Does Every Generation Need Their Braveheart Moment?
The climatic battle never solves anything. It only leads to the next climatic battle.
In the 1995 movie, Braveheart, Mel Gibson, pays William Wallace a man who several times leads an army of Scotsmen to drive the English out of Scotland. The movie is full of brave men fighting brutal battles for honor and their country. There is also a lot of lust and betrayal. The tides turn several times. There is a lot of gore, including decapitations and torture.
There have been dozens of movies in which good vs evil rises and falls until the final huge battle scene in which men rally around a leader and good vanquishes evil. Other movies involve hobbits, dragons, or superheroes finally rising to the challenge to defeat the evil emperor, king, invader, sociopath, monster, and/or alien.
Sadly, and much more frightening, we are seeing these battles take place IRL. It is happening as I write this in Ukraine, Israel, and probably five other places around the world that don’t get as much press coverage in the US.
The group dynamics of luring young men into battle by appealing to their manhood, bravery, loyalty, and immortality has been going on for 10,000 years. Unfortunately, most of the young men learn the reality, as they feel their heads…
