Wednesday, March 17, 2010
When I graduated from college, one of the history professors spoke to the entire class at one of the many commencement events.  The gist of his talk was, “you should all enlist.” He made exactly the point below, which is that being in a war is not expensive enough from an emotional perspective.  It’s too easy and clean to use military force, and the consequences of that ease will be increased fighting, and terribly delicate international relations.  The professor thought if all America’s best and brightest spend a few years enlisted in the armed forces, we could increase the emotional cost of using military force back up to a sane level. I don’t agree with his hypothesis, and I didn’t enlist, but the talk stuck with me. thepublics: (Via MikeHudack) ‘The Soldiers Call It War Porn’ SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which consequences does the drone war have for the nations that lead them? Singer: War used to be a very serious decision. Now we don’t even declare war anymore. We don’t pay war taxes, we don’t buy war bonds. Now we can carry it out without having to deal with some of the consequences of sending our sons and daughters into harm’s way. It also changes the way politicians think about war. You already have society’s barriers against war dropping, and now you have a technology that takes the barriers to the ground.

When I graduated from college, one of the history professors spoke to the entire class at one of the many commencement events.  The gist of his talk was, “you should all enlist.” He made exactly the point below, which is that being in a war is not expensive enough from an emotional perspective.  It’s too easy and clean to use military force, and the consequences of that ease will be increased fighting, and terribly delicate international relations.  The professor thought if all America’s best and brightest spend a few years enlisted in the armed forces, we could increase the emotional cost of using military force back up to a sane level.

I don’t agree with his hypothesis, and I didn’t enlist, but the talk stuck with me.

thepublics: (Via MikeHudack)

‘The Soldiers Call It War Porn’

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which consequences does the drone war have for the nations that lead them?

Singer: War used to be a very serious decision. Now we don’t even declare war anymore. We don’t pay war taxes, we don’t buy war bonds. Now we can carry it out without having to deal with some of the consequences of sending our sons and daughters into harm’s way. It also changes the way politicians think about war. You already have society’s barriers against war dropping, and now you have a technology that takes the barriers to the ground.

Posted at 8:02 AM 36 notes Reblogged from mikehudack

Notes

  1. gh2u reblogged this from suddenly
  2. suddenly reblogged this from vruz and added:
    I’m all over it.
  3. buffleheadcabin reblogged this from vruz
  4. thoughtyouthought reblogged this from douglashaddow
  5. vruz reblogged this from oversets and added:
    ‘The Soldiers Call It War Porn’
  6. oversets reblogged this from douglashaddow
  7. andrewmcintyre reblogged this from douglashaddow
  8. apoplecticskeptic reblogged this from abcsoupdot
  9. markellison reblogged this from mikehudack and added:
    Received my copy of Singer’s Wired For War yesterday afternoon. Must start it soon.
  10. thegongshow reblogged this from mikehudack and added:
    When I graduated from college, one of the history professors spoke to the entire class at one of the many commencement...
  11. osmium reblogged this from mikehudack
  12. mikehudack reblogged this from abcsoupdot
  13. tosh728 reblogged this from abcsoupdot
  14. ookii reblogged this from abcsoupdot
  15. zaragolden reblogged this from douglashaddow and added:
    easier, commuting home every day? No, there’s a disconnect. You’re at war,...two minutes...
  16. sivrt reblogged this from douglashaddow
  17. douglashaddow posted this