[tenpies]

If I may, my impression is also that the younger generations don't "get" war. Why would I, ever shoot someone just like me because his/her/xyr government has forced them to point a rifle at me?

They've been raised in a post-modernist neo-marxist environment that very clearly marks the Western order as evil. To them, there is no "good vs evil", because they are evil and the West has no redeeming factors.

Why would you fight to defend that? Why fight to spread that?

Add a keen awareness of the Elites (however you define them) as the sole beneficiaries or war. The conscript or recruit on the ground pays the price so some WEF-agenda shareholder gets to see a bigger dividend this quarter? Hard pass fam.

Add in a general anxiety about everything: from talking to a stranger to the impeding collapse of life on Earth due to climate change within X years (where X is always a handful of years away), and war doesn't make sense. There are Bigger Issues than some lines on the map drawn by Evil White Men.

Now obviously this is all a generalization, and all of it goes out the window the minute someone shoots at you, but it's going to be interesting to watch what tactics have to be used to get an unwilling generation in the metaphorical front lines.

[ajkjk]

I guess I'm part of that generation you're talking about, and it it really feels like only one of the things you listed matters:

> Why would I, ever shoot someone just like me because his/her/xyr government has forced them to point a rifle at me?

It's irrespective of the western order being evil or anything to do with climate change. Sure, there's a sense that the elites are the only beneficiaries of war, but even before that you'd have to explain why it's okay to shoot someone for someone else's _benefit_, even if it's our own. The very idea is absurd.

I think most millennial sorts are on board with the idea of a "war to stop atrocity", but that's about it. Why would you hurt someone to get what you want? How medieval.

[jacquesm]

That works, right up to the point that it is your country that is invaded. Then all those theories go right out the window.

[rhn_mk1]

That works only when nationalism is your worldview. It doesn't make sense to care about the country being invaded if country has no value to you.

[jacquesm]

This is somewhat shortsighted. You can replace 'country' by 'place where you live' and then you can decide what you're going to do about it, let it all happen, don't care while your family and children are being murdered because it doesn't really matter to you but that's not how it works in practice. In practice people will defend the place that they live in from external aggression.

[pmontra]

It doesn't matter if you care about countries. When the place you live gets invaded a lot of the people you know die or worse.

[rhn_mk1]

It does absolutely matter if you care about countries, because "country" does not have to be how you slice your world when asked "where do you live".

You may have your family spread across the continent, on your island, or concentrated around a single town.

[pmontra]

Wherever your family lives, scattered or concentrated, when the place you live gets invaded a lot of the people around you die. You might be willing to flee all the time with no particular attachment to any place. This is uncommon but not impossible. Anyway war or submission will get you sooner or later.

[gnramires]

I think in this case it's more than that... Russia (or at least Putin) is trying to impose a certain worldview that's very regressive: pro-oil, heavy censorship, against several human rights (including LGBT), autocratic regime. I think there's a lot of merit to resisting this regime, resisting being taken by force and turned into the opposite of what they want (which was to join more progressive European countries, from what I gather).

It's all connected... if you let oil-hungry autocrats rule the world, climate change is completely out of the window. Also human rights and ideals we should all stand for.

I do want peace as soon as possible. I believe a compromise might be necessary. I think Putin's worldview has been shown critically dated, so hopefully Russians can rise against this sort of government eventually. It's very difficult to rise up when your life is threatened by the regime though, but reason and truth tend to find their way through the cracks.

---

I am specially moved because of the parallels to Nazi invasions. Doing nothing proved a grave mistake, not standing up for human rights, giving fascists the benefit of the doubt cost so many lives. I've said "never again" too. It's easy to fact-check the fascist lies in this case.

I suggest any new generations read Anne Frank's diary if you can.

---

Also: don't believe narratives of doom. There's no doom incoming immediately, not from nuclear war (it's been shown it would doom civilization at least), not from climate change (we're in a pathway for significant damage, but it will be decades until it reaches its consequences, and it`s certainly no doom[1]). Doom narratives and hopelessness can create inaction, which is not what we want. Hope is the most powerful weapon for change.

[1] See Kurzgesagt on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw

[jacquesm]

> I suggest any new generations read Anne Frank's diary if you can.

Seconded, in fact I would suggest every read it and re-read it every decade or two or so.

[gnramires]

Yes, I wrote much but that was my main message :)

Also, I don't want to come off as a cultural absolutist, I think other countries can have different cultures than standard western; but conquering and imposing culture with violence does not respect basic humanity. Also, we should be able to defend and evolve every culture with peaceful discussion, communication and schooling instead of bombs; and even incorporate other cultures as we see fit (this is a big theme here in Brazil related to our modern art week :) ).

[ajkjk]

That's fine, but that's not really the kind of war I was talking about. In case you're wondering yes, I'd be in favor of self defense as well.

