Question: How has nationalism and romanticization influenced war and people’s perceptions of war.

In war, the incentive to join may be low to many, but to others, the idea of selflessly putting their own lives on the line in the name of their country actually sounds like a good time. This blind advocacy for your own country is known as nationalism. Nationalism brings people together in a way. It unites everyone in one country into one large, rather irresponsible, hive mind. Though nationalism is beneficial in some ways, the nationalists support not only the rights of a country but its wrongs as well. This clouding of judgment may lead young men to join because they think their cause is absolute, and a good one. Nationalism romanticizes the idea of a war to these boys, and its propaganda creates delusions of grandeur in their minds. Even if one of these boys does not think they will become an army general, or some sort of a war hero, dying for their country sounds like something they would be willing to do anyway. Men joining the army because of their nationalist ideologies causes a bandwagon effect as well, which causes many other men to join or consider joining because of the “everyone’s doing it, why don’t you” mindset. Though nationalism has influenced young people around the world to join wars, it is not a sustainable enough cause for the majority of wars. This is partially because many soldiers come to the realization that people are just people, no matter where they are from. Although nationalism brings a country together, it unites the country against something that is considered alien, and many soldiers realize after killing and watching people being killed, that this does not have to be the case. However in history we have seen that nationalism plays a big part in hiring people for wars and keeping their hopes up, atleast in the beginning stages of the battle.