“Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.”

— Audre Lorde

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Audre Lorde 72

writer and activist 1934–1992

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“then the voice in my head said

WHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE

OR LIVE IN DIVIDED CEASELESS
REVOLT AGAINST IT

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE”

Frank Bidart (1939) American poet

Source: In the Western Night: Collected Poems, 1965-1990

“The automatic reaction of practically any young person is, at once, against authority. That, I think, began in the First World War because of the trenches, and the incompetence of the people on all fronts.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Salon interview (1997)
Context: The automatic reaction of practically any young person is, at once, against authority. That, I think, began in the First World War because of the trenches, and the incompetence of the people on all fronts. I think that a terrible bitterness and anger began there, which led to communism. And now it feeds terrorism. Anyway, that's my thesis. It's very oversimplified, as you can see.

“The hope of a benevolent civilization was shattered in the blood-soaked trenches of the First World War. The "war to end all wars" claimed sixteen million lives, and left embers which kindled an even more catastrophic conflagration.”

Bernard Lown (1921–2021) American cardiologist developer of the DC defibrillator and the cardioverter, as well as a recipient of the…

A Prescription for Hope (1985)
Context: The hope of a benevolent civilization was shattered in the blood-soaked trenches of the First World War. The "war to end all wars" claimed sixteen million lives, and left embers which kindled an even more catastrophic conflagration.
Over the sorry course of 5,000 years of endless conflicts, some limits had been set on human savagery. Moral safeguards proscribed killing unarmed civilians and health workers, poisoning drinking waters, spreading infection among children and the disabled, and burning defenseless cities. But the Second World War introduced total war, unprincipled in method, unlimited in violence, and indiscriminate in victims. The ovens of Auschwitz and the atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki inscribed a still darker chapter in the chronicle of human brutality. The prolonged agony which left 50 million dead did not provide an enduring basis for an armistice to barbarism. On the contrary, arsenals soon burgeoned with genocidal weapons equivalent to many thousands of World War II's.
The advent of the nuclear age posed an unprecedented question: not whether war would exact yet more lives but whether war would preclude human existence altogether.

“Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch. 17.

“Of course some wars may have been necessary or inevitable, but none was ever regarded as holy. For us, a holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it. The Talmud says, "Talmidei hukhamim marbin shalom baolam" (It is the wise men who will bring about peace). Perhaps, because wise men remember best.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

“Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it means one always has some battle to wage against oneself.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Chère amie, ne savez-vous pas que la vertu est un état de guerre, et que, pour y vivre, on a toujours quelque combat à rendre contre soi?
Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Julie_ou_la_Nouvelle_H%C3%A9lo%C3%AFse/Sixi%C3%A8me_partie#Lettre_VII._R.C3.A9ponse (French), Sixième partie, Lettre VII Réponse (1761)
Julie, or The New Heloise http://books.google.com/books?id=oN6_B_AFhcwC (English), Part Six, Letter VII Response, pg 560