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Comment by _3u10 | Hacker News Reader

The best example is soldiers vs. mercenaries. Soldiers are highly regarded by society because society tells them they did an honorable thing because society didn't have to compensate them very well, and especially didn't have to compensate them enough to not go fight for some other society that treats them better.

Mercenaries on the other hand are not highly regarded because they are well compensated, and don't really care about the honor of fighting for some society that wants to pay them dirt.

Status is far cheaper to confer than money, so we make sure those willing to work for status are well compensated.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

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I'm not sure I buy that. I think the reputation of soldiers varies greatly with the public perception of the wars they fought. Soldiers are highly regarded when they're seen to be fighting some great evil, but at other times soldiers are considered to be fools or even among the lowest strata of society (particularly before the modern era.)

WW2 veterans receive near universal praise, but in the Vietnam era there were widespread (probably heavily exaggerated if not fabricated) reports of soldiers being spat on because a whole lot of people didn't think America's military adventurism was really in defense of America. Of course those who felt that the war was necessary in the fight against communism to defend the American way of life had a more positive view of the same soldiers. In more recent wars with all volunteer soldiers I think the reputation of soldiers is just as polarized although usually the negative side doesn't go further than cool sniffs and sneers; the spitting was probably all apocryphal in the first place. Certainly you won't see me going around thanking Iraq vets for their service; they signed up for a stupid war and I'm not going to thank them for making that mistake. I won't look down on a soldier who got drafted, but those soldiers who signed up for the travel, job experience, college education, etc are essentially mercenaries anyway.

> in the Vietnam era there were widespread (probably heavily exaggerated if not fabricated) reports of soldiers being spat on

So you recognize this is a myth, but nevertheless use it as an example? Vietnam soldiers were drafted, and a lot of anti-war voices were soldiers and veterans. The resentment were towards politicians (remember the “LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” chant.) in contrast, the “support our troops” slogan were an attempt to equate supporting the soldiers with supporting the war.

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