Adonis Diaries

The Love-hate of militarism: why this perpetual pre-emptive war concept?

Initial draft was written on December 14, 2007.

Militarism is a deadly system and the army is a diabolic machine designed and refined through time immemorial to squelch the individuality of the recruits and soldiers once they enter the system.

There is no need to describe the process of forming soldiers because countless movies have shown the humiliating and brutal states of going through a working day during the preliminary phases of indoctrination.

First, the recruits enter in regular columns in a vast court and in their civil clothing: the dresses show disparities in an unequal society. Then the recruits are given a unique uniform to provide the illusion of fraternity and equality and then they are ordered to chant in cadence while marching in order to prevent any kind of internal thinking.

The core objective in the design of this system is to eliminate thinking by constant chores, fatigue, sleeplessness. The collective passion of hating the drill sergeant is meant to secure unity among the recruits.

An evident objective target is to behave as a total ignorant and cursing non-stop; a drill sergeant who transformed your individual freedom and sense of dignity into a nightmare of nothingness.

The drill sergeant is obeying to a higher ranked officer, who in turn is obeying to another superior and so on to higher grades.

The higher your education the meaner the tasks and the lower your comprehension compared to the variety of stupid animals you are labeled with.

Once your hate is complete for the drill sergeant and the lower officers then you are trained to transfer your negative emotion to a complete love of your intelligent superior officer; an officer that acts as if he is attentive to your plights, who listens to your lucubration and who praises your accomplishments and education and efforts.

For the Captain the recruits and soldiers are thus ready to die because they love their new found idol and hero.

The officers in the military would argue that no society in history managed to survive without strong, solid and enduring soldiers organized to hunt large beasts, and defend the tribe from predators or enemies and to aid during catastrophic events.

In times of relative peace, (so little), soldiers are called upon to face the damages of nature, hurricanes, volcanic irruptions, bursting of dams, inundations, wild fires, pillage, and curfews.

Sure, there are always volunteers in catastrophic incidents but nothing is as efficient as ordering a whole company of soldiers to the scene and following bit-wise instructions.

A true soldier lies when he says that he detests war? That’s what this institution tries to send the message.

A true soldier loves wars not because he is fundamentally bad and thirsty of blood but simply because war offers an exclusive opportunity to reveal exasperated vitality, defiance, mystery of the next phase and we have no idea whether we will witness the ending in each act in the comedy of life.

During the fighting, our senses are more attuned to details, to nature, to human behavior and comprehending man as we never will during peace time.

We have the opportunity to study the existence even better than philosophers do, if we have the necessary intelligence.

Those categories of men who are prone to gambling and taking risks will discover that war is much more exiting and fun than hunting and tracking beasts in forests, or sitting around roulette tables because we are ultimately gambling with their lives and against imminent death.

Although soldiers are not more stupid, ignorant, or limited mentally than the average citizens, they are nevertheless considered as trained beasts waiting for excuses to exercise their aggressive tendencies.

Surely, most soldiers are recruited from the very young and they look as children and viewed as potential threats when indoctrinated to kill and manipulating fire arms and explosives.

Surely, soldiers are not officially prevented to learn and read sophisticated books or even delve into art and culture, but peer pressures within the military at that young age is certainly an insurmountable barrier for acquiring knowledge; especially, if the officers are most of the time in cohort with the rough soldiers to humiliate and discourage the bright artistic mind among the soldiers.

The discouraging tendencies to learn about arts and cultures are bluntly and consciously administered in the constant shouting and cursing and fowl wording in the orders of the superiors to their inferiors in ranks.

The officers in the lower echelons receive the same conscious disinclination to further learning from their immediate higher officers who conduct themselves in the same manners of brutal, uncultured manners.

Very few officers get beyond the rank of Colonels simply because they failed to discern what is relevant at higher ranks:  they failed to continue their education and show appreciative initiatives to learning what is relevant in civilian life so that they can deal like representatives of the higher officers among the civilians and government services.

The multitude of officers who failed to be promoted to higher ranks are those who remained adolescents in their behaviors; they never grew out of their earlier indoctrination as soldiers, and resumed their army jobs as if they were
doing the right things in obeying and following the same trends while in the lower ranks.

When these low achievers among the officers are dismissed or forced to early retirement, they realize that they actually have Not much to offer to the civilian community to earn a living or be leaders: they spend their retirements boasting of events that grew out of their imaginations and indulge in low active mental endeavors.

We hear again and again that war is an extension to diplomacy; that is utter lie.

