only be immensely heartening to our enemies.

The incredible shrinking (or is it growing?) al Qaeda

The New Neo Posted on by

Al Qaeda is a secret organization. It doesn’t publish statistics on how many members it has, and if it did we wouldn’t believe them anyway, because for al Qaeda propaganda trumps veracity every time.

And yet lack of specific knowledge doesn’t stop commentators from tossing out pronouncements, not only about al Qaeda’s size and its recent growth or lack thereof, but also about the reasons behind said expansion.

From the NY Times, here (from the serendipitously named Clark Kent Ervin) is a good example of the sort of thing one reads almost on a daily basis:

While many of [al Qaeda’s] operatives have been killed or captured since 9/11, the supply of young people who are willing and even eager to attack Americans seems limitless. Our disastrous misadventure in Iraq has only increased that desire. Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself in Pakistan and is trying to reclaim Afghanistan.

I recall first hearing the “al Qaeda and the Taliban are back in control in Afghanistan” meme a few weeks after the Afghan War ended. And, although I have no reason to doubt that they continue to be a force to be reckoned with there, and are continually trying to regroup (with some success) there’s been nothing to indicate a major leap in that direction. If you read the previous link you’ll see the general vagueness of all such reports, which tend to go like this: we took out a lot of their leadership, but they’re trying to come back, and the extent to which they have been successful is unknown. Well, of course.

It does seem fairly clear that, like the broomsticks in Disney’s “Fantasia,” al Qaeda has become less centralized over time. Again, it’s hard to see how it could be otherwise; it just makes good sense. Even the absence of a major attack on the US since 9/11 isn’t definitive evidence of anything much; your guess is as good as anyone’s as to whether it’s from lack of opportunity, or a cagey strategy to allow us to destroy ourselves with argument and divisiveness—after all, an attack might actually unite us, even now, even with the dread Bushitler in charge.

Ervin makes the bold assertion that our “disastrous misadventure” in Iraq (well, I guess we know where he stands on that one) has increased the desire of willing young people in the Muslim world to attack Americans. I guess he’s a regular jihadi mindreader, because his statements occurs in the absence of evidence of actual increased attacks.

Maybe he’s right. But perhaps not. The truth is that no matter what we’ve done, the desire of jihadis to attack Americans seems to have been steadily increasing. If Iraq was the cause of an increased increased desire, what was the cause back in the 90’s? Oh, of course, the Gulf War. Or our presence in Saudi Arabia. Or our support of Israel. Or, or, or….as some say, our way of life itself, and the increased exposure of fundamentalist Muslims to that way of life.

The Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, one of al Qaeda’s early inspirations, was scandalized and angered back in the Forties by such American outrages as green lawns and church socials (take a look; I’m not making this stuff up). Jihadis take offense at an awful lot, and we don’t call it a “clash of civilizations” for nothing.

In fact, a good case could be made that the Iraq War has caused a decline in al Qaeda sympathy, at least in Iraq itself, where most of the victims of al Qaeda seem to have been innocent Iraqis. But the truth is, no one knows, and yet that doesn’t stop many people from acting as though they do.

It’s not as though we have a graph to chart the growth of al Qaeda, and can compare the slope of the line before-Iraq and after-Iraq. The 90’s, with training camps in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban, were clearly the growth years. Many of those leaders are now dead, pursued by the US and some of its allies. But, as President Bush said in a speech he gave as long ago and far away as September 20, 2001:

Americans should not expect one battle [against al Qaeda], but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.

Sometimes I wonder how many were listening, or how many remember, or how many even care.

Sarkozy’s another one we don’t have to look up to

The New Neo Posted on by

Watching a tape of Sarkozy walking through a crowd, I noticed that he is not a tall man.

This got me thinking as to whether Sarkozy is following a trend I analyzed about two months ago: the rise of the height-challenged (otherwise known as short) candidate. Research shows that past US Presidents have tended on the whole to be taller than average, although the legend that the taller man always wins is just that—a legend. Whether it’s the same in France I don’t know, but my guess is: maybe.

