I think I already commented on this one but I think it's a fascinating subject. In a way I can understand how you feel when a war is declared and the television depicts a force as powerful as the current US military unleashing enormous firepower upon an 'enemy' that by definition 'must be stopped.' That feeling of power filters over to you, the passive observer, who is a citizen of the US, and you feel a strange kind of pride at the immediacy of the event; the realness of the destruction; the authenticity of it all.
Now you yourself agree that this is an absurd standpoint. I think that your problem is WHY you feel such great satisfaction at witnessing such a fundamentally evil phenomenon as total war. My hypothesis is that it is the same sense of pride a person feels when his home team is winning the championship, but this is still absurd. I think the sports analogy must be combined with a deep-seated natural impulse we all share: the fight-or-flight response.
When we observe our country at war, and even when the opposing forces don't stand a chance, there is still an inherent possibility that someone on our side might die. If one person might die, then perhaps (albeit unlikely) all of them might die. This triggers the natural survival impulse, which in turn triggers an enthusiasm for all possible means of aggression and destruction (including your preposterous suggestion of nuclear warfare), all because the fight-or-flight impulse has overridden the moral impulse in the heat of a very real conflict.
I get the same aggressive feeling watching war as you do, in spite of the fact that I know what horrific suffering is taking place...
I love War
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I think I already commented on this one but I think it's a fascinating subject. In a way I can understand how you feel when a war is declared and the television depicts a force as powerful as the current US military unleashing enormous firepower upon an 'enemy' that by definition 'must be stopped.' That feeling of power filters over to you, the passive observer, who is a citizen of the US, and you feel a strange kind of pride at the immediacy of the event; the realness of the destruction; the authenticity of it all.
Now you yourself agree that this is an absurd standpoint. I think that your problem is WHY you feel such great satisfaction at witnessing such a fundamentally evil phenomenon as total war. My hypothesis is that it is the same sense of pride a person feels when his home team is winning the championship, but this is still absurd. I think the sports analogy must be combined with a deep-seated natural impulse we all share: the fight-or-flight response.
When we observe our country at war, and even when the opposing forces don't stand a chance, there is still an inherent possibility that someone on our side might die. If one person might die, then perhaps (albeit unlikely) all of them might die. This triggers the natural survival impulse, which in turn triggers an enthusiasm for all possible means of aggression and destruction (including your preposterous suggestion of nuclear warfare), all because the fight-or-flight impulse has overridden the moral impulse in the heat of a very real conflict.
I get the same aggressive feeling watching war as you do, in spite of the fact that I know what horrific suffering is taking place...