Ukraine: would you fight or run?
Poll: Ukraine: would you fight or run?
Total Members Polled: 238
Discussion
hidetheelephants said:
Don't discount the fact that the average PHer leans heavily libertarian, or at least a very selfish form of it where others ought to help them but not vice versa.
I think it's age related, older people will have been told many timesthe sacrifices of some of their relatives, many 20 year olds will
be indifferent or scathing of medieval things called patriotism,
duty, King and Country.
I'd fight dirty like the good folk in the great film Went The Day Well.
Nethybridge said:
I think it's age related, older people will have been told many times
the sacrifices of some of their relatives, many 20 year olds will
be indifferent or scathing of medieval things called patriotism,
duty, King and Country.
I'd fight dirty like the good folk in the great film Went The Day Well.
If it were age related it would be the other way round, the crowd on here being largely older.the sacrifices of some of their relatives, many 20 year olds will
be indifferent or scathing of medieval things called patriotism,
duty, King and Country.
I'd fight dirty like the good folk in the great film Went The Day Well.
I’d suggest it’s more likely money related. The wealthy have always let the less well off do their fighting for them. Pick pretty much any conflict in recent history and you’ll find the wealthy who could flee did exactly that.
djc206 said:
I’d suggest it’s more likely money related. The wealthy have always let the less well off do their fighting for them. Pick pretty much any conflict in recent history and you’ll find the wealthy who could flee did exactly that.
The affluent are more able to flee, bribe a doctor to supply a biff chit or otherwise evade conscription, I'd suggest opportunity plays the greater part. Human beings are more or less all the same, brains do not evolve differently according to bank balance.Quite a few people on here who have seen too many Rambo films, even one so Walt that he’s named himself after an Inglorious Basterd. I spend a lot of time abroad and have some close friends who are Ukrainian. They are proud Ukrainians, but they won’t fight. The reality is that an overweight 30-something guy who has only ever known IT and a cosy office job is not cut out for freezing his balls off in a foxhole being shelled 24/7 from 50 miles away.
If you do hit the frontline, then it would be horrific for anyone, let alone someone thrust into it with minimal military training.
Oh, and you don’t really get the choice whether to fight or not, it’s pretty much conscription and you can be taken off the street, assessed as fit to fight, put on a bus, receive a months training and then thrown into it. Those who want to fight can volunteer and many have, but being forced to fight when it’s not in your nature is not a good place to be.
I wonder how many of those claiming they’d fight would jump in to break up a fight on their street this morning if they saw one, or would cross the road to avoid it?
If you do hit the frontline, then it would be horrific for anyone, let alone someone thrust into it with minimal military training.
Oh, and you don’t really get the choice whether to fight or not, it’s pretty much conscription and you can be taken off the street, assessed as fit to fight, put on a bus, receive a months training and then thrown into it. Those who want to fight can volunteer and many have, but being forced to fight when it’s not in your nature is not a good place to be.
I wonder how many of those claiming they’d fight would jump in to break up a fight on their street this morning if they saw one, or would cross the road to avoid it?
egor110 said:
What would be interesting is how you'd post war go back to your old life ?
Like there must be loads fighting in Ukraine who had pretty crappy jobs with no power who are now fighting in these lawless no man zones , to go back to your old job with no power would be impossible.
This very question completely and utterly changed the complexion of Britain after WW1.Like there must be loads fighting in Ukraine who had pretty crappy jobs with no power who are now fighting in these lawless no man zones , to go back to your old job with no power would be impossible.
Before 1914, the class boundaries in British society were staggeringly entrenched, with the overwhelming majority of people doing exactly what their ancestors had done for generations before them, and whilst not maybe quite as bad as the French, where troops from different parts of the country might not even share a common language, the chances were that people from this country would never have met anyone from outside their immediate home area.
