>what drives men to war?
I dont mean the higher ups, who have personal vendettas and send hordes to go out and kill for their own interest. The common man, the guy who isnt quite sure why hes there, but willing to go through hell and sacrifice it all. Is this innate in all men? Why are men so willing to fight?
brainwashing and propaganda
>>1197259
I think its moreso innate. Look at the American Civil War and WW1 where people were elated at the news of war and were volunteering in the thousands to join.
>>1197259
>people still don't realize that warfare is an innate part of human nature
>people still don't realize that 30-40% of pre-Neolithic human remains have shown signs of combat related injury
I can't speak for those who joined in times past, but I feel as if lately the biggest motivator for a lot of people to sign up is a desire for college or a lack of other options. Then again, in the small town I grew up in, there were at least a few kids who joined because they watched a fuckton of war movies and thought war was cool as fuck.
>>1197255
Idk. Unless some guy is in my backyard trying to take my lands and rape my mothers and sisters, I'm not going to war.
I'll be a guerrilla before I become a body for men in suits to manipulate. And I love America but no amount of brainwashing will have me in the military. Plus I have astigmatism so they won't accept me but that's not the point!
>>1197255
boredom
easy money and looting
>>1197268
>There are mongoloids on this planet that dont realise that if they were born 70 years earlier, from then until the beginning of humanity it is highly likely they would have been forced to engage in warfare, or simply die at birth
fucking mad when you think about innit
>>1197268
>muh human nature
just because cavemen were literal savages doesn't mean we should look up to them
>>1197297
You cannot deny what you are. Humans are biologically identical today to those same "savage cavemen". The only thing preventing us from cannibalizing each other both literally and metaphorically is a lifetime of social conditioning.
For most of history the general rule is that they were either conscripted/levied or just wanted a stable job. But this >>1197259
plays a part too of course.
>>1197273
The indoor suspension "”""" teacher """""" at my school spent most of his life in the marines. He had his purple heart framed hanging in the class room.
When he was 17 his parents kicked him out and his only option was the Marines.
One day, I was suspended and toward the end of the day we would all talk to each other. Some hood kid asked him sarcastic as fuck if he ever shot someone. Without hesitation he said yes. Someone else asked how did it feel? Without hesitation
>great, because they were shooting at me.
Idk how much of a patriot he was. But the second someone tried killing him , he was more than happy to go along with the games.
Went to Vietnam, Iraq 1 and 2, Grenada, dude was everywhere.
>>1197297
He never said that in the post you replied to
Pussy, Food, Money.
Most conflicts comes down to one of these three.
>>1197255
Reports that the enemy is killing pregnant women, impaling their fetuses and dashing the children's heads against the ground.
You hear that, the war has begun.
>>1197418
You separate the propaganda from the actions; I don't. They go together. Usually people start killing pregnant women and their babies. But if they don't, someone will say that they are.
It's every war. It's very predictable.
>>1197309
>You cannot deny what you are.
As rational creatures yes, we can. Humans are uniquely capable of identifying and combating their instinctual desires with will.
Obviously that's a bit optimistic, most humans will behave according to our instinctive nature.
>>1197259
>brainwashing and propaganda
No. Hannibals story is the most impressive. What kept his men, who were just mostly random tribes, from simply deserting him. I know a lot did desert, but so many stayed as well, for 16 years, through horrible conditions. And for what, to defeat Rome? Who did some Gaul in 200BC care that much about Rome.
>>1197255
Mostly to impress girls.
It doesn't appeal to me.
>>1197255
Patriotism, propaganda, necessity, or invasion usually prompts a person to join the military. From there, they are trained and conditioned to fight.
You ask that to a man who hasn't been through boot camp yet, they'll say I don't know and I want out.
You say that to a man who went through boot camp, and they'll say I was following orders. That and in some cases, to some people, war is actually enjoyable. It happens.
>>1197263
And what wasn't prevalent in those times? Media coverage of the horrific atrocities of war.
