Night

Today is Ellie Wisel's 80th birthday.

He wrote a book called Night.

I refuse to review the book, or Wisel's life.  That has been done over and over by far better writers than I.

But something has to be said today for language.

Here is the slim volume, that told me more about The Holocaust than any movie or any text book ever could.  By putting a face, and emotions to the horror that was taking place.  Like All Quiet on the Western Front, or The Things They Carried.  There is more to them, than times and places, and details of war.

I would have a hard time telling you why Vietnam, or Korea, or any war really happened.  Other than one country wanted to suppress the ideals of another.  Take World War II.  Hitler wanted to stomp out the ideals of Judaism, and the rest of the world wanted to stomp out Nazism.

Vietnam was an effort to quash Communism.

Iraq is an effort to eliminate Terrorism, or Muslim Extremism, or something.

And none of them worked.  Judaism, Nazism, Communism, Terrorism, Extremism, they all still exist.

Because they are ideas.  And that is the power of language.  An idea can never be suppressed, it can only be expressed.  And that expression gives others the chance to latch onto the idea, and once others latch onto it, it can become an ideal.  Something to strive for, for good or ill.  Something that is worth fighting for.  To bad we are always fighting for them.

File under Virtue