Once the troops made it to the carnage of the Western front, though, all that changed. Men from all over the country found themselves serving together when regiments cobbled together out of survivors of previously decimated units, and those who survived would often find themselves promoted very rapidly. My great-grandfather, for example, went off to war as a private soldier in 1914 and came home 4 years later as a Regimental Sergeant Major - the equivalent in civilian life of becoming a factory foreman within 4 years of starting your apprenticeship, on top of which he would doubtless have had middle class men in the ranks under him who would've always been viewed as his superiors in civilian society, to say nothing of the need to effectively manage upper class, often aristocratic rookie junior officers in a way that would've seemed scandalous outside that specific place and time.
The impact when all these millions of men came home from war and decided that they weren't going to meekly get back into their pre-war boxes resulted in arguably the biggest and fastest changes that British society has ever seen.
2xChevrons said:
I find the proportion of replies saying "No, because the politicians are all b
ds and the country's a sthole" very surprising. The idea that the choice to fight against a force (especially one of the ilk of present-day Russia) invading your country has anything to do with agreeing with the politicians just doesn't occur to me.
If you can find a copy of 'Three Corvettes', the war memoirs of Nicholas Monsarrat (he of 'The Cruel Sea' fame). He has an entire chapter entitled "Why Men Fight" and he closes each section of the book - what were originally the closing chapters of each volume when they were published contemporaneously in the 1940s - with long introspections about his thoughts, feelings, motivations and philosophy of The War and war in general. They run the closest I've ever encountered in writing to my own thoughts on the matter and, in my encounters with people in the military who have voiced theirs, with others who have made that decision.
I've lent my copy out so can't quote from it directly. But Monsarrat was a socialist and, before and after WW2, a pacifist. But he came to the conclusion that, in extreme cases, the cause of peace can only be meaningfully served by taking up arms and doing violence against a force and an ideology that seeks only to wring more force and harm and violence on the world than any war could.
He loathed the social and political system of pre-war Britain - the wretched poverty of the Great Depression, the self-serving class system, the rich who moralised about the condition of the poor while getting fat off their labour, the grifters and swindlers who saw rearmament and wartime as an excuse for profit. But he fought because a) fascism could only be worse in every respect and b) he saw fighting as a way for a generation to gain political and moral leverage to improve things. "We worked, fought, suffered, strove and died for six years...and we're not going back to the way things were".
I'm not sure anyone really, at the sharp end, 'fights for their country'. They fight (in no particular order) for themselves (to keep themselves alive, in extremis), the people next to them, for their family and friends back home and for certain values and things they hold dear.
Sticking with the naval theme, Sir Peter Scott wrote very eloquently about standing watch on the bridge of his destroyer as dawn broke over the English Channel and realising that, fundamentally, what he specifically and personally was fighting for, was the dark tree-lined river estuaries of the Devon coast, the creeks full of ducks and waders, the gurgling tide, the mud cracking and popping as it dried...and his freedom to enjoy them whenever the fancy took him. That is what the war was about for him - it encompassed a lot of much more high-minded things like liberty and history and individuality and nature but they were embodied in a landscape.
Do so many PHers really have nothing, at any level or scale, that they cherish enough to try and protect in the face of tanks rolling over the border to impose a regime and an ideology that threatens them?
War is hellish. Modern warfare is especially brutal in the scale and speed of destruction, and is particularly adept at wreaking a particular sort of psychological terror (having a cheap drone with a grenade sticky-taped to it following you around for hours before it either buzzes of or drops on you...and you don't know which. But could you live with yourself if you were physically safe but had given up on everything else you held dear?
I know this sounds very self-sure of me. None of us can truly know the answer until we are directly faced with it. But as a military reservist it's a matter I have pondered and I have clearly made my decision - which has to be 'Fight'.
