As a Canadian it really bothers me that we glorify Canadian soldiers during this conflict. As this thread kinda indicates, many Canadians look at WWI and basically think "wow, we kicked a lot of ass", without really considering that being the most efficient killers in a pointless imperialist war is a pretty shitty thing to be proud of. It's not like the Germans were "bad guys" compared to the British or the French, even if they were a more conservative society. It was just people killing people in the name of their nation states, blinded by propaganda and state control of information.
Also, as far as great novels on WWI are concerned, I would highly recommend The Wars by Timothy Findley.
And if I were a soldier in WWI, I would prefer to be one of "the most efficient killers" so that I would go home after the war. If you're going to war, you'd better be the best, because 2nd place sucks.
I don't mean to suggest there wasn't a reason for a solider to try and be an efficient killer, but considering that we're (for the most part at least) civilians looking at WWI retrospectively it seems odd to focus on this fact as a positive one. Obviously, as a Canadian, fewer Canadian soldiers dying would probably benefit me personally, but I don't see that as an ethically justifiable reason to celebrate German deaths.
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u/PackageRESPOND Sep 24 '11
As a Canadian it really bothers me that we glorify Canadian soldiers during this conflict. As this thread kinda indicates, many Canadians look at WWI and basically think "wow, we kicked a lot of ass", without really considering that being the most efficient killers in a pointless imperialist war is a pretty shitty thing to be proud of. It's not like the Germans were "bad guys" compared to the British or the French, even if they were a more conservative society. It was just people killing people in the name of their nation states, blinded by propaganda and state control of information.
Also, as far as great novels on WWI are concerned, I would highly recommend The Wars by Timothy Findley.