Life, looked at objectively
From The Writer’s Almanac:
“It’s the birthday of one of the great American journalists of the 20th
century, A.J. (Abbott Joseph) Liebling, born in New York (1904). He got
his first real writing job working at the New York World, and began
writing about New York City saloons and nightclubs, racetracks and corner
stores, gourmet restaurants and boxing rings. His favorite subjects were
food, journalism, and boxing.
“In 1939, he began to cover the war in Europe for The New Yorker. Unlike
other war correspondents, Liebling didn’t write about politics or combat
strategy. He wrote about day-to-day life among the soldiers and the
civilians. He later said that he missed the war years. He wrote, ‘The
times were full of certainties: We could be certain we were right—and we
were—and that certainty made us certain that anything we did was right,
too. I have seldom been sure I was right since. … I know that it is
socially acceptable to write about war as an unmitigated horror, but
subjectively at least, it was not true, and you can feel its pull on men’s
memories at the maudlin reunions of war divisions. They mourn for their
dead, but also for war.’”
A. J. Liebling also said, “Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of
inexperience.”
Like life at a training center, full of certainty and purpose.
Life, looked at objectively, often does not give the full picture.
