The Harrowing of Hell

Must we endure terrible pain to acquire wisdom? Lessons from big wave surfing and the conversations of President Johnson and Defense Secretary McNamara.

My younger brother, who lives on Maui, once told me a story about a man from the mainland who had made an astronomical sum of money in the virtual, internet economy. His enormous wealth apparently went to his head, because after becoming a modestly competent surfer, he decided that he wanted to go tow surfing on JAWS—one of the biggest waves on earth.

Tow surfing involves using a surfboard with foot straps and being pulled onto the swell by a wave runner equipped with a waterski tow rope. While top expert surfers have developed the skill and conditioning to paddle onto Jaws, this is extremely difficult due to the enormous swell size and speed.

The “virtual economy” wizard finally persuaded a good wave runner driver to tow him onto a swell at Jaws. The result was catastrophic. Instead of surfing “down the line” of the breaking wave, he ran from it and onto the relatively flat, impact zone in front of the wave. Bad move.

Dead in the water, he then received the full power of the wave’s energy unloading on him, which inflicted catastrophic injuries, including tearing his pectoral muscles. His automatically inflating life vest, plus the great skill of the wave runner driver, saved him from drowning, but his body was beaten to hell.

Greek mythology relates multiple heroes making trips to the Underworld to rescue fathers and friends. In the Christian tradition there is the story of Jesus making a descent to hell to rescue righteous souls. Addicts often speak about “hitting rock bottom” before developing the true resolve to kick their addictions.

Must humans experience great pain to gain a full understanding of their limits and shortcomings?

I recently spent a few hours reviewing the transcripts of President Lyndon Johnson talking with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara about the situation in Vietnam. To a careful reader, it quickly becomes apparent that neither man has the foggiest notion about the country, or what exactly the U.S. military was going to achieve by killing its people.

The following recording of one of their conversations gives a good sense of how totally lost they were.

McNamara is an eggheaded technocrat who isn’t as smart as he thinks he is, and Johnson is a cunning Texas redneck who is accustomed to things going his way. I find it astonishing that these fools had at their disposal the power to send the U.S. military to Vietnam to kill people.

Johnson and McNamara having another bad day.

To his credit, McNamara was apparently chastened by the failure of Vietnam. He later became a vocal critic of the war and expressed regret in his 1995 memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. He spent the rest of his life writing and speaking on nuclear disarmament, and was the protagonist of the documentary The Fog of War.

George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John Bolton and other “chickenhawks” were able to avoid military service in Vietnam and therefore the “harrowing of hell” that McNamara experienced, They also didn’t heed the wisdom that McNamara acquired and tried to share with them.

The Washington foreign policy establishment remains infested with the same breed of arrogant nitwits. A bit of time on the front line of combat would do wonders for their hubristic souls.