Monuments to Dead Ideas―Part 1: Elysium


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Europe » France » Paris
December 3rd 2010
Saved: March 26th 2012
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Place Charles de GaullePlace Charles de GaullePlace Charles de Gaulle

Formerly "Place de l'Étoile"
Thus marred I reverted to plan B, which as you may recall was to walk about Paris asserting my opinion on history, politics, literature, philosophy onto everything I see, and include a few photos for the purpose of skewing your (the reader’s) perception withal.

That British guy who hates my blog is prolly gonna be really upset with me now. As if I hand't given him enough reasons to cry by turning the most exciting two years of my life into a continuous stream of apology and commiseration ... Oh well, if you're not into what I have to offer maybe you should stop reading. - -Or better yet, watch TV. TV is full of useful information, and telewriters try their hardest not to confuse you because they know how uncomfortable it is for you. It's like travelblog, except without all the spelling mistakes―and there's music! Music is great.

Ever wish you're life had music? I wish there had been music playing the next day when we got out of the metro at Charles de Gaulle-Étoile. Nothing fancy, just some accordion and some female vocal, maybe a little classical guitar―just something to give it that European feel. It was
Louis Vuitton on Avenue des Champs-ÉlyséesLouis Vuitton on Avenue des Champs-ÉlyséesLouis Vuitton on Avenue des Champs-Élysées

Of course the J-girl wanted to go here.
just after breakfast (bread, cheese and café au lait, of course) at about 10 or 11 in the morning. We were on Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and the sky was a little grey, and it spat rain on us for about thirty seconds, but it was more or less paradisiacal.

We had come out of the station in front of the traffic circle and were confronted by about six lanes of insensible automobile circulation, fed by an axial spiderweb of a dozen or so avenues. In comparison to this, I was struck by how big the Arc de Triomphe actually was. There were people walking around on top of it, taking pictures. I had never seen it other than in stock footage in movies, and I never really imagined at as anything other than a centerpiece on a traffic island. But there it was, impossible to ignore, gargantuan from where I stood. It truly is larger than life, much like the man who envisioned it. It’s only right though, to recognize its grandeur as owing to the architectural genious of one Jean Chalgrin, and not to the legacy of Napoleon, who was two times emperor and exile before it was ever completed. Only his bones ever passed beneath it’s shadow. Quelle ironique!

Elysium―a latinization of the Greek Ἠλύσιον: The land of the blessed dead. According to ancient Greek tradition, the Elysian Fields (in French “Champs-Élysées”) were a division of Hades where went the heroes and the virtuous of the earth to find their final resting place in death. A land of eternal spring and pastoral shade, yet somehow solemn for lack of the light of heaven. Champs-Élysées was the name given to the wild fields demarcated from the royal gardens of the Tuileries palace. Marie de Medici, 2nd wife if Henry IV, extended the parterres with an avenue of trees parallel to the river, and thus La plus belle avenue du monde came to be. Today, it is the most expensive commercial real estate in Europe fetching up to €1,000 per square foot per annum in commercial rent. Cynics might try point to the pitfalls or potential ironies of the Greek name for paradise being used for what is essentially the worlds most upscale mall, but people here don’t look like your standard breed of American mall zombies. If they were any kind of undead they’d have to be
Teddo a.k.a. Seung-Yup SmithTeddo a.k.a. Seung-Yup SmithTeddo a.k.a. Seung-Yup Smith

In his trademark "Seung-Yup" hat, posing for a photo-op
vampires. Not just because this is Europe, but because there is an effluence of class from every open door on this street. Marie Antoinette used to come here for piano lessons. Napoleon organized his military parades here (as later did Hitler...) and This is where De Gaulle rode in with the 2nd Armored Division on 24 August 1944 to liberate the city.

