Militarism

I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm noticing a growing culture of militarism in Australia.  I mentioned this to a friend the other day and she was interested but didn't really get what I was talking about, so I thought I might start a blog where I could share these thoughts for people, like my friend, who aren't really up on this but would like to be.

So, what do I mean when I talk about "militarism"?  In essence, it means being more or less pro-war, and there are two ways of defining a militarist culture.

Firstly, you can think of it in terms of actions.  Actions that are typical of a militarist culture are things like making weapons, training soldiers, preparing for possible conflicts and, most obviously, engaging in actual wars (Alexandra, 1993).

Secondly, you can think of it in terms of attitudes.   Militarist attitudes are a little harder to pin down, but they can range from the view that wars are sometimes necessary and we should be prepared for them (sensible, in my view) to the view that wars are TOTALLY AWESOME and the best way to solve any conflict (less sensible, in my view) (Alexandra, 1993).

The reason I'm concerned about militarism is simple: it's bad for society.  War is often made out to be essential in creating a nation or society, but in many ways it undermines the development of society, adversely affecting our wellbeing, diverting resources away from other areas and limiting democracy and human rights (Dreze, 2000, esp p1180).  Jean Dreze explains this really well here.

The "action" side of things isn't worthy of that much discussion to me (I think a combination of Google and common sense can tell you about conflicts we're engaged in and military spending and such); what I'm interested in examining is the "attitudes".  These come about as a result of political communication, media information, and the history and activities of society - which in my view are pretty well tied up in each other - and that's what I'm planning to discuss here.

Alexandra, A 1993, "Militarism", Social Theory & Practice, vol 19, no 2, pp205-223 (no page numbers given above because I could only access it in html - but if anyone's interested just use ctrl + f)

Dreze, J 2000, "Militarism, Development and Democracy", Economic and Political Weekly, vol 35, no 14, pp1171-1183