It also adds to my feeling that, although for understandable reasons, the f-w word is now considered derogatory, it was not really so to begin with.
A warrior is a worthy opponent. To quote again from the OED - the definition of warrior:
One whose occupation is warfare; a fighting man, whether soldier, sailor, or (latterly) airman; in eulogistic sense, a valiant or an experienced man of war. Now chiefly poetic and rhetorical, except as applied to the fighting men of the ages celebrated in epic and romance and of primitive peoples, for whom the designation soldier would be inappropriate. The word found a memorable application in the designation of ‘The Unknown Warrior’, who on 11 Nov. 1920 was honoured with a stately funeral in Westminster Abbey as the representative of all who had given their lives for England in the great war. To which of the services he belonged was kept a secret, so that the comprehensive word ‘warrior’ was both necessary and felicitous.
War, roughly speaking, can be divided into those which are fought against worthy (& honourable) opponents, & those which are fought against vermin. In the first, the fight is recognised as a tussle for power, territory, or control, & in the sporting sense, the best man wins. While battle is raging however, there is naturally a need for a word for the enemy, one which clearly marks him out as recognisably different in some way from us.
Unworthy opponents, the vermin need, quite simply, to be exterminated. Their very existence is a threat to good people everywhere.
Unfortunately we can no longer maintain the fiction that sport is honourable, can we? And if even sport is without honour, can we maintain that any of our wars is ever honourable?
Is this a mostly-male thing? Politics can be divided this way too, even in our modern western democracies. Some politicians, or those involved in our Westminster version, seem genuinely to believe that the other side are evil, should not even be given a hearing, are, by definition of their upbringing, class, or background unable to do good for the whole of the country.
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Fuzzy wuzzy
Fuzzy wuzzy
