I suppose it’s counterintuitive to argue that we’re less militaristic than we used to be, but I think this piece from William Deresiewicz gets at the strange dynamic at play with regard to Americans’ recent deference to the military:
As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on, other purposes have come into play. The greater the sacrifice that has fallen on one small group of people, the members of the military and their families, the more we have gone from supporting our troops to putting them on a pedestal. In the Second World War, everybody fought. Soldiers were not remote figures to most of us; they were us. Now, instead of sharing the burden, we sentimentalize it. It’s a lot easier to idealize the people who are fighting than it is to send your kid to join them. This is also a form of service, I suppose: lip service.
This is really different from “militarism” in the sense that it’s really a form of contempt and condescension than “worship” as we might conceive of it. The point is to placate the small minority of individuals called upon to carry the burden of America’s multiple wars through empty social ritual. This is how we deal with people won’t don’t respect, not with people we do.
