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Educational Legacy Of War

I remember growing up and playing various video games as a young child. Many of these video games were extremely violent games, games in which my friends and I could learn how to control a gun and kill enemies. In addition to those games, I remember seeing commercials for movies in the theater that were violent movies filled with scenes of fighting and defending oneself against the enemy. Regrettably, I suppose I was brought up to view war as a mediocrity in society. This is what Clarence Karier seems to talk about in his lecture on the educational legacy of war, about the lessons war has taught us.
Karier begins his lecture by explaining how society has a false belief in the myth about America being a peaceful nation. He continues to list the various wars that our country has been a witness to throughout the 19th century, as well as throughout the 20th century. Essentially, Karier is trying to convey to the audience how America has indeed been in the state of constant war, and is not truly a peace-loving nation. For if America were truly a peace-loving nation as we claim to be, we would not see our state and national governments in great debt because of military expenditures. We also would not have to live with the fact that America has gone from greatest creditor nation to greatest debtor nation in the world, and all within our lifetime too.

As Karier continues on through his lecture, he states that the second myth is the belief that war is temporary. He explains how once we experience war, we can never really ever return home, for those traumatic times of war are forever in the memories of the soldier and the community as well. Karier himself defines war as a heightened undemocratic experience in living from which much is learned. (Karier, 4) The lessons of war are taught to the living, they are found in our behavior long after the guns have ceased firing and these lessons are destructive to a democratic society.
The fundamental notion of war is that...