HUX 530 - WAR & HUMAN EXPERIENCE
It is often difficult to separate social, psychological, religious and philosophical aspects of war, particularly in earlier and less complex societies, but for purposes of discussion here I intend to treat these aspects as distinct analytical entities. War is perhaps preeminently a social institution. As such, it is both an expression and a determinant of culture, and, in extremely warlike or militaristic societies, can be said in a real sense to represent the core values of the culture itself. Certainly war and attitudes toward war shape and are shaped by the values of a given society. Societies who encourage aggression and glorify violence-through sports, in popular media and other sanctioned expressions of values, for example-would seem to more likely to resort to war than those who do not. Cultures in which honor is highly valued-in some cases more than life itself-or who emphasize altruism or self-sacrifice for the common good might also have different responses to warfare than those who do not.
How such values arise is a complex issue involving a variety of factors which can be both cause and effect. Once in place, however, they tend to be instilled and reinforced through the process of socialization, in which social norms establish what attitudes and behaviors are acceptable and unacceptable and under which circumstances. Socialization may be obvious or subtle and can take a variety of forms, including a system of behavioral rewards and punishments by which inhibitions against killing can be weakened or removed, individuals can be instilled with a fear of disgrace for not behaving appropriately and by which young men, in particular, can be conditioned to kill. Other means of socialization include a prevalent ideology, propaganda and myths and legends defining characteristics such as courage, honor and heroism. Given this kind of socialization, almost anyone can be persuaded or manipulated to kill or be killed under certain circumstances, particularly if the circumstances are socially sanctioned. In a number of experiments conducted by psychologists, for example, American college students administered what they thought were large voltage electric shocks to "victims" (actors, in fact) under the belief that they were following the instructions of the experimenter. So under the right circumstances, even in everyday life, ordinary people have the potential to inflict violence upon each other; warfare takes this socialization a step further, obviously.
This kind of socialization is most evident in military training. Military training, of course, is designed to fulfill certain practical functions by providing realistic preparation for combat through physical conditioning and by developing confidence in and familiarity with battle situations by learning and practicing combat skills until they are instinctive, thus minimizing mistakes or panic due to fear or uncertainty. By emphasizing discipline and obedience, this training attempts to inculcate a strong measure of teamwork, uniformity and cohesion in order to weld groups of men into an efficient fighting machine. Beyond these practical considerations, however, military training when successful also involves a change in values and loyalties, a process almost akin to religious conversion. The process begins with the taking of a military oath upon entering military service, a symbolic action signaling ritual passage from civilian to army life, and continues by breaking down each man's sense of individuality through the application of physical and mental stress (including lack of sleep and verbal abuse), replacing it with an almost tribal sense of belonging to a specific military unit. Because of their relative enthusiasm and naiveté and their need for discipline and structure, young men are generally easier to condition in this manner than older men, who tend to be more formed as mature individuals and have an established position in society. For young men, however, military training and experience often serve as a form of initiation, a rite of passage into manhood.
Thus, one obvious social aspect of warfare concerns gender. It is a glaring and indisputable reality that warfare is overwhelmingly an activity practiced by young men. Why this is so is difficult to fathom in its entirety, but some reasons may be suggested. If there is a hormonal basis for violence and aggression, the effects of testosterone on male behavior may be cited as an initial point of departure. Moreover, young males are the most biologically disposable element of society in evolutionary terms, since theoretically at least only a small number would be required to perpetuate the group. Young males are also at the peak of their energy and aggression, for which there may be insufficient socially acceptable outlets. Some researchers have also pointed out similarities between war and male initiation rites. They note that both involve men at a similar age, occur more frequently in societies which emphasize male competition and tend to promote solidarity among adult males. Thus war can be seen as either fulfilling many of the same functions or even serving as a specific kind of initiation rite or activity.
Since war is, as we shall see, also very much an issue of power, and since the struggle for power seems to be primarily a male preoccupation, the dominance of warfare in human history may also have led to the magnification of male roles in society. Men, at least in the view of some observers, tend to be concerned with matters of strength, competition and the exercise of will and control; these are also issues which loom large on the battlefield as well. Strength can have many functions, including the ability to protect, but combined with an emphasis on winning and achieving superiority, it can also take the form of predatory competition and the need to be best or to prevail. Men with aggressive tendencies tend to be drawn to military careers or activity, which further reinforces such behavior. Here, as elsewhere, separating cause from effect can be difficult.
