In response to David Lambert-
I don't think I was suggesting that we take the policies and plans of US
Space Command less seriously because of the style in which they are
written. On the contrary. The main point of my posting was to raise some
awareness; the point about style was subsidiary...
However you cannot deny that the documents are written in a certain style
which uses language, images and rhetoric redolent of comic strip
superheroes and popular sci-fi films. Ok, so these are public documents
designed to appeal to patriotic Americans and not the private and innermost
thoughts of the commanders, nor indeed secret internal communications.
However, just because the US military are serious about their plans and
demonstrably violent and thuggish in action, the actions in themselves do
not say anything about the way in which they are percieved by military
personnel - perhaps documents like this do? And I am afraid that to me it
does seem difficult to comprehend the thinking that goes on behind them.
Perhaps someone on the Forum who has one more work on gender in this are
would like to comment... I am afraid I am moving out of my depth in
discussions of masculinities and militarism...
David.
>
>BUT, I do feel a certain disquiet when some (typically us left-leaning
>academics) seek to infantilise and hyper-masculinise such sets of
>representations and their authors (typically those associated
>with the military). Although satire and irony are powerful weapons of
>criticism (Dr. Strangelove springs to mind), the militarization of space
>is simply too serious to dismiss as a particularly horrific form of "boys
>with toys" or "cartoon violence".
>
>'Macho and naive' though such representational forms may be, I
>think that attempts at fashioning a sort of 'partition' between us
>and them - based on our assumed intellect and maturity - partly serve to
>obscure the awful truth that those responsible for the USSC's plans are
>real, are powerful and certainly don't see it as a game.
>
David Wood
PhD Student ('The Rural Peace Dividend')
Department of Agricultural Economics and Food Marketing
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
Tel: 0191 222 5305
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