When soldiers die, nations build memorials honoring the dead. The soldier's death and memorials erected in the name of the soldier's death--function to PROVE THE EXISTENCE AND POWER OF THE NATION-STATE, a demonstration of devotion.

 Death PROVES THE REALITY of the nation-state; demonstrates commitment to a sacred ideal.

Death is the purpose of warfare, the creation of or production of dead and wounded bodies, the methodology through which a nation validates its sacred ideal. The purpose is to submit to a sacred entity or idea and to die or be wounded in the name of this sacred idea or entity.

Warfare is CULTURAL SUBMISSION, which people avoid noticing by pretending it is a manifestation of MALE AGGRESSION.

The soldiers, sadly, are duped into believing that by fighting in a war they are demonstrating "masculinity;" whereas in reality what is manifest is inability to resist submitting to the nation-state and its leaders.

The field of "evolutionary psychology" embraces this denial of reality by pretending that death in war is related to an adaptive "survival mechanism." The opposite true: Millions of men die in wars and do not pass their genes along. 

 The objective of warfare is not the survival of the individual organism (human being), but survival of an ABSTRACT IDEAL, the nation-state, or a religious idea worshipped by a particular group.

This impulse to PRESERVE THE SACRED IDEA OR OBJECT is so powerful that human beings forfeit their individual lives in the name of this ideal (and don't pass their genes along).

HAMAS is a pitiful, destructive organization, but they have a more accurate understanding of the dynamics of cultural violence than do Western people.

"We love death the way you love life."

Death functions in the name of confirming the reality of the sacred ideal. In the name of this ideal, human beings forfeit their individual lives.