#保羅．福塞爾 paul fussell-class: a guide through the american status system

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Yes, I do. No doubt!

When you come on the line, you are very brave, because you know nothing about what's happening. And it’s very easy for you to perform pseudo brave gestures and procedures, because you don't know yet. And gradually – this is because you have a reservoir of courage, each time you get badly frightened, a little of it diminishes until you don't have any left. And that is the worst moment.               

─ Paul Fussell, Infantryman & Author, in the documentary The War, “FUBAR”

and

其實，這也很像在現實生活中的每個人… 起初你勇氣十足地為每天而戰，後來仍留在殘酷現場的人並不多，再後來你甚至懷疑自己為了什麼而戰???直至最後你會發現最大的不同似乎僅只是:「不必讓你的決定之代價為一次死傷千萬人。戰爭的摧毀力豈止是一個人拿出你的勇氣、信念和憤慨！」

(In fact, this is very similar to everyone in real life… At first you fight bravely for every day, but then not many people remain in the cruel places, and then you even doubt what you are fighting for?? ?Until the end, you will find that the biggest difference seems to be just this: "You don't have to let the cost of your decision be the death or injury of tens of millions of people at once. The destructive power of war is more than just one person showing your courage, belief and to be indignant!")

正義是即便你只有自己仍去做對的事

Justice is doing the right thing even if you are alone.

- Chu Lan from Taiwan~*

ps. Paul Fussell (American, 1924-2012)美國作家和歷史學家/他以獨特的視角及幽默的文筆，��美國的社會等級現象描繪細致，同時將美國社會對照到中國的社會百態 (Book - 格調：社會等級與生活品味Class: A Guide Through the American Status System)。

*He was an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of topics, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America's class system. Fussell served in the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II and was wounded in fighting in France. Returning to the US, Fussell wrote extensively and held several faculty positions, most prominently at Rutgers University (1955–1983) and at the University of Pennsylvania (1983–1994). He is best known for his writings about World War I and II, which explore what he felt was the gap between the romantic myth and reality of war; he made a "career out of refusing to disguise it or elevate it".

*When he first entered college, Fussell intended a career in journalism. His plans changed when his sergeant was killed beside him in combat, about which he wrote in his memoir Doing Battle (1996). In his writings he opposed war, promoting instead a vision of rational enlightenment. He pointed to what he saw as the hypocrisy of governmental speech and the corruption of popular culture.

*Fussell stated that he relished the inevitable controversy of Class: A Guide Through the American Status System (1983) and indulged his increasing public status as a loved or hated "curmudgeon" in the rant called BAD: or, The Dumbing of America (1991). In between, Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays (1988) confirmed his war against governmental and military doublespeak and prepared the way for Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (1989). The epiphany of his earlier essay, "My War", found full expression in his memoir Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic (1996), "My Adolescent illusions, largely intact to that moment, fell away all at once, and I suddenly knew I was not and never would be in a world that was reasonable or just". The last book by Fussell published while he was alive, The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944–45 (2003) was once again concerned with the experience of combat in World War II.

Piena solidarietà a questa persona che solo nel silenzio di #modena si oppone alla oscena installazione di guerra