May 14, 2003

This Bomb has no Title

This Bomb has no Title

Political correctness has squelched the tradition of bomb graffiti in the US Navy. Strategy Page says:

it was only a matter of time before a few pictures of irreverent chalk marks on 500 pound bombs got some admiral in hot water. There was only one way to solve that problem, and the problem has now been taken care of.

It's too bad that our contemporary culture so often magnifies peripheral trivialities, moves them to center stage, and reifies them into "issues." But it does do that and I don't think this situation is likely to change. So there's little benefit in needlessly complicating the political angle of a military campaign, no matter how asinine the complaint, no matter how venerable or charming the "unseemly" tradition may be. Common sense and politics often have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Obsession with unseemliness and the quest for the elusive Unassailable Euphemism is a kind of defining feature of American political culture, for good or ill.

Yet, as Donald Sensing points out, this instance of pre-emptive public relations damage control has a silliness all its own:

They are about to drop high explosive on other human beings to kill them, but hey, let's not write anything that might offend someone!

Switch off the irony, and that's actually a pretty sound, literal description of the PC ethos.

Somehow, though, I have a feeling that this tradition won't be so easy to kill.

Here's a suggestion for kinder, gentler bomb graffiti from one of Sensing's commenters:

Gee, you would think with a little ingenuity they could have PC graffitti that still makes a point. Like maybe "No animals were harmed in the testing and manufacture of this cluster bomb."

Posted by Dr. Frank at May 14, 2003 10:00 AM | TrackBack