An interesting view on the motivation for war

[DivideBYZero]

The interviewer was discussing the subject of war again and said that, contrary to his (Goerings) attitude, he did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

I think it's an interesting viewpoint that has become a reality today. The man spoke over 50 years ago about that which we are experiencing every day in our modern lives.

Do people see it that way? Do you feel like you are being manipulated in the way described in the last paragraph?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edited so this OP will comply to the rules

Anandtech Senior Moderator
Red Dawn

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
The interviewer was discussing the subject of war again and said that, contrary to his (Goerings) attitude, he did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Discuss.

Divide by zero, you should know better than this. This post violates the P&N rules.

LOCK THIS SPAM UP!

 

[DivideBYZero]

I think it's an interesting viewpoint that has become a reality today. The man spoke over 50 years ago about that which we are experiencing every day in our modern lives.

Do people see it that way? Do you feel like you are being manipulated in the way described in the last paragraph?

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
I think it's an interesting viewpoint that has become a reality today. The man spoke over 50 years ago about that which we are experiencing every day in our modern lives.

Do people see it that way? Do you feel like you are being manipulated in the way described in the last paragraph?

Ok, since you are finally deciding to post a COMMENT on the interview here goes. These observations are certainly valid today. What more do you want?

 

[DivideBYZero]

Debate, now get out of the thread if you don't like it. n00b.

 

[Craig234]

It's one of the most famous quotes of interest to peace advocates. It's helpful as one of many to try to help people undrstand how they're manipulated. How their cherished loyalty to 'patriotism' and 'noble sacrifice' and the rest is so often manipulation to get them to support wrongful violence.

The point may not sink in for some, coming from a Nazi, perhaps they can better hear it from, say, one of our top World War II generals:

?Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense?. Indeed it is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.?
- Douglas MacArthur

Or perhaps from a philospher, centuries ago:

Can anything be more ridiculous that that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him.
- Pascal

Here's another selection of a few helpful quotes, the first another of the most popular, from our then most-decorated general in history when he realized the reasons for his wars:

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

"War is a racket. It has always been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives...At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other millionaires falisifed their income tax returns no one knows... The average earnings of the du Ponts [chemical/gun powder producers at the time] for the period 1910 to 1914 was six million dollars a year...[from]1914 to 1918...fifty-eight million dollars of profit we find...an increase of 950 percent..."
- General Smedley Butler

No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.

~A. J. P. Taylor

It is easier to lead men to combat and to stir up their passions than to temper them and urge them to the patient labors of peace.

Andre Gide

The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants and for peace like retarded pygmies.

Lester Pearson

"Terrorism" is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; "war" is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it.

Sydney J. Harris

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Debate, now get out of the thread if you don't like it. n00b.

A n00b as described by yourself would be one who posts a thread here without a comment other than "Discuss" n00b. "Discuss" hardly classifies as a comment. Go back to your bunker, I think the Feuheur is calling you.

 

[DivideBYZero]

*yawn*

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
*yawn*

*barf*

 

[StageLeft]

People love war, fvcking love it. Sure, they hate to die in it themselves, but they absolutely love the idea of their country fighting the good fight and blasting away others who are evil or trying to oppress them or any other bullsh*t excuse to see a good fight. Vicariously they can revel in the destruction and death of the opposition, in the same way people watched gladiatorial combat. That's all war is, a big gladiatorial fight on a huge stage. Some wars are just and some aren't, but people love a good war, they love its history, its weapons, its awfulness.

 

[Genx87]

He is speaking of the human pysch. Why do you think we have a war on poverty, drugs, and global warming? When people declare war on something it motivates others to do something about it because it creates a sense of urgency.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: Genx87
He is speaking of the human pysch. Why do you think we have a war on poverty, drugs, and global warming? When people declare war on something it motivates others to do something about it because it creates a sense of urgency.

I would say most importantly it creates a sense of validity. Saying we have to wage a war against something implicitly implies that that "something" is bad and evil. Saying we're waging a war on drugs implies that drugs are evil. And who wouldn't want to fight an evil? However, what it does, it prevents any intelligent discussion of the issue. Really, how many people have stopped and though about potential solutions to this problem other than the "war"? It's a classic appeal to authority fallacy. Government says we have to wage a war on poverty, drugs, on terrorists, Iraq, and people blindly accept it because of government authority.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: fleshconsumed

Originally posted by: Genx87
He is speaking of the human pysch. Why do you think we have a war on poverty, drugs, and global warming? When people declare war on something it motivates others to do something about it because it creates a sense of urgency.