Mai had said she was meeting her old English teacher―a Montrealer by the name of “Justin” who was coincidentally on tour here as well―in front of the Louis Vuitton on Avenue des Champs-Élysées. I was indifferent. Usually when J-girls introduce me to a white guy friend of theirs it goes badly. Either because we immediately recognize each other as rivals vying for an at-bat with the same pitcher, or because he’s a slink who won’t shut up about how “Japanese girls are the best” and wants to exchange war stories about the year he spent abroad with the JET program. Having nominally relinquished my duties in the lineup, however, I was in a very calm place (spiritually) and unusually willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt. I would have preferred to let someone else talk for the time being anyways, so I could gather my thoughts. Mai’s such a silent girl, I felt awful sometimes getting lost in myself and leaving her to process it all by her ones- -not that I felt she was incapable of of handling all the data on the culture broadband, but it was only then just starting to occur to me that she had invited me along because she wanted a travel companion, not a boy toy. And that she really, actually enjoys my company. And instead of making me happy, that just made me feel guiltier for some reason...

I bought an English newspaper and a cola from a stand on the corner while Mai eyed bags in the window. I sat down on a bench and unfolded it; and cracking open my can, I began to read. Slowly, I started to understand why people dream about living in this city their entire lives. There is something nectarean about the air here. As though the city were inviting you to sit down in it and be at ease here, like the fruits of the lotus. The idea of being seen here as a part of the background
Ceiling of the smaller vaultsCeiling of the smaller vaultsCeiling of the smaller vaults

The names of some of the battles commemorated are visible on the side columns
was almost more appealing to me than looking up from my periodical and seeing the background itself. Between paragraphs, I noticed that Mai was fretting the absence of her friend. I decided I’d finish the article then go make myself helpful if need be.

It was yesterday’s paper, and apparently the day before some guy had been stabbed in the street outside of Upton Park during a riot that followed a football match between West Ham and Millwall. According to the paper, these two groups of idiots have been jovially beating the piss out of each other for over 100 years now. It dates back to the late Victorian period when the clubs were formed out of the “dockers” of the “Isle of Dogs” (now Millwall) and the dockers at Thames Ironworks (now Westham) located on either side of the Thames. Dock laborers at rival shipping firms then became firms for rival football teams, resulting generally in heavy gin consumption and mild violence. Things got ugly during the General Strike of 1926, during which workers from the Isle of Dog “scabbed” and took all the jobs from West Ham fans. Then in ‘76, some idiot
A Bronze PlaqueA Bronze PlaqueA Bronze Plaque

Commemorating the repatriation of Alsace-Lorraine to France in November of 1918
by the name of “Ian Pratt” got tossed out of a moving train during a “typical” brawl between fans. That was the height of it, up until a few days ago. The author stretched his lexicon in an effort at responsible journalism, trying to point at all the dangers of sports related violence. But all the pictures and quoted materials seemed to indicate that everyone involved was having a jolly good time. Except for the poor sap who got stabbed, I guess...

When you think about it, it’s kinda strange that British people came to be the avatars of both Stuffiness and Hooliganism in our cultural memory. Although, if you think further about the random dudes (or “blokes”, as they like to refer to each other) you encounter from England in your travels, it makes a strange kind of sense. A solitary Englishman will often produce the impression of the pauper-gentleman: that modest, good-hearted fellow who shows up in sympathetic roles in a Dickens novel, behaving with a congenial blend of manners and humor. But as soon as he’s one one of his “mates” with him, things start to get silly. And as soon as you give them any form or amount of alcohol, things just start to get out of hand. Everyone who’s ever been to Southeast Asia always comes back with at least one story about “these crazy British dudes” and it always involves the details (in any order) of 5 liters of draught beer, group-sex, urine, a dirty swimming pool, and (a) thai prostitute(s). And it is from those elements that my enduring image of the English character are formed.

... August 25th, hey? Exactly 65 years to the day from De Gaulle’s speech at Hôtel de Ville after the German surrender of Paris. No mention of that in the papers...
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I look up at Mai. Yesterday Strasbourg, tomorrow Saigon... I caught her eyes for a moment and then turned right to the Arc de Triomphe off on this distance. The thought of some punk in a yellow uniform getting skewered by some punk in a maroon one came back to mind. That’s all it was, wasn’t it? The War ... a bunch of hooligans in different color uniforms, skewering each other over something that their great grandfathers had started, eighty years before they
Departure of the Volunteers of 1792Departure of the Volunteers of 1792Departure of the Volunteers of 1792

Replicas of this image have since been used as the belt buckle for the honorary rank of Marshal of France, held by such figures as Joseph Joffre, Phillipe Petain and Ferdinand Foch.
were even born.

