PeteMork wrote:Lacenaire wrote:I am not a pacifist of any kind, I read a lot of history, and particularly war history and particularly Roman history, which is among the cruelest in all of history. I admire Julius Caesar - who killed a lot more innocent people than Eli, as "collateral damage", of course, as he was not a cruel man or a maniacal serial killer.
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I don't think this is quite the right place to discuss Julius Caesar or any other historical figures. The first and fundamental difference between him and Eli is that he existed, he was a fact. He was also a man of his times, whose aspirations were the kind that others of his days shared, for ancient Roman artistocrats above all lived for "fame", something that we nowadays do not much understand. Caesar's mind was in many ways way ahead of his days - and of course his policy of "clemency" to his enemies during the civil war was a unique experiment (considered as a failure by the following emperors and never again imitated), but one that alone provides plenty of reasons for admiration, even though, like everything else he did, it was purely a matter of calculation.
There are lots and lots of other things that I just can't write about here. It's not just a matter of military genius - after all Caesar started his military exploits already when over 40 years old and they occupied only a small part of his life. There are also such things like is famous speech arguing against the death penalty for the Catilinarian conspirators (
http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2006/ ... piracy.htm)* I actually indirectly referred to it several times on this site. In the speech Caesar argued that death was not a penalty at all but a release from all suffering, only the fear of death could be a punishment not death itself. This is exactly how I see it. When Caesar was told about a possible conspiracy against himself he, as is well known, dismissed his Spanish guards and went around without any protection at all. "Both for myself and for my fame I have lived long enough" - he famously said. These, and many other such things are what I admire about him.
Let me get this straight. You are not a pacifist, and for this and probably many other reasons, can admire a man who, because of his quest for fame and glory (He is a man of his times, after all) kills thousands of people (but not as an end in itself), but because he is not a cruel man or a maniacal serial killer, there is room for looking at him in the context of his entire life, rather than focusing on a small part of it? I can accept that, given these preconditions. Let’s for the sake of argument, do just that.
Eli is a “boy of his times,” albeit, much longer “times” that Caesar’s, who, in his quest to merely survive has killed thousands of people (but not as an end in itself), but because he is not a cruel boy or a maniacal serial killer, is there room to look at him in the context of his entire life, rather than focusing on a small part of it? If he continues to live, more people will die. This seems to be your primary reason for believing that Eli should die, and why you are bothered for having had your moral judgment twisted.
However, if half-way through his military campaigns, we were to ask the same question of Julius Caesar, the answer would be the same: If he continues to live, more people will die – including chariots full of barbarian blind orphans. Moral outrage in this context needs to be consistent, although it virtually never is, because outrage is generally not a trustworthy emotion – nor is arrogance, its close cousin.
One could easily and quite successfully argue that, because Eli has no choice in the matter, except suicide, that he is the morally superior one here. Julius Caesar, DOES have the choice to quit or continue. You have also aptly pointed out that he is not afraid to die. Suicide would have been much easier for him than for Eli. He is also a grownup – not a child.
Is Eli’s life (were he to really exist) worth the remainder of Caesar’s? To me, it is a no-brainer. In spite of everything he has done, Eli is an Innocent. Julius Caesar most assuredly is not. Your discomfort over this moral ambiguity in JAL’s film and novel is misplaced, IMO. Your own admiration for Caesar contains the very same moral ambiguity -- at least in the eyes of this beholder. I'm not saying that you are wrong to admire him -- only that that admiration produces the very same moral ambiguiity. And MY admiration for the author of a book that has produced such strong and varied feelings in myself, allows me to accept him, as well as ELI, at face value -- warts and all.
You are forcing me to enter in to a historical discussion which I really do not want to. I will try to be as brief as I can but it will still be almost entirely off topic. I admire Julius Caesar primarily for reasons other than killing of thousands of Gaul's and Germans (and Romans). They include things such as the creation of the Julian calendar, which essentially we still use, the invention of encryption, the invention of the idea of a universal empire (he was the first ruler of Rome who started awarding Roman citizenship to members of the Gaul aristocracy against great resistance in Rome - but this policy created later what became modern latinised Europe), his completely unprecedented "policy of clemency" in the civil war, which had a huge impact on human thinking in all the times that follows, his genius as a writer, his superiority over other men in whatever he did. I also admire his military genius, which made he creation of the Roman empire possible. I admire his almost complete lack of hatred of his enemies, his willingness to come to terms with them, whenever it was rational to do so, forgetting all that they had said or done to him earlier. This he did not for reasons of "compassion" but out of calculation - he was one of the most rational and calculating men that ever lived. As Brutus says in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar :
" I have never known him to be controlled by his heart. Instead of his head. "
On moral grounds I do not assign any special blame to him for his actions in Gaul as they were not different in kind from those of others - Romans, Gauls or Germans - they were simply much more successful. They were the sort of actions that people in those days admired, and the fact that his boasts in the "Commentaries" are considered nowadays exaggerated shows that (he wrote both for his contemporaries and for prosperity). To put it in a nutshell - he did nothing to others that they did not do themselves - he was just much better at it.