Sarkozy has been compared at times to Reagan, but in the height arena he’s positively Napoleonic and somewhat less than Giulianic. The only mention I could find of an exact figure for how tall Sarkozy is states that he comes in at just around 5 feet 5 inches, which certainly would preclude any references to de Gaulle, a lofty 6’5″.

Sarko the Magnificent

The New Neo Posted on by

I couldn’t be happier about this news.

I first wrote about Sarkozy here, during the riots in France. He seemed a fascinating character then, and even more so now, a breath of fresh air in a France that has been stagnating for quite some time. Sarkozy represents the desire for change; as Publius Pundit sees it:

There’s no doubt Sarko wants change. But he wants it for different reasons than leftists often do. Leftists want to create a New Man. Sarko wants to save France so that it can be France, not turn it into another cookie-cutter Berkeley or Ann Arbor, as has been happening. Sarko’s a flag-waver. He’s extremely passionate and energetic, and he will make a difference. His proposed economic programs to keep France powerful and competitive, will do just that, as French voters read it, because that’s a big issue that resonated.

This promises to be very interesting. Perhaps France will become an ally once again, and not just in name only.

[ADDENDUM: I didn’t realize Sarkozy was anti-boomer. Well, that’s okay; I forgive him, even though I’m a boomer myself. And, what’s more, I agree with him—the legacy of the 60s in France (and to some extent in this country) has been a destructive moral relativism that cries out to be corrected.]

Nobody’s satisfied: the imperfect earlobe and the unfashionable human body

The New Neo Posted on by

Recently I saw an ad on TV for a product designed to fix a problem I previously hadn’t known existed: saggy earlobes.

At first I thought it must be a joke of some sort. Saggy earlobes? Of all the available body parts about which we’ve grown so self-conscious and dissatisfied, I wouldn’t have thought that earlobes would be high on anybody’s list.

But apparently a significant number of people will barely leave the house because of their worn-out earlobes—or their perception of their worn-out earlobes. So this product is the non-surgical equivalent of breast implants for the earlobe, uplifting the fallen.

Take a look, if you dare.

We’re never satisfied, it seems. In some cultures, people want nothing more than to do the opposite, all for beauty’s sake: to streeeeetch their earlobes with wider and bigger plugs so that they become—not just saggy, but stupendously, freakishly saggy.

To wit:

And lest you think such spectacular distortions of body parts are the predilection only of tribal folk, think again. Recently I couldn’t help but notice (although I tried valiantly to keep from staring) an ethnically unremarkable young man sporting similar auricular splendor behind the counter of our local health food store.

I’ve long owned a fascinating book entitled The Unfashionable Human Body. It describes the lengths to which people have gone throughout history to overcome their essential boredom with the unadorned human form. Clothes are part of this effort, although of course they have many practical considerations as well. Jewelry likewise, minus the practical. But, especially in areas where clothing as we know it is more or less optional, the body itself became the plastic clay to be molded by humankind’s driving need to not leave well enough alone.

The variety has been astounding. For example, the book has a lengthy chapter, with illustrations, on foot-binding, one of the saddest chapters in the annals of what people are willing to do for beauty and an enhanced ability to attract the opposite sex. In this endeavor, as in present-day female genital mutilation, the practice involved not just the preferences of the opposite sex, but the cooperation of older woman themselves in foisting it on young girls to perpetuate the custom and increase the girls’ desirability.

So-called “civilized” people are hardly immune to such machinations. The whalebone corset was responsible for a great deal of the female fainting that went on not all that long ago in Western life. And I’m old enough to remember a time when even young teenagers were expected to wear girdles (and, believe me, those things were uncomfortable) any time they wore a garment that was in the least form-fitting, lest they be betrayed by a tell-tale jiggle.

My own grandmother came from an era in which the assumption was that, without such support, the body would slide, jelly-like, into a state of amorphous shapelessness; even the feet and ankles needed high-sided shoes to shore up their innate tendency to “spread” and weaken.

And then there’s that perennial favorite, high heels. No ankle support there. These are a little unusual, to be sure—but only a little:


Our driving force to transform ourselves into objects of beauty—even if one culture’s transformation is another’s deformation—is most decidedly here to stay.

And don’t get me started on tattoos.