Conversely, it follows that where warfare is concerned women, with rare exceptions (such as Joan of Arc), are relegated to subordinate roles. These would include influencing men toward or against participating in war, performing a multitude of support functions, and being protected or fought for. Typically, women have also functioned as one of the prizes of battle, as a target of rape and/or enslavement.
In respect to other relationships between war and society, there is usually a strong correlation between social structure and military organization. Class structure, for example, is almost always reflected in military organization. Most often there is a fairly small aristocracy which occupies the positions of political and military leadership and on whose behalf wars are fought, and a large number of common soldiers. One example of this is the overlap between the medieval European social and military hierarchies, in which a small number of knights (sometimes also exhibiting a hierarchy among themselves) was supported by a system of squires, pages and other personnel, each of whom had a specific social and military rank. Although relationships between the classes can be harmonious and characterized by mutual trust and respect, equally as often there can be mutual hostility, in which officers have contempt for common soldiers and soldiers fear and/or hate their superiors. In many times and places, war has been seen largely as a kind of game for the upper classes, in which the lower classes are forced to participate.
The basic forms of military organization are also strongly correlated with certain forms of social organization. Six kinds of military organization are commonly seen: 1) warrior societies, in which there is total participation by all able-bodied men; 2) militias or citizen armies, which come into existence on an ad hoc basis and disband when no longer required. Militias generate a smaller number of soldiers than most other forms, but as compensation generally have stronger motivation to fight, since each citizen has a stake in the preservation of his society; 3) slave armies, which in most respects have characteristics the opposite of militias, i.e., large numbers with low morale; 4) mercenaries, in which men sell their military services for money, sometimes to the highest bidder; 5) regular or professional armies; and 6) conscripts, whose required military service functions as a form of taxation. Conscript armies involve the risk (to the ruling group) of arming all elements of society, and also can be expensive to finance, unless less material rewards such as land or citizenship are available.
The role and influence of the military in society is variable and is related to some extent to the degree of participation of its members. As noted above, the majority of active participants are young males, who in any case comprise a minority of the population; it was in fact rare for more than one or two percent of peasant societies to be actively involved before the mid-19th century. Where professional armies or mercenaries are involved, the number of active participants tends to be even smaller. Nevertheless, even though entire warrior cultures have always been relatively rare, even as a small segment of society-particularly if it is noble or aristocratic-warriors can exert a considerable influence over society as a whole, often considerably out of proportion to their actual number.
Again, the degree of influence may vary appreciably, from a small warrior caste, to a warrior society, to a warrior culture. Warriors have always represented a minority in settled societies, but even small numbers of warriors can exert authority disproportionate to their size. Once warriorhood becomes institutionalized, it takes on a life of its own, a life preoccupied with matters of honor, characterized by a hypersensitivity to insult and retaliation out of proportion to the offense. This preoccupation with honor is connected to a need to have enemies, thus leading to the self-perpetuation of conflict and a continuing justification for their existence. Warrior castes may be hereditary, like the Spartiates of ancient Greece, the Janissaries of the Ottoman empire or the Samurai of Japan, or they may be self-selecting, such as Plains Indian warrior societies, Russian Cossacks or Sikhs.
Closely associated with the warrior class, society or culture is the phenomenon of militarism, which is found in societies representing all stages of social development. In militaristic societies the military class is seen as the most important element of society, kept in place through social control by force and a hierarchical caste system. Since everything else is considered subordinate to this element, all other aspects of society are dependent upon it. Characteristics of militarism include: 1) a high level of organization; 2) extreme self-consciousness; 3) high status of the military class (in Japan, for instance, only the nobility and samurai were allowed to have surnames); 4) a distinct set of values and attitudes by a self-serving military class; 5) exaggerated feelings of self-importance; 6) distinctive dress; 7) a code of honor which sometimes includes contempt for civilians; 8) concern with actual warfare at times eclipsed by concern with prestige of the military caste and excessive influence on affairs of state; 9) vested interest in the status quo.
