Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Oh, the John Ringo thing, right? In that case, I found the depiction of overt racism in the modern US army extremely offensive. If that's an accurate portrayal of the way that US soldiers really behave (which I honestly don't believe), it's disturbing; if it's inaccurate, why put it in? Either way, I found the book unpleasant. There are very few books that I abandon, but that was one, and I'm certainly not a "sensitive" reader.
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I was just checking because there are two principles at work here; old titles that simply reflect the changes in culture over time, and newer works where the author, relying on artistic license, chooses to go against the prevailing culture.
It would be (theoretically) possible for a reader to accept the former but refuse the latter, hence my questions.
I see nothing inherently wrong in either but the author of the trigger article in the OP does and finds fault with readers who don't. Which is really more a reflection of that person's mindset than anything wrong with readers, whose "job" is merely to judge the story within its own context. Faulting people, as she does, for doing that is pretty intolerant, really.
Now, as to the military mindset you found shocking, it is pretty much universal that when soldiers fight, they learn to hate the enemy. The longer the fight, the deeper the hatred. Heat of combat and all that.
In every documented war, derrogatory terms for the enemy become part of the lexicon, whether it be Huns, ratzis, nips, chinks, or, yes, ragheads.
It isn't necessarily racism, it is simply a result of the us vs them culture of the military. Most soldiers will slowly revert to normal attitudes in civilian society but it takes time and veterans of intense or prolonged combat take longer. The brain may tell them one thing but the heart and their conditioned experience another, often more strongly. Some WWII veterans never did get past their exoeriences; to their dying day, the Japanese were "backstabbing nips" or worse.
Time does not erase all wounds.