Suppose you were blessed at birth with every advantage. Genetically, you were wired to be healthy, intelligent, and sound of mind. So far as nurture goes, you were pretty lucky too. Sure, maybe your parents divorced, or maybe your puppy got hit by a car, or perhaps your one true love ended up loving another... But you had a supportive family, you went to good schools, you never knew hunger, and, for the most part, there never even considered the idea that there could have been any opportunities foreclosed to you; for you, the world always had been your oyster. You went to college - and more likely than not, it was Ivy League, or just a notch below. Perhaps Swarthmore. Or Michigan. For you, college was idyllic. Like the movies. You didn't go when you were 30 years old... You didn't work two jobs to pay your rent. For you, college was a coming of age experience. Sure, you studied, and you did well, but... you also went Greek and made friends that you'll probably treasure for life. After college, you faced a choice. You either went to work, or you continued on to grad school and then went to work. Either way, "going to work" is what I want to ask about.
With that kind of life, what would make you want to invent new ways of blowing other humans into little-bitty pieces?
Seriously.
I ask because I'm surrounded by people like this. I live in the DC suburbs. Every day, I drive past the CACI building. I see Northrup Grumman signs all over the place. My neighbors - so far as I can tell, wonderful people with wonderful kids - are defense contractors. And I just don't get it.
I mean, why not go be a doctor? Or a scientist that searches for cures? Why not go find something to do with your life that doesn't involve inventing or delivering a more efficient means of destruction?
What does it say about this society, and the American people, that we spend trillions on the implements of war, and make millionaires and billionaires of people that peddle in blood?
And we do it as if everything is perfectly normal. As if this is the way things should be.
I really do not understand it. We've built a culture that celebrates violent death. We love guns. "Shock and Awe" was a Madison Avenue gimmick that had people glued to their televisions desirous of seeing something akin to the 9/11 attack delivered to strangers living half a world away. Somebody sat in a cube somewhere, came up with "Shock and Awe", saw it picked up by the Pentagon and the national media, and then went to bed, proud of a job well done. And it was a job well done! Americans lapped it up.
To me, that's a pretty clear indication that there's a metasticizing psychosis run amok in my country.
It makes me despair.