Are all soldiers like the Nazis?

S.A.M. said:
I am trying to figure out why institutionalised mindless violence is acceptable. And why apparently rational people take up guns and invade foreign countries to justify their ideologically mindless murders.
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You are injecting your preconceptions and final conclusions into the question, so it is clear to me that this is just a rhetorical device.

Of course you will never have an answer to these questions. Human behavior is not significantly different than it has been for tens of thousands of years; why do you think it would change?

Humans are fear-filled primitive savages - overall, a cursedly ineffective species. Humans have just enough intelligence to make a few clever tools, that's all. Give it a few more millenia; natural selection will squelch the human behavior that is disturbing you. Human beings will be a barely discernable blip on the chart of failed species.
 
I think that the Milgram experiment exemplifies the problems you face in a society/group where authority is viewed as an unquestionable entity. Fear may drive one to comply with morally bankrupt instructions, or the mentality that everyone else is doing it. Its all a matter of getting a person to start with small moral concessions then moving up on the scale until they have lost whatever sense of right and wrong they had. Its interesting to say the least.
 
Lucysnow said:
Well said Dragon. The OP is ridiculous. I know many military career soldiers and most of them are fine men.
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agreed. My father and brothers were not Nazis while in the military.
My father was a Nazi when raising me (especially the teen years) and my brothers were Nazis when I was stuck in a car with them for that 3 hr trip to grandmas.
But while in the military, no
 
S.A.M. said:
Not the morale no. I question the logic of a bunch of mindless cannon fodder thinking exactly like another bunch of mindless cannon fodder and pretending they all have to do it to stay alive.
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I think this has more to do with the nature of conditioned existence as such than it has with being a soldier.

We could also question the logic of a bunch of mindless sales people thinking exactly like another bunch of mindless sales people and pretending they all have to do it to stay alive.

Or we could question the logic of a bunch of mindless computer programmers thinking exactly like another bunch of mindless computer programmers and pretending they all have to do it to stay alive.

And so on - all those stock brokers, factory workers, diplomats, bakers, teachers, tailors, managers, farmers, researchers ... - isn't there always some element of "mindlessness" in their activities?

I think being a soldier is an occupation, and as with every occupation
1. one has to have some talent and education for it,
2. it is impossible to fully and independently justify it.


To say that soldiers (or anyone else for that matter) are "mindless", is to say that it is possible for all living beings to live on planet Earth, and still act in an enlightened, harmless, good or at worst neutral manner while pursuing material gains.

I don't think this is possible.
 
Orleander said:
agreed. My father and brothers were not Nazis while in the military.
My father was a Nazi when raising me (especially the teen years) and my brothers were Nazis when I was stuck in a car with them for that 3 hr trip to grandmas.
But while in the military, no
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Have you ever spoken to any of their victims?
 
S.A.M. said:
What is your opinion of the Milgram experiment?
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I don't think the findings of the Milgram experiment have much to do with soldiers or warfare.

I think some people just are born to be soliders, they have it in them to fight in battle.
It's a talent, like someone else may have a talent for music or language or math.

The whole premise of this thread seems to be that if people truly had their own way and wouldn't be oppressed by any authoritative figures, then nobody would become a soldier. I don't think this is the case.
 
Signal said:
The whole premise of this thread seems to be that if people truly had their own way and wouldn't be oppressed by any authoritative figures, then nobody would become a soldier. I don't think this is the case.
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Where do you see this? My premise is that people can do things under orders they would not do of their free will and they make peace with their moral sensibilities by justifying it under some "feel good" ideology
 
Depends on what they did as soldiers. I'm sure that Osama's children have fond memories of their father.
 
S.A.M. said:
Where do you see this?
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Because you seem to think that (all) soldiers are doing this:

[My premise is that] people can do things under orders they would not do of their free will and they make peace with their moral sensibilities by justifying it under some "feel good" ideology
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I'm saying they are not.
 
Well the ones who quit cannot be considered as "good" soldiers. The ones who cannot keep at it kill themselves or get PTSD, and the ones who don't want to do it, run away and are called deserters

So the ideal soldier is one who shuts his mouth, follows orders and does what needs to be done, even if its dropping a nuclear bomb on a city.
 
S.A.M. said:
Well the ones who quit cannot be considered as "good" soldiers. The ones who cannot keep at it kill themselves or get PTSD, and the ones who don't want to do it, run away and are called deserters
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Sure. Not everyone who joins the army is a "born soldier", nor are the circumstances in the armies nowadays ideal for soldiers - because of all those concerns over "democracy", "justice", "secular morality", "justification".


So the ideal soldier is one who shuts his mouth, follows orders and does what needs to be done, even if its dropping a nuclear bomb on a city.
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I think this is only a small part of being a soldier.
 
Anytime there is a unquestioning loyalty to an ideal or a system of authority you have a problem...not just with soldiers.
 
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