Dispatch and Why People Like War

     Last week's post about rap got me thinking about music. One of my favorite songs is "The General," by Dispatch. The song tells a pretty straightforward story: a distinguished, respected general has a dream the night before a great battle, and after a sudden epiphany tells his soldiers to go home; when the men refuse to move, the general prepares for battle.

The General - Dispatch

      Not surprisingly, "The General" is a commentary on war. The song's lyrics start off by describing the general's many accomplishments. The first verse mostly focuses on the general being "decorated" with "many medals of bravery and stripes to his name." From the song's beginning, we see that the general's legacy is defined by war; and, as war inevitably means death, the general's legacy is defined by the deaths he has caused. Still, the general is somehow known for his "heart of gold." How can a man responsible for deaths have a heart of gold? Dispatch seems to suggest that war heroes often acquire glory through war, but this overshadows the fact that they were required to kill in the first place. The general's respectable reputation implies that people value glory enough to kill for it. 

     The chorus of "The General" begins to talk about the ethical problems with war. The general realizes these problems through a dream, leading him to tell his soldiers, "I have seen the others and I have discovered that this fight is not worth fighting." It seems that his dream showed him the perspective of "the others," who are presumably the enemy army. This makes the general realize that the battle "is not worth fighting," not because they're likely to lose, but because the accolades of war aren't worth the deaths of other men. The general also announces, "I have seen their mothers," which suggests that he's remembered that the opposing soldiers are real people with mothers and families, too. Dispatch's message is that war desensitizes people to killing, and remembering the humanness of others can help bring peace.

     However, the general's message doesn't bring peace. Instead of packing their weapons and going home, the soldiers stand still, "not knowing what to do with the contradicting orders" while "their eyes gazed straight ahead." Thinking of this image, I see an army of robots. The soldiers are unable to comprehend the orders to surrender, much like robots unable to process a certain command. Dispatch uses this verse to convey the message that war conditions people to only know war; the soldiers in the song seem to be machines who are literally unable to think about peace. As a result, the general "then prepared to fight." This last line sadly admits that war is only natural for people. Even if we try to make peace like the general in the song, war comes much easier to us. "The General" reflects a sad trend: people put fighting for a cause above human lives. Don't we see this in history all too often?