Thoughts on ANZAC day hijacked from Smile Cemetery.

Jesus_Christ
25/04/2009 11:04:35 AM No doubt I'm going to get flamed for some of this, but I think it's important.

This is one day of the year I always feel very out of it; to put it bluntly, I couldn't care less about ANZAC Day, but not because I haven't thought about it. I have. I appreciate the history behind it, and to some extent, find it very interesting, but I can't help but feel that this is a day that we continue to humour our veterans, and most importantly, humour ourselves; it seems as though a day where we pretend that the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of good men actually meant something. We pretend that these deaths had some kind of tangible benefit in the real world; like, somehow, today, we are actually better for their sacrifice.

But I ask you how? The causes and motivations behind World War I were so deep and complex that you cannot so easily and xenophobically separate the goodies from the baddies. In the end, on its most basic level, World War I was the result of an ethnic movement in a faraway land that pulled the trigger on the political maneuverings of the ruling elite of the time. None of this had anything to do with the New Zealand everyman, and yet every man, as it were, went to pay the ultimate price for these squabbles.

Why, then, do we honour their service? Why do we treat them as heroes, when they are victims? Why is it that we have to pretend, have to believe, that they died for something? Sometimes people just die, and there's no reason, no redemptive feature, nothing. They're just gone. Do we, as human beings, have trouble accepting that?

Now, I know this isn't a popular viewpoint, and I know there will be a lot of argument brought to bear against me (though in the past when I have assumed that, I have been surprised), and that's fine. I know a lot of people feel very strongly about this subject and I'm willing to accept the consequences of voicing my opinion. I also understand if you feel strongly about this and am not dismissing out of hand your sentiment. I am simply providing a springboard for important discussion.

Waireka
25/04/2009 11:31:05 AM I always wonder how soon the ANZAC day services will die out after the last veterans pass away.

Simply put; we remember because they were victims. The maxim "lest we forget" is reminding us of the folly of war for the individual man. It reminds us that men like me, men like JC, women like all of you on here sacrificed everything for nothing. Life goes on after war, if we are lucky nothing changes in the greater scheme of things... if a man does not take note of his mistakes, he is destined to repeat them... as it were.

I'm confused about war.

On the one hand, I don't believe in killing. On the other hand, I don't believe in sitting idly by while bullies hurt innocents.

If it is okay to kill in war, because it is hoped that there will be a net saving in the lives of civilians that way, does that mean it is okay to torture in war, because that can also result in lives saved?

Either no one had anything to say, or it was inappropriate in that thread, or it just got buried.

More:

Do you respect the right of conscientious objectors, or do you consider they are only looking for an easy way out?

Psalter wrote:Conscientious objectors? IMO they should be imprisoned at least... at worst, they should be made to live in one of our world's nations of oppression, then they will see the value of a "righteous war". To be born in to a "civilised" nation holds certain rights and responsibilities. Your rights are guaranteed by law, your responsibilities are to live by, die by, and defend the laws and principles that protect you.

Psalter wrote:It is our responsibility as civilised people in a civilised nation to improve the lot of humanity... sometimes we have to "free the fuck" out of people to do so.

Psalter wrote: Feel free to reproduce in SC if you so wish... as your own work of course.

You'd put people in prison who were happy to serve in a medical or similarly helpful role?

Later in the same thread you most recently quoted is the question: ... and what if you go off to war believing you will have a peace keeping [or freeing] role, then when you get there, your orders change?

Psalter wrote:Sometimes peacekeeping means killing.

Diaz wrote:I don't think right entirely depends on who wins ... I think 'right' or 'wrong' can be ... assessed against standard principles

Surely that is a given. But what if the rules change after you agree to serve, from ones you can accept, to ones that go against your conscience? Or what if you serve under a superior who expects you to act outside the rules, or for a purpose that isn't the national purpose?

Diaz wrote:
I don't think right entirely depends on who wins ... I think 'right' or 'wrong' can be ... assessed against standard principles


Agreed.

Psalter wrote:If we are speaking about the true abhorrent acts of war like torture and so on... well, we live in a country that has systems in place that we can use to stop such actions and so appease our conscience... if we aren't speaking about that, you will have to elaborate please.

relict wrote:

Psalter wrote:If we are speaking about the true abhorrent acts of war like torture and so on... well, we live in a country that has systems in place that we can use to stop such actions and so appease our conscience... if we aren't speaking about that, you will have to elaborate please.

Nah, I don't really know what I'm talking about, so I can't elaborate much. Maybe I've been watching too many movies where superiors have their own agenda, or people act from misguided, uncontrolled anger rather than orders.

I think it's a bit of a trap to say effectively there is nothing objective there, it's a bit like the post-modernistic concepts that say all knowledge is equal when it clearly isn't. You could then claim that literally any action could be right, using the standard claim there is nothing objective you can use to assess this.

t's a mere technicality but under the Hague Convention of 1907 the use of the uniform of the enemy is not a violation of the law of war if it is used to penetrate the enemy lines but the uniform must be discarded prior to initiation of actual combat and it's also permissible to use enemy uniform in order to spy on the enemy. The one absolute no-no is using the uniform or emblem of a neutral party or one not party to the conflict.

I'd dispute that Nazi Germany actions were only retrospectively decided to be evil, the world knew of their actions prior to the war. Even though there were groups that espoused eugenics and other principles it never held sway to the extent seen in Nazi Germany where Hitler literally saw society as a living organism that must master the disease, Jews were the invaders undermining the integrity of organism and had to be cut out like a tumour or lanced like an abscess to expel the bacteria. Even arguing border issues are morally neutral is dodgy, because issues of right/wrong do come into it - and I'd say the prevailing view is that it's wrong to invade another sovereign country. It's like stealing, something else we generally consider morally wrong. I don't think being relativistic addresses this.

What then was their MOTIVATION for one alliance over another, or to stay neutral? Why did Britain, after following a policy of appeasement then enter the war against Germany instead of allying with them against Poland, who they had invaded? Similarly why did Mussolini side with Hitler? Otherwise, there is no reasonable justification for acting one way or another.

Even arguing border issues are morally neutral is dodgy, because issues of right/wrong do come into it - and I'd say the prevailing view is that it's wrong to invade another sovereign country. It's like stealing, something else we generally consider morally wrong. I don't think being relativistic addresses this.

The invasion of Austria was seen by many to be wrong... yet Germans held the view that Austria was stolen from them in the first place. The right of it depends on where you sit. The moral shift that has, over 5 centuries, shaped a world with very few slaves is more evidence of moral relativity.