THE WARRIORS OF JERICHO TUMBLE: CBS decided not to renew the Jericho TV series, despite a loyal following that was quite incensed (you may have heard about the “nuts” campaign; I hope that CBS employees enjoyed all the peanuts and cashews that the disgruntled fans sent in). I got curious about Jericho last November, and pretty soon got hooked. It wasn’t an easy TV show to watch. In fact, it could be quite depressing. The basic premise, for all of you non-Jericho people out there, was that 20 American cities got nuked simultaneously because of a sinister terrorist plot. Something about old Soviet missile warheads that got into the wrong hands.

Well, if you vaporize 20 of the USA’s biggest cities — and then add injury to injury by popping off some air-blasts meant to fry all those computer chips that we now rely on (via an electromagnetic pulse wave) – a lot of things would fall apart. Like the economy, the government, the Internet, the airlines, the electrical power systems, the food distribution system, stuff like that. Little towns like Jericho (which was fictional) could survive whatever radiation came their way, but would still have to watch the modern world slip away. Gasoline would get scarce, modern medicine wouldn’t be available anymore, no more electricity . . . they’d have to start living like America did in 1776. And not everyone could do it. People would starve and freeze in the winter, women would die in childbirth, no more heart or diabetes medicine, people would get nasty about sharing their dwindling supplies, plenty of guns . . . . . Yes, it would get pretty depressing.

That was the problem behind Jericho. Despite Skeet Ulrich and some pretty young actresses, the show was ultimately built on some very depressing premises. There was some slight hope that the federal government would eventually get itself back together and start rebuilding. But that would take decades, and people watching TV after a hard day’s work aren’t willing to give a show 20 years to brighten up again. Yes, there are some very dark shows out there these day; e.g., 24 popped off a few nukes too this past season. But Jericho was just way too far into social collapse. So of course it’s been canceled. Get back to more edifying stuff like American Idol.

The darn thing for me is that over the last 3 or 4 episodes, Jericho hit on a really interesting theme. Given the dire circumstances and lack of government protection, Jericho and its neighboring town, New Bern, had to form militias to defend themselves from roving gangs (think Mad Max). Unfortunately, New Bern got the idea that perhaps they could use their militia to force Jericho to “share” a bit more of their food and other basic necessities. New Bern was in somewhat worse shape with regard to food stores, but it had a wildcard – an old factory that it converted over to produce mortars. Before long, negotiations broke down and a full-scale war between New Bern and Jericho broke out (and that’s where the series ended, with an unresolved war going on).

This peaked my interest – here was WAR under a magnifying glass. Here were otherwise-nice, reasonable, middle-class Americans suddenly killing each other because of bad circumstances, lack of communication, leaders who let power go to their heads, irrational fears, etc. Here were people who used to bowl together and shop together, now firing live rounds at each other (not paintballs). Here was a classic human story, one repeated so many times over the last 6 or 7 millennia in so many different places and so many different ways. WAR. Exactly what weakens humankind as a whole, and yet which seems so necessary to the parties involved. Like an infection of some sort that humankind just can’t seem to cure itself of, not even in our modern, enlightened world.

I have too many books to read right now, as it is. But nonetheless, I’m looking for a good book on WAR. A book that looks at war as a social phenomenon, a social infection perhaps. Something that tries to find commonalties and root causes, something that can put World War 2 and Iraq and Napoleon and the Pelopenesian War on the same page. Something that estimates just how much humankind has lost over the centuries because of war. What if there were no war – would we now have more resources to share? Or would there be too many people on the planet, barely getting by, always on the edge of starvation? Do we need war to innovate – e.g., the Internet started as a military tool, and the space program was clearly tied to military concerns first, with science and economics as a side thought.

Without war, could there have been a Roman Empire? Or a British Empire? Or an American Empire? Would world trade have developed as far as it has? Would we have to otherwise give in to some depressing form of socialism where we’d all be living barefoot on farms, picking corn and slooping hogs and taking orders unquestioningly from big brother? Or could we have still derived television and high-fi stereos and personal computers and such, based upon some balance of market economics and fair play? I’ve never seen the big questions about war and humankind thoroughly addressed. Can human beings, such as we are, avoid war? Or are we just wired for it, given the conditions and limitations of the world that we live in? Are we all just too different, e.g. Muslims and Jews and Christians? Or do communication and education and enlightenment have a chance?

Thus far, I haven’t found anyone tackling these issues, at least not on a popular level. Right now, the mysterious and important question of human consciousness is all the rage. You can find scads of recent books about it, some of them quite good. But as to WAR, capital W-A-R, there just doesn’t seem to be too much.

OK then, professors and thinkers out there! Maybe it’s time to buy the Jericho series DVD (once it comes out) and watch those last 3 or 4 episodes. Sorry about all the soap opera cheeze and the X-Files conspiracy stuff on the show. Try to get past that, and concentrate on why two towns with dwindling water and fuel and food supplies find it in their best interests to use those supplies up so as to lob bullets and explosives at each other. How might this have been prevented? What probably happened in the end? Were the two towns eventually better off because of the decline in population and centralization of government? Or was this just going to spark off another war sometime in the future, with more loss of precious resources? Next, let’s haul in 6000 years of human civilization; let’s look at all the wars, big and small. Let’s have some extensive conversations about economics and politics and sociology and anthropology and geology and psychology and neuroscience and evolution, how they all relate to all the wars we’ve ever had. Then let’s ask – is the next war really necessary?

I’m old enough to remember the Vietnam War. When it was finally over, my generation hoped it would be the war to end all wars, at least as far as the USA was concerned. But then came Grenada and Bosnia and Kosovo and al Quada (our on-going antiterror war), then Afghanistan and now Iraq. Is there any way out? Is there anything that can be done so that perhaps in 100 years, war wouldn’t be fashionable? Can the whole United Nations ideas and ideals somehow be revived (without the threat that the UN is going to impose world communism and take away our nice shopping malls and SUVs and big-screen home theaters here in America)???

The fact that Americans like neither the UN nor the ideals behind it; that they don’t want to read books about what causes war and what can be done about it; and indeed, that they don’t want to watch Jericho, makes me a bit pessimistic that war can be stopped. Hope that I’m missing something and being a bit too pessimistic here.

But nonetheless, my deepest respect to all who have honorably
served their nations in war, or in preparation for war, on this Memorial Day. They all do it in hope that their children won’t have to. May we yet find a way to fulfill those dreams.