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On Feb. 3, Chris Hedges, renowned New York Times reporter, addressed a standing room only crowd of students, faculty, and staff at Villanova’ Connelly Center Cinema. Hedges, who by his own admission has “spent most of [his] adult life in war," discussed the atrocities he has witnessed and why he believes America is so fascinated by war. The presentation, titled “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning,” was organized through the efforts of the University’s Center for Peace and Justice and Professor Suzanne Toton.

Hedges is a member of The New York Times investigative team; he has covered Central America, the Balkans, the Middle East and the Persian during more than 13 years with the paper. He also is an adjunct professor of journalism at the New York University School of Journalism, where he leads a graduate seminar in international reporting. In 1998-1999, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He wrote on Balkan policy, led seminars and lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, at the Fletcher School of Law and International Diplomacy at Tufts University, and at Yale University, Boston University, Colgate University, Bates College and the University of Massachusetts. His most recent book, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, was first published by Public Affairs in 2002.

Hedges began by addressing America’s role in the present conflict with Iraq. He staunchly opposed United States involvement, asserting that the United States has “blundered into a nation we know little about.” He continued by saying that the occupation will prove detrimental to our souls and morph the nation into a tyrant. Hedges likened the United States to Athens in the ancient Greek play Antigone: as with Athens, he assured the room that America’s lust for power would lead to losing sight of ideals and eventual destruction.

Throughout his lecture, Hedges provided much evidence for the downfall he claims is already in progress. He discussed how the United States has already lost much international respect. To illustrate the point, he mentioned how, immediately following 9/11, prominent Muslim sheikhs condemned the act of violence and Osama bin Laden. Now, the same sheikhs staunchly oppose American action in Iraq, showing how the United States has evolved from a victim to a villain. Hedges also mentioned France’s open disapproval, saying that when long-time allies raise questions, it is time to take heed, not mock them.

Hedges went on to explain that he believes what it is about war that captivates humanity. He asserts that war gives people a false sense of power and control in an uncontrollable world. “War is the pornography of violence…it makes us feel that we belong, allows us to rise above our stations in life, and find nobility in the cause.” War, he went on to say, offers an outlet for mankind’s darkest passions. It endows man with the power of the divine: the power to revoke a life. For these reasons, Hedges continued, those who have the least meaning in their lives are most susceptible to war’s intoxication.

Another key part of war’s intoxication that Hedges discussed is the comradeship it brings. War unites a nation; no longer are we individuals struggling on our own. We “feel as one entity, wrapped in the embrace of a nation.” Hedges clearly distinguishes this type of comradeship from true friendship. He says that this comradeship is actually the polar opposite of friendship, in that friends find themselves in one another, while comrades lose themselves in one another. Comrades in war, he explained further, no longer face death alone and so they begin to worship death. For friends, on the other hand, death is the worst thing they can fathom. This, Hedges alleged, is what makes friendship, and also love, war’s most potent enemy.

Hedges also shared more personal details of his own experiences as a war reporter. He explained that the reality of war is entirely unlike the neatly packaged video clips of the media’s portrayal. Though the technology exists to beam the grisly truth of war into millions of living rooms across America, that would make Americans hate war, and so it is not done. The myth of war, he continued, must be perpetuated, in order to boost ratings and raise morale.

To conclude, Hedges shared stories of people with whom he had worked during various wars, photographers and other journalists who were destroyed by war. He spoke of the addiction of war, explaining how many people who lived through one, himself included, found themselves incapable of transitioning back to every day life. For them, the end of the war brought “the disillusionment of a sterile, empty present. Peace peeled back again, the old comradeship vanished, [and they] see that all the sacrifice was for naught.” These people, he explained, did not know what their existences were worth without the war as constant validation. So, like junkies, they had to return to combat, desperate for one more hit, and many of them died because of it. As for himself, Hedges believes that his own obsession with war has terminated, and he knows that he is lucky to have escaped the cycle alive.