The Will to Remember

William Wei

We are invariably affected by our surroundings. But of all the factors in our environment, the surest and most drastic changes often come from the inevitable passing of time. Malcolm Gladwell elaborates on both the good and bad effects of this in his work, “The Power of Context”. Tim O’Brien feared this unrelenting nature of time and its ability to erase history’s teachings; he did not want past lessons like the Vietnam War to be forgotten. To counter time’s effects, O’Brien uses war stories to bridge past and present in his work, “How to tell a true war story”. The power of context of time that Gladwell presents is also the very phenomena O’Brien feels war stories are designed to eliminate.

Time is an unavoidable factor in life and will in many cases transcend other powers of context. Gladwell illustrates this when he cites psychologists Darley and Batson, who concluded,

“It is hard to think of a context in which norms concerning helping those in distress are more salient than for a person thinking about a Good Samaritan, and yet it did not significantly increase helping behavior… Indeed, on several occasions, a seminar student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried away” (Darley Batson 192)

The psychologists observed that in the context of thinking about the Good Samaritan, students “did not significantly increase helping behavior”. This proves that the context of their talk did not affect their actions much, and neither had their personal behavioral patterns as Gladwell later suggests. Instead, the deciding factor was time. Gladwell writes, “The only thing that really mattered was whether the students were in a rush. Of the group that was, 10 percent stopped help. Of the group who knew they had a few minutes to spare, 63 percent stopped” (Gladwell 192). Here, the power of context was time, or the lack of it. The study suggests that the constriction in time was insurmountable by seminar students who were readying to speak about the Good Samaritan: a quintessential altruist. The strap for time dictated their actions over all else. Similarly, O’Brien’s friend Mitchell Sanders told a war story with equal importance placed on time. Waiting for Mitchell to explain the morale of the story, O’Brien writes,

“For a long while he was quiet, looking away, and the silence kept stretching out until it was almost embarrassing. Then he shrugged and gave me a stare that lasted all day. ‘Hear that quiet, man?’ he said. ‘That quiet – just listen. There’s your moral’” (O’Brien 392).

Sanders made sure “the silence kept stretching out” and pointed out “that quiet” was the moral. And in doing so, Sanders alludes to the insanity of soldiers from their prolonged exposure to silence during their almost task-less assignment. Conversely the busy seminar students lacked the time to abide by their own teachings. Time as the greatest power of context applies to the two excerpts in similar manners. Both authors are aware of the dangers of time as a powerful variable in life; although Gladwell hints at them, while O’Brien attempts to counteract them with his war stories.

When not directly affecting our actions, the passing of time can erode old perceptions and encourage new perspectives. In the 1980’s, Bernie Goetz was seemingly extolled for shooting a group of thugs in the city’s then derelict subway system. However, that was not the case a decade later. Gladwell writes,

“In 1996, when Goetz went to trial a second time, as the defendant in a civil suit brought by Darrell Cabey, the case was all but ignored by the press, and Goetz himself seemed almost an anachronism. At a time when New York had become the safest big city in the country, it seemed hard to remember what it was that Goetz had once symbolized…” (Gladwell 181).

Goetz’s actions were now outdated. He was an “anachronism” because the meaning of his actions has reached obsolescence as a byproduct of time. Time makes us forget the past and O’Brien seeks to counter this phenomenon with war stories. Tim O’Brien writes,

“The (Vietnam) war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for late hours when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased when there is nothing to remember except the story.” (O’Brien 386)

