The Thin Graphite Line

 

“There is no retreat from here, men. You must die where you stand.” --Sir Colin Campbell

On October 25, 1854, the Russian cavalry was advancing on Balaklava, where the British had stationed themselves during the Crimean War. There was nothing to stop them but the Sutherland Highlanders 93rd Regiment. Major-General Sir Colin Campbell ordered his men into an unconventional line only two men deep, and after three volleys from their rifles, the Russians were routed.

A journalist at the time described the maneuver as “a thin red streak tipped with a line of steel,” and thus a new phrase entered the English language. The thin red line would forever stand for the courage of soldiers in the face of the enemy, as well as for the precarious and fraught circumstances they endure. This last is portrayed disturbingly and beautifully in James Jones’s World War II novel The Thin Red Line and Terrence Malick’s 1998 film adaptation.

 

The thin blue line is an application of the same concept to police forces. It is sometimes represented as a light blue line on a black field. The upper and lower areas represent the public and criminals, respectively, while the stripe separating them represents law enforcement. In Errol Morris’s documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988), a judge mentions that idea while discussing the case of a police officer shot and killed during what should have been a routine highway stop:

“I do have to admit that in the Adams case--and I've never really said this--Doug Mulder's final argument was one I'd never heard before: about the ‘thin blue line’ of police that separate the public from anarchy. I have to concede that my eyes kind of welled up when I heard that. It did get to me emotionally, but I don't think I showed it.”

The idea conjures up the police as beleaguered heroes struggling to stave off society’s criminal element. It resonated with the judge in The Thin Blue Line, it resonates with anyone who has enjoyed a cop movie, and it resonates with those who wear a badge. For that reason, the thin blue line has also come to represent the camaraderie of police officers. This meaning was prominent on social media during the string of social unrest from Ferguson to New York.

 

Thus, when New York Police Department officers turned their backs on New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio at the funeral for Officers Wenjian Liu and Raphael Ramos (previous post), it was a curious use of what the thin blue line represents. Their action did not stress their role as officers of the peace. And it wasn’t a gesture of camaraderie with their fallen peers, for they were protesting at a funeral, the supreme act of disrespect employed almost exclusively by Westboro Baptist Church. Rather, in the wake of public scrutiny, the protesting officers felt undervalued and thus demanded respect for themselves.

Just as the thin blue line is an offshoot of the thin red line, other thin-line professions have joined the clade, including even the thin yellow line for tow-truck drivers. There’s a Facebook page, for example, that includes the thin white and orange lines and bears the following description:

“Everything to do with Fire, EMS, Law Enforcement, Dispatchers, Life Flight Crews, and anyone else who's [sic] job is to risk their lives to save a strangers' [sic].”

This got me to thinking about what kind of thin line there might be for artists, writers and thinkers--another class of people who perform a function crucial to society. Their labors are often long and solitary, but once they make it into the light, they change the world. They are society’s conscience and voice, a force that separates civilization from barbarism, and as the attack by Islamist radicals on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris recently reiterated, they too risk their lives.

So that is what the Thin Graphite Line is: a representation of artists, writers and thinkers as a bulwark against barbarism. The meme isn’t likely to go very far--The Gleaming Sword doesn’t have that kind of influence--but I encourage any who read this to share it. I know there are plenty of people who feel this kind of thin line is crucial, and the world could always use a few more.

 

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_%28Battle_of_Balaclava%29
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/battles/crimea/battle.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_%28emblem%29