Great Post. I fully agree.ds and the country's a sthole" very surprising. The idea that the choice to fight against a force (especially one of the ilk of present-day Russia) invading your country has anything to do with agreeing with the politicians just doesn't occur to me. If you can find a copy of 'Three Corvettes', the war memoirs of Nicholas Monsarrat (he of 'The Cruel Sea' fame). He has an entire chapter entitled "Why Men Fight" and he closes each section of the book - what were originally the closing chapters of each volume when they were published contemporaneously in the 1940s - with long introspections about his thoughts, feelings, motivations and philosophy of The War and war in general. They run the closest I've ever encountered in writing to my own thoughts on the matter and, in my encounters with people in the military who have voiced theirs, with others who have made that decision.
I've lent my copy out so can't quote from it directly. But Monsarrat was a socialist and, before and after WW2, a pacifist. But he came to the conclusion that, in extreme cases, the cause of peace can only be meaningfully served by taking up arms and doing violence against a force and an ideology that seeks only to wring more force and harm and violence on the world than any war could.
He loathed the social and political system of pre-war Britain - the wretched poverty of the Great Depression, the self-serving class system, the rich who moralised about the condition of the poor while getting fat off their labour, the grifters and swindlers who saw rearmament and wartime as an excuse for profit. But he fought because a) fascism could only be worse in every respect and b) he saw fighting as a way for a generation to gain political and moral leverage to improve things. "We worked, fought, suffered, strove and died for six years...and we're not going back to the way things were".
I'm not sure anyone really, at the sharp end, 'fights for their country'. They fight (in no particular order) for themselves (to keep themselves alive, in extremis), the people next to them, for their family and friends back home and for certain values and things they hold dear.
Sticking with the naval theme, Sir Peter Scott wrote very eloquently about standing watch on the bridge of his destroyer as dawn broke over the English Channel and realising that, fundamentally, what he specifically and personally was fighting for, was the dark tree-lined river estuaries of the Devon coast, the creeks full of ducks and waders, the gurgling tide, the mud cracking and popping as it dried...and his freedom to enjoy them whenever the fancy took him. That is what the war was about for him - it encompassed a lot of much more high-minded things like liberty and history and individuality and nature but they were embodied in a landscape.
Do so many PHers really have nothing, at any level or scale, that they cherish enough to try and protect in the face of tanks rolling over the border to impose a regime and an ideology that threatens them?
War is hellish. Modern warfare is especially brutal in the scale and speed of destruction, and is particularly adept at wreaking a particular sort of psychological terror (having a cheap drone with a grenade sticky-taped to it following you around for hours before it either buzzes of or drops on you...and you don't know which. But could you live with yourself if you were physically safe but had given up on everything else you held dear?
I know this sounds very self-sure of me. None of us can truly know the answer until we are directly faced with it. But as a military reservist it's a matter I have pondered and I have clearly made my decision - which has to be 'Fight'.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Sunday 5th May 21:20
I find some of the replies surprising as well, and almost if people misunderstand what the question is (unless I have of course).
If me fighting made the difference between enjoying the freedoms we as a country have and not having them, I'd fight.
I couldn't cope mentally with choosing not to fight in some way when others were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for myself, my family, or my friends.
In general, I tend to believe in fighting the battles I can win in life without too much stress - and that is certainly not all my "battles". I'm not sure I'd dominate the stairs, and you could pretty much always get away with spilling my pint
The Ukrainians do seem to be "winning", albeit only just, and with massive support from others, but by virtue of the fact they have prevented themselves being overrun and subsumed by a much more powerful, hostile, undemocratic neighbour that would appear to be a "win" (for the time being).
If me fighting made the difference between enjoying the freedoms we as a country have and not having them, I'd fight.
I couldn't cope mentally with choosing not to fight in some way when others were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for myself, my family, or my friends.
In general, I tend to believe in fighting the battles I can win in life without too much stress - and that is certainly not all my "battles". I'm not sure I'd dominate the stairs, and you could pretty much always get away with spilling my pint
The Ukrainians do seem to be "winning", albeit only just, and with massive support from others, but by virtue of the fact they have prevented themselves being overrun and subsumed by a much more powerful, hostile, undemocratic neighbour that would appear to be a "win" (for the time being).