Why’s it still happening? Why are we still in Iraq? Why is Darfur still Darfur? Why is soccer the leading cause of death in males age 18-26? Why am I still counting girlfriends in the dozens and relationships in weeks?

You know, I used to collect books on Alexander the Great when I was a kid, because I loved classics, and like all little boys, I thought war was an adventure and I wanted to be a soldier. Then, when I was in high school I discovered Napoleon in Mr. Crawley’s history class. Not only was he an amazing general, but an allegedly small man (like yours truly) with a shared passion for double-breasted garments. I started buying up all the books on him I could find. But then in my senior year, I read The Wars by Timothy Findley and became mildly obsessed with the First World War, and started collecting books on that too. There came a time after that when I started to recognize the disparity―or rather, the direct connection―between the enduring romance of the Napoleonic charge and the macabre self-annihilation of going “over the top”. How was one gallantry and the
Guerrier and Yours TrulyGuerrier and Yours TrulyGuerrier and Yours Truly

Slipping back into my habit of imitating great works of art throughout Paris
other tragedy? How do I find fervor and solemnity for the same insanity at different places and times? There needed something to be reconciled.

Having pondered it profusely, I think it has a lot to do with the way that I can find soccer related violence both hilarious and deplorable; and yet I can also understand the impulse to mob up and clobber, and even envision myself being involved.

Look at it this way: We all know war is bad. We sit through the one mandatory school assembly each year until graduation and listen to the same keynote address as the year before, a dirge or two, maybe a recitation of “In Flanders Fields” and wrap it all up with a speech from the district veteran. We think about grandpa. We think about all the boys he knew that never came home and we thank them for our freedom. Some may cry, then we move on. Then every year on from the time that we can go see R-rated movies, our annual commemoration of the folly of war comes with buttered popcorn and a large Pepsi.

Enough time or distance between you and any event and it’s
Wall of LaurelsWall of LaurelsWall of Laurels

The visage of the lone Poilu in the foreground
hard to take seriously. Most attempts to represent it come off as melodramatic, even laughable. Even first-hand accounts lose their power out of the moment. And all sober second-thought narrative seem to either ignore or downplay some of the very real elements of it: the mob mentality; the Freudian impulses to destroy and be destroyed; and above all, the thrill of battle.

We’re not doing ourselves any favors if we don’t admit that there’s something sexy about it. I mean, the veterans will tell you it’s not fun and it’s not an adventure, and it’s nothing like the movies, but I sometimes get the feeling that it’s too much like the movies ... and that’s why it’s still around.

I got up and approached Mai. We’d been waiting almost 20 minutes and she looked concerned. We walked back up the strip towards the traffic circle and into a cell phone store. She’d been wanting to buy an ipod touch so she could use one of those mind numbing apps to guide us around the city. We didn’t find one, but we did find an open computer. She checked her mails while I pretended to be interested in a smart phone. - -There you go. Wireless communication: another peacetime invention that’s proven itself extremely valuable in assisting the killing of people. I think I might’ve noted this before, but the jet engine that brought me here and the computer I use to write about it: both happy little inventions of WWII.

So war even has it’s practical benefits, medicine being chiefly among them. Of course, accepting that means granting a backhanded word of thanks to names like Heim, Mengele and Wirths. What is a surgeon rightfully doing on the battlefield anyhow? Isn’t healing a soldier breaking the Hippocratic Oath by proxy? Maybe the Japs were right: Wound the soldier, kill the medic. See, that’s the problem with War- -it makes you find the sense in insanity.

Mai was distressed being unable to raise “Justin”. I told her to email him and reset the meet time to 12 o’clock at the Arc. She did as much and we stepped back out Ave Champs-Élysées. Off to our left, the Arc de Triomphe stood like a giant stone hinge to the swirling grey stormclouds that darkened the city.

