It can be argued that several wars, if not most of them, have been started by intellectuals. Those few who hold the keys to power in literacy and prestige are often the greatest practicers of spearheading obstinate positions, stirring up the anger of the masses towards any persons viewed as the “enemy” and, above all, overthinking a problem which might otherwise be solved through pacifism rather than violent rebellion. A text on the forefront of literature from the Mexican Revolution, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela, is very much a novel concerning this disillusionment from revolution after heavy losses brought on by years of fighting. It paints the intellectuals, or “sense-makers” as those whose over-idealised ideas of change and progress have resulted in devastation not only for others, but made them the architects of their own misery. In equal measure, Azuela’s narrative captures the animalistic brutality brought on by the common soldier manipulated by the demagogic rhetoric of his leaders. 

    Predominantly, the way the extremities of conflict affects the common soldier is captured through the breakdown of class and experience, homogenised during wartime. What might be considered the main character, Demetrio Macias, is a fugitive from the law who joins the conflict as a way to escape punishment, yet soon becomes an unlikely leader of this band of rebels. Because of his development in a more lower class oral culture, he orders his men to engage in book burning at one point in the novel, perhaps believing it to be the symbolic destruction of the literary world which has started the fighting and has always looked down on him. There is a certain joy he finds in this, and more generally, violence as well. “His famous marksmanship fills him with joy,” the text states near the end of the novel. If war does not lead to his physical demise, as it is implied by the end of the text, the comparison between a hollow as “the portico of an old cathedral” certainly symbolises a death of morality in the beast of a man. 

    A more nuanced view of war is taken by Luis Cervantes, who is able to read and write, and is described as more eloquent, inspiring and good for the troops. Yet he is also perhaps seen as part of the problem, another one of these “sense-makers” who have only come to elongate the conflict and inadvertently lead to further destruction. Although a strange pairing, wartime allows these two men to prosper through their ruthlessness and charisma respectively. It is only the way in which they view conflict, as well as embolden it, which differentiates them. 

    My question would be: Do you believe in the central premise that the minority of intellectuals in power are to blame for warfare? Or, more cynically, do you consider man’s devolution into violence inevitable? S