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Reading the lyrics of The Marseillaise today, I was kinda struck by it -- because yeah it makes a lot of sense as a song of the revolutionary period, but as the national anthem of modern-day France? It just seems kind of....incongruous. Really? You're still going to sing about watering furrows with impure blood? Really?
But then, hell, I've always felt a bit uncomfortable even with my own country's national anthem, and that's about as unbloody as national anthems get --
OH WAIT NO
BREAKING NEWS
I definitely didn't just spend way too much of my afternoon reading through the wikipedia list of national anthems until getting bored somewhere in the H's because they all start sounding kind of the same, what are you talking about, but if I had, dude, there's a lot of REALLY GOOD ONES out there that don't mention any kind of violence at all, not even obliquely! I think my fave is Cape Verde's, because it is a) successfully poetic, b) nonviolent, c) super into freedom, d) hopeful in tone, and e) not just all "my country is the BEST country".
But idk, I'm bad at patriotism, so reading most of these national anthems just made me either go "lol so cute" or roll my eyes. I have trouble thinking of myself singing ANY of them with any kind of genuine sentiment, really. And Canada's is actually rather mediocre when it comes to all the awesome that other countries have for their national anthem. I mean, Australia's, for example, is all "Australia's a super great place to live and everyone knows it, and we welcome anyone who wants to come hang with us!" It's a "lol so cute" anthem but in a really endearing way, and I could get behind having something more like that, instead of the sexist language, and the unnecessary reference to God, and the military-language-in-disguise of "we stand on guard for thee" that Canada has.
BUT ANYWAYS THAT WAS NOT THE ORIGINAL POINT OF THE POST. The original point was that one of these days I'm going to have to try to figure out how to reconcile my pacifist upbringing/inclinations and my deep love for Les Miserables despite its glorification of Just War.
(THIS POST HAS A LOGICAL FLOW OF ARGUMENT IN MY HEAD if not in reality.....)
But then, hell, I've always felt a bit uncomfortable even with my own country's national anthem, and that's about as unbloody as national anthems get --
OH WAIT NO
BREAKING NEWS
I definitely didn't just spend way too much of my afternoon reading through the wikipedia list of national anthems until getting bored somewhere in the H's because they all start sounding kind of the same, what are you talking about, but if I had, dude, there's a lot of REALLY GOOD ONES out there that don't mention any kind of violence at all, not even obliquely! I think my fave is Cape Verde's, because it is a) successfully poetic, b) nonviolent, c) super into freedom, d) hopeful in tone, and e) not just all "my country is the BEST country".
But idk, I'm bad at patriotism, so reading most of these national anthems just made me either go "lol so cute" or roll my eyes. I have trouble thinking of myself singing ANY of them with any kind of genuine sentiment, really. And Canada's is actually rather mediocre when it comes to all the awesome that other countries have for their national anthem. I mean, Australia's, for example, is all "Australia's a super great place to live and everyone knows it, and we welcome anyone who wants to come hang with us!" It's a "lol so cute" anthem but in a really endearing way, and I could get behind having something more like that, instead of the sexist language, and the unnecessary reference to God, and the military-language-in-disguise of "we stand on guard for thee" that Canada has.
BUT ANYWAYS THAT WAS NOT THE ORIGINAL POINT OF THE POST. The original point was that one of these days I'm going to have to try to figure out how to reconcile my pacifist upbringing/inclinations and my deep love for Les Miserables despite its glorification of Just War.
(THIS POST HAS A LOGICAL FLOW OF ARGUMENT IN MY HEAD if not in reality.....)
