[extropy-chat] my country, right or wrong

[Technotranscendence]

I'm not sure if there is a connection and just what you mean by "manhood" in this context.  What you were told in kindergarten seems a cultural thing.  I was not told the same.  I did not have the same experience as you.  Also, the kind of nationalism you're pointing to has only been around for a few hundred years and really only started to catch on around the world during the 19th and 20th centuries.  Humans warred long before that -- and given the events of chimp wars, it's likely proto-humans warred too -- so this link between nationalism, manhood, and war seems tenuous to me.

Or, to be charitable, I don't see much coming from it.  (I see you making a link between them, but I'm not convinced yet.:)  I don't think you'll be able to make much social change by pointing out that manhood itself is somehow the cause of social evils.  People have been doing that for a long time and I'm not sure it's made things better.

Then again, maybe one could link the intensity of warfare to rise of nationalism and of the increase in ideological wars.  By the latter is meant wars that are not self-limiting and purely territorial.  Medieval wars, e.g., for the most part were territorial disputes and thereby self-limiting.  Once the victor got the land he was after, the war pretty much ended and the goal was rarely total destruction of the enemy.  Ideological wars, on the other hand, tend to become total wars and really only end with the annihilation of one party.  E.g., you don't defeat fascism, communism, capitalism, Christianity, Islam, etc. until all their believers are converted or wiped out (or, at least, a significant number of them are wiped out to neutralize them as a movement).

Would manhood fit into this?  Perhaps.  It could be harnessed -- as can any facet of culture -- to bolster the war-making effort.  Heck, during WW1 and WW2, motherhood was used to whip people into a war frenzy.  Is motherhood to blame for war?

And a better way to lessen wars would be to slash government military budgets (down to zero if possible), lower the size of the government military (again, down to zero), abandon many foreign commitments, and foster, as much as possible, free trade through unilaterally opening markets.  Privatizing military forces would probably be best too.  If each person had to pay the direct cost of all the military she or he wanted, I think most people would opt for purely defensive forces and there would be a marked drop in foreign adventures -- save for those few who felt some kind crusading spirit.  Those few would be very few indeed and their leaving on such adventures would likely be no great loss and even a welcome respite from their bleeding heart asinine harangues.

Regards,

Dan
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/
  From: Alan Brooks 
  To: ExI chat list 
  Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 1:05 PM
  Subject: [extropy-chat] my country, right or wrong


  Perhaps you are right here, however don't you see the crucial link between war and manhood? I suspect as long as men will be men, then war will be war. I can clearly remember being told in kindergarten about forty five years ago of how "a real man will lay down his life and serve his Country"-- right or wrong; the situation hasn't changed all that much since then. We're inching forward like snails and it's time to admit it.

  >> Also, Alan's view seems to smack of an everywhere similar,
  >> constant socio-cultural evolution. In fact, the opposite seems
  >> true: different patterns and rates of change all over the
  >> place. Regards, Dan


  nattering nabob of positivism since 1976
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