War can be seen as a microcosm of the human experience in which the gamut of feelings and emotions are expressed, often in a heightened or magnified form. War can also be viewed as form of drama, played upon a large stage, sometimes as farce, sometimes as tragedy. Feelings or psychological states experienced may include rage, hate, anger, excitement, joy, love, apathy, depression, despair, fear, panic, horror, grief and paranoid suspicion. At times more than one of these emotions may be experienced simultaneously, for war is full of paradox and the juxtaposition of opposing feelings, the most notable perhaps being the commonly expressed intense appreciation of life in the face of death.
War can also fulfill certain psychological functions for the individual and society. In addition perhaps to allowing for the cathartic release of feelings and actions, war can aid in resolving the tensions in the need on the one hand to be recognized as an individual and on the other hand to be part of a group. War supplies the first need by an intensity of experience that heightens the individual's perception of his existence and the second need by providing the individual with an opportunity to become part of something larger than himself. Conversely, war has also been characterized as a form of psychopathology in which the individual is released from the restraints and responsibilities of normal life, in which the abnormal becomes normal and the immoral becomes moral and often as a result experiences internal conflicts created by this psychological and moral inversion.
In addition to the kinds of socialization discussed previously, groups and individuals also undergo psychological preparation for both war and peace. In most societies various preparatory rituals are performed in order to protect warriors from harm or death, to reduce their fear of battle and to strengthen their commitment to killing other human beings. A.F.C. Wallace suggests that societies, in mobilizing for war, are transformed from a relaxed state to a mobilized state. In the relaxed state members of a society carry out complex and diverse activities characteristic of "normal" life. However, in a mobilized state, the society arranges itself into three well-defined groups: policy-makers, young males, and women and children. Mobilization is triggered by an alerting signal, usually a report that an event has occurred that will arouse the population to respond with anger, rage, outrage or fear. The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941 is a good example of such an alerting signal. In other instances, such as the Tonkin Gulf incident which enabled Lyndon Johnson to send American combat troops to Vietnam, or the supposed Polish incursion into Germany that precipitated World War II, these events may have been to some or a large degree manufactured in order to achieve a similar effect. Such mobilization often either tacitly or explicitly signals a willingness on the part of a society's population to move from a situation involving considerable personal freedom and consensual democratic decision-making to a more hierarchical and authoritarian one. This kind of shift from a relaxed to a mobilized state can also be seen in non-war situations, such as fire drills, athletic events, natural disasters or civil emergencies.
As mobilization occurs, a society moves from what Laurence LeShan terms the sensory mode of perception to the mythic mode of perception. During peacetime, the dominant mode of perception is sensory reality, which is characterized by the following values or beliefs: 1) recognition of varying shades of good and evil; 2) acceptance of a diversity of opinions; 3) now is very much like other times; 4) life will go on more or less as it did in the past; 5) all people are fundamentally the same and basically act from the same motives; 6) life is complex, with a variety of interests and activities; 7) there are many problems of varying priority to be solved; 8) the causes of problems are as significant as their solutions; 9) great forces of nature are not involved in human disputes; 10) negotiation represents a viable option in the settling of disputes.
During wartime, however, the dominant mode of perception is mythic reality. In the state of mythic reality: 1) everything is either good or evil, with no intermediate gradations; 2) it's necessary for everyone to choose sides and take a stand; 3) now is a special time which is qualitatively different than all other times; 4) the times are crucial, for the fate of civilization or humankind hangs in the balance; 5) when the war is over, everything will be different, either vastly better if the outcome is favorable, or vastly worse if not; 6) winning or losing the war will change the meaning of the past and the shape of the future; 7) there is only one major problem to be solved (the war) and all other problems are distinctly secondary; 8) life is essentially simple, with a single focus; 9) we and the enemy are qualitatively different; 10) words are no longer of use in resolving conflict, and therefore only force can be relied upon; 11) the forces of the cosmos are on our side.
