Post by volkssturm on Mar 28, 2014 12:44:41 GMT -5
Been pondering this subject in my copious spare time (I'm retired). I think it all comes down to our distant past as little tribal groups trying to defend our herds and crops from predators and other tribes. All the men in a tribe, and particularly the young men, had to be warriors. This way of life lasted for thousands of years, and in some places continued right through the 20th century. The Masai of Kenya, for example. Anyway, my premise is that we've been bred with this warrior ethos, even though we're civilized and wars are mass slaughter where the individual disappears in the faceless mass. Have you noticed how during our recent wars the Army started using the terms "warrior" and "warfighter" in place of "soldier"? Great public relations move. It appeals to our fascination with the distant past when (we think) individual courage and prowess decided battles, rather than just heavy-handed throwing of bodies against the enemy's weapons.
The truth is, of course, that war has always been a nasty business and it got nastier as armies grew larger and the capacity for mayhem grew. Mentally, while most of us know that war is a terrible, immensely wasteful, and very unheroic business, we still, at the same time, think in terms of the Heroic Age. Maybe it's a defense mechanism or connected to self-esteem. We still think of ourselves, at some level, as tribal warriors. By extension, we're interested in, honor, and want to emulate others who exhibit the virtues of being warriors. Sometimes that includes people who in reality weren't always shining examples of chivalry, like the Waffen-SS.
There are sports teams named for the Vikings. As far as I know, there are no sports teams named "The Fighting Nazi Stormtroopers." If you look at the Vikings objectively, they were a pretty nasty bunch, like the mafia but with much worse manners and a definite psychopathic streak. They make the Waffen-SS look pretty good in comparison. But their depredations happened a long time ago. Nobody recently has suffered a Viking invasion, so they're remembered as brave, if a little crazy, warriors and nobody dwells so much on the raping, killing, slaving and stealing all the valuables from the church. ("Vikings" on the History Channel is actually a pretty good show.) There are still people alive today who suffered at the hands of the Germans or German allied militias, and a lot more people who lost parents or grandparents in the war. It's still personal for them. I doubt there's many Waffen-SS reenactors in Israel. But the Japanese certainly seem to have a fascination with them, as evidenced by that other thread here "Cute Japanese girl in German uniforms." They don't have the negative connections.
So what's the point? I don't know what the point is, except maybe that the human mind is wonderfully complex thing that's very adept at compartmentalizing information, suppressing some things and emphasizing others. So don't take things too seriously.
The truth is, of course, that war has always been a nasty business and it got nastier as armies grew larger and the capacity for mayhem grew. Mentally, while most of us know that war is a terrible, immensely wasteful, and very unheroic business, we still, at the same time, think in terms of the Heroic Age. Maybe it's a defense mechanism or connected to self-esteem. We still think of ourselves, at some level, as tribal warriors. By extension, we're interested in, honor, and want to emulate others who exhibit the virtues of being warriors. Sometimes that includes people who in reality weren't always shining examples of chivalry, like the Waffen-SS.
There are sports teams named for the Vikings. As far as I know, there are no sports teams named "The Fighting Nazi Stormtroopers." If you look at the Vikings objectively, they were a pretty nasty bunch, like the mafia but with much worse manners and a definite psychopathic streak. They make the Waffen-SS look pretty good in comparison. But their depredations happened a long time ago. Nobody recently has suffered a Viking invasion, so they're remembered as brave, if a little crazy, warriors and nobody dwells so much on the raping, killing, slaving and stealing all the valuables from the church. ("Vikings" on the History Channel is actually a pretty good show.) There are still people alive today who suffered at the hands of the Germans or German allied militias, and a lot more people who lost parents or grandparents in the war. It's still personal for them. I doubt there's many Waffen-SS reenactors in Israel. But the Japanese certainly seem to have a fascination with them, as evidenced by that other thread here "Cute Japanese girl in German uniforms." They don't have the negative connections.
So what's the point? I don't know what the point is, except maybe that the human mind is wonderfully complex thing that's very adept at compartmentalizing information, suppressing some things and emphasizing others. So don't take things too seriously.