Well, I understand how it happened, but I also think that warlike tendencies are to be transcended in a civilization, not something you put on a pedestal.
I just really can't relate to it at all and I find it quite abhorrent.


Consider the Tauren: The Tauren are something of a warrior race themselves, yet as far as I know, they are far, far less aggressive and expansive than the Orcs. They seem to only fight because they have to, not because they enjoy it so very much.
While I *still" don't like that attitude a whole lot, I can at least respect it.

The warrior culture schtick is over-done, and rarely done well. I think too many writers look at Conan and want something similar, while forgetting he's fairly disillusioned with the whole thing and wants something better than the Hyborian standard of "I'll axe your face and take your land".

Look at the other races on Draenor - the Orcs clearly have 'small man syndrome'.

Weren't the Tauren pretty close to extinction because they didn't have the warrior culture to fight the centaur properly?

That, and the Centaurs had speed on their side. Plus they're pretty much feral, which removes guilt from the equation.

I've said it before... I'm sure the orcs were more directly inspired by the culture of the ST:NG, DS9 Klingons than the Devs would openly admit... just like the original (pre-Draenei) concept of "the Light" sounded remarkably like "the Force."

I don't say this in an "OMFG! These guys are plagiarists!" sense, but more in a sense of this is what they thought was cool and therefore inspired them.

As a real world example, do some research on Ancient Greece during the Classical Period, where city-states such as Athens and Sparta would go to war all the time over something as simple as farmland for as little as a week.

The warlike culture in Ancient Greece was so ingrained in the people of their time that combat and war wasn't considered a matter of survival. It was a matter of pride and honor. I'm not saying they were a barbaric civilization or that everyone in Greece relished the bloodshed: Aristophanes' classic play "Lysistrata" (which was written near the end of the Peloponnesean War - again, I encourage you to look it up, as a dramaturge and historian I can say it's really exciting) shows that even a culture based on honor and pride could become war-weary.

Even in modern times, national military service is mandatory for all Israeli citizens over the age of 18: men serve three years in the Israeli Defense Force, while women serve two. Because of how ingrained it is in the culture, most of these young adults see it as an honor and their duty to protect their country from all the nations around it that are on really poor terms with Israel.

You don't have to understand it or even like it in comparison to today's society, but it's not as though there isn't any precedent in history for it.