The mode of mythic reality thus is that of the fable or fairy tale, in which the enemy is so completely and archetypally evil that anything that is done to him is not only justifiable, but good and necessary. Mythical reality is tempting because it tends to reduce complexity and stress through simplification. This mode of perception is not, of course, restricted to wartime situations; some, perhaps many, people exist in the mythic mode on a permanent basis. However, as mobilization occurs, there is throughout society a gradual shift from the sensory to the mythic mode until a threshold is crossed, whereby an increasing need for solidarity and uniformity creates a bandwagon effect. When the mythic mode is dominant, as suggested above, it can therefore become perilous for individuals to adhere publicly to the sensory mode of perception or to challenge the mythical mode of perception. On the other hand, however, the more soldiers see actual combat and the consequences thereof, the more difficulty they find in maintaining this mythical mode of perception. It should be noted that this form of transformation may not be universal, however, and may apply most accurately only to modern Western societies.
One characteristic aspect of the mythic mode of perception, then, is dichotomization, the tendency to see everything in terms of bipolar opposites: us/them, good/evil, right/wrong, either/or, etc. Again, this kind of mind-set is not confined to war conditions, but can also be seen, for example, in recent conflicts of equivalent intensity, such as the Cold War ("better dead than Red") or racial conflicts ("you're either part of the problem or part of the solution"). Dichotomization encourages the drawing and defense of boundaries around ourselves and between ourselves and others. An extreme form of this is what the ethologist Eibl-Eibesfeldt calls "pseudospeciation," in which the enemy is seen as less than human. Pseudospeciation thus satisfies the need to deny the evil within us by placing it outside ourselves through projection and displacement, making the enemy a scapegoat for our own sins. And by dehumanizing the enemy, we deny his humanity and assert our own superiority. This makes it considerably easier to justify killing other human beings and to committing various atrocities.
Another related process is desensitization, in which individuals and groups become inured to violence. This customarily occurs as the result of combat experience and to some extent represents a psychological adaptation necessary for survival. However, the concomitant risk is that in doing so one loses part of one's own humanity as well. In addition to combat experience, military training, as noted above, also has a similar goal; in fact, much of military training can be seen as psychological preparation for combat. Exposure to violence in daily life or through mass media also tends to desensitize, so that the loss of life-particularly that of the enemy-becomes easier and easier to accept, a phenomenon we see among members of violent gangs in contemporary life.
These attitudes can also be fostered through propaganda. Propaganda can be both positive and negative. Positive propaganda stimulates military and civilian motivation by emphasizing the values in society worth defending or concepts of honor, bravery and courage. Negative propaganda is largely a form of pseudospeciation, which often magnifies the individual into the collective and attempts to diminish the humanity of the enemy. Thus, by denying their individuality or uniqueness, or by lumping together leaders and followers, soldiers and civilians, the enemy becomes a monolithic evil. Typically the vilest sorts of acts are attributed to the enemy in order to demonize them, thus justifying their defeat and death. Demeaning names such as "krauts," "japs" or "gooks" also create an attitude of contempt.
In addition to its function as propaganda, language often is perverted during wartime to serve particular purposes. The way language is used, for example, can condition our thinking and attitudes. In George Orwell's 1984, Newspeak created a kind of language which served as the instrument of the ruling elite, one of the most notable pronouncements being "War is peace. Peace is war." The use of euphemism and doublespeak also have been widely practiced as a means of disguising the true meaning of acts and events. Examples include "the final solution," "police action," "pacification," "destroying the village in order to save it," "protective reaction air strikes," and "collateral damage," phrases hiding very unpleasant realities such as mass extinction or the murder of civilians.
In addition to the dimensions of warfare already discussed, war can be seen as an attempt to restructure and recreate reality by forcing nature and the divine to conform to human will. In this sense war intersects with aspects of religion, ideology and similar efforts directed at imposing structure upon and control over natural and supernatural forces by means of symbolic activity or behavior. War-associated rituals particularly emphasize the role of death and fertility in which society is symbolically cleansed or purified through the warrior's sacrifice. In many societies, according to James Aho, there is a reciprocal interrelationship between the dominant religious mythology and its military ethic. Thus the mythology legitimizes a particular ideal of military practice and the practice in turn confirms the legitimacy of the mythology. Any complete religious symbolism of warfare has two elements, consisting of: 1) cognitive claims concerning the nature of reality in general and warfare in particular which define the relationship between the divine and the natural world; 2) a military ethic or preferred military conduct which includes a specific action orientation. The military ethic typically comprises a vocabulary of acceptable motives for engaging in war, an inventory of legitimate goals of violence, a preferred attitude or response toward war and approved ways of fighting.
