The last war fought under the sign of literacy was probably
World War II. The very fact that the last world war came to its
final end after the atomic bomb was deployed is indicative of
the fact that once one aspect of human practical experience is
affected by a change of scale, others are affected as well. While
the millions of victims (the majority of whom were raised in the
expectations of the civilization of literacy) might make us
reluctant to mention literacy, in fact, war's systematic cruelty
and extermination power are the result of literacy
characteristics implicit in the effective functioning of the war
machine and in the articulation of war goals. In the history of
World War II, the chapter about language is probably as
enlightening as the chapters devoted to the new weapons it
brought about: the precursors of modern rocket systems, in
addition to the atomic bomb. Each of the powers involved in this
large-scale war understood that without the integrating force of
literacy, exercised in and around the conflict, the enemy could
not succeed. Many books were written about the escalation of
hostility through the language of political and ideological
discourse. Many prejudices associated with this war were
expressed in exquisitely literate works, supported by formally
perfect, logical arguments. On the other hand, some writers
pointed out the weaknesses of literacy. Roland Barthes, for
example, studied its fascist nature. Others mentioned the
inadequacy of a medium bound to fail because it was so opaque
that it covered thoughts instead of revealing them, validated
false values instead of exposing them for what they were.
The language of politics extended truly into the language of the
conflict. Thanks to radio and newspapers, as well as the
rhetoric of rallies, it was able to address entire nations. The
industrial establishment, upon which the war machine was built,
still embodied the characteristics of the pragmatic framework of
literacy. It was based on the industrial model of intense
manufacturing. Millions of people had to be moved, fed, and
logistically supported on many fronts. The war involved elements
of an economy in crisis, affording much less than abundance.
Germany and its allies, having planned for a Blitzkrieg, threw
all their limited resources into the preparation and execution of
the war. Europe was coming out of the depression resulting from
World War I. The people were promised that victory would bring
the well deserved recompense that had eluded them the first time
around. Against this background, literacy was mobilized in all
the areas where it could make a difference: education,
propaganda, religious and national indoctrination, in the racist
discourse of justifications and in articulating war goals.
Ideological purposes and military goals, expressed in literate
discourse, addressed equally those on the front lines and their
families. Literacy actively supported self- discipline and
restraint, the acceptance of centralism and hierarchy, as well as
the understanding of extended production cycles of intense labor
and relatively stable, although not necessarily fair, working
relations.
All these characteristics, as well as a self-induced sense of
superiority, were reflected in the war. Advanced levels of labor
division and improved forms of coordination of the parties
involved in the large scale experience of factory labor marked
the military experience. The war entailed confrontations of huge
armies that practically engaged entire societies. It combined
strategies of exhaustion (blockades, crop destruction,
interruption of any vital activities) and annihilation. Millions
of people were exterminated. The structure of the army embodied
the structure of the pragmatic framework. Its functioning was
reflective of industrial systems designed to process huge
quantities of raw material in order to mass-manufacture products
of uniform quality.
What made literate language use essential in work and market
transactions made it essential, in forms appropriate to the
goal, to the prosecution of the war. From this perspective, it
should become clear why major efforts were made to understand
this language. Efforts were also made to get information about
tactics and strategy embodied in it, as much ahead of time as
possible, and to use this literate knowledge to devise surprise
or counter-strategies. This is why language became a main field
of operation. Enemies went after military code (not a different
language, but a means of maintaining secrecy) and did not spare
money, intelligence, or human life in their efforts to
understand how the opposing forces encoded their plans. The
brightest minds were used, and strategies of deceit were
developed and applied, because knowing the language of the enemy
was almost like reading the enemy's mind.
At the risk of dealing with the obvious, I should state here
clearly that the language of war is not the same as everyday
language; but it originates in this language and is conceived
and communicated in it. Both are structurally equivalent and
embodied in literacy. To dispose of the enemy's use of language
means to know what the enemy wants to do and how and when. In
short, it means to be able to understand the pragmatics of the
enemy as defined under the circumstances of war, as these
extended the circumstances of life and work. Since language
projects our time and space experience, and since wars are
related to our universe of existence, understanding the language
of the enemy is actually integrated in the combat plan and in a
society's general war effort. Climbing hills to establish a good
offensive position, crossing rivers in a defensive move,
parachuting troops behind enemy lines in a surprise maneuver are
human experiences characteristic of the pragmatic context of
literacy, impossible to relate to the goal pursued without the
shared conventions implicit in language. Some people still
believe that the master coup of World War II was the breaking of
the ciphers of the Enigma machines used by the Germans, thus
making the function of language, in such an effort of millions
of people, the center of the war effort. Polish cryptoanalysts
and the British operation, in which Alan Turing (the father of
modern computing) participated, succeeded in deciphering,
reconstructing, and translating messages that, re-enciphered in
Allied codes (the ULTRA material), decisively aided the war
effort.
By the end of the war, the world was already a different place.
But within the framework of war, and in direct connection to the
changes in practical human self- constitution, a structural shift
to a different dynamics of life and work had started. Various
aspects related to the determinism that eventually resulted in
the war started to be questioned through new practical
experiences: the need to overcome national interests; the need
to transcend boundaries, those boundaries of hate and destruction
expressed in the war; the need to share and exchange resources.
Visionaries also realized that the incremental increase in world
population, despite the enormous number of deaths, would result
in a new scale of human experiences that could not be handled
within a rigid system with few degrees of liberty.
The recent illiterate war in the Arabian Gulf, and the
never-ending terrorist attacks all over the world, can be seen,
in retrospect, as the progeny of the war that brought down the
civilization of literacy. The concept of Blitzkrieg and the
dropping of the A-bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a
foretaste of the quick, efficient, illiterate war.