LF5335 said:
Quite a few people on here who have seen too many Rambo films, even one so Walt that he’s named himself after an Inglorious Basterd. I spend a lot of time abroad and have some close friends who are Ukrainian. They are proud Ukrainians, but they won’t fight. The reality is that an overweight 30-something guy who has only ever known IT and a cosy office job is not cut out for freezing his balls off in a foxhole being shelled 24/7 from 50 miles away.
If you do hit the frontline, then it would be horrific for anyone, let alone someone thrust into it with minimal military training.
Oh, and you don’t really get the choice whether to fight or not, it’s pretty much conscription and you can be taken off the street, assessed as fit to fight, put on a bus, receive a months training and then thrown into it. Those who want to fight can volunteer and many have, but being forced to fight when it’s not in your nature is not a good place to be.
I wonder how many of those claiming they’d fight would jump in to break up a fight on their street this morning if they saw one, or would cross the road to avoid it?
I mean this is such a load of BS, its unbelievable. If you do hit the frontline, then it would be horrific for anyone, let alone someone thrust into it with minimal military training.
Oh, and you don’t really get the choice whether to fight or not, it’s pretty much conscription and you can be taken off the street, assessed as fit to fight, put on a bus, receive a months training and then thrown into it. Those who want to fight can volunteer and many have, but being forced to fight when it’s not in your nature is not a good place to be.
I wonder how many of those claiming they’d fight would jump in to break up a fight on their street this morning if they saw one, or would cross the road to avoid it?
No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
I wonder if people think only farmers, fishermen, postman etc get conscripted ?
I can only add to what others have written. Post WW2 society changed as well, many in uniform became interested in politics, quite a few of Labours MPs came from the military.
Many were determined to change what had gone on before WW2. I think a few lead the post WW2 strikes in the RAF.
I can only add to what others have written. Post WW2 society changed as well, many in uniform became interested in politics, quite a few of Labours MPs came from the military.
Many were determined to change what had gone on before WW2. I think a few lead the post WW2 strikes in the RAF.
Mabbs9 said:
2xChevrons said:
I find the proportion of replies saying "No, because the politicians are all bds and the country's a sthole" very surprising. The idea that the choice to fight against a force (especially one of the ilk of present-day Russia) invading your country has anything to do with agreeing with the politicians just doesn't occur to me.
If you can find a copy of 'Three Corvettes', the war memoirs of Nicholas Monsarrat (he of 'The Cruel Sea' fame). He has an entire chapter entitled "Why Men Fight" and he closes each section of the book - what were originally the closing chapters of each volume when they were published contemporaneously in the 1940s - with long introspections about his thoughts, feelings, motivations and philosophy of The War and war in general. They run the closest I've ever encountered in writing to my own thoughts on the matter and, in my encounters with people in the military who have voiced theirs, with others who have made that decision.
I've lent my copy out so can't quote from it directly. But Monsarrat was a socialist and, before and after WW2, a pacifist. But he came to the conclusion that, in extreme cases, the cause of peace can only be meaningfully served by taking up arms and doing violence against a force and an ideology that seeks only to wring more force and harm and violence on the world than any war could.
He loathed the social and political system of pre-war Britain - the wretched poverty of the Great Depression, the self-serving class system, the rich who moralised about the condition of the poor while getting fat off their labour, the grifters and swindlers who saw rearmament and wartime as an excuse for profit. But he fought because a) fascism could only be worse in every respect and b) he saw fighting as a way for a generation to gain political and moral leverage to improve things. "We worked, fought, suffered, strove and died for six years...and we're not going back to the way things were".
I'm not sure anyone really, at the sharp end, 'fights for their country'. They fight (in no particular order) for themselves (to keep themselves alive, in extremis), the people next to them, for their family and friends back home and for certain values and things they hold dear.
