Pride and Prejudice

("Boots on Ground" on the "Frontline")

I was asked one day over a year ago by an Ambassador to the United States to first, watch this video, and then respond to his question why men fight in wars even when they might understand full well the cause to be blatantly circumvent of the true meaning of honor such as in the case of the Iraq War. Whether or not one agrees with going to war in general, there was something specific in question. My response was two-fold and it requires the understanding of both pride and prejudices in accordance with the human condition.

First, men clamor to a "higher cause." This higher cause can be war, the Super Bowl, a paintball game, or even a birthday party. These events bring individuals together by way of the elements of "pass time," a good time, celebration, peer pressure, media attention, a "higher calling," networking, etc. We know it in the United States as the "American dream" or "patriotism." This "groupthink" phenomena makes it to where opposition or neutrality to such a force, whether positive or negative, becomes a seemingly "dangerous" position to find oneself in with respect to the mindset of the social environment in question.

(Marine Colonel Questions "Joker" in Full Metal Jacket)

Second, when we watch films like Full Metal Jacket we become subliminally "conditioned" and trained by the prejudices against other races and ethnicities as they become our cultural "enemies," be it foreign or domestic. For Full Metal Jacket, it was filmed from the view of U.S. Marines where all Vietnamese ("Viet Cong" = VC's) were termed "gooks." Gook is a racial slur against Asians just as "nigger" is a pejorative against Blacks, "sand-nigger" against Middle Eastern folk, "spic" against Hispanics, and "white trash" against Whites. Our fears of the unknown and uncertainties of people from cultures whom we understand little about is used against the imaginations of the population by way of violent propaganda machination. This immediately divides culture by identifying and forming a perceived "wrong" in sub-cultures vice an appreciation for fellow human beings.

(Tom Hanks in "Apollo 13" Film)

This North Korean documentary on the United States gives people an idea of the "American" culture from an "opposing" perspective. The United States is literally riddled with popular ("pop") culture where we know more about Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, and the recent death of Paul Walker than we have ever understood about our own politics, let alone world politics. Take for example, the second Apollo mission to the Earth's Moon, Apollo 13. Cable network customers in the United States were calling into network stations to submit an overwhelming amount of complaints that the airing of this space mission was "interfering" with their ability to watch the "I Love Lucy" show. This means that since at least the 1960's, the American culture has been more "in-tune" with what is popular than what is important and what is "important" is dictated to us by the most popular means of mediated information, "air waves." Older generations have noted that since about 1965, the standard of public education, both at home and in school across the United States, has steadily and rapidly declined.