To kill a man in war is okay and in fact seen as a courageous act

The advancement of the nation is noble, but the ruling elite doing so for their own benefit is not. So the ruling elite deceiving the population doesn't actually make advancing the nation a negative. The act itself is good.

>The advancement of the nation is noble
Why though?

How would going to war benefit the common man of your nation? Because if history has proven anything all war gets for the lower classes is lots of orphans and widows.

>muh zero sum games

Civic duty, in older days soldiers could profit more directly from wars (looting/pillaging, slaves, land etc..)

It doesn't have to be zero sum, that that is even more beneficial since you make yourself stronger and competition weaker

Sounds pretty self destructive desu senpai

>Civic duty
That's a big spook, which is exactly the kind of false-solidarity I'm talking about.

How so? It seems like your concern was just that ruling elites may manipulate the lower classes. Not against the concept itself (other than maybe its been easy to manipulate lower classes in recent history. That's more a problem with the system of government though.)

>Why?
Because it's beneficial for the leaders of a nation to get citizens to believe that they should WANT to fight when their leaders tell them to. The whole "glory in battle" thing is one of the oldest scams on earth.

youtube.com/watch?v=m0m573MxXXw&feature=youtu.be&t=1917

It's very obvious how war benefits the elites. It opens up markets that may otherwise have been difficult to penetrate, weakens the opposition and you can make the losing government more compliant to your ambitions (or try to anyway).

But the lower classes do not get any such benefit. They get a lot of death, injury and suffering but when they come home things are just as they were before - and just as they would be regardless of how powerful the native elites are. But of course there can be exceptions to this, particularly in defensive wars against an enemy that's openly hostile to your way of life or even very existence.

However nationalism creates a way to make the lower classes more compliant to the expansionist ambitions of their ruling powers. It creates solidarity between everyone in the nation on that basis providing a pretext for one man's ambitions to become the ambitions of the nation.

Civic duty is simply the manifestation of this. When aggressive nationalism is ingrained into the public psyche it becomes a crime in itself to refuse to fight as seen in Britain during WW1. Thus the only rational interest the working man would have in going to war is to avoid the stigma and possible legal action his own "nation" would do unto him as an outgrowth of how they've internalized nationalism.

It is, and those leaders should/would fight as well.

> The whole "glory in battle" thing is one of the oldest scams on earth.

not necessarily, it can be crucial to a societies survival

It all starts with a basic fact: the human mind is inherently selfish. At the same time, it evolved with many pathological influences conflict with that selfishness. So in order to convince itself that it is not selfish, it manufactures "greater causes" and "higher powers" that it must fight for. These greater causes and higher powers are usually the same: God, the state, overall society, the environment (to some extent), et cetera. It will then apply labels, like "courageous" or "brave" or "honorable", to any of those who happen to partake in this fighting, in order to encourage them and others to keep doing so.

In order for a person to be honest with themselves, they must first recognize these pathological influences as the root cause. Then, they must either conform to them (and thus conform to their humanity), or deny them altogether, along with their humanity, through the act of suicide.

>It's very obvious how war benefits the elites
I never said it doesn't benefit them, just that it doesn't have to only benefit them.

>But the lower classes do not get any such benefit.
Except for the ones you and I listed, depending on the circumstances and government.

>However nationalism creates a way to make the lower classes more compliant to the expansionist ambitions of their ruling powers. It creates solidarity between everyone in the nation
Which can be a very good thing, again your only down side is when elites use this for their own selfish gain.
This can be dealt with by having a strong constitution/set of laws

>the human mind is inherently selfish

It also has inherent altruism (biological version), It's a false dichotomy.

>It opens up markets that may otherwise have been difficult to penetrate, weakens the opposition
which is also good for lower classes

>I never said it doesn't benefit them, just that it doesn't have to only benefit them.
I know, I was just adding context to the following point.

>Except for the ones you and I listed, depending on the circumstances and government.
As I'm saying these are very specialized circumstances. I don't remember Vietnam or Iraq ever attacking the US yet they sent a lot of Americans to die fighting them regardless.

>This can be dealt with by having a strong constitution/set of laws
Not necessarily, because the elites are not subject to the state. On the contrary if they truly are the ruling elites then the state is simply an arm of their power.

As long as power flows from the top downwards there will always be needless imperialist expansion because when society is structered as such all authority is subject to elite ambitions that are removed from common concerns. It is only when the government is so neutered to be useless to use as an arm of power, and when the working people are armed and emancipated from elite interests that a society could properly commit itself to peace.

>As I'm saying these are very specialized circumstances. I don't remember Vietnam or Iraq ever attacking the US yet they sent a lot of Americans to die fighting them regardless.

I definitely agree in the modern era it has been less beneficial, even detrimental for lower classes than in the past.

>Not necessarily, because the elites are not subject to the state. On the contrary if they truly are the ruling elites then the state is simply an arm of their power.

It worked well for Rome, Soldiers at the assembly could refuse to go to war, though they rarely ever voted not to go to war, I think there was one time with a war in hispania they voted not to since it wasnt profitable and it was dangerous.

Anyways, history is clear of examples where this can be incredibly beneficial and the laws that help encourage it

Rome is a special case given that the bureaucracy was very efficient and military service was reasonably rewarding for Legionaires. However modern change in the structure of government and society has made these kinds of practices impossible in the present day.

However history also clearly shows that eventually the government bureaucracy and military structure will break down under the changing ambitions of the ruling class, and then eventually the entire structure of society will be destroyed and replaced with a new means of organization - as with Rome in the transformation from slaver state to feudalism.