I would say most importantly it creates a sense of validity. Saying we have to wage a war against something implicitly implies that that "something" is bad and evil. Saying we're waging a war on drugs implies that drugs are evil. And who wouldn't want to fight an evil? However, what it does, it prevents any intelligent discussion of the issue. Really, how many people have stopped and though about potential solutions to this problem other than the "war"? It's a classic appeal to authority fallacy. Government says we have to wage a war on poverty, drugs, on terrorists, Iraq, and people blindly accept it because of government authority.

I agree

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: fleshconsumed

Originally posted by: Genx87
He is speaking of the human pysch. Why do you think we have a war on poverty, drugs, and global warming? When people declare war on something it motivates others to do something about it because it creates a sense of urgency.

I would say most importantly it creates a sense of validity. Saying we have to wage a war against something implicitly implies that that "something" is bad and evil. Saying we're waging a war on drugs implies that drugs are evil. And who wouldn't want to fight an evil? However, what it does, it prevents any intelligent discussion of the issue. Really, how many people have stopped and though about potential solutions to this problem other than the "war"? It's a classic appeal to authority fallacy. Government says we have to wage a war on poverty, drugs, on terrorists, Iraq, and people blindly accept it because of government authority.

I agree

I have achieved the impossible. My work here in P&N is now done.

Good night.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
People love war, fvcking love it. Sure, they hate to die in it themselves, but they absolutely love the idea of their country fighting the good fight and blasting away others who are evil or trying to oppress them or any other bullsh*t excuse to see a good fight. Vicariously they can revel in the destruction and death of the opposition, in the same way people watched gladiatorial combat. That's all war is, a big gladiatorial fight on a huge stage. Some wars are just and some aren't, but people love a good war, they love its history, its weapons, its awfulness.

People glorify war because they are stupid. Or, if you want to go into more details they glorify it because 1) they are removed from it, they do not see the direct consequences of it, and 2) because they fail to consider long term consequences.

1. I truly believe it would be a lot different if each and every person saw the direct consequence of a way, either through knowing a veteran who came back from war maimed or a family who has been affected by the loss of a son in a war. It's easy to say "they sacrificed themselves" with a noble face, but it's different if you see someone struggling with their daily life because of war injuries or see a family destroyed because they lost loved one in a war. There was a lot of reaction on the web after a story about marine who essentially had his facial features burned off in Iraq war, then came back and married to his fiance. Sadly any reaction quickly died out. Now imagine thousands of other soldiers like this who are simply forgotten. Just because you don't hear about them in the news doesn't mean they do not exist. They are there, and there are a lot of them. Now ask yourself, is it REALLY worth it?

2. Second it boggles my mind when people fail to consider all of the war effects. In part I think it's because US hasn't waged a war on its own soil in almost 150 years. It's very easy to declare "mission accomplished" but then what happens to the country? The country is devastated by the war and it would take dozens of years to rebuild it, but it's usually dismissed because of mission accomplished. Iraq has electricity for only couple of hours a day. Most people would fail to see the true consequences of that. Most of the people would say so what? However, sporadic electricity means that doctors cannot perform surgeries, mortality rates sky rocket. It means that anyone on life support will die if electricity goes out and there is no backup generator. Even on the most basic level it means dark streets at night, so crime rates skyrocket as well. War destroys infrastructure. You destroy roads and now you cannot deliver gas to the gas station. That fedex you rely on can no longer deliver your packages because roads are all broken and because there is no gas. Hospitals cannot get medical supplies they need so mortality rates again skyrocket. Water treatment facilities no longer work. You cannot even get access to clean water. Infections and mortality rates skyrocket yet again. Does anyone remember youtube clip with a soldier on the back of a truck dangling bottle of water before some Iraqi kid? Yes, the soldier was a heartless bastard, but has anyone really gave it much thought to the fact that the kid ran for a mile for a bottle of water. A frigging 500ml bottle of water. Let it really sink into your brain. A bottle of water. A bottle of water. People in the United States would never even imagine why would someone want a bottle of water so much. However, for many Iraqis clean drinking water is a luxury. And then you haven't even considered the effects on the economy. People whine about 6.5% unemployment rate. Consider what kind of unemployment rate Iraq have right now when so many of the factories, hospitals, businesses are in ruins? Now tell me, how many people have ever considered all of the above before going into Iraq war? Probably very few if any at all.