Unlike Hitler, to whom you made to me a very improper comparison (I am trying to avoid using a stronger word but I think its quite appalling ), Caesar did not hate any one and did not set out to exterminate anyone. He was not a madmen, not a follower of any insane ideology. Yes, he deliberately provoked the Gauls and the Germans by making use of their quarrels and getting himself invited by them to interfere in their own internal wars. He did it for conquest, which was intended to provide him with fame and wealth necessary to gain the power in Rome that he coveted. In his famous Commentaries, he tries to justify himself morally, by claiming that he was always responding to provocation and betrayal of agreements, which we know to be just propaganda, but we also know that he himself understood the need for such justifications. His descriptions of the culture of the Gauls and Germans (he essentially invented the concept of the latter) are sympathetic quite unlike the way his compatriots saw these barbarians.
It was Caesar's idea that man is a product of culture so that a Gaul or a Briton or anyone else can become a Roman. This was not what Caesar's compatriots believed at that time.
(If you think that is what Hitler thought you really have much to learn).
When faced with rebellion in Gaul, he applied very cruel and hash measures - but they were less cruel from the measures that the great Gaul leader of the great anti-Roman uprising Vercingetorix applied to those Gauls who refused to support him. Caesars’s cruel means of pacifying Gaul, quite standard for the times, did not produce the effects he had expected and lead him to change his approach. Later he attempted to win the Gauls over by kindness and good government and it worked better. It is probably this discovery which lead him to his “policy of clemency” in the civil war. He wrote to one of his associates, in a famous letter - “Nobody has yet succeeded in winning power ad keeping it by cruelty, except Sulla whom I do not want to imitate, so let’s try something new - a policy of clemency and see if it will work better”. This was a remarkable experiment, which although considered a failure (as Caesar was assassinated by many who were beneficiaries of this policy), nevertheless had a huge impact on how people began to think about these matters in succeeding years.
I see Caesar’s creation of the Roman Empirie, and the Latin culture of Europe as an enormous and positive achievement a great benefit to mankind. I already mentioned his first attempts to award Roman citizenship to non-Romans (Gauls), which provoked such fierce resistance in Rome (and also contributed to his assassination).
The conquest of Gaul lead to contemporary France, Britain, Belgium et. and to all our European culture - and I do not regret it at all. It was a good thing that it happened.
In spite of attaining absolute power, Caesar did not use it tyrannically - he did not murder any of those who opposed him (and thus made it possible for them to assassinate him). He was a dictator of an entirely different kind than any of our modern ones.
The reforms that he introduced in all kind of aspects of government of Rome, including methods of administration and finance, the treatment of debt (the first ever in history protection for debtors against their creditors who earlier could do whatever they wanted with them),land distribution, protection of property rights, law and so on and so on. I could lead me to write a whole paper - which would be absurd thing to do on this forum so I won't, but it all had enormous impact on the way our world works today (a great deal was added by his grand nephew and successor Octavian- Augustus, whose rule is till considered a kind of "golden-age" in the history of civilisation, even though Octavian as a young man was much more cruel than Caesar and did not have the habit of leaving any of his enemies alive - something that is almost unique to Caesar in ancient history).
Of course I think that had Caesar died at 12, it would have been an enormous loss to mankind. It was an enormous loss that he died when he did at 56. One reason why Caesar did not expect did not believe he would be assassinated because he mistakenly as it turned out believed in human rationality. As he said himself "I have the least to loose by my death". This was entirely true - his death meant a new and massive civil war, many thousands of deaths and ultimately a much worse fate for his assassins than they could have expected if he had lived. The assassination was one of the cases when emotions, mostly injured pride, won over all reason - this was the kind of thing that never happened to Caesar. Overestimating human rationality could be said to have been his only weakness.
This whole discussion is quite pointless for Eli is a literary invention, who moreover cannot be considered to have done one tiniest thing that would benefit anyone but Oskar. But in any case, comparing a literary character with a historial giant like Caesar just seems pointless to me. It is Lindqvist who decides what happens to Eli, and it is actually his decisions that we can dispute about. Caesar is a fact so if you say “it would be better if he never existed” you have to immediately consider how the world would have changed - and in my opinion it would have changed for the worst. If Eli never existed there would be just one book and one film less and this forum would not exist - that’s all. That would not be any kind of tragedy for mankind. In fact, it would not be any tragedy at all for literature. It would be a small loss for cinema - one that I would regret, but that's all.
I don't think your knowledge of Caesar is very extensive but that does not matter. However I also think you entirely misunderstood my remarks about Eli. I really do not want however to write another long essay on this so I will be brief - I have never been concerned much with the morality of Eli herself and condemning her in any way but I grew somewhat irritated with the reactions of some of the members of this forum to this purely literary character and the sort of self-deception that they have to engage to do so. I think that to treat such a fantastic and totally impossible character as if it were real and to get so extravagantly emotionally involved in it as to abandon all common sense and all sense of perspective is, well, let's say, the kind of thing that is perhaps fine for 12-year olds but not for anyone older than that. That is why we tend to be somewhat indulgent in judging them but it is not the kind of license we should allow to ourselves.
On the whole I tend to avoid stories about children because they tend to make us (adults) loose our detachment and, to paraphrase Wolfchild, we start being silly. In fact, think this is the best explanation of the effect this film had on me.
This has, of course, no relation to all to al this stuff above about Caesar. Discussing Caesar and Eli as if they belonged to the same universe is just too bizarre, even by the standards of Internet forums.
I have often remarked that some many things in LTROI are so ambiguous that is like a mirror: When people try to fill in the blanks, they end up filling them in with themselves.
Wolfchild
on society instead of caring about her and Oskar's happiness, LTROI hasn't succeeded in your case.
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