Blood Meridian, Lecture Three: War is God (Chapters XIII-XX) (Patreon)

'It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here.'

Today we finally hear Judge Holden's philosophy of war. 

We're discussing how the voice of God differs from the voice of the devil, historian as judge, pandaemonium, dancing, suzerainty, law and order, good and evil, and, of course, war and peace.

As this is another long one, please feel free to use the timestamps below to navigate through in the way that best suits you.

Blood Meridian Series:

• How to Read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
• Breaking into Blood Meridian (Title, Epigraphs & Assigned Reading)
• Lecture One: See the Child (Ch. I-V)
• Lecture Two: Judge Holden (Ch. V-XIII) 

Supplementary Resources:

• Milton's Paradise Lost - Book One Podcast 
• Emerson's 'History' and the Study of Literature 

Lecture Timestamps:

• 0:00 “War is God”
• 3:00 a challenge of deep-reading
• 6:00 how to read Judge Holden
• 7:00 the real Judge Holdens
• 9:00 a forgotten massacre
• 10:45 what is history?
• 13:00 Holden’s harness maker parable
• 15:00 controlling the past, and future
• 18:00 are we doomed to repeat history?
• 20:30 McCarthy’s pandaemonium
• 26:00 dancing and warfare
• 30:00 the passage of souls
• 34:00 Judge Holden’s unity
• 35:50 what is Holden’s purpose?
• 37:20 Judge Holden as suzerain
• 40:00 “the freedom of birds is an insult”
• 41:00 Captain Ahab in Judge Holden
• 42:00 judges, historians & witnesses
• 43:00 Judge Holden and Iago
• 44:45 the voice of God vs Satan
• 46:00 is Holden man or devil?
• 50:00 law, order & threat of violence
• 52:30 Orwell & world peace vs holy wars
• 53:40 Montaigne on luxury and war
• 55:00 Hegel & states vs individuals
• 57:00 firefight with Sonoran cavalry
• 58:00 the compassion of the Kid
• 1:01:00 morality revealed by its opposite
• 1:02:00 Moses and the burning bush
• 1:06:00 the ubiquity of violence
• 1:08:10 the green meteor
• 1:08:50 the Chiricahua tribe
• 1:11:00 the caged “idiot”
• 1:11:30 the barroom shootout
• 1:13:00 Judge Holden’s legal representation
• 1:15:00 Anaximander & Thales
• 1:16:00 Holden lifts the meteor
• 1:17:10 Hamlet on limits of human knowledge
• 1:21:00 “the arc of circling bodies”
• 1:23:30 the “War is God” speech
• 1:28:00 Nietzche’s “danger and play”
• 1:29:00 the culture of competition
• 1:31:00 all games aspire to war
• 1:33:00 humans & the animal kingdom
• 1:34:00 not being at peace with oneself
• 1:35:20 war as sacrificial purging
• 1:37:00 two types of human aggression
• 1:39:00 setting the idiot’s cage on fire
• 1:39:50 massacre at the Yuma crossing
• 1:41:00 fate catches up with Glanton
• 1:43:00 Judge Holden vs the Yumas
• 1:45:00 the Judge pursues the Kid
• 1:46:10 “your life is forfeit”
• 1:47:00 the Kid spares the Judge
• 1:47:45 “stop your ears”
• 1:49:00 how to recognise the voice of Satan
• 1:50:11 chapter reading assignments

Mentioned:  St. Augustine, Emerson, Conrad, Hegel, Joyce, Milton, Orwell, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Plato, Walter Pater, Dr Jane Goodall, Solzhenitsyn, Shakespeare, Aristotle, Kant, Erich Fromm, Sartre.

Some Questions:

1) What do you make of the "War is God" speech?

2) Are we doomed to repeat history? 

3) Would you have shot Judge Holden if you were in the Kid's position? Why didn't the Kid pull the trigger?

Bonus: Please share with us any of your favourite passages/lines, and any insights that have occurred to you.

And they rode on.