O’Brien feels that stories are used for “joining the past to the future”. Thus, War stories counteract the effects of time because “stories are for eternity”, and eternity is a timeless state, where the past and future merge with the present. O’Brien demonstrates this further when he writes, “You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end. Not then, not ever” (O’Brien 391).  In keeping a true war story from ending, one eliminates its dependence on time, freeing us from the constrictions that kept the seminar students from practicing what they preached. The citizens of New York and their perception of Goetz had deteriorated through the passing of time. What Goetz did is history now, much like the way O’Brien put it, that “when memory is erased, there is nothing to remember except the story.” But by telling these stories we can recreate the past and keep it as alive as possible, with history’s lessons at heart. O’Brien tells war stories in hopes of discouraging people from forgetting the past. Gladwell also understands this and he hints at this understanding in writing of his Broken Window Theory. Gladwell writes,  “If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon more windows will be broken…” (Gladwell 182). From a host of possible choices, it is no coincidence that broken windows were selected as the prime example of Wilson and Kelling’s theory. A broken window stands for more than a small crime, it is a metaphor for the destruction of the past. A window stands between a person and what is before him – his future. No window is fully transparent however and often reflects him and his surroundings, signifying his past. This technique is often used by filmmakers as a metaphor that the past keeps us from the future. By shattering it, we are in effect forgetting the past and perhaps missing an opportunity to reflect on it. And through this people “will conclude that no one cares” not just about the window but about the past. To tend to broken windows is thus to tend to history and combat the forgetful nature of time. O’Brien fears that the passing of time will lead us to careless mistakes, perhaps in voting in favor of another war similar to the one he endured. He illustrates this worry when he writes, “If you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty” (O’Brien 388). The truth in this case is the past, representing consequences as little as “talking dirty” to as large as Curt Lemons death. When we neglect to remember past consequences we set ourselves up for similar ends in the future.

Gladwell showed not only the importance of time but also its ability to sweep away history be it good or bad. It was a central element in his essay on the Power of Context and O’Brien is very aware of Gladwell’s discoveries. This is because O’Brien himself is in a struggle with time. He is struggling to hold on to the past he knows – the Vietnam War. Some will always attempt to persuade O’Brien otherwise. O’Brien writes,

“Now and then I tell this story, someone will come up to me afterward and say she liked it. It’s always a woman. Usually it’s an older woman of kindly temperament and humane politics. She’ll explain that as a rule she hates war stories; she can’t understand why people want to wallow in all the blood and gore… What I should do, she’ll say is put it all behind me” (O’Brien 396).

O’Brien would later say he thinks the old lady is a “dumb cooze”. Her old age and her persuasion for O’Brien to “put it all behind him” suggests she represents element in society attempting to bury the past, specifically his past and everything he stands for. This also applies to Gladwell’s graffiti example, when Gunn says,  “If you want to spend three nights of your time vandalizing a train, fine. But it’s never going to see the light of day” (Gunn 183). The efforts of the kids to vandalize were in vain, because their accomplishments were swiftly buried, an ending O’Brien fears most. There was no time to enjoy the fruition of their efforts, no one will remember the graffiti because they were wiped out the instance they were created. O’Brien does not want his war efforts to have a similar end. He does not want to become an “anachronism like Goetz” and telling these war stories is his solution. He not only wants others to remember the past to avoid repeating mistakes but there is also a selfish aspect; just like the kids who painted the graffiti, he wants to be recognized for his actions and not forgotten like Goetz was. It is through these war stories that we still appreciate the services of Vietnam veterans today despite time being such a strong power of context swaying us in the opposite direction. In that sense, O’Brien has succeeded.

The powers of context and specifically time may yield positive outcomes, such as the transformation of New York into the safest big city in the nation. However, time can also be deadly as it fades away our memories of lessons learned in the past. Today we fight a strikingly familiar war in the Middle East, one without a clear end. Perhaps O’Brien didn’t get through to enough people the war stories he has chosen to share. Once again, past mistakes are being repeated, because windows are being broken in an epidemic of forgetfulness. Gladwell pointed out these dangers, and O’Brien offers war stories as a solution. Yet, even though O’Brien has applied the power of context to try and help those in oblivion, the voting that approved the nations most recent campaign had suffered from the similar shortsightedness found over forty years ago.