Wasn't as active in the discussion as I wanted due to some real-world stuff but want to be semi-contrarian again despite thinking that this society would be a marked improvement over our own if for no other reason than the citizen population doesn't hate themselves, their history, or their nation.
Obviously we see the current state of the US military and just today it came out that the military effectively seized power from the civilian government back in January. Obviously there is an "us versus them" attitude between the civilian government and the military when the military doesn't like the civilian government.
In the book there is no civilian government, and the "us versus them" in the book seems to only be in one direction with some of the civilians resenting the citizens. The entirety of the book is how a citizen grows to respect the value of citizenship itself and their duty to fellow citizens and of course to their society as a whole, but you don't see much in the way of a cultivating of duty and obligation towards the civilian population. So what in that society prevents the "us versus them" thinking of the citizens towards the civilians? Is it simply a cultural norm? If so what prevents that cultural norm from changing over time, especially as multi-generational families of citizens start to emerge?
Or perhaps put in more concrete terms: what prevents that society from going full-on Australia and beating the shit out of civilians for simply leaving their homes?
I have not read the book, so it may be addressed within it, but couldn't it be as simple as needing an enemy? Having a common enemy is a great unifying force. I think that society would only have a serious us/them problem if they manage to run out of space enemies. The lack of opportunity for military men to risk their lives fighting would also diminish the value of citizenship, causing standards to slacken.
As far as our real life troubles, I'm comfortable saying we do not have an enemy to unify us. There are many "attempts" at creating an enemy, but they're all weak and ultimately result in us becoming even less unified. Add to this the problem of modern society largely being low-trust, and you get a lot of your citizens eager to attack their neighbors.
Wasn't as active in the discussion as I wanted due to some real-world stuff but want to be semi-contrarian again despite thinking that this society would be a marked improvement over our own if for no other reason than the citizen population doesn't hate themselves, their history, or their nation.
Obviously we see the current state of the US military and just today it came out that the military effectively seized power from the civilian government back in January. Obviously there is an "us versus them" attitude between the civilian government and the military when the military doesn't like the civilian government.
In the book there is no civilian government, and the "us versus them" in the book seems to only be in one direction with some of the civilians resenting the citizens. The entirety of the book is how a citizen grows to respect the value of citizenship itself and their duty to fellow citizens and of course to their society as a whole, but you don't see much in the way of a cultivating of duty and obligation towards the civilian population. So what in that society prevents the "us versus them" thinking of the citizens towards the civilians? Is it simply a cultural norm? If so what prevents that cultural norm from changing over time, especially as multi-generational families of citizens start to emerge?
Or perhaps put in more concrete terms: what prevents that society from going full-on Australia and beating the shit out of civilians for simply leaving their homes?
I have not read the book, so it may be addressed within it, but couldn't it be as simple as needing an enemy? Having a common enemy is a great unifying force. I think that society would only have a serious us/them problem if they manage to run out of space enemies. The lack of opportunity for military men to risk their lives fighting would also diminish the value of citizenship, causing standards to slacken.
As far as our real life troubles, I'm comfortable saying we do not have an enemy to unify us. There are many "attempts" at creating an enemy, but they're all weak and ultimately result in us becoming even less unified. Add to this the problem of modern society largely being low-trust, and you get a lot of your citizens eager to attack their neighbors.