I always thought the premise of “The Hunger Games” was a bit ridiculous. After all, what kind of society would allow a government to send its children to fight to the death? But after seeing the second film, I finally realized what Suzanne Collins has been up to.
In the real world, children are indeed sent by their government to fight to the death. In fact this is absolutely standard, and has been so for centuries. Here in the United States, you are eligible for this honor when you are seventeen — the same age as Katniss Evergreen in the second Hunger Games novel/movie.
This isn’t something that we or any nation does maliciously, but I think there may be unconscious forces at work. Sending our children to die (as opposed to, say, sending ourselves) is a sign that our love for our country comes even before our love for our children. It is the ultimate expression of nationalism, the secular equivalent of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son.
When you see it that way, it is not surprising that this particular expression of nationalism has been a property of many cultures down through the centuries. And it is one of those human practices that, like religion, is powerfully resistant to censure.
After all, a nation that sanctions such a policy is not going to take kindly to criticism. “Support our troops” is such a sacred creed that even to question putting teenagers into mortal danger can be seen as disrespectful to our brave soldiers.
I am amazed that it took me this long to see how strange is this near universal practice, and that it required the tag team of Suzanne Collins and Hollywood to get the thought into my head.
Source:
http://blog.kenperlin.com/?p=14098