Explaining the root causes and persistence of war as a societal phenomenon would take a lot more than the few thousand words that I’m willing to pen to it. But if one wanted to, I think there would be a good place to start.

*  *  *

It is said that the Elysian Fields lay on the western edge of the Earth. Fittingly, the Arc de Triomphe lies on west end of Avenue des Champs-Élysées: a glorious final resting place for France’s venerable war dead. I suppose in many ways, that is what the Arc has become. At first, it would seem that the images of nude youths embattled with the bearded Germanic warriors in mail embody perfectly the tragic but enduring spirit of the defenders of the republic in the two Great Wars of the 20th Century. Only but for when they were conceived the roles were reversed.

The 19th Century history of France is one of aggressive expansion; repeated, unprovoked invasion; and bloody occupation. Sound familiar? Maybe a little like 20th Century German history- -or contemporary American history if told by a younger John Kerry in front of a news camera. Napoleon was to the Germans what Hitler was to the French. The Tyrant. The Invader. Going back further, Caesar would have been exactly that to the Gauls and the Germanic Tribesmen, only we don’t think of him that way. And why? It’s largely having to do with the enormous body of polemical texts written on his behalf by his contemporaries. Texts which survived to serve as the primary sources for the nearly all of the subsequent dramatic and historical writings on Rome. In the same way, the triumphal arch (true to its intended purpose) long outlasts the lives of the warrior, the architect or the builder. The strength of its design stretches their sentiments into the future. It is because it remains that we see it for its greatness. Never that which is shall never die.

The tradition of the triumphal arch subsumes a narrative of heroism; triumph over evil; the glory of the conqueror; and not least of all, the ascendancy of the ruling class. And with great vigor they plead their case, but these ideas—much like the soldiers, and architects and builders—were dead a long time ago. They should have been buried like the corpses of men that died for them. But not all that dies, rots.

*  *  *

The Arc itself is 50 meters tall and 45 meters wide. The main vault, which faces Avenue des Champs-Élysées is 30 meters high and 15 meters across, large enough that famed French aviator Charles Godefroy was able to fly a biplane through it on August 7th, 1919 as a publicity stunt. The concourse can be reached by an underground pedestrian-tunnel connected to the metro station. A student I.D. or a multi-day metro pass will get you a discount on tickets to go inside the Arc and see the exhibits.

The structure and its various architectural features are no less impressive close up. You can see, deeply etched into the stone on almost every flat surface, the names of battles won by the French Republican Armies throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. There are 4 large relief sculptures decorating each corner of the base, depicting the Marseillaise, the Triumph of 1810, the Resistance of 1814, and the Peace of 1815. Each of the six facades also features an inset relief of a Napoleonic battle scene. After you’re finished surveying the outside of the Arc, you enter into a stairwell in the southeast corner of the main vault and climb up a long spiral staircase into the attic.

There are two levels in the attic of the structure, containing various neoclassical artworks, mainly marble or bronze statues contemporary to its construction. Neatly juxtaposed are a series of black display cases, part of a mixed-media installation called made by French artist Maurice Benayoun called “Between War and Peace”. Small windows at various points in the walls admit a low level of sunlight into the room. The rest of the illumination comes from recessed lighting installed along the lengths of the walls, giving the whole interior a dull, somber glow of electric-orange; which I couldn’t help but feel was meant by someone wiser than the architect to relay some kind of symbolic importance about the reality of war.

Opposite the portal on the second floor there is an entire wall of laurels, celebrating some 200 years worth of victories. Some of these copper boughs had inscriptions on them, mostly names of WWI battles from what I could gather. A statue of a Poilu stood guard beneath them, his expression seemed to indicate no battle fury or warrior’s resolve. He just started off into empty space towards the wall that hid the Louvre as if to
Tomb of the Unknown SoldierTomb of the Unknown SoldierTomb of the Unknown Soldier

La Grande Arche de la Défense visible in the background
ask “what’s next?”. His hands, rested idle on the muzzle of his rifle, perhaps to indicate that his work is finished.