Men have always idolized war and the heroes born of it since it was convenient for rulers to mobilize a fight force for their ends.
But as soon as people could bear witness to the full scope of war, most logical person would want nothing to do with it. Especially with the advent of modern, total war.
>>1197255
war? This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIQynsWpBpQ
For most of history, a mix of coercion from your own elite, threats from your enemies (most people understood the reality that if you don't want to have your farm burned down and your wife sold into slavery, you'd better go do somethting), and the chance for social advancement/loot. You also didn't want to look like a little bitch. You'd be amazed how motivating it is for the average man to not want to look like a coward.
In the last few centuries, nationalism has become a big factor, and as the professional soldier has emerged, it's a paycheck.
>>1197556
Not the person you were responding too
>Men have always idolized war and the heroes born of it since it was convenient for rulers to mobilize a fight force for their ends.
it's more than that: War is a type of weaponized Keynesianism. It's government taxing and spending in heavy industry and imposing mandatory employment on its workforce that leads to economic stimulus through accumulation of war booty. It's easier to get the gentry to go along with a tax increase if they're scared of some foreigner invading their country.
>But as soon as people could bear witness to the full scope of war, most logical person would want nothing to do with it. Especially with the advent of modern, total war.
That's the truest statement yet issued in this thread. A lot of our modern revulsion towards war has to do with the fact that telecommunication allows us to examine it in all its grisly detail without actually having to be there, and this is a totally unique perspective, historically. Plus, the days when it was cool for a victorious army to sack a town and make off with anything valuable are long gone.
>>1197255
those sikk bennies
GI bill aint nuthin to turn your nose up at
I think war is a constant. War is innate to humans (men specifically). Take any population of men, there will always be at least a few in there who want to kill others. It doesn't really matter who the "other" is, in their minds he isn't even human. I think the only way to achieve world peace is to start conquering aliens on other planets, and sending all our soldiers out there. If we take them away from the earth and let them fight ayylmaos somewhere far out in the galaxy, then we also take the war away from earth.
>>1197623
>In the last few centuries, nationalism has become a big factor, and as the professional soldier has emerged, it's a paycheck.
This seems backwards to me. I think of soldiers now more driven by nationalism than in previous times. Just look at how there were whole armies built on mercenaries. Now a days you may be paying soldiers, but they are from the same nation whereas in the past any man would fight for any nation for a paycheck.
>>1197378
This guy knows
>>1197721
After the horrors of two World Wars nationalism stopped motivating people like it once did, particularly as we started moving away from conscripted civilians with a vested stake in the outcome of a war and towards a professional standing army detached from hustle and desperation of every day life.
>>1197255
Because men are competitive by nature and have an extremely deep-seated lust for violence that's usually kept in check by exercise and sex but if they get the excuse there's nothing better than pitting yourself against someone trying to kill you.
>>1197255
The opportunity to kick ass and take names.
Are you seriously asking why conflict is reality of human behaviour?
Propaganda and societal pressure when they don't know what war is actually like. Camaraderie after they realize what it really is.
>>1198177
Is your reading comprehension seriously that bad?
Conquest
Love of an ideal (religion, country, etc) and hate of those who oppose your love.
>>1197721
I didn't mean to imply nationalism and a paycheck are mutually exclusive. I'm just saying that a lot of people in modern times join the army as a career choice rather than any specific desire (or even expectation) to fight. There can still be an element of nationalism involved.
>>1197255
Originally, not much if they have been drafted or conscripted. An authority figure gives them a task and they are punished if they do not do said task. But if they are motivated by say a bombing of a certain harbor, then they are heavily motivated.
Eventually, this breaks down too. But this is the prime motivator: your buddy. You get motivation to kill the other side after you see one or two of your platoon mates get killed. Then it's personal.
>>1197268
Stop straw manning me, all these tribes practice animal husbandry. We need to be pure hunter gatherers.