>Rome is a special case given that the bureaucracy was very efficient and military service was reasonably rewarding for Legionaires. However modern change in the structure of government and society has made these kinds of practices impossible in the present day.

Not impossible, they would have to be rewarded in a few other ways. And nothing stops soldiers themselves from voting on declarations of war.

>However history also clearly shows that eventually the government bureaucracy and military structure will break down under the changing ambitions of the ruling class, and then eventually the entire structure of society will be destroyed and replaced with a new means of organization - as with Rome in the transformation from slaver state to feudalism.

Do you believe that is related to having a sense of civic duty at all? Every civilization is destroyed in some way.

Ends justify the means
Look at the Native Americans
Yes many died and but it was all for the better

>I know what happens if what happened didn't happen how it happened.

>Not impossible, they would have to be rewarded in a few other ways. And nothing stops soldiers themselves from voting on declarations of war.
The accountability of the Roman senate is a great part of why this is impossible. The way in which Censors enforced strict ethical standards and limited the power of senators made it so that the state was so much more finely tuned. The great roadblock to implementing such a system today is the fact that senators were unable to partake in banking or really any kind of public dealings. Today when all power comes from capital such a system of scrutiny isn't attainable.

>Do you believe that is related to having a sense of civic duty at all? Every civilization is destroyed in some way.
Exactly, every civilization is eventually destroyed. Just as the Romans eventually broke down when the elite became all the more elite but at the same time all the more ineffectual, and the people grew broader it's inevitable that eventually the present system of society is going to collapse and transform into something new rather than regressing into something resembling the Romans. Probably into socialism.

Speak English motherfucker

You say it was all for the better, yet you can't claim to know what would have happened if history had played out differently, perhaps an even better situation may have arisen.

Oh okay I understand what you are saying
Essentially you are saying that the native Americans might have formed some better than the United States
Well fair enough you have a point
It might have been better for the world but the way it turned out favord the immigrants to the United States
It allowed them to create the most powerful nation the world has ever seen
So I would say it turned out very well for the USA

How does he have a point?
The founding fathers had thousands of years of Western philosophical thought behind them in postulating the structures of America. Do you think that savages could have "formed some better than the United States" without learning from thousands of years of error? Without Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, Montesquieu, Burke, Maistre, Bentham, and the countess other political philosophers inbetween that our country was a cumulated sublation?

You're missing the general point, but it's hypothetically possible that the western ideas would permeate, and the Iroquois already had an interesting government system that influenced the American one.

Should America as we know it today cause the collapse of civilization in the future, you might take a different tone of "If only the natives in America had been left alone, we could have prevented this catastrophe." A better situation, indeed, if all it took to save humanity was to prevent the formation of one country.

Many Native Americans probably think that same thought as we speak.

youre supporting imperialism if you live in a nato alligned country

The idea that it's morally reprehensible to kill outside of war is because it's supported by people within your country who are in the pool of people you could possibly kill if it were allowed

In war you will be killing people outside of the country which doesnt effect the people saying it is morally reprehensible to kill someone outside of war

That was really interesting. I can't imagine how difficult that probably is to deal with. To go from such a chaotic environment where you can do anything with little to no consequences to come back home must be very difficult.

I don't know and I hope to not find out, but I suspect that killing a man in war does not feel that much different from murdering a man in peace.

unless its a civil war

but yea, killing is only cool during war
thats what war is about, mass organised violence, torture, rape and murder

people dont get this, in america especialy, kind of how they dont get european relation to guns and gun ownership

war is a different state of things, a alltogether different set of situations and relations to other humans
things are done during war that would be seen as criminal and inhuman, but its war

kind of like back in 2010 or what was it, when those shots of american soldiers killing wounded guerrilas while clearing some building came out

and everione was like hurr durr geneva convention and so on

but... i mean... are you retarded... its fucking WAR

war is literaly a different reality, as if some disembodied entity came down upon the land and the people and all things are submited to its logic

Joining the military is immoral act. There is no need to damage control and deny that. But it can be a lesser evil than not participating in defensive war against more amoral enemy.

There is no any different reality.
Reality is a one kind of a thing user.

Few people join the military for their country. Many join because... Well, what else are they gonna do?

So gas attacks and nuclear weapons are totally justifiable because War is le Hell?

Would you still be saying that shit if your brother got shot in the back of the head after surrendering? Or your nonexistent GF got raped by some Slavs? No, you'd be less of an edgy child and understand why we have fucking rules in everything we do. Especially war.

Collectivism dictates that if you don't do something for selfish reasons, its not wrong.

Today's combat is much different. Like drone pilots who are half way around the world. Really deserve no medals.

>war
>One is to defend your country and your land.
So I guess all those conquerors and agressors were cowards.

Probably my favorite war documentary. Wish more were made like this.

>So gas attacks and nuclear weapons are totally justifiable because War is le Hell?
Yes.

If you start to use dirty tactics you better win. War is always horrible but its only the prolongation of politics. You have to think about what will happen after the war. Its not only about winning or losing

edgy

How fucking stupid can you be to think that is an appropriate mindset? We came up with the Geneva conventions to mitigate some of the effects of war and to stop criminals hiding behind your mindset of "it's war, different rules". It's very easy for you to say these things in your armchair a thousand miles from any conflict zone, but if war was to happen near you, you'd be fucking grateful for the "hurr durr Geneva Convention".

Hitler: You dont ask the winner about his motives.