Quang Hai
Junior Member
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Vietnamese
- Home Country
- Vietnam
- Current Location
- Vietnam
I am reading Trip to Hanoi by Susan Sontag
She visits Hanoi during the war with America. She feels uncomfortable with Vietnamese language when they call American solders are "cruel thugs" or South Vietnam government are henchmen.
" There’s a committee here (someone had left a piece of stationery in the hotel lobby) for maintaining contact with South Vietnamese intellectuals, called "Committee of Struggle Against U.S. Imperialists and Henchmen’s Persecution of Intellectuals in South Vietnam." Henchmen! But aren’t they? In today’s Vietnam News Agency bulletin the American soldiers are called "cruel thugs." Although again the quaintness of phrase makes me smile, that is just what they are—from the vantage point of helpless peasants being napalmed by swooping diving metal birds. Still, quite apart from the quaintness of particular words, such language does make me uncomfortable. Whether because I am laggard or maybe just dissociated, I both assent to the unreserved moral judgment and shy away from it, too. I believe they are right. At the same time, nothing here can make me forget that events are much more complicated than the Vietnamese represent them. But exactly what complexities would I have them acknowledge? Isn’t it enough that their struggle is, objectively, just? Can they ever afford subtleties when they need to mobilize every bit of energy to continue standing up to the American Goliath? . Whatever I conclude, it seems to me I end up patronizing them."
I am not sure meaning of underlined sentence. Please kindly help me out. Thanks!
She visits Hanoi during the war with America. She feels uncomfortable with Vietnamese language when they call American solders are "cruel thugs" or South Vietnam government are henchmen.
" There’s a committee here (someone had left a piece of stationery in the hotel lobby) for maintaining contact with South Vietnamese intellectuals, called "Committee of Struggle Against U.S. Imperialists and Henchmen’s Persecution of Intellectuals in South Vietnam." Henchmen! But aren’t they? In today’s Vietnam News Agency bulletin the American soldiers are called "cruel thugs." Although again the quaintness of phrase makes me smile, that is just what they are—from the vantage point of helpless peasants being napalmed by swooping diving metal birds. Still, quite apart from the quaintness of particular words, such language does make me uncomfortable. Whether because I am laggard or maybe just dissociated, I both assent to the unreserved moral judgment and shy away from it, too. I believe they are right. At the same time, nothing here can make me forget that events are much more complicated than the Vietnamese represent them. But exactly what complexities would I have them acknowledge? Isn’t it enough that their struggle is, objectively, just? Can they ever afford subtleties when they need to mobilize every bit of energy to continue standing up to the American Goliath? . Whatever I conclude, it seems to me I end up patronizing them."
I am not sure meaning of underlined sentence. Please kindly help me out. Thanks!
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