sparta

Can the military aspects of a culture be beautiful?  I do not mean the ephemera of marching bands, uniforms and physicality, but the military as such.  The answer is yes, in the same way that the artistic, academic, child-rearing or sacred aspects of a culture may be beautiful.  The reason the question is hard is that violent killing - which is not only contrary to beauty but also to the good - is necessarily a capacity of military culture, and potentially its point.  But a military may be instead fundamentally about the control, regimentation - and thereby sublimation - of the violence naturally in man.  If and as a transcendence of violence, then, a military may be beautiful, even an object of proper love.  That appreciation is borne, though, of a hatred of violence, not a love for it, and that remains a control on the appreciation.  A bloodthirsty military, or a bloodthirsty military culture, cannot be beautiful.