T. John Zerzan.
>>1197255
Anger and rage plays a role. Also the thought of not letting the other guy kill you that easily, fear of persecution maybe.
>>1197255
For the excitement, the friendship with the rst of the guys you were trained up with and if they don't go they would have wasted their time in the army training
>>1197255
"The greater, holy war is the ascesis which has always been a philosophical goal. It could be tempting to add as well: it is the path of those who wish to escape from the world and who, using the excuse of inner liberation, become a herd of pacifist cowards. This is not at all the way things are. After the distinction between the two types of war there is their synthesis. It is a feature of heroic traditions that they prescribe the ‘lesser war’, that is to say
the real, bloody war, as an instrument in the realisation of the ‘greater’ or ‘holy war’; so much so that, finally, both become one and the same thing...action attains the value of an inner overcoming and of an approximation to a life no longer mixed with darkness, contingency, uncertainty and death. In more concrete terms, the predicaments, risks and ordeals peculiar to the events of war bring about an emergence of the inner ‘enemy’, which, in the forms of the instinct of self-preservation, cowardice, cruelty, pity and blind riotousness, arise as obstacles to be vanquished just as one fights the outer enemy. It is clear from this that the decisive point is constituted by one’s inner orientation, one’s unshakeable persistence in what is spiritual in this double struggle, so that an irresistible and blind changing of oneself into a sort of wild animal does not occur, but, instead, a way is found of not letting the deepest forces escape, a way of seeing to it that one is never overwhelmed inwardly, that one always remains supreme master of oneself, and, precisely because of this sovereignty, one remains able to affirm himself against every possible limitation."
>>1197255
misinformation gets them through training and to the battlefield
the sense they have an obligation to those they fight with stops them running away
>>1197255
The fact that some of us hate people, realize that some people NEED to be shot, and also realize that the military is about the only place where you can shoot some fucker in the head without getting sent to the can.
>>1199487
>misinformation gets them through training and to the battlefield
haha
>>1199487
>misinformation gets them through training and to the battlefield
Bullshit.
Joe isn't stupid, and knows exactly what the fuck he's getting into.
why not?
>>1197255
They go because they want to die but they don't want to kill themselves, at least that's why I'm hoping for a western war soon.
>>1199592
Also, if you survive your life might get some meaning to it.
>>1199617
Nope still would be as lonely as ever.
>>1199592
>hoping for a war
It's just suffering. You will probably not die because the chances for you dying is acutally significally less than the chances for surviving (t.statistics). You'd have to go through a lot of pain before you can actually get to see real combat and when you do you will hesitate to charge when you realize you might be wounded, captured, tortured, starved, labor in a camp, crippled for life etc.
>>1199617
>your life might get some meaning to it
Tell that to all the vets who came home and killed themselves from what they saw.
>>1201157
Not the guy you were talking to, but out of fairness to him, they say that inside of every cynic is a really, really jaded idealist, and when you have these sort of nationalistic calls to service, you get a lot of young men looking for an opportunity, and they're willing to risk all of those things you mentioned just for that kind of shot.
Of course in practical terms 99% military work is tedious "welcome to the machine" type bitch work, and people who join under lofty pretenses quickly learn what kind of a racket war actually is.
>>1201299
I can't say I disagree actually. I was a draftee unwilling, but It happened. The shit you have to go through is pretty hard for some lazy procrastinator. You get formed by it, because you're forced to break the comfort limits, and you've got little individual control. After some while freezing, sleeping 1 hour daily for weeks, stressful situations, long hard days you'll develop a sense of achievement, because the bonds you form with the ones you serve with is based on the fundament of being equals helping eachother (sometimes they can be shitbags). It forms great friendships and help you get some useful habits ehen you're back in civilian clothes again. But don't be fooled. Life will suck donkey dick again and will feel even lonelier without all the good friends from the service being there all the time.
If i'd willingly get called to a war it'd be solely for the sake of being with good friends going through shit together.
