Thoughts from watching "The Last Samurai"

I believe it was Mark Twain who chastised Sir Walter Scott for romanticizing war. Although I have greatly appreciated Mr. Twain's indomitable wit, I am afraid that in this case his wit failed him. Sir Walter Scott did not romanticize war; the Romantics did not even romanticize it. The blame for romanticizing war lies solely at the feet of collective humanity. Mankind is the sole culprit for romanticizing war, for immortalizing it in ballad and poem and painting, for falling as one dead at the feet of that mysterious and god-like figure simply known as "the warrior". It can easily be argued that mankind romanticizes anything, that human history and even prehistory is marked with man seeing in things something deeper and more real than mere empiricism can allow.

The problem with war today (in actuality and in art) is not that it is brutal (for war has always been brutal), but that it lacks the romantic quality that it once had. This is not to say that war itself is to be seen as glorious. Any fool knows that war itself is not glorious. What romanticized war for mankind was not war itself but the men who fought it. Warriors were seen by mankind as more than merely men who war; they were the very embodiments of courage, honor, and valor (amongst others). It is those timeless attributes that the warrior brought to battle that made war "glorious" to many. The "glory" of war is directly contingent upon the view one holds towards those who fight it; your view of war (in actuality and in art) is directly contingent upon your view of the warrior.