There was once a time when one had to actually have physical contact with a man in order to kill him.But as our weapons have "improved" so has our ability to distance ourselves from this act of violence.
Propaganda was often used to turn ones enemy into some form of "otherness".
Into beings without worth.
But as the world has become more diverse, many could not identify an enemy as such just because he may look different from oneself.
For a generation raised on the impersonality of video games, what is the next step in removing the connection between the act of taking another man's life and oneself?
Drones are used as a buffer between what a person does and how that person feels about himself.If one never hears the anguished, sees the blood, or smells the rot of a dead man - can he really be expected to understand the cost of the lives he is taking?
13 comments:
the driving force in a nutshell....,
which makes our president a high evolutionary of sorts, don't it?
Do you trust him?
Does that trust factor matter?
Do you think state-of-the-art methods will come into play as part of domestic consequence management?
Have you peeped one of these yet?
MWUA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Our dissconnection with our actions and how they affect others is truly being "past feeling" as scriptures put it.
If I abstain from violent video games and entertainment for a period of time, then watch a detailed news story... it has power. I can feel it.
If I watch the same story just after blowing up a city on the computer and watching apacolypse now for the 3rd time.... I shrug my shoulders and carry on.
The military has been trying to find a way to teach soldiers to kill for a long time. According to a few things I've heard and read even when face to face with the enemy many soldiers won't pull the trigger. So virtual war solves this problem. We'll be seeing a lot more of it.
There is no more honor in fighting anymore. Back in the day you knew what you were fighting for - country, freedom etc. Now the lines are so blurred. All violence is justified now. I heard yesterday that a girl in New Jersey or New York killed another person because she wanted to know what it felt like. We have made our enemies into shadow figures with nameless faces. Not taking into account that they have loved ones at home too. They had lives before they went to war. They were humans. Sure the terrorists deserve what they get but the regular citizens just collateral damage. But I'm just rambling here.
Excellent point!!!
There was a time when you watched your enemy die at your hand, it's not like that on today's battlefields for the most part. We kill from missiles and drones and planes and artillery from a mile away. Our troops don't get to watch their enemy die, as often. To me, that's a good thing and a bad thing at the same time.
General Sherman said it best, war is hell.
"If one never hears the anguished, sees the blood, or smells the rot of a dead man - can he really be expected to understand the cost of the lives he is taking?"UBJ
Same principle as using a credit card. Divorced from the hard earned labor that money grants and instead it becomes decimals on a screen...also makes it easier to rationalize white collar crime. Disconnect...I feel you.
You know, those anonymous Chinese-writing commenters won't return if you make a habit of deleting as soon as you see their stuff...
Re: this post.
Truth is the first casualty of war. War has become like Roach & Mouse Hotels where you never see the dead. That's because the victims killed are dehumanized and depersonalized, beginning with propaganda and ending with cowardice: killing the innocent from a distance and lying that "insurgents" were at a wedding or hiding in village where the entire population is exterminated.
I think Barack is trying to avoid this in his own backdoor strategy. Come by and read what I said about it.
Or with the chinese writing you take their IP address from their comment and block it. There should be a IP deny part to blogger but I am not sure cuz I use wordpress.
Wars still have to be won by boots on the ground. Ground combat--where one often does see the person one kills--is still integral to war. "Shock and Awe" proved that. It took ground campaigns, like the battle of Fallujah, to turn the tide.
And it is those ground campaigns where one still feels the trauma's of war. I don't think that the personal violence found in war will disappear completely in our lifetime (despite advances in technology aimed at protecting and distancing soldiers from the violence of warfare).
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