About Judging War and Conflict: Blood Meridian

Post 790:

I want to get back into some Blood Meridian book discussion and specifically one passage from the Judge, the evil and earthy yet supernatural antagonist man-being. Before that, I wanted to mention a quote that gets passed around in culture and dropped into the occasional movie or book that goes something like this: “The basic organizing principle of society is war.” I think it rings true, conceding that nothing is quite that simple.

Anyway. War.

War is the biggest the thing we do in the sense that it has the most lasting and serious existential implications. This goes without saying and yet it’s sometimes strangely easy to forget for those fortunate enough (like me) to be spared from the fray; war is life and death.

It’s so simple to say, “War sucks, man,” and act enlightened and better than other people. I know, because I do it all the time. If there was an actual anti-war political crowd, I might join them. Probably not. Not much of a joiner. And I’m not sure it exists. Maybe. I think it’s like four people and two of them are in Seattle and we might not get along and not getting along would collapse our entire belief system so I really don’t want to take the chance. It’s cool to have friends, though. Dang. I can feel the conflict already.

Whew. It’s a complicated subject. There’s a spectrum, from total pacifism to total bellicose hawkish imperialistic might-is-right butt kickerism. Like I said, I shade toward “War sucks.” But I also recognize that conflict is inevitable and bred into humanity’s nature. I know this because I’ve lived longer than three seconds. I also recognize that conflict has an affinity to it. People are drawn to conflict perhaps more than anything else besides eating and drinking and being merry. I say this because I write stories and the number one thing you can’t take out of a story is conflict. It’s in the rules. I don’t even like rules. But some stuff’s a priori and self-evident. Can’t fight city hall on this one.

So would a perfect world be a world without war and conflict? I don’t know. Maybe there’s something to the idea that if there’s nothing worth fighting for, there’s nothing really worth living for. I’m still working it out and probably will be until I draw my last breath, but let’s check in on what the Judge has to say about it in Blood Meridian. He’s sort of an authority on the matter, considering that up until this point in the book him and his homies have engaged in every sort of violence and conflict one could imagine. Seriously, dude and the Glanton gang are hell hounds. It’s frigging terrifying.

We’ll pick it up when the band of warriors/scalpers/mercenaries/rogues are debating the very nature of war:

“It makes no difference what men think of war,” said the Judge. “War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. This is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.”

So like stone, war precedes us. It’s a giant immovable monolith and it’s also a Platonic ideal so it’ll always be around but untouchable.

Is the Judge right? I don’t like to think so, he is frigging psychopath after all, but he’s not wrong when he says war endures. That point, at least, I’ll have to concede. What else does he have?

“Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all.”

There’s a bit of philosophy here that I agree with. I’ve played cards with no money on the line and found the experience empty. It can’t hold my attention. If I’m playing soccer or ping pong and not keeping score, I’d rather just sit in a chair and drink. Stakes are everything in a game, he’s saying, and he’s about to posit that all games are simply meager replicas of the ultimate game. War.

“This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear…”

There’s sort of a will to power, post-Darwinian, might-makes-right, Nietzschian vibe going on here. I’d argue with the Judge, of course, because when one confronts an eloquent lunatic, one has to say something. I’d say that games must have stakes to be meaningful, but that they can still be fun. We can shoot hoops and one of us can lose, but we can still go home alive and after a few cuss words and kicking the chain link fence we can go have beers and move on to the next thing. I think this is the evolution of conflict, whereas he argues that putting your entire life on the line is the highest form of the “game.” There’s a certain logic to it, but it’s rather petty to keep existence for yourself and take existence from another to achieve the highest level of the game. Maybe you need a hobby. For instance, I like to jog once a week for ten to twelve minutes. It helps rid the body of that creepy 19th-century Prussian/German philosopher bloodlust.

It’s funny, a few different people have been asking me about The Wire lately to see if it’s worth watching. Of course it is. It’s the best thing ever. Anyway, they’re always saying “The game is the game” in that show, referring to drug-dealing, murder, and corruption on both sides of the law as the “the game.” I love the show for its depiction of said game but hate the violence and human suffering that inspires it. Does that make me a hypocrite? I’m thinking yes, it does.

So there’s a lot for me to ponder. It’s not all that fun. I’d rather play games. The non-violent kind. Now that I think about it, if they had Ps4 back in the day, I don’t think the Judge would even exist. He’d just be a guy playing Red Dead Redemption 2 eating potato chips and making YouTube videos about things. Wait a minute…

And thus ends my analysis. Cheers and see you after.