The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and Our Societal Detachment from War, by John Weeks

The number of Americans who have actually been in combat is a sliver, and no living American has died actually defending the U.S. proper. As such, what goes on in war is like a bad dream immediately forgotten upon waking. From John Weeks at libertarianinstitute.org:

Modern nation states have developed an impressive symbolic innovation to memorialize their war dead, the tomb of the unknown soldier:

“No more arresting emblems of the modern culture of nationalism exist than cenotaphs and tombs of Unknown Soldiers. The public ceremonial reverence accorded these monuments precisely because they are either deliberately empty or no one knows who lies inside them, has no true precedents in earlier times…The ancient Greeks had cenotaphs, but for specific, known individuals whose bodies, for one reason or another, could not be retrieved for regular burial.” [Emphasis added]

According to Arlington National Cemetery, which has hosted “The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” since 1921, its creation addressed a longstanding problem:

“Through the ages, one of the consequences of warfare has been large numbers of unidentified dead.”

Another consequence of warfare is that combat veterans return home. They present a similar problem, one that is addressed through our symbolic representations of warfare.

The living experience themselves as obligated to the dead, but also responsible to safeguard themselves against death’s pollution. The French sociologist Robert Hertz (who died in combat during World War I) described “primitive” societies:

“The period which follows death is particularly dangerous in this respect; that is why the corpse must be exorcised and be forearmed against demons. This preoccupation inspires, at least partly, the ablutions and various rites connected with the body immediately after death: such as, for instance, the custom of closing the eyes and other orifices of the body with coins or beads; it also imposes on the survivors the duty of keeping the deceased company during this dreaded period.”

Our enlightened society is no longer characterized by widespread, professed belief in demons. But we continue to act as if we believed in such entities, especially concerning the dead. Coins placed on eyes is no longer the standard, but eye caps are routinely inserted to keep them closed. Regardless of whether one is a theist, deist, atheist or whatever else you’ve got, no one wants dead eyes “looking” at them.

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