Although religion almost always can be seen to have some relationship to warfare, probably the clearest and most direct association is in the idea of the holy war, whose ultimate goal is to protect the world from anarchy and chaos. This is an effort that requires a supreme sacrifice on the part of individuals, risking their lives to save the world from evil and earning in return either eternal life or initiation into manhood. Even when conflict is not designated as a holy war, the religious hierarchies of most societies almost always support political leadership in the pursuit of war, and in the case of theocratic states, may even instigate it. Likewise, astute political leaders almost always seek supernatural sanction for going to war and absolution for any shedding of blood that may result (see Henry V for one example).
We should be wary, however, of seeking or finding unanimity of thought regarding war within any given religion. Within Christianity, for example, a diversity of attitudes can be seen almost from its origins, ranging from the idea of holy war found in the Old Testament-carried out in the Crusades and in the wars of religion which followed the Protestant Reformation, the spirit of pacifism exemplified by the Sermon on the Mount and the writings of many of the early Church fathers, and the concept of the just war, developed during the Middle Ages and revived during the Enlightenment, in which war is seen as a tragic necessity justified under certain definable circumstances. It should go without saying, perhaps, that justification for all of these positions can be found in the Bible. It should also be noted that aspects of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain teachings oppose violence unconditionally in any form, but as with Christianity, this has not necessarily prevented members of these religions, as either groups or individuals, from engaging in warlike behavior.
Given that war represents one of the most serious ethical and moral issues confronting humankind, it is perhaps surprising that philosophers have not on the whole devoted more attention to it. Until recently, most philosophers have seen war as a necessary, if not even desirable, aspect of political behavior. Aristotle, for example, accepted warfare, like slavery, as a natural element of human existence. Plato, who greatly admired the militaristic Spartans, went even further, asserting that the state must be organized to engage in violence to preserve itself in an anarchic world; and in the Republic, his utopian society was governed by an elite ruling class called the Guardians, whose primary function was to preserve and protect the state. War is also seen as inevitable in Thomas More's Utopia; although the Utopians themselves do not wage war, their island is strongly fortified against external aggression and they hire mercenaries when necessary to defend them. Other political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli also believed that war was basic to the state's existence and an inevitable part of human nature. In more recent times, the German philosophers Fichte and Hegel viewed war as a necessary mechanism involved in the evolution of the state and of civilization itself. Karl Marx, too, felt that war was an integral aspect of capitalist society, although he also believed that once true communism had been achieved, war would disappear along with the other evils of capitalism.
The first philosophers explicitly to oppose war on the grounds that it was ethically wrong were the pre-Augustinian Christian philosophers, including Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria. These ideas were revived during the medieval period by Thomas Aquinas, whose writings in turn formed in part the basis for the formulation of the concept of the just war. The basic premise of this concept was that although generally evil, war was justifiable under certain specified circumstances. Most of the discussion focused on two related areas: jus ad bellum, involving justification for going to war and jus in bello, concerning humanitarian restrictions on the conduct of war itself. The concept of the just war was subsequently enlarged and modified during the Enlightenment, most notably by Hugo Grotius, the founder of international law, who sought to humanize war, reduce its savagery and even promote its abolition through by the promotion of international congresses involving the great powers of Europe. In the late 19th and 20th centuries arguments for the abolition of war and the promotion of pacifism became more prominent. Leo Tolstoy offered semi-philosophical opposition to war in a number of essays and William James proposed "the moral equivalent of war." Some of the most sustained outright opposition and fundamental criticisms of war, in part stimulated by the war in Vietnam, as well as other 20th-century horrors, have occurred in the last half of the 20th century, including such passionate opponents of war as Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Abraham Heschel. Those philosophers who have opposed war under any circumstances must then contend with the issue of whether peace is at all times preferable to war, including the necessity for self defense and the overthrow of unjust and tyrannous regimes.
It is, of course, possible-as suggested by the concept of the just war-to be opposed to war in general while giving support to a specific conflict. This is one of several possible attitudes of philosophers toward individual wars, ranging from total detachment and tacit acceptance to direct criticism with or without consideration of alternative forms of action. Intermediate positions would include justification on the grounds of self-defense, overt defense of a particular national policy and reluctant or hesitant justification of a given conflict.