Vietnam War Sociology

By the official end of the Vietnam War in 1975, American’s society had been dramatically changed. Gone was the naiveité and blind trust that the public had once placed in their government and military following WWII. Americans became cynical of their elected officials no long trusting them, to be honest as the U.S. had entered the Vietnam War based on a lie. The continuing contradicting stories from the government and military in one camp and that of the media in another worked to further increase distrust in some politicians. The re-emergence of American exceptionalism and extreme patriotism that the previous war had brought was destroyed by the Vietnam War and left many Americans bitter and confused about their place and role in the world.

The Vietnam protests created an intolerance for protests and protesters regardless of the causes that are still present today and just as with during the Vietnam War, in present time the media is still what determines whether the public is in favor and supports the protests. The media in present day is still like that during the 60s and 70s they ignore the majority of peaceful protesters who have something meaningful to say and instead focus their attention on the tiny sometimes not even 1% of radicals as a representation of the entire movement which would in turn cause citizens to turn against the movement. The Vietnam War also affect the U.S. socially in that it worsened racial tensions that are still around today especially after the emergence of the #BlackLivesMatter, #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter groups. During the Civil Rights era under the leadership of Dr. King when the U.S. was finally making progress toward racial integration, the assassination of King during the Vietnam War in 1968, caused everything to breakdown and for Americans who were finally learning to work together to start turning on one another. The assassination of King which eventually led to race riots across the country (100 incidents) would lead to increase Republican popularity as they called for “Law and Order” type criminal justice system to punish protesters and rioters, though it’s not the overall present criminal justice

shows that the nation has learned some lessons from Vietnam while ignoring others. One reason Americans wholeheartedly support the war was because they were told that the communist would oppress them and take away their freedoms and rights and so in their eyes the invasion or intervention of Vietnam was a necessary thing especially after the U.S. had been attacked at sea (Gulf of Tonkin Incident) but all the military ended up doing was destabilizing Indochina. Just as how in present day, the government told the American people over and over that Iraq was a danger to America’s democracy and that they had WMD even though it wasn’t the case, obviously, the people supported fully the government, and so the U.S. invaded Iraq, managed to drag other countries into the conflict including allies and destabilized the Middle East enough that there is now a current crisis that has no solution in site. One “good” thing that the U.S. did learn was that the media could no long have free rein when it came to war. If the media truthfully reported what was going on then that would turn away support for the war, and so if the media which are now owned by major corporations are presenting positive images of soldiers overseas then they are less likely to protest. The control of the media regarding war has also created the military cultural that now exists in American society; since they’re not showing the crimes committed by some