If you look at films from 1914, everybody was smiling and cheering as the troops marched off to war. There were long lines of young men at the recruiting offices, and men felt humiliated if they were rejected by the army!
Now, after a century of increasingly bloody and horrible wars, have young people wised up? I know that 18-year olds think they are immortal, and its fun to be in uniform. But, knowing that you can be killed or horribly injured must make many young people pause-who wants to be a DEAD Rambo?
Probably the most anti-war movie I ever saw was “BLACKHAWK DOWN”-it was terribly depressing because it showed the extreme suffering of war and the realization of the pointless nature of the mission.
So, will war ever be greeted with enthusiam again? Or, has the human race learned that it isn’t really much fun? :eek:
Just wait—2 generations after a nation has had it’s last war, it will have it’s next one, & the crowds will cheer again. With a little forgetfulness, the violent may achieve anything.
Horrible, isn’t it.
I don’t see cheering for wars in nations that had their share in wars that took place on their very soil.
I did and do see cheering for war, eagerness to enlist in the army and declaring every single soldier a hero in the USA.
People there seem to be osessed with military and with inflicting war as long as the bloodshed and devastation doesn’t happen on their own soil.
I find it extremely ironic that the USA still is in shock because one single event killed between 2000 and 3000 (who weren’t even all US’ers) people and brought a few buildings down.
While flattening and invading/occupying two countries in a row and killing there thousands of people is cheered at by so many who look at it as something absolutely normal to do.
If I read some of the threads here with titles like “which country are we going to take next” or similar, I can hardly avoid to start vomitting.
(The same with threads where those who perform the killings and invasions are declared “heros”).
Salaam. A
I thought you were a historian, Aldebaran (snort). Are you claiming that the French, Germans, British, etc citizens DIDN’T cheer (long and loud) at the start of WWI (or the various other periodic European blood lettings)?? Try reading the OP next time BEFORE launching into another of your patented anti-US screeds.
As far as the OP goes, I’d say Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor has it close. People forget. Give it a few generations and folks will be back to thinking war is glamorous or whatever…and they will be wrong, just like they were in the past. Defeat/victory also has a big role in this. Look at the difference for the US between WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and GW I. Similar patterns can be drawn using the British, French, Germans, etc…hell, any people really.
-XT
I suspect that the graphic displays and timeliness of currently available news media as opposed to what was avaialble in the past has something to do with it as well.
It wasn’t too long ago that news of a disastrous battle was printed in your local newspaper within a couple of days. Now it’s displayed in gory detail on CNN within minutes.
People have natural circles of caring, of various sizes. Things in the circle are worthy of being cared about. Things outside the circle are ‘subhuman’, and not worthy of mentioning much.
As the worldwide network of communication and trade expands, more and more people come within the circle of caring for more and more people. As news and trade come from from what was formerly tera ingognito, people learn at an instinctual level that they are worthy of respect. The Iraqi or Russian or Japanese ( insert anything) citizen is no longer the faceless enemy to be despised and pitiously fought. We’ve seen their lives, and now they are real, and their humanity is plain to see. It’s hard to wage war against people that are in your circle of understanding and caring.
If you know nothing about a people, it’s far easier to beleive jingoist propaganda against them and cheer on a war. If you have a network of business contacts with them, and just saw them on the news being plainly human, the war can easily be seen as nothing more than a waste of life.
So I don’t think it’s so much a matter of humans ‘wising up’ to the wrongness of war; it’s more a matter of humans wising up to the fact that other people are in fact humans, just like them, and deserve to be treated as such. Abhorence to war just comes as a consequence of that.
Reminds me of something during the 1st Gulf War. A military official refused to allow footage of Iraqi soldiers being messily killed, saying something like “If people saw this, then nobody would ever want to have a war again!” Like that would have been so awful…
Try reading the OP next time BEFORE launching into another of your patented anti-Aldebaran screeds.
Salaam. A
I sure fucking hope not. I agree with Bosda that it’s not going to go away anytime soon, but I’ll take any sign. Come to think of it, I don’t think it’s true that nobody is enthusiastic about war even now. The kind of giant gatherings the OP mentions don’t really happen anymore, but plenty of people are jazzed up by their sense of righteous purpose in war. You don’t need to look hard for proof of that. Hey, Al Qaeda’s people sure seem enthusiastic about war. Confining this to America, I’d say the end of the volunteer army has something to do with the phenomenon. War these days has become more and more of a spectator sport anyway, and in this country there’s never any doubt about the outcome.
Alde, do you think nobody was enthusiastic about their side during the American Civil War?
Um, sure Alde. Whatever you say. On reflection, re-reading the OP, it boils down to: Will young men (no country specified, but an example used of US in WWI and briefly in Samalia) ever ‘wise up’ and stop reguarding war as glamourous. And you reply with another patented attack on the US (which the OP didn’t really ASK about), jumping to such conclusions that the US (unlike all other nations on Earth):
/Total hijack in the Alde tradition
Sort of like muslims, eager to enlist in the ranks of terrorists and kill themselves in droves in various countries around the world? If we are going to make broad, bullshit generalizations, I think thats as valid as yours. Can’t wait for the spluttering backlash…I await with hopeful anticipation of the coming of the screed.
