Musings on 'peace advocacy' in popular culture

In lieu of a proper update;

I was in a bookshop during lunch reading some anti-war books warning about the bifecta of "modern culture" and the "military cultural complex" and how they interact to drive us toward destruction.

To be honest, I don't agree with most of their conclusions. For example, a lot of these writers - whose names I should have taken down - make the assumption that an interest in warfare (and killing, apparently) is something to be stamped out. In my opinion, for a society to have people interested in its defence is no bad thing, no worse than a lot of other activities out there.

However, I do think it's important to have these pundits around. In the Western world, military showdowns as a first choice to resolve inter-state disputes have lost much their shine after the two World Wars, and I personally think that's good. Such advocates often mean well, and their arguments are certainly needed in modern society.