Entertainment

A thesis of the book that some critics consider provocative requires advance commentary in light of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the fighting in Afghanistan, and especially the war in Iraq.

One of Fritz B. Simon's answers to the question of what makes war fascinating is that wars have similarities to various forms of entertainment (e.g., the hero myths of Hollywood movies, sports, etc.). The view that the meaning of fighting is fighting is also held by other authors. That war can be seen as the ultimate form of entertainment is, in his opinion, only the logical conclusion.

Fighting, and especially "winning," is associated with pleasure. This explains the enthusiasm with which people go to war and the fascination that makes us watch. When the two towers of the World Trade Center went up in flames, the world not only held its breath, it also sat spellbound in front of the television screen. Viewer ratings were higher than ever before. Now, after reporters "embedded" with the fighting troops in Iraq reported directly from theaters of war on various channels for the first time in human history, the camouflage of entertainment as infotainment is obvious.

The alternation of tension and release is what makes the battle of good and evil entertaining. Anyone who goes to the cinema can trust that a screenwriter or director has taken responsibility for this change. Therefore, he can still distance himself inwardly and wait for the happy ending.

Someone who bungee jumps relies on the rope holding, but what he or she experiences is "the real thing," the adrenaline rush [⇒ Warlust] that doesn't just come from identifying with some fictional hero.

The separation between fact and fiction is eliminated. In a macabre way, this Re-entry of the observer into the picture was accomplished in the Twin Towers, where some people on the upper floors watched on television – inevitably more or less distanced – how an airplane flew into the tower they were sitting in. The distinction between observer and actor was erased, the boundary between inside and outside dissolved. The nightmare of the spectator became true …

The fact that the production of action and disaster films in Hollywood was subsequently temporarily halted or postponed shows that there is a competitive relationship between actual war and its staging for entertainment purposes. In classical antiquity, too, the Olympic Games were suspended during times of war. When real warfare is fought for survival, there is no need to replace it with simulated forms of war in sport or film. Thus, it is fair to say that sports (at least martial arts) and forms of entertainment that follow the pattern of heroic myths are the continuation of war by other means (sometimes vice versa).

But this alone may make war superfluous in the experience of the individual, but not in the life of social units. Here Clausewitz's dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means must be turned on its head to gain ground: politics is the continuation of war by other means.

War can be seen as a kind of regression to a pre-civilized form of conflict resolution, to a phase of social development in which the resolution of conflicts had not yet been juridified. Where the law of the strongest makes the application of factually justifiable, legal principles of decision-making superfluous, conditions prevail that were historically overcome in the process of civilization. In this context, the question of whether a war takes place with or without the legal legitimacy provided by a UN mandate takes on its significance. Thus, it could well be that we are currently witnessing not a "Clash Of Civilizations" but a war against civilization. This raises the question of who it is that is attacking and threatening it.