People in muslim countries seem obsessed (or osessed I suppose…hopefully this means generally the same thing) with military and inflicting war and bloodshed and devastation, especially on helpless civilians…cowards all. (I’m really enjoying these bullshit strawmen generalizations, you know? Maybe you are onto something here…this is great fun!!).
I find it extremely ironic that the muslim world is still in shock that Israel continues to occupy Palastine…I mean, come on…its been, what, 60 years almost? Give it a rest already, its just their homes and such. Why are they so worked up about it all??
I find it extremely ironic that the muslimista ( 
) world is still in shock from the US’ers simply bringing down another country in the region like Iraq. It was only a few 10’s of thousands after all. No big deal, right? Why are they so worked up about a few deaths and some minor destruction after all?? (My cheek is getting a bit tired from my tongue constantly pushing on it here).
While flattening and killing hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians in multiple countries around the world, the muslims continue to cheer their hero’s on to greater and greater slaughters, as if this kind of behavior is absolutely normal and not barbaric by any standards…especially their own. (cough cough)
/End Alde hijack
Blah blah blah, Alde. So…what does any of the above have to do with the OP, if you don’t mind my asking? So, I’ll stick by my statement of before, but I’ll expand a bit…try READING the OP and actually trying to answer something CLOSE to what its asking before launching into one of the patented Alde anti-US screeds. Thanks much.
-XT
In response to the OP:
For the sake of the human race, I sure damn well hope not.
Thaumaturge, that was a very good post indeed; I had thought of what you expressed so well many times before and I consider it one of the best by-products of globalization.
Different idiosyncrasies play an important role too, we all know of past and present Spartan cultures, where militarism is very present in everyday life; either from a base social level or incited and sustained from the goverment.
I wasn’t there at the time, but my mother told me that a very large number of people in the U.S. were not at all enthusiastic about WWII. I imagine that’s probably true of many countries and many wars. There were similar doubts about both the Korean and Viet Nam wars. There is a term in debating and logic that means “assuming facts not in evidence.”
You are assuming that people were in fact enthusiastic about wars in the past. Read some history of the American revolution, for example, or the French/Indian/British wars that preceded it. Many wars in the past were simply things that those in power decided to do for whatever political purpose they had. The soldiers in prior centuries, in Europe in particular, were simply men who had little or no alternative. The enlisted man was treated as an expendible animal, and was probably not at all enthusiastic.
Some writers certainly made it seem glamorous, but the glory they described was mostly of the upper-class officers.
“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.”
- Robert E. Lee
It is kinda strange how war has gotten less and less bloody in terms of tactics since WW1, and the human cost has decreased since WW2, and yet we are more and more resistant to it. People were pretty OK with sending our troops off to fight in brutal meaningless trench warfare, exposing them to chemical weapons. They were fine with hundreds of thousands of deaths. Heck, there were probably minor conflicts ongoing most of the time for Britain at its peak that proportionally speaking were far worse than this puny little war in Iraq. Now people balk at pretty much any war.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor of any foriegn war and don’t diminish the ongoing cost of such interventionism, but it is strange how outrage against war has increased just as technological advances make it possible to win wars almost entirely with bombs, and with very few civillian casualties. I don’t know about the necessity and relevance of “jingoistic propaganda”, but I would agree the conventional explanation is that, as Thaumaturge points out, modern communication networks have made the people involved in the war more present to the observer. I don’t know if it translates into some sympathy for other nations or not, but it surely translates into a more direct knowledge of the consequences of battle.
Excellent thread title. “Mom, can’t we go to war?” “After you clean your room honey.”
I know some people in other nations get very excited when Americans are killed. They tend to project this bloodthirst on to us.
But, for the most part, as an actual nation that does something in the world – other than complain – we must just ignore them and move on.
REXDART " and with very few civillian casualties."
I assume you mean compared to previous wars because “very few” doesn’t even begin to cover the thousands who have died 
I thought about this when I wrote my answer to the OP and expected such questions, but decided to neglect the case in the context of my reply. The reason being that I don’t consider a civil war to be quite the same as an armed conflict involving seperate nations. Civil war is exclusive internal affair.
To answer your question:
I have some difficulties to imagine that people were “enthousiastic” for being dragged into a civil war.
Possibly many were convinced about being on the right side in an internal dispute and thus - when it was made necessary - prepared to defend their side in an armed conflict.
Salaam. A
Respectfully, it is likely impossible for you to understand the kind of patriotic self righteousness that both sides felt. Examining the writings of the time, at the beginning of the Civil War both sides really were (and the Confederacy especially) gung-ho about the war.
XT,
The style in which you composed your last post to me makes it clear that you are in need of some information. Which makes a short hijack of this thread unavoidable.
(cultural hijack)
Talking about me as “the Master Aldebaran” and next simply “the Master” is expressing a connection that at the very least requires a form of intimacy, be it in distance or be it rather close.
You thus use a word that suggests the existence of a linkage between us that doesn’t exist and can’t exist. In any case not at this moment and in this cyberplace.
I know that possibly you used this way of speech to express respect or friendship. If the simple use of my membername isn’t enough to furfill such a wish, then I would prefer if you use the standard terminology for strangers when talking about me. Question of avoiding people to jump to the wrong conclusions.
Thank you.
(end cultural hijack)
As for the contenance of your post:
I can only say that it contains enough issues to open a few new threads. Which then have the advantage not to disturb this one.
Salaam. A