[ SECRET POST #2352 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2352 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 091 secrets from Secret Submission Post #336.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm with you, OP... I really just dislike anything militaristic in nature, really.

[(Anonymous)]

Can I ask why?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't believe the military is ever really doing anything for the good of the people, and that there's such a huge amount of propaganda pushed on us to think of it as heroic and patriotic when honestly it does more harm than good a lot of the time. Actually patriotism is just gross to me.

I also REALLY dislike the way it seems to function in desensitizing soldiers and having that "don't think for yourself" kind of thing.

[intrigueing]

I don't mean to be rude but...how old are you?

Oh wait, I do mean to be rude.

[nan]

hahahaha

[(Anonymous)]

Well you sure sound mature.

My age shouldn't really matter, but I'm 27. Do you also want my nationality, gender, and sexual preferences?

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Nationality would be nice, actually. I'm wondering if your view and your friend's experiece are different from what I've seen because of that.

[(Anonymous)]

Canadian/Australian, lived in Australia until I was 18, Canada onwards. My friend is American and my family friend is a Canadian military journalist.

I don't think the military is some big 100% evil organization or anything. I Just dislike a lot about it and what it represents.

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds to me like you don't like governments and that you've bought into the Hollywood propaganda of soldiers being brainwashed.

[(Anonymous)]

Or perhaps I'm friends with an ex-soldier who told me of his experiences in the military and this has formed my opinion which is different from your own?

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

Because obviously, the individual experience of one person in one unit = the truth about all militaries ever. Got it.

[(Anonymous)]

After 18 years of service and working in everything from a line unit to echelons above Corps, including several mutinational environments, I've never seen anyone in any military attempt to desensitize service members or discourage them from thinking for themselves.

I have seen some soldiers in the US Army's Basic Combat Training fail to adapt because they were unable to follow lawful orders but still get pushed through training despite not meeting basic requirements. I've had some of these soldiers in my squads and platoons and they all shared the same belief that lawful orders equal oppression or megalomania or brainwashing. These soldiers are best suited to menial tasks and should be denied reenlistment because they weaken their organization's effectiveness. They are the ones that choose not to think for themselves, fail to meet challenges because they make no effort, and seek to undermine the willingness of their motivated peers and the authority of their leaders.

They're also the ones who whine that the military is evil and seeks to stamp out individuality, free will, and critical thinking. In reality, military forces throughout history have excelled precisely because of these traits.

[cadremage]

The military does more harm than good only when the military and the government are the same entity. When the military is controlled by and operates at the whim of government, then it's ultimately the government, or more specifically government policy, that is doing more harm than good.

In our lifetime, various Western governments have put their respective militaries toward some pretty questionable uses. That makes it easy to be anti-military at present. But that does not mean that the military can never do anything good (with "good" defined here as "protecting the people of its nation"), or that it never has. If a nation is being invaded, or if a group within a nation seriously threatens the liberty of others in that nation (e.g. a group that wants to impose a strict interpretation of religious law on a population and argues its point with violence), then there is some use for an organized military.

Also, it's a common misconception that soldiers are trained to not think for themselves. It's true that they're trained to follow the chain of command, but they can refuse to obey if they're ordered to break the law, and soldiers who don't think for themselves don't get promoted. The real problem isn't a lack of critical thought, or desensitization; it's that violent conflict and trauma change a person in ways that can be absolutely terrible.

[(Anonymous)]

Look what happened/is happening to Bradley Manning for thinking for himself when faced with evidence of military brutality. Fuck the US military, seriously.

Apparently the US military uses the Meyer-Briggs test to sort out personalities. They prefer ISTJs - introverts (less likely to challenge command), sensors (not intuitive, take the world as it is), thinkers (less emotional, more able to kill), judgers (don't think about a decision, just do it). Which makes a lot of sense for an army.

[(Anonymous)]

The US military does not use Meyer-Briggs personality types for anything. Some military schools offer the testing, usually only for senior ranking officers. It's offered in case a service member wants it for their resume because most still have to work for many years after they retire from the military.

[(Anonymous)]

The Bradley Manning affair is not the fault of the military, it's the fault of the whole political system. It wasn't the generals who condemned him; that happened with the enthusiastic support of the entire military political apparatus, inclusive of the White House, the Congress, the intelligence community, and the military. Which, in a lot of ways, just goes to the point that cadremage is making - it's not the military, because the military is still under the command of the civilian authority; it's the civilian authority, ultimately the whole system of decision-making, that is at fault.

I agree that he has been imprisoned unjustly. But the injustice is something that comes from our political system and ultimately the choices that we have made as a political society. It's not the fault of something intrinsic and specific to militaries.

[cadremage]

...whooooa.

First of all, Bradley Manning is being tried for treason. It's the US government that is prosecuting him, not the military itself.

Second of all, that is an oversimplification of the Meyers-Briggs types (I am an INTJ, for purposes of full disclosure). An MB introvert is a person who likes to take time to reflect on information and who re-energizes by spending time alone, not a person who is is less social or less likely to speak up. S/he is no more and no less likely to challenge command than an extrovert. (As another aside, this is also the misconception that gets me the most. I am an introvert, but if you push me to do something that I believe is wrong, you had better believe I will push you back. Hard).

