[Lightspeed]

It was the explosion of the military that went along with the emergence of modernisation at the start of the 20th century.

Religious and military traditions are probably about as old as each other, depending on how you slice it. Religion has definitely had more reach within communities than the military for much of history, as such people are well adapted to accommodating it.

The reactions we're talking about here arise from the contradictions that inevitably emerge in any system of rules we try to create and live by. Our ability to elegantly cope with these contradictions, while still enjoying the benefits of any system we create, determines our general effectiveness. Right?

Prior to the rise of the military, the degree of influence and control religion held over people was regional. No one is crediting any religious organisation with the kind of competence required to achieve the degree of order a modern military can. And communities have had a long time to find ways of coping with experiences that fall outside of any ostensibly religious values.

I like to recall a time when I was working as a research assistant for an Anglican priest out of St John's College. The topic came up once and she talked about how in at least the region she was familiar with, historically those exposed as lesbians were sent off to live on the convent... with the other lesbians. We had a good laugh at the irony.

The conditions modern military traditions arose in were sudden, dramatic and compelling. Aligning with the military appeared a matter of immediate survival. This had a number of relevant consequences, primarily military tradition became a single dominant culture over the Western world, the West dominating the globe. Modern military tradition being a highly ordered regime which its members are forcibly compelled to follow, an order achieved in part by robust definitions about anything the regime might find useful. And where religion is really only imposed locally by people within their own communities, the military has to do the opposite: impose itself upon people anywhere amongst unfamiliar people. A military creates uniformity out of diversity.

These traditions were highly effective, on a scale and unlike anything seen before, as demonstrated by our ability to project power around the world.

How this tradition handled that which fell outside of useful definitions was either forcefully or with complete indifference. It had to be that way, right? People were dying in volume, the priority was effectively resisting immediate existential threats. As these threats gave way we were left with our inelegant approaches to the contradictions in our new values. Obvious examples being alcohol and domestic violence. Individually we can manifest a dazzling and puzzling array of expressions.

And so we're left with the struggling and bumbling that we're documenting and discussing in this thread. This is how new insight is generated. Fun, right!