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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2183 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 1, 2025

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Why do Redditors compulsively refer to weapons of war designed to maim and kill people as “toys”?

Has no one here been in the military?!

Weapons of war are very commonly referred to as toys in the military. And there is a simple reason: They are fun. There really is nothing more fun than wielding the power to end life. 4 star Marine Corps General James Mattis famously said:

It’s quite fun to shoot them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people.

And basically everyone in the military agrees. Some non-military folk use the word "toys" to mock the military's enjoyment of violence, but for the most part people use the word positively.

(I say all this as a former Naval officer who was become a committed pacifist. One reason among many for the transformation is just how fun it is to kill.)

(I say all this as a former Naval officer who was become a committed pacifist. One reason among many for the transformation is just how fun it is to kill.)

I can fully see how this would be true of mowing down dim figures with ranged weapons at a distance, videogame-style. Can I ask, from curiosity, if in your experience it's also true of killing in hand-to-hand combat, where you can see/ hear/ smell the physical damage being done and watch the life leaving people's bodies?

I don't have firsthand experience. But I've been around lots of marines who have. And I'd say infantry type jobs very strongly select for people who find the infantry "fun".

Notably General Mattis (quoted above) was an enlisted infantryman before becoming an officer and served as an infantry rifle platoon commander in his first leadership roles.

Also don't forget that gladiator fights in the Roman Colosseum were widely considered entertainment. There is a famous account from Augustine's confessions where he related an account of a friend Alypius. Alypius was outraged about the morality of gladiator fights and refused to participate. But some friends dragged him to the show anyways. Here is Augustine's account of how Alypius learned to enjoy the violence:

Alypius kept his eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such wickedness. Would that he had shut his ears also! For when one of the combatants fell in the fight, a mighty cry from the whole audience stirred him so strongly that, overcome by curiosity and still prepared (as he thought) to despise and rise superior to it no matter what it was, he opened his eyes and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the victim whom he desired to see had been in his body. Thus he fell more miserably than the one whose fall had raised that mighty clamor which had entered through his ears and unlocked his eyes to make way for the wounding and beating down of his soul, which was more audacious than truly valiant--also it was weaker because it presumed on its own strength when it ought to have depended on Thee. For, as soon as he saw the blood, he drank in with it a savage temper, and he did not turn away, but fixed his eyes on the bloody pastime, unwittingly drinking in the madness--delighted with the wicked contest and drunk with blood lust. He was now no longer the same man who came in, but was one of the mob he came into, a true companion of those who had brought him thither. Why need I say more? He looked, he shouted, he was excited, and he took away with him the madness that would stimulate him to come again: not only with those who first enticed him, but even without them; indeed, dragging in others besides. And yet from all this, with a most powerful and most merciful hand, thou didst pluck him and taught him not to rest his confidence in himself but in thee--but not till long after.

That's such a vivid account of the overall thought process; thanks for posting! If St. Augustine's depiction is accurate, it sounds as though there's a strong element of visceral carnivore/ hunting drive in there, which I guess checks out. It certainly makes sense for a partly meat-eating species to have a mode where it enjoys the sensory experience of catching and ripping apart a living animal while it screams. "Eew fresh meat, its pain gives me the squick" isn't exactly a survival-friendly instinct.

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