Alright, we account for 43% of global military spending. Next comes China, at around 7%. Then, Russia at 3.6%. As a percentage of GDP, we're up there with countries that are heavily nationalistic or exist in difficult/unusual situations. It's still a lot, and it's just bizzare to suggest otherwise because some of that money is spent on private contractors-- that's just the collision of militarism with a right-wing privatization agenda. Militarist attitudes directly impact just how much money and support we throw at war profiteers-- just like they impact how much we throw at the military.razelas said:
I never claimed that they were exclusive of each other-- just that the terms weren't interchangeable. I don't think that this is a productive branch of discussion; it's semantic and not incredibly pertinent to the topic. I do think that it's possible to be pragmatically militarist without having any real degree of patriotism-- a land owner, for example, thinking that his current country would protect his property rights better than a potentially invading one, or someone who wants access to cheap oil no matter the cost. These people would not call for war, but they would want their country's national agenda promoted without necessarily caring about anything like national identity.
It's also evident that heavy exposure to militarism can change what's 'normal.' Someone who doesn't think about these things but grows up playing militarist games and watching similarly-themed movies might have not much of an opinion on this stuff, but they also might simply consider it unthinkable to really consider pruning down a currently bloated military.
The military-entertainment complex is older than popular home gaming; it has shaped modern attitudes on the very nature of war and the role of the military. I think that's old enough-- it doesn't change its core just because it slides into a new medium.
That ad just really proves how much Ed Bernays changed advertising. It doesn't engage you much at all, does it?
You're adding the word "morality" when before it wasn't an issue. Modern militainment deliberately ignores questions of real morality by emphasizing loyalty to faceless authority and using the stock evil characters (Hey, Russians! Hey, Arabs!) that we've been conditioned to accept since the 80s, especially, as enemies. Military recruitment ads are then afforded the luxury, by and large, of being able to ignore even mentioning any sort of opposing force-- it's just understood that, should you go to war, it'll be against shadowy 'bad guys.' Dave Sirota's "Back to Our Future," Chaplin and Ruby's "Smartbomb," and David Grossman's "On Killing" talk a lot about this stuff.