Sticking with the naval theme, Sir Peter Scott wrote very eloquently about standing watch on the bridge of his destroyer as dawn broke over the English Channel and realising that, fundamentally, what he specifically and personally was fighting for, was the dark tree-lined river estuaries of the Devon coast, the creeks full of ducks and waders, the gurgling tide, the mud cracking and popping as it dried...and his freedom to enjoy them whenever the fancy took him. That is what the war was about for him - it encompassed a lot of much more high-minded things like liberty and history and individuality and nature but they were embodied in a landscape.
Do so many PHers really have nothing, at any level or scale, that they cherish enough to try and protect in the face of tanks rolling over the border to impose a regime and an ideology that threatens them?
War is hellish. Modern warfare is especially brutal in the scale and speed of destruction, and is particularly adept at wreaking a particular sort of psychological terror (having a cheap drone with a grenade sticky-taped to it following you around for hours before it either buzzes of or drops on you...and you don't know which. But could you live with yourself if you were physically safe but had given up on everything else you held dear?
I know this sounds very self-sure of me. None of us can truly know the answer until we are directly faced with it. But as a military reservist it's a matter I have pondered and I have clearly made my decision - which has to be 'Fight'.
Great Post. I fully agree.ds and the country's a sthole" very surprising. The idea that the choice to fight against a force (especially one of the ilk of present-day Russia) invading your country has anything to do with agreeing with the politicians just doesn't occur to me. If you can find a copy of 'Three Corvettes', the war memoirs of Nicholas Monsarrat (he of 'The Cruel Sea' fame). He has an entire chapter entitled "Why Men Fight" and he closes each section of the book - what were originally the closing chapters of each volume when they were published contemporaneously in the 1940s - with long introspections about his thoughts, feelings, motivations and philosophy of The War and war in general. They run the closest I've ever encountered in writing to my own thoughts on the matter and, in my encounters with people in the military who have voiced theirs, with others who have made that decision.
I've lent my copy out so can't quote from it directly. But Monsarrat was a socialist and, before and after WW2, a pacifist. But he came to the conclusion that, in extreme cases, the cause of peace can only be meaningfully served by taking up arms and doing violence against a force and an ideology that seeks only to wring more force and harm and violence on the world than any war could.
He loathed the social and political system of pre-war Britain - the wretched poverty of the Great Depression, the self-serving class system, the rich who moralised about the condition of the poor while getting fat off their labour, the grifters and swindlers who saw rearmament and wartime as an excuse for profit. But he fought because a) fascism could only be worse in every respect and b) he saw fighting as a way for a generation to gain political and moral leverage to improve things. "We worked, fought, suffered, strove and died for six years...and we're not going back to the way things were".
I'm not sure anyone really, at the sharp end, 'fights for their country'. They fight (in no particular order) for themselves (to keep themselves alive, in extremis), the people next to them, for their family and friends back home and for certain values and things they hold dear.
Sticking with the naval theme, Sir Peter Scott wrote very eloquently about standing watch on the bridge of his destroyer as dawn broke over the English Channel and realising that, fundamentally, what he specifically and personally was fighting for, was the dark tree-lined river estuaries of the Devon coast, the creeks full of ducks and waders, the gurgling tide, the mud cracking and popping as it dried...and his freedom to enjoy them whenever the fancy took him. That is what the war was about for him - it encompassed a lot of much more high-minded things like liberty and history and individuality and nature but they were embodied in a landscape.
Do so many PHers really have nothing, at any level or scale, that they cherish enough to try and protect in the face of tanks rolling over the border to impose a regime and an ideology that threatens them?
War is hellish. Modern warfare is especially brutal in the scale and speed of destruction, and is particularly adept at wreaking a particular sort of psychological terror (having a cheap drone with a grenade sticky-taped to it following you around for hours before it either buzzes of or drops on you...and you don't know which. But could you live with yourself if you were physically safe but had given up on everything else you held dear?
I know this sounds very self-sure of me. None of us can truly know the answer until we are directly faced with it. But as a military reservist it's a matter I have pondered and I have clearly made my decision - which has to be 'Fight'.