The basic cause for an offensive war was never against real external enemies or because of the accumulation of evidences that an enemy is preparing for war.

War for the colonial powers has always been an exercise to shift the fight from providing solutions to internal stagnation (a depressive attitude among the people); the impotence and unimaginative solutions to internal apathy, indolence and a sense that something is rotten in the society.

War is an alternative to get rid of the irreducible among the adolescents and controlling those that can be controlled to fit within the social norms and customs.

War is an outlet to postpone changes, to distance ourselves from the hard chores of comprehending “le mal” of the period, what is making the adolescents restless, hateful, and uncompromising.

War is an emulation of ancient razzias against caravans and other tribes because new generations were not happy with their lot and wanted easy and quick money for their ephemeral vitality and imaginations.

War is the results of internal youth dissatisfaction and thus, the politicians and moral clerics start collecting excuses and devising plans for potential external enemies to relieve the internal pressures and open the valve for exporting the exuberance of rage and vitality outside the frontiers.

Potential wars are more common than actually declared wars:  once the adolescents are recruited into the army then, very often temporary malaise in societies, are mostly solved or blunted.

Consequently, the process that new recruits go through explains the real reason why they have been asked to join the military: control of the new vitality and rage and providing an outlet by physical constant useless tasks and hardships.

If society had the resources and imagination to put youth to fruitful paying jobs it wouldn’t relegate its youth into the hand of the military in the first place.

No sane mind would undergo the humiliating process of the military if he was not promised potential active wars, internally or externally, to relieve his anxieties from the daily decisions for survival and boasting about his male potentials and the longing for travel and seeing the world.

Actually, the single major factor in building a “nation”, superimposed the concept of Fatherland on the population, was war.

Frequent wars among the European monarchs, the flood of blood shed and shared miseries against targeted enemies and millions under the flags, which united the people under a unique banner, have opened the gate for colonialism and subsequent change and renewals.

Bertrand Russell was not far off when he pointed out that our military aggressiveness is an extension to our ancestral genetic development.

As young specie, modern human is grappling with scientific achievements that accrued much faster than his spiritual and moral development: the recurring wars are natural tendencies to how we behaved and struggled for many centuries against nature, beast and hungry rivals.

The United Nation is a cornerstone to clarifying the code of conducts and establishing laws for human rights and responsibilities toward other populations.

I am for adolescents, males and females, undergoing military training for six months just to get exposed to discipline, endurance and skills for handling catastrophic events.

For the life of me, I cannot comprehend why military training should allow cursing, humiliation and the subjugation of
individuality.

Any sane society should keep a core of trained soldiers and officers, but a large standing army is tantamount to expressing a complete impotence for providing jobs to adolescents and a structure to assimilating them usefully in society.

Anyway, a career in the military that extend beyond 7 years is robbing the soldiers and officers the potential for  integrating society as productive civilians and recreating a second life that may satisfy their longing and dreams as imaginative and creative individuals.

Keeping the trained soldiers and officers on reserve when the Nation demands their expertise and discipline is a much better alternative than locking them in barracks for pittance and encouraging indolence and sapping any initiatives and taking daily decisions to caring for their families and kids and themselves.

There is no doubt in my mind that our instinct to hate is much more powerful than to love; our instinct for jealousy much more lethal than friendship, and in general, our negative tendencies much easier to express than our positive attitudes that need to be sculpted and refined.

The ancient civilizations have found a better alternative to atone for their negative sentiments; they used to sacrifice a first born son or the most beautiful virgin in the community at a major festival in the year so that they may comprehend the cruelty of their behavior.

Unless we discover what is of the highest value to us to sacrifice, every now and then, war and killing for ridiculous excuses would be the rule of the game.

What could be of the utmost value for modern man, as specie, that its sacrifice would atone for our hateful instincts?

Would it be disintegrating a ton of pure gold?

Sacrificing a Nobel peace laureate?

Destroying the highest tower in the world?

Burning the most prized painting?

Pulverizing the most valued original manuscripts?

Killing the most powerful man in the world?

Stoning the most saint person?

Crucifying the highest priests of the major religions?

Hanging the highest ranking Generals in the G8 States?

Investing the budget of an average developed State in the poorest State each year?

Imploding the Holy Cities and sites of pilgrimage?

I am running out of ideas.  What is of the utmost value for us that need to be sacrificed once a year that would prevent our specie to advance to war?

Let us think of a basket of precious values that would satisfy the idiosyncrasies of the major civilizations.

This is a sermon.  If you deign to reply then let your passion flow.  I am interested to learn clearly where you stand currently on this subject.