Of all the spectacles there, it was his singular, selfless expression that impressed me the most. I felt, at that moment, like he was the only human in the room, and all the other pedestrians were just noise. Flies. - -Cinematic, like I had either gone back in time and seen a real French soldier overlooking some valley in former no-man’s-land, or I was watching a very good recreation of such a scene.

This man is no one’s hero. He has no name. He has no story. He stands alone for them all. Betrayed by the people at home who voted for war and profited (factory worker and owner alike) from the never ending hunger of the guns for shells that kept him awake at night and rent his enemies to pieces so that he might see (literally) what Germans are made of. Locked in this vault: the inner chasm of a shrine that glamorizes the very thing that scared God out of him; that taught him his life has no value beyond its fractional weight in the statistical measure of bodies-to-yards ratio. He guards the laurels: Empty symbols for victories, most of which were quickly rendered meaningless by another charge the other way, and then out-shadowed by the victories his sons shouldered a generation later.

*  *  *

In book XI of the Odyssey, Ulysses recounts how at the behest of Circus he sailed west to the underworld in order to hear prophecy of the dead. At the mouth of the river Oceanus, past the city of the Cimmerians, he rows ashore with sacrificial lambs and digs a trench on the beachhead. He puts the sheep to the slaughter, and filling the trench with their blood, calls forth the dead to speak to him. Any dead soul that drinks of the blood may speak answer to the living.

He interviews several deceased comrades and historical personages, spending the largest portion of time with the ghosts of attractive wives and daughters of heroes. Elpanor, a former charge of his, warns him that the dead must be buried quickly and honorably to avoid the wrath of heaven. Agamemnon, cuckold of the Trojan War, admonishes him to be suspicious of his wife, “for after all this, there is no trusting women.” Then Achilles, greatest of all mortal warriors in history, warns him of the life to come after death: “I would rather” he says famously, “be a paid servant in a poor man’s house and be above ground than be king of kings among the dead.”

So would they all.


*  *  *

I stared into his eyes for so long that Mai became worried and asked what was wrong.

“Nothing.”

We went up another flight of stairs onto the roof. Fresh air. I could see downtown, and most of the Paris landmarks—the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Cœur. I was untouched by the irony that it was so peaceful on top of a monument that celebrates war. Everywhere seemed like the hollow eyes of the statue.

We took the stairs down, past a locked room of plaques and more laurels, and then out onto the main concourse again. The last thing we paused briefly for was to take a photo of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A cement vault holds him forever underground; also where he spent most of his last days alive, no doubt. A bronze inlay marks his place, etched in the centre with the words “Here Lies a French Soldier Died for His Country 1914·1918”. Steel chains, set not six inches high, intend to bar any hapless tourists from treading over him. The eternal flame burns at his head. There is no blood offering to the dead this time; only simple boughs of flowers, grown in the earth which he and his brother fertilize.

It’s unpleasant to think there’s a dead body under there. There is a reason why we bury our dead. It forestalls the reality of the thing; replaces the rot of a corpse with a clean marble slab. But a tombstone is simply an artifice. With it standing in place of the man, we can think “he died that we may live” or “he still alive as long as we never forget”. Only, you’ll forget him the moment you walk away. Some of us would like to think that makes him angry, or upsets his rest. But the truth is he’s ceased to be, while you remain- -for a now anyways...

If the dead could speak, what would they say? “We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow... Carry our torch! Sign up, kill Germans! Buy war bonds!” ...Garbage. The dead can’t talk. But idealists (such as I) are always using campy techniques like apostrophe to put our words into their mouths.

Maybe that’s the difference. The living memories. Nothing survives the Napoleonic era save the paintings and histrionic accounts, weighing in the struggle of the titans on a scale that had no denominations for a single human life. Most of the rank and file of the la grand armees were illiterate. By virtue of survivorship, only officer’s tale ever made it to print. Any contra-narratives that frequented bars or beggars’ corners were edited out by the invisible hand of time.