It's true that an MB sensor "takes the world as it is," but only in the sense that s/he is concerned with what's actually happening. That does not mean that s/he will go along with that's happening.

An MB thinker utilizes logic in an effort to be fair, and advocates for the truth even when it's inconvenient. S/he is not less emotional than a feeler, or more able to kill.

An MB judger likes to plan ahead because s/he likes order, and likes for a decision to be made on a course of action. This does not mean that s/he will not think about a decision. Shit, as I well know, if you combine I, T, and J together, you get someone who shreds possible decisions to pieces because s/he wants to make the best one.

I suppose the thing that's getting me here is that you've determined which MB types are "bad," watered them down, and then said, "this makes sense because obviously these types of people would be mindless," but that's not how it works. There are no "bad" MB types; there are simply different ways of perceiving and interacting with the world, and none of those ways makes a person more likely to be turned into a robot.

[(Anonymous)]

I do agree with most of what you've said, though I've never said the military never ever did any good. It's just not so common as government would like its people to believe. Military is often lauded as this Force of Good that protects the country and if you don't support the troops 100% you're vile. I really deteste that kind of propaganda and it's pretty rampant these days, even in Canada where military isn't even that big a deal, not compared to the US. Yes, a military can protect a country from invasion and other threats, but it's often used offensively on others instead. It can be used to help other countries but it can also be used to police them as well.

From what I've read and from what I've heard from ex-soldiers is quite different on the matters of desensitization and critical thinking, but it's clearly not a uniform problem in all sections of the military. But it's not exactly unique to my friend's experience; lots of people have spoken about this, studies and articles have been written lots about it. I didn't come to this opinion from television or anything, since I hardly even watch films/shows that involve modern military in the first place.

Thanks for the interesting response. It's nice to see a legitimate reply with an argument rather than just have someone mock a post they disagree with.

[cadremage]

I don't believe that military operations (or, for that matter, military expenditures) should be immune from criticism, and I don't disagree that current propaganda is a bit ridiculous. I do, however, think that it's all ultimately the result of various political agendas. Military operations are often begun to achieve political ends; military expenditures often have more to do with cutbacks (contractors --> lobbyists --> campaign funding --> (re)election) than with actual needs; propaganda buttresses the arguments for the aforementioned political ends and keeps people from questioning them. The military itself can be used for good or for ill, but the force behind it is ultimately the government that controls it.

On the second point, I think you may be correct in your suggestion that it's not the same across all sections of the military. My opinion comes specifically from knowing a lot of Navy men. That branch, for whatever reason, may just value free thought more highly than other branches.

Um.

[tyger66]

Patriotism is just "gross" to you?

Please explain your reasoning to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Different anon and not trying to speak for the one you're replying to, but I think a lot of people these days take "patriotism" to mean radical nationalism or, in the case of the United States, blind American exceptionalism. (To be fair, in some of the more egregious examples we see nowadays, that's exactly what it is.)

Loving one's country is fine. It's good to like the place where you live. But refusing to acknowledge that one's country is just as imperfect and in need of improvement as any other, and more so than some; insisting that it's "the best!" when it demonstrably and quantifiably is not; and asserting that its government and/or military is justified in all of its policies and actions by virtue of simply being itself or by divine fiat, is foolish, arrogant and exceptionally dangerous.

[tyger66]

I wrote a paragraph of my feeeeelings below, but I agree almost completely with what you said. People confuse patriotism with nationalism, to the point where I have friends that do not know the difference between the two.

And they assume that any American who's patriotic is one of those nationalist "'Murrica!" stereotypes that are actually pretty rare, even in the deep, deep south.

/blah blah stereotypes blah blah dictionary nerd

Re: Um.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

It might be because there's an incredibly thin line between Patriotism and Nationalism. I'm American and have had to deal with the latter so often that I don't even think most Americans can tell the difference. Nationalism is quite gross.

But this is coming from someone who thinks it's just baffling that people would be proud of where they were born, as if they had any choice in the matter, so I suppose I'm biased.

Re: Um.

[tyger66]

I don't think that patriotism means being proud of where you were born. It's being proud of where you live. In a lot of cases, being proud of where they have CHOSEN to live.

I'm also American. I'm not particularly patriotic. I frequently refused to say the pledge of allegiance in school. But I don't think that patriotism is a bad thing, and I don't think it's anything like nationalism if you actually look. Patriotism is believing that you live in a good place, and being proud of that place. In my eyes, that's a good thing; it's constructive. And nationalism is destructive. Instead of "I love the place I live" it's "I hate the places other than where I live." And to me that's a HUGE difference; less a thin line and more of a mile-wide highway.

[(Anonymous)]

I also REALLY dislike the way it seems to function in desensitizing soldiers and having that "don't think for yourself" kind of thing

You have no idea how the CF works, do you.