We have heard countless tales of the horrors of war, yet why is it so easy to glorify it?, even when people intentionally tries to portray the ugliness of war most of the time it will only backfire and end up portraying war as something that is fun, Hell even the phrase "War is Hell" makes it sounds like it's awesome. If there was one movie that convinced me that war really is a frightening thing it was the movie "Come and See"
Homo-sapiens developed along a line of ensuring the survival of the immediate group over others. In later times, as communications grew greater this extended to the idea of the Nation (using the term as a group of people that self-identify as a group based on history, language, culture and other factors within a geographical area.) Now, in earlier times it would be considered the greatest sacrifice to give fully of yourself such as to protect the other members of your group and it would make evolutionary sense as well because one set of genes would be sacrificed but your sisters, mother, younger brothers etc would survive to reproduce and they carry genes almost identical to your own; when this was applied to the Nation level the same was still true and so war is sub-consciously glorified in the same way that fighting of a wolf to save a young child would be. That being said I've never fought in a war, nor even had to put myself in any real physical danger to help others. However, I feel I would make that sacrifice to defend humanity from those homo-sapiens that would threaten it.
I'm not sure why, but I do reckon your question could fit in on that 'false historical stereotypes' thread, the stereotype being that everyone who ever lived apart from us loved the idea of war.
Because the vast majority of people in the western world have never, and will never fight in an actual war. The only knowledge most of the people have is in action movies, where the hero gets to blow stuff up and shoot the bad guys and save his girl without any real fear of consequence
Most likely because glorification is the only way to justify, besides necessity, which many may find distasteful, a undesireable reality of existence. Without glorification, we may begin to realise that many died fighting for something they would never recieve, either due to their deaths, or the loss of said conflict.
It's because humans are impressionable as shit. You were taught since you were young that war was inherently wrong. People in the 1900s were taught it was a glorious sacrifice for the good of one's country. And they believed it. Just like how today we believe war is Hell. And for the record, the majority of you guys haven't been in war before either. It is senseless to say that people believe war is glorious because they've never been in it before, when you yourself haven't. Yet people in the Western world were far more militaristic when war was common. I remember one quote from someone before World War One, "You forget I fought in the Zulu Wars. I fought with the butt of my gun when the ammo ran out and used my dead comrades as sandbags and I'd go back there again if asked, for King and Country."
For the record, have been in war, and there is a huge difference even inside the military talking about war with people who have been and people who haven't. You make a good point about past attitudes, but I would imagine that it was romanticized in a similar way in literature as it is in movies today. I don't really know enough about that period of history to be able to say more then that, but at least in contemporary terms I stand by what I said earlier.
@pedro3131 Ever read this book? if not listen this bit and tell me your opinion, i know its 7 minutes long but still, it would be splendid to hear a vet's opinion on that.