[blindmute]

This attitude dissolves when the opposing army comes to your city. It's kill or be killed, and there are many people who do not share your pacifism. How detached from reality must you be to write this comment and the ones following? Frankly I'm surprised such genes have survived in the pool this long; your beliefs are dysgenic and suicidal. When the enemy comes, or they 'just' seize your farms, you fight or you die.

[hungryforcodes]

No you just leave. Countries are there to serve people not the other way around. Genes survive to reproduce another day.

[ZeroGravitas]

Not wanting to kill 'the enemy', even when under fire, is not a millenial invention. It's basic human nature. See "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society" for more.

[coldpie]

I feel like your post has a hint of disapproval in it--or maybe I'm just inserting that--but I find it describes my feelings (US born 1988) perfectly accurately, yes.

[stjohnswarts]

So you have no problem with Russia ultimately "winning" in Ukraine and then mass executing Ukrainians (like they did in Buscha and probably other towns) who don't want to be turned into Russian slaves and have their culture destroyed? You think NATO should roll over and let this happen when we can probably stop it by sending Ukraine weapons to fight back? Just don't care because it's "over there? I am just trying to understand this mindset. (Straddling millenial and gen-x age here)

[s1artibartfast]

There are few parts to this, but a lot of it comes down to non-interventionism and skepticism of the information provided. I can give a few thoughts that I hold to some degree.

I don't have a personal problem with Russia "winning". How could it possibly be "my" problem. It isn't impacting me and it not my responsibility.

I think that my country has a long history of intervention abroad, and it is nearly always shown to be negative and self interested in hindsight.

In past interventions, most of the information presented to the public is lies and propaganda, so I have essentially no faith any any of the reporting on the current war.

I think the US involvement in this war has resulted in escalated death and destruction, and prevented peaceful resolution.

If it were up to me (as a non-interventionist), the US would have agreed to keep NATO out of Ukraine, and thereby avoided the deaths that occurred. If it were up to me, I would have also offered this in negotiation for Russia pulling out of Ukraine after the war started.

[coldpie]

When did I say any of that?

[Gollapalli]

I get war (kind of… never fought one). But I don’t get why this war is my war. It’s a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. We have no sworn defense pact with Ukraine, except that if nuclear aggression arises from some other power, we defend them from such.

Why do I care what the Russians and Ukrainians do? Now if the American world hegemony or whatever wishes to continue to exert control over Ukraine, fine. But, I have no stakeholdership in that, and it increasingly seems that I and people like me are quite disliked by said hegemony. If they want us to support their empire, maybe they ought to cut us in on a bit more of its spoils, and give us a bit more say in its aims.

[pseudalopex]

> We have no sworn defense pact with Ukraine, except that if nuclear aggression arises from some other power, we defend them from such.

What document do you believe said that?

[yks]

You are correct in some immediate sense but this war is a bit different because it is actually revealing what using nukes or threatening to use nukes means in the context of war of conquest/genocide in 21st century. If the US completely abandoned Ukraine day one, then Russia would attack a NATO country next cause they would feel the nuclear threat is too much for the US to handle.

[hungryforcodes]

"If I may, my impression is also that the younger generations don't "get" war. Why would I, ever shoot someone just like me because his/her/xyr government has forced them to point a rifle at me?"

I got that part...

[CraigJPerry]

>> post-modernist neo-marxist

What does that mean? It seems like a contradiction in terms. How could you have someone who rejects modernist ideology but promotes a modernist ideology?

[WaxProlix]

It's a common cliché from rightwing circles (initially I think the combination of the two was produced by Jordan Peterson). Not to be too mean, but you'll see a lot of the Ben Shapiro fan crowd snagging on to it because it sounds smart despite being mostly meaningless. It's a placeholder for terms like 'degeneracy' and 'cultural bolshevism' and other such social forces that might undermine the status quo.

There's a bit more nuance if you want to try to take the term at face value. DDG renders this, which seems reasonable https://areomagazine.com/2022/04/11/is-postmodernism-neo-mar...

[makomk]

It is. The ideology that's referring to which is popular amongst politically active young people is frankly a mess. In particular there's a gaping hole in their post-modernism where they just completely fail to apply any of its tools to their own ideological beliefs or power structures, instead using it to prop up their vaguely Marxist and not so vaguely anti-Western ideology.

[imbnwa]

Anyone who ever actually read Foucault would instantly realize he wasn't a Marxist because he thought it failed to sufficiently describe why the way we produce truth and knowledge shift historically, which more often than not tends to only be explainable as 'progress' after the fact.

[hi5eyes]

> it's going to be interesting to watch what tactics have to be used to get an unwilling generation in the metaphorical front lines.

Biden's admin is already ..trying.. the "how do you do, fellow kids" approach

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/11/tik-tok...