Smith Recital Hall was once again host to the Sidore Lecture series Thursday, April 11, at 7:00 p.m. This year the series is dedicated to the topic of War and Peace, which seems fitting due to the current crisis faced by many throughout the world. That evening, a small group of campus and community citizens gathered to listen to James McRandle speak on “The Culture of War.”
Mr. McRandle is a decorated veteran of World War II. He has a Ph. D. in History from the University of Minnesota and has published many books on the topic of war. Mr. McRandle began the evening by outlining his speech, stating his purpose was to “draw comparisons” between ancient/primitive warfare and current techniques. Mr. McRandle did little in the way of drawing such comparisons.
The speech began with the question, when did war begin? Mr. McRandle cited numerous studies, which have been conducted in an attempt to answer that question. He explained that there is archeological evidence of violence amongst Neanderthals dating as far back as 35,000 to 60,000 years. Mr. McRandle also mentioned that CAT Scan results illustrate that an arrow blade caused the death of the famous Ice Man.
Mr. McRandle used these fine points to lead into his discussion of murder vs. warfare. He stated that murder is socially unacceptable, while warfare is often “met with a general approval.” His comparison of the two acts cited the fact that soldiers are generally honored for their actions on the battlefield, while murderers are sentenced to prison terms or death sentences. So what is it that makes war such an acceptable action?
First, Mr. McRandle stated that the causes of war are usually vengeance and economic factors. This point is true now as it was thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, Mr. McRandle did not follow through with this point. For the next hour, he talked about the history of war. He began with the history of weapons and lead into the history of fighting techniques.
Although the topic and facts cited by Mr. McRandle were interesting, at no point did he touch on the topic of the culture of warfare. It is obvious that Mr. McRandle is an extremely knowledgeable person, and I’m sure he is very opinionated. However, Mr. McRandle’s attempt to prove that violence has always existed amongst humans fell short in his drawn out examples of weaponry and battlefield tactics.