The most important thing to me is my children. If I could get them out of the country, they would be better served by my going with them to continue to protect and provide for them in whatever unknown land they ended up in.
If I couldn't get them to safety, then I think fighting for my country would be the best way of protecting them.
I cannot conceive of a scenario where the best option for them is my getting them to safety and then staying behind to fight, unless I'd been Jewish in WW2 and faced a truly existential threat to my family anywhere in Europe if people hadn't stood up and fought back.
Gargamel said:
I mean this is such a load of BS, its unbelievable.
No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
If I offer to pay for a flight here so you can tell my Ukrainian friends to their faces what cowards they are. What would you do? No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
Rayny said:
From some threads, I think that a lot of people would not even do their civic duty and attend jury service. So I cannot imagine many of them fighting a war...
You can't equate the two. When working I disagreed with being forced to do jury duty for no pay (I had a family to feed) but I would fight for my country/freedom.Now I'm retired I'd happily volunteer for jury duty.
Good to see I am not quite as alone as I seemed in the earlier pages of this thread!
Charitably, I think some of the responses came from posters not really engaging with the question and taking it as them - as British people - fighting for Ukraine in the here and now or not properly putting themselves in the hypothetical shoes of a Ukranian having their country annexed and attacked by Russia.
If Russia - authoritarian, ethnonationalist, chauvinist, kleptocratic Russia - suddenly started dropping missiles and bombs on London, paratroopers dropped onto Teeside Airport and landing craft hove into view off Skegness, how many of you would really hold to the "not my fight, this place isn't worth it" stance and scramble for the first ferry to France?
I do have this passage of Monsarrat copy/pasted.
Written in his cabin aboard his sloop in early 1945 when victory was virtually assured but hadn't been achieved, his thoughts turned to the future. These are the closing paragraphs of an account he had kept virtually day to day since early 1940:
A lot of the Greatest Generation had precious little love for their politicians or society. A lot of them utterly loathed Churchill for his repeated and costly blunders in WW1 and his actions against workers in the 1920s. Even if they respected his wartime leadership, they were not going to have him in peace. They may have had little time or love for the Establishment, but they were fighting against something much worse and fighting for something much better.
I know this has precious little direct relevance to Ukrainians in 2024 (I don't know what - if any - 'sales pitch' has been made to them about what Ukraine will look like when/if Russia is turned back) but this is more in surprised - rather shocked, actually- and baffled counterpoint to the seemingly quite common feeling that fighting an invading hostile force requires you to approve of a relative handfull of politicians.
Charitably, I think some of the responses came from posters not really engaging with the question and taking it as them - as British people - fighting for Ukraine in the here and now or not properly putting themselves in the hypothetical shoes of a Ukranian having their country annexed and attacked by Russia.
If Russia - authoritarian, ethnonationalist, chauvinist, kleptocratic Russia - suddenly started dropping missiles and bombs on London, paratroopers dropped onto Teeside Airport and landing craft hove into view off Skegness, how many of you would really hold to the "not my fight, this place isn't worth it" stance and scramble for the first ferry to France?
borcy said:
I can only add to what others have written. Post WW2 society changed as well, many in uniform became interested in politics, quite a few of Labours MPs came from the military.
Many were determined to change what had gone on before WW2. I think a few lead the post WW2 strikes in the RAF.
Many were determined to change what had gone on before WW2. I think a few lead the post WW2 strikes in the RAF.
I do have this passage of Monsarrat copy/pasted.Written in his cabin aboard his sloop in early 1945 when victory was virtually assured but hadn't been achieved, his thoughts turned to the future. These are the closing paragraphs of an account he had kept virtually day to day since early 1940:
Nicholas Monsarrat said:
I abhore war-time strikes...but, by God, you can understand how strikes come about! The dictum "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," covers them exactly, and it is idle to look beyond that. Many of these men who strike now were treated like dirt for years before the war; almost literally like dirt- they were tipped and shovelled out of the way and on to a sort of slag-heap of unemployed and unemployables. They didn't learn love of country from that...
