Is there glory in war? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15249518
Is there glory in war? Anti-war movies like Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) would say no. However, George Packer offers a different perspective in the article “On Democracy’s Front Lines” in the October 2022 issue of The Atlantic:

Shouts of “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” might make certain European bureaucrats and American pundits smile with uneasy condescension, but Ukraine under invasion is not a place where the clever refinements of a detached intellectual have much use.
#15249523
There is no glory in war. It is just something that is perpetrated by assholes like Putin.

Glory to Ukraine is just a euphemism for "Victory to Ukraine".
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By Godstud
#15249526
There was, perhaps, glory in war a long time ago, when it was about facing someone bravely, and fighting face to face. Those times are over. Mechanized warfare made this a thing of the past. There is no longer glory in war, if there ever even was any.
Last edited by Godstud on 04 Oct 2022 01:07, edited 1 time in total.
By Rich
#15249586
Prestige, fame and moral worth from the use of violence is pretty close to the definition of glory. Even our modern societies love violence, nay worship violence, although we like to pretend we don't. Hence so many royals go into the armed forces, even when they're totally unsuited like Prince Charles. We also see it with the liberals and the left. Its always we're fighting for this and fighting for that, constant labeling things as violent struggles even when they're patently not. "Fighting" could mean something as undramatic as going out and getting some signatures, hell fighting today could just mean going on to Facebook and posting some likes.

Now a lot of people will find pre modern warfare more to their taste. A lot of people feel that pre modern warfare was more noble. Which I guess in a literal sense was true. The common soldier was pretty much nameless and unremembered in pre modern times. It was less concerned with logistics (it still mattered but less so) because food was often just stolen from the local population. Again it was more noble, because this didn't concern the nobles, if the ordinary people were left to starve and their daughters were raped by the soldiers. Another key difference was the almost complete absence of women. Despite the pathetic fantasies of Hollywood. Modern weapons, the equalisers for example allowed women snipers to make very important contribution in the Soviet World War II army.
Last edited by Rich on 04 Oct 2022 17:48, edited 1 time in total.
#15249588
There is manufactured glory in war. Chomsky's manufactured consent is about how societies ramp up ways of glorifying warfare. But is war glorious? It is not. It is in fact? Painful, tragic, chaotic, disruptive, toxic, false in the promise of a sure and quick outcome that guarantees wealth, health and prosperity for all involved.

But one thing human beings learn from warfare. That what is truly valuable in the end? Is life. How you lived your life and whom you met in life. And being alive was the important part of your existence. The one that had an opportunity to be heard. And remembered. When one thinks about how much work goes into raising a baby to adulthood and to have all those meals, lessons, love, caring and work be blown away not in the age of a human's natural ending, but in its full and youthful bloom....is the very definition of human waste and human offensive action. It is profoundly obscene and disrespectful. But people think it is the solution to the conflict. It never is. It is the result of ego and people in power who think their egos are more important than another human life. And especially not worth the death of thousands or millions of other human lives.

War is for sociopaths. It is.
#15249593
Is there glory in war? FUUUUCCCCCKKKKK NOO! War SUCKS! But hey! I am all about Ukraine kicking ass, taking names and winning their against the Russian invasion.

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