War should be the very last resort. It should be used only if there is a direct conflict and every single attempt to resolve it peacefully has failed. Unfortunately this has not been the case for a very long time.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
I think it's an interesting viewpoint that has become a reality today. The man spoke over 50 years ago about that which we are experiencing every day in our modern lives.

His statements weren't prophetic by any means, he was simply recounting what has been going on since long before his time.

 

[daveshel]

I think that this was the thing that made the build-up to the Iraq war so frustrating. To hear the same old rallying cries of recycled propaganda after a generation of believing that we had learned better, that we had evolved beyond being sucked in by such blatant manipulations, then to find out we never learned a damn thing...

I guess I was overly optimistic: after all, I should have noted that the generation raised on "A Farewell to Arms" had forgotten about it in time for WWII.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
I think it's an interesting viewpoint that has become a reality today. The man spoke over 50 years ago about that which we are experiencing every day in our modern lives.

His statements weren't prophetic by any means, he was simply recounting what has been going on since long before his time.

I at no point stated he was the first to realise it!

 

[Lemon law]

As an interesting aside from the Nuremberg war crimes trials, of all the captured Nazi's, Goering had the highest IQ. And as we can see from his quote, was quite the cynic able to connect the dots. Goering was also the Nazi who conducted the most spirited defense at Nuremberg, knowing all the while he was likely to get the death penalty. And when proved right, he cheated the hangman by committing suicide just before.

But in a thread about war, the USA has not really won a war since WW2, but our foreign policy has seemingly started many other wars overseas that others pay the price for. And very often the USA much later pays
the price for only short term gains. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Israel, Vietnam, Lebanon, and many other countries have been destabilized by US foreign policy. And the damage, not always in the form of military aggression, almost always comes back to bite them and us.

 

[Moonbeam]

As long as human beings don't know they hate themselves, that they were falsely make to feel worthless as children, we will have war because self hate is at once the root of fear, the fear of remembering and feeling how bad we feel, and the root of hate, the will to get even for out hidden pain. For war to occur you need only fear of and demomizing of some 'other', in any way you can do it.

Remember, we will go extinct before we willingly remember. The motivation against knowing our self hate is tremendous and you can't have the slightest idea. You can't know what you feel or how deeply you feel it unless you feel.

 

[StageLeft]

Fleshconsumed, the closest most of us ever get to war and its effects is in video games or movies. It is glorified in, and a central point of, entertainment. We find violenece to be enjoyable. We love to watch bad men on tv be tortured because we imagine ourselves doing the act and being justified in it. We love war reenactment movies, movies about new wars, video games with it, ad tedium. War to North Americans costs money and lives lost and injuries, but to the rest of us we don't see it. We've never been at work wondering if our house was just hit in the last bombing run or whether the needed supply of dry milk made it to the grocer. Interestingly, England loves war and death in its entertainment, too. It is insatiable, our appetite for death. Some of us find it abhorrent more than others. I love it in video games, but I am informed enough to know that in real life it is no joke and would not brush aside collateral damage with the ease that others seem to, because every person who dies could have been me, had I been born like them. Every dead soldier has a mother or a wife.

 

[ProfJohn]

"A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him"
- Napoleon Bonaparte

There is nothing new or revolutionary in what Goering said. The only reason this quote is of any meaning is because of who said it.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
"A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him"
- Napoleon Bonaparte

There is nothing new or revolutionary in what Goering said. The only reason this quote is of any meaning is because of who said it.

Why are people discounting this because it is not 'new'? It boggles the mind that you wish to throw its significance away simply based upon who said it and when. It does not live or die simply because of who said it.

 

[Arkaign]

From my perspective, there is almost invariably a justification for self-defense when attacked in war. Respectively, there is almost invariably no credible or acceptable justification for starting a conflict or war. There are exceptions to both of these, but they merely prove the rule.

This does nothing to diminish my sincere and deep respect for our armed services, and those who have served our country with honor when called upon, or who train for the possible day that they are.

Something else to remember. In a philosophical sense, in almost every war between contemporary powers, the people that have most in common with the soldiers on the ground in a time of war, are first the men and women around them, and after that, the soldiers on the enemy side. They are the fodder, almost disposable, that are controlled by leaders sitting in relative safety often many thousands of miles away. There are exceptions to this of course as well, but it also usually proves true.

 

[HomerJS]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
"A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him"
- Napoleon Bonaparte

There is nothing new or revolutionary in what Goering said. The only reason this quote is of any meaning is because of who said it.

Granted, but why don't people in this country remember it.

We don't seem capable of learning from history.