Now they have power, almost paramount power, and they use it to square up the account. It isn't patriotism, certainly (the system which pauperized them wasn't patriotism either); it is not in the end even common sense; but it is assuredly human nature. The argument seems, to them, crystal clear; why should they listen to appeals to their better feelings now, when they wore their hearts sick making those appeals - futile and neglected ones - in the lean and seedy years between the wars?
Why indeed should they have better feelings? They are working at the same jobs as in peace-time, jobs which present no challenge to their courage, no real incentive to selfless endurance; naturally they fall back on peace-time tactics whenever a chance of improvement comes their way.
Are we going to do better this time? Are we going to improve on that sort of world, where competing forces, individual and national, snap and snarl at each other like so many hyenas, enforcing a cut-throat competition in which the real loser is the common man; where human values are disdained; where the weakest goes to the wall - and even there is charged a luxury price for standing-room? There are signs of hope, I know, but there are other signs too; indeed, one current pointer indicates that we are not going to improve at all, except to make the competition fiercer and the fate of the losers more permanently miserable.
That pointer is, shortly, that there are still people, of consequence (or at least of financial standing) whom the war has not affected at all, except that it has served to enrich them at a prodigious rate. They are not contributing to the national effort; they are playing a lone hand, with some very familiar cards in it. After the war, clearly, these people expect Britain to pick up exactly where she left off, and the fact that this means the dying and futile 1930s again, with their masses of victims, doesn't seem to have penetrated at all, except as a clarion call to plunder.
Is this the sort of world we are coming back to? Is this the noble future? We might as well chuck it in here and now if it is.
We might as well chuck it in because it means that all the jokes we make in the wardroom about life after the war - about match-selling, about hawking trays of carbon-paper and india-rubbers, about buying chicken-farms and selling vacuum cleaners - all those grime fancies, products of a sense of insecurity, aren't going to be jokes at all. They are going to come true; there will be millions of unemployed, medals pawned, Welsh miners in the gutters of London; there will be barrel-organs again, with men as the flea-bitten monkeys in attendance.
Unless we improve on that grisly process, we can all forecast its exact course and its gross and pitiful details. A blue-print of misery exists already - the one we used last time. Some people are acting as if we are going to use it again; as if, indeed, there was no other sort to be had, and no real need for a different one either.
There is a different one; there must be; and of course we won't chuck in because we are hopeful - and, it may be said, determined. Perhaps only some of us, perhaps only a few, but enough for the spark - for such ideas spread easily, backed by the stimulus to co-operation which war furnishes, and the plain success of comradeship which it demonstrates.
We are going to improve on last time, because we clearly have the collective will, spread through all the Forces - the young men. An army does not fight the breadth of Africa and then allow itself to be sold down the river when it gets home; sailors develop qualities of determination which are useful in any sphere; the "few to whom the many owe so much" can easily decide to collect their debt.
It need not demand money as the mainspring, this new world, but it will certainly require generosity and understanding, and continued service, too. It will need, most important of all, a social conscience working continuously, all through the social scale. With a few blind spots, the war has produced evidence of all these things, in abundance. If we can carry them over to peace-time, we have high hopes of the future.
There's a reason why the Beveridge Report sold by the millions and copies were found in virtually every field kitchen, mess deck, canteen, guardhouse, hangar and dispersal shed where British forces were found around the world. Now they have power, almost paramount power, and they use it to square up the account. It isn't patriotism, certainly (the system which pauperized them wasn't patriotism either); it is not in the end even common sense; but it is assuredly human nature. The argument seems, to them, crystal clear; why should they listen to appeals to their better feelings now, when they wore their hearts sick making those appeals - futile and neglected ones - in the lean and seedy years between the wars?
Why indeed should they have better feelings? They are working at the same jobs as in peace-time, jobs which present no challenge to their courage, no real incentive to selfless endurance; naturally they fall back on peace-time tactics whenever a chance of improvement comes their way.
