Sure there is. There's gallantry and bravery and … nobility. There's also ugliness and cruelty and murder. Clauswitz commented famously that war is diplomacy carried out by other means; more accurately, war is humanity carried out by other means. It's inhumane but carried out by men; it's uncivilised but carried out with the fruits of industrial civilisation.
In short, it's paradoxical.
I know that the author is right: there are people who are suited for war. They're not psychopaths — it's not that they don't have empathy for others (they do), but I wonder if they have reduced empathy for themselves.
I disagree that bravery and gallantry are qualities of war - they're human qualities that war sometimes reveals. A man's bravery doesn't lend nobility to war, in my opinion.
I generally see war as exploitative. I can see where Clauswitz is coming from but those are intellectual arguments to me, they don't carry a whole lot of weight when bullets are flying and your buddies are getting hurt.
Of course, I'm just sharing my opinion. I don't have any data to support how I feel about this.
I don't understand why you'd say war is itself exploitative in lieu of those who are participating in it in exploitative ways. I would agree that war is an opportunity for exploitation to occur.
But then maybe I don't understand what war is in a way that is different from a bunch of people who are willing to go to battle (for their own various reasons.)
Sure there is. There's gallantry and bravery and … nobility. There's also ugliness and cruelty and murder. Clauswitz commented famously that war is diplomacy carried out by other means; more accurately, war is humanity carried out by other means. It's inhumane but carried out by men; it's uncivilised but carried out with the fruits of industrial civilisation.
In short, it's paradoxical.
I know that the author is right: there are people who are suited for war. They're not psychopaths — it's not that they don't have empathy for others (they do), but I wonder if they have reduced empathy for themselves.