Tonight was the Belgian launch of my collection of essays on film “Buster Keaton never smiles”. I had a public discussion with the Flemish writer Stefan Hertmans, it’s rare to have such an intelligent and lively conversation on stage as I had with Mr. Hertmans tonight.
Hertmans lent me a copy of the book “Male Fantasies” by Klaus Theweleit, the English translation of “Männerphantasien”.
Barbara Ehrenreich wrote the foreword: “It may be helpful to recall that it is not only that men make wars, but that wars make men. For the warrior caste, war is not only death production, but a means of reproduction; each war deforms the human spirit and guarantees that the survivors – or some among them – will remain warriors.”

This struck me as an important insight. The warrior caste needs war in order to reproduce. War is also procreation.