We grew up with them though. Even when I was a lad, there were still enough Tommys and Doughboys left to keep the flames burning in our hearts. When I was in 2nd grade, I saw a veteran of the 10th Battalion CEF (“the fighting 10th”) speak at my school’s Remembrance Day ceremony. I spent the entire twenty minutes fighting with Michael Kolwig over a pog. Ungrateful little shit I was. What I would give to go back and pay even a shred of attention. Wonder how he felt. The man lived through possibly the worst ordeal ever, his hard won peace shattered in two decades, and his great grandchildren squirm and play grab-ass on the one goddamn day of the year they’re supposed to shut the hell up and show a little respect. Doesn’t matter anymore, I guess. He’s dead now.

Come to think, Harry Patch died last month, didn’t he? Read about it in the papers. I wonder if he was a Bath City fan, I dig those stripey uniforms. (Wonder if he liked draught beer and group sex.) ... I remember his BBC interview: "If any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn't scared, he's a damn liar." His wispy and trembling old voice, with the faintest hint of an accent left in it. War is the “calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings."

The Last Tommy ... They’re all gone now. Every year we care a little bit less. The monuments are pigeon stoops, and it takes a tourist to even notice they’re there. —But we have all the film. And the pictures. - -The phonograph records, the handwritten letters and 95 years of documentary to prove what they endured was hell beyond reckoning...

...And yet it persists.

So, hold up. Why? Don’t ask a question if you don’t want it answered. OK, there seems to be two antithetical narratives of war both of which are wholly insufficient to cover the whole. Once it starts it quickly devolves into this insoluble "Us vs. Them" mentality that perpetuates division and violence. Once it's over, a parallactic shift—caused by anything from time, to distance, to changing trends in politics and historicism—can cause the object to appear funny; deplorable; or sometimes, even enjoyable. And finally an overall ‘lack of perspective’ seems to contribute to an appreciation of its history, without due consideration for its place in the contemporary world, or even a comprehension of what it is.

What is War anyways? All these post-structural musings on it, and I haven't even bothered to ask what is ‘the thing in itself’. Kant would be ashamed. So would Von Clausewitz. I haven’t even read “On War” and here I am going after the noumenon of Das Krieg.

Well, as to it’s ‘thingness’, I’d say that ... The legend of the thing lives larger than the thing itself, but the legends don’t compare to the real thing as it is actually experienced. It looks good on film, bad on paper. Cartoon versions of it are hard to take seriously, but a certain breed of people find them more enticing than (and even real) than the real thing. It is frequently denounced in public discourse, but often reinforced in private storytelling. It’s is one of the most controversial issues of human history, yet one of the most commonplace and accepted facts. It is something that we know we’re not supposed to have, but do anyways. We enjoy watching others have it, as long as it’s theatrical. We admonish people for taking part in it; and then, despite repeated warnings from our parents and grandparents, we go an do it ourselves anyways.
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Kind of like unprotected sex.

As I scribbled furiously into my notebook, I yet had no idea where I was going with this, but I was starting to hope that this would someday allow me to work out those sudden fears and bloodlusts that had long disturbed my sleep since I was a child. I walked up to Mai and she and I took off down the strip looking for the elusive Justin and more monuments to dead ideas.




A long time coming. For those of you who have been wondering where I was, I have spent the last three months doing research for this article and the article to follow. - -In my spare time, mind you, but I still hope it shows. I also have that annoying job and my voyages sans surceaseance in the way, but I feel like I'll be able to start consistently updating again now, so as always, I appreciated your patronage and your patience.

A few of you have emailed asking me how I remember stuff that happened this long ago. For starters, I keep a pen and a pocket notebook on my person at all times (usually in the breast pocket of my suit). I also update my calender religiously so I can recall the date, time, and order of events. Next, I often begin writing the article the day of or the day after the event in question, leaving incomplete phrases and rough outlines to be completed when I feel I've realized it's full significance in my ongoing adventures. Still years behind, still moving ahead, for good or worse — T.J.S.

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