Are we going to do better this time? Are we going to improve on that sort of world, where competing forces, individual and national, snap and snarl at each other like so many hyenas, enforcing a cut-throat competition in which the real loser is the common man; where human values are disdained; where the weakest goes to the wall - and even there is charged a luxury price for standing-room? There are signs of hope, I know, but there are other signs too; indeed, one current pointer indicates that we are not going to improve at all, except to make the competition fiercer and the fate of the losers more permanently miserable.
That pointer is, shortly, that there are still people, of consequence (or at least of financial standing) whom the war has not affected at all, except that it has served to enrich them at a prodigious rate. They are not contributing to the national effort; they are playing a lone hand, with some very familiar cards in it. After the war, clearly, these people expect Britain to pick up exactly where she left off, and the fact that this means the dying and futile 1930s again, with their masses of victims, doesn't seem to have penetrated at all, except as a clarion call to plunder.
Is this the sort of world we are coming back to? Is this the noble future? We might as well chuck it in here and now if it is.
We might as well chuck it in because it means that all the jokes we make in the wardroom about life after the war - about match-selling, about hawking trays of carbon-paper and india-rubbers, about buying chicken-farms and selling vacuum cleaners - all those grime fancies, products of a sense of insecurity, aren't going to be jokes at all. They are going to come true; there will be millions of unemployed, medals pawned, Welsh miners in the gutters of London; there will be barrel-organs again, with men as the flea-bitten monkeys in attendance.
Unless we improve on that grisly process, we can all forecast its exact course and its gross and pitiful details. A blue-print of misery exists already - the one we used last time. Some people are acting as if we are going to use it again; as if, indeed, there was no other sort to be had, and no real need for a different one either.
There is a different one; there must be; and of course we won't chuck in because we are hopeful - and, it may be said, determined. Perhaps only some of us, perhaps only a few, but enough for the spark - for such ideas spread easily, backed by the stimulus to co-operation which war furnishes, and the plain success of comradeship which it demonstrates.
We are going to improve on last time, because we clearly have the collective will, spread through all the Forces - the young men. An army does not fight the breadth of Africa and then allow itself to be sold down the river when it gets home; sailors develop qualities of determination which are useful in any sphere; the "few to whom the many owe so much" can easily decide to collect their debt.
It need not demand money as the mainspring, this new world, but it will certainly require generosity and understanding, and continued service, too. It will need, most important of all, a social conscience working continuously, all through the social scale. With a few blind spots, the war has produced evidence of all these things, in abundance. If we can carry them over to peace-time, we have high hopes of the future.
A lot of the Greatest Generation had precious little love for their politicians or society. A lot of them utterly loathed Churchill for his repeated and costly blunders in WW1 and his actions against workers in the 1920s. Even if they respected his wartime leadership, they were not going to have him in peace. They may have had little time or love for the Establishment, but they were fighting against something much worse and fighting for something much better.
I know this has precious little direct relevance to Ukrainians in 2024 (I don't know what - if any - 'sales pitch' has been made to them about what Ukraine will look like when/if Russia is turned back) but this is more in surprised - rather shocked, actually- and baffled counterpoint to the seemingly quite common feeling that fighting an invading hostile force requires you to approve of a relative handfull of politicians.
I answered from a perspective of the UK being invaded. I am 45, dodgy back and knees never been in the army etc. But yes I would because where else would I go? What would I do give up a life here to live in a container in France to be victim of smugglers with my kids in a rubber raft. No it's not an option. Were we invaded (how it would happen no idea) then may as well fight and die because there is nothing left.
LF5335 said:
Gargamel said:
I mean this is such a load of BS, its unbelievable.
No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
If I offer to pay for a flight here so you can tell my Ukrainian friends to their faces what cowards they are. What would you do? No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
egor110 said:
LF5335 said:
Gargamel said:
I mean this is such a load of BS, its unbelievable.
No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
If I offer to pay for a flight here so you can tell my Ukrainian friends to their faces what cowards they are. What would you do? No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
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