Okay, a little non sequitur in today’s post. I am, among other things, a bit of a history “buff.” Most notably, I am a World War II history buff. I have some fairly close connections, my father was a mechanic on Spitfires and P-51 Mustangs, and my Aunt Louise (still alive and kicking) was a member of Eisenhower’s personal staff– so I actually know someone who knew Churchill, Eisenhower, and Kay Summersby.
Anyway, today’s story is about the D-Day landings at Normandy. This was a huge undertaking, the largest amphibious assault in history, involving millions of people.
Despite all the planning, the landings at Omaha Beach were a shambles. Air strikes completely missed the defenses, bad weather sank the American “swimming” tanks, and, once on the beach, the chain of command was completely disrupted by high casualties.
The German Army facing the attacking Americans was high and dry and well dug in. The German Army was also just a wonder of organization. Their total obedience to higher authority (as both an army and as a culture) had brought this one small country to near world domination.
And here is the point of the story: on that Normandy beachhead, you had a collision of two cultures: a remarkably well organized and highly obedient one, dug into concrete emplacements, facing a bunch of mostly farm boys who were soaked and disorganized . . . but those same farm boys were used to doing things on their own. As the German troops remained in their positions, and even as the German generals waited and waited for permission from the main office to counterattack, individual American privates and corporals on Omaha beach just started taking their own initiative, grabbing what weapons they could find in the surf, forming improvised units, moving forward where they could, and they eventually won the day.
Another quick story: A few weeks later, the allied advance was again bogged down. This was because none of the planners had allowed for the hedgerow country. Hedgerows were these huge 8-20 foot high mounds of dirt and roots and undergrowth that had formed over the centuries between neighboring farm fields. It was perfect cover for the German defenders.
In the middle of this looming disaster, a sergeant in one of the tank repair shops took an acetylene torch and some scrap metal, and fashioned a sort of multi-prong plow. He welded it onto the front a Sherman tank. This little improvised attachment allowed the allied tanks to cut thru the hedgerows. His simple device completely changed the course of the battle of Normandy.
The reason I tell these tales is this: While conformity and obedience will take an organization a long way, one must never discount the importance of individual initiative. When the two gigantic bureaucracies of the Axis and Allied armies met, it was not the machines, it was not the courage or patriotism of the participants, but the cultural permission to take individual initiative that ultimately tilted the scales in one of the greatest battles in history.
Here in America we are not forced to conform at the point of a gun. But more and more we are being unconsciously trained to conform at the point of a check stub. As an artist, one of the things that troubles me most about what I observe around me is how fear, convenience, and promise of quick reward is leading so many people to more and more conformed appearance and behavior.
So while I will still deal with other art/commerce relate issues, I think for the time being anyway I am going to re-dedicate this blog to the advancement of non-conformity . . . (Cue the Twilight Zone theme music . . . )
