Cold War Pros And Cons Tolstoy

Tolstoy would’ve been horrified at the amount of evidence that the world has provided in the past one hundred years to support his argument against patriotism. Year after year, we Americans celebrate our independence from the British, who are now our close allies. We rally around the “triumphs” of our nation, revel in our superiority to the rest of the world, and forget about the evils our country has committed to ascend to the top of the food chain. We have sold the ideal of “a better world” in exchange for “a stronger nation.” The Cold War standoff between the US and the Soviet Union was a show of patriotism over two equally valid ways of government, where neither side ever directly fought the other, but carried consequences that have

We rightfully commemorate those who tragically lost their lives that fateful day, but then the next day we allow our government to conduct drone strikes on innocent civilians in the Arab world. We allow this because it is in the name of democracy, and protecting our freedom as American citizens. We ensure our own freedom by taking the freedom of others. Tolstoy said, “…if one country’s greatness and prosperity can be obtained only at the expense of another…then how can war not be?” (Tolstoy 140). Travelling through history, conquest has always been in the name of something that is perceived by the public as a universal necessity. During the Crusades, it was in the name of Christianity. As the Europeans slaughtered and enslaved the Native Americans, it was in the name of civilization. Now it is democracy. We bullishly believe that because our nation is one of the world’s superpowers, our way of living is superior. We fail to take into account that we may have just been lucky in regards to location, natural resources, and then ruthless when it came to retaining our

The Western World had the chance to provide a peaceful and prosperous world for mankind, but failed to do so. Japan and the Korea’s have adopted our fierce patriotic tactics in the past century, and one consequence has been World War II. My grandparents’ lives were shaped to this day by growing up in bomb shelters and living in constant fear. Their only salvation was patriotism; that mighty England would come through in the end. And two young children in Hiroshima were praying that Japan would emerge victories. But they were lost to history as Enola Gay soared overhead. Their death meant my existence, and it is up to me to see to that they did not die in