(Update: More information and an example of Beauchamp's writing here.)
Why do people *want* to believe Scott Thomas Beauchamp?
I think it's romance. It's that shivery slumming at the edges of barbarism, that leaving behind of civilization and reaching into something primal, that myth of a place where there are no moral rules, no limitations.
People *want* our guys to be cold killers, to walk that edge they could never walk, to give into base instincts. To whore and smoke opium in those SE Asia brothels. Like freaking Dear Hunter or something.
Oh *that's* real. When they read stories like "shock troops" they think, finally, someone is telling a story that is *real*.
War does a lot of things to a person in it but in "Shock Troops" Beauchamp is dehumanizing himself. He's telling a story in a way he knows will sell. He's a story teller, a writer, and he's creating an atmosphere and theme that he knows will resonate.
I've read accounts that were stark and honest about how bad it is and how it affected the person writing. Those accounts didn't dehumanize, they humanized, showing a painful reality, not this Hollywood version of morality free, repugnant, slumming.
Beauchamp describes *himself* as a caricature.
And he's judged his audience well.
Why do people *want* to believe Scott Thomas Beauchamp?
I think it's romance. It's that shivery slumming at the edges of barbarism, that leaving behind of civilization and reaching into something primal, that myth of a place where there are no moral rules, no limitations.
People *want* our guys to be cold killers, to walk that edge they could never walk, to give into base instincts. To whore and smoke opium in those SE Asia brothels. Like freaking Dear Hunter or something.
Oh *that's* real. When they read stories like "shock troops" they think, finally, someone is telling a story that is *real*.
War does a lot of things to a person in it but in "Shock Troops" Beauchamp is dehumanizing himself. He's telling a story in a way he knows will sell. He's a story teller, a writer, and he's creating an atmosphere and theme that he knows will resonate.
I've read accounts that were stark and honest about how bad it is and how it affected the person writing. Those accounts didn't dehumanize, they humanized, showing a painful reality, not this Hollywood version of morality free, repugnant, slumming.
Beauchamp describes *himself* as a caricature.
And he's judged his audience well.
Comments
I thought that was sadism and torture?
To whore and smoke opium in those SE Asia brothels.
Sort of like Hollywood glamour. The trashier the more popular they are.
When they read stories like "shock troops" they think, finally, someone is telling a story that is *real*.
"real" would leave them in a spider hole. They don't want real, they want illusion that seems real. They will always freeze when confronted by surprise because their mental image of themselves isn't all that flexible. Their fail safes have no redundancy.
Those accounts didn't dehumanize, they humanized, showing a painful reality, not this Hollywood version of morality free, repugnant, slumming.
The diff is as I see, dehumanization lowers the defense ability of human to resist temptations and evil. Humanization raises our defenses against the forces of darkness. Two guesses which side Scott is on.