Post by K-Box on Feb 18, 2009 18:05:56 GMT -8
... And our continuing inability to grow up on this issue.
In response to a recent post on ontd_political:
The problem that both sides of the debate are going to have to face?
Speaking as a political liberal who served in the military for seven years, the military is (necessarily in terms of its methodology, and merely habitually in terms of its ideology) a conservative organization.
By which I mean, whether or not you believe that a majority of military members are conservative politically (and nowadays, I'd say that's up for debate, given how many troops voted for Obama, as documented in previous news stories posted to ontd_political), we have always been conservative in terms of our practices - by which I mean, the military does not embrace "fads," either in terms of allowed hairstyles or in terms of methods of conducting warfare.
To an extent, this is needed, because as an enlisted military member, your indoctrination into the military, in boot camp, consists largely of being required to rely upon ritualized behavior to overcome adversity. While it's unfair to say that you're trained to be an automaton, as those who dislike the military claim, it is fair to say that you're encouraged to put your brain on autopilot and go with your training, because if a crisis hits, and you spend too much time thinking about its scope and implications, there does exist a risk that you're going to freak the fuck out, as one would expect a normal person to do during a severe enough trauma. Tradition becomes a valuable tool in these circumstances, because if your ship has taken a hit, and you've received enough damage control training, you're thinking, "Okay, in this situation, I follow Step One, Step Two, etc.", instead of thinking OMG WTF MY SHIPMATES MIGHT BE DEAD
The problem, then, is not the military's necessary reliance upon its own traditions, but rather, it's the fact that not all traditions are positive. Racism, for example, was a ritualized tradition for decades in the military, and when the Navy finally got serious about trying to de-institutionalize its own racism, it was forced to abandon "tradition" as one of its stated core values, and instead adopted the Marine Corps' three core values of "honor, courage and commitment." That being said, there remains an emphasis on tradition as preferable within the service, and to a degree, it's based upon what are determined to be "societal norms" in the larger civilian world.
The positive news here is that, among younger people (who of course make up the bulk of the military, as the enlisted members at the base of the pyramid), homosexuality is increasingly regarded less and less as "societally abnormal." You'll notice that the majority of these OMG TEH MILITARY CANNOT WITHSTAND TEH GHEY quotes are coming from either former military members or senior active-duty military members. Among the junior enlisted, who comprise the vast majority of the military, TEH GHEY was progressively less and less of a concern even during my time in, which ended in 2003. Don't get me wrong, you still have plenty of homophobes in the military, just like you still have your fair share of racists, but I think homophobia is about a decade or two away from becoming a vestigial organ in the military, as racism has become (if that even makes sense).
I think Obama can deal with this during his presidency, and I think he should deal with it. Whether he should do so during his first term is debatable, but in spite of the slow evolution that I see taking place toward a sort of grudging acceptance, it is not acceptable that American patriots are being treated like third-class citizens in this regard, in spite of doing more to serve and save their country than any scumfuck neocon pundit who denounces TEH GHEY has ever done. There are a lot of civilian rights you DO give up as a military member, but LOVE should not be one of them.
In response to a recent post on ontd_political:
The problem that both sides of the debate are going to have to face?
Speaking as a political liberal who served in the military for seven years, the military is (necessarily in terms of its methodology, and merely habitually in terms of its ideology) a conservative organization.
By which I mean, whether or not you believe that a majority of military members are conservative politically (and nowadays, I'd say that's up for debate, given how many troops voted for Obama, as documented in previous news stories posted to ontd_political), we have always been conservative in terms of our practices - by which I mean, the military does not embrace "fads," either in terms of allowed hairstyles or in terms of methods of conducting warfare.
To an extent, this is needed, because as an enlisted military member, your indoctrination into the military, in boot camp, consists largely of being required to rely upon ritualized behavior to overcome adversity. While it's unfair to say that you're trained to be an automaton, as those who dislike the military claim, it is fair to say that you're encouraged to put your brain on autopilot and go with your training, because if a crisis hits, and you spend too much time thinking about its scope and implications, there does exist a risk that you're going to freak the fuck out, as one would expect a normal person to do during a severe enough trauma. Tradition becomes a valuable tool in these circumstances, because if your ship has taken a hit, and you've received enough damage control training, you're thinking, "Okay, in this situation, I follow Step One, Step Two, etc.", instead of thinking OMG WTF MY SHIPMATES MIGHT BE DEAD
The problem, then, is not the military's necessary reliance upon its own traditions, but rather, it's the fact that not all traditions are positive. Racism, for example, was a ritualized tradition for decades in the military, and when the Navy finally got serious about trying to de-institutionalize its own racism, it was forced to abandon "tradition" as one of its stated core values, and instead adopted the Marine Corps' three core values of "honor, courage and commitment." That being said, there remains an emphasis on tradition as preferable within the service, and to a degree, it's based upon what are determined to be "societal norms" in the larger civilian world.
The positive news here is that, among younger people (who of course make up the bulk of the military, as the enlisted members at the base of the pyramid), homosexuality is increasingly regarded less and less as "societally abnormal." You'll notice that the majority of these OMG TEH MILITARY CANNOT WITHSTAND TEH GHEY quotes are coming from either former military members or senior active-duty military members. Among the junior enlisted, who comprise the vast majority of the military, TEH GHEY was progressively less and less of a concern even during my time in, which ended in 2003. Don't get me wrong, you still have plenty of homophobes in the military, just like you still have your fair share of racists, but I think homophobia is about a decade or two away from becoming a vestigial organ in the military, as racism has become (if that even makes sense).
I think Obama can deal with this during his presidency, and I think he should deal with it. Whether he should do so during his first term is debatable, but in spite of the slow evolution that I see taking place toward a sort of grudging acceptance, it is not acceptable that American patriots are being treated like third-class citizens in this regard, in spite of doing more to serve and save their country than any scumfuck neocon pundit who denounces TEH GHEY has ever done. There are a lot of civilian rights you DO give up as a military member, but LOVE should not be one of them.
