On Killing
The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. And contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army's conditioning techniques, and, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's thesis, is responsible for our rising rate of murder among the young. Upon its initial publication, On Killing was hailed as a landmark study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects soldiers, and of the societal implications of escalating violence. Now, Grossman has updated this classic work to include information on 21st-century military conflicts, recent trends in crime, suicide bombings, school shootings, and more. - Publisher.
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- > How do people square those 2 ideas?
If you're seriously trying to understand the nuance of the act itself, you should consider reading what is standard issue for law enforcement and military.
"On Killing" by Dave Grossman is a classic.
If you only want to understand and stay in the realm of politics, I don't think you'll ever find a good answer either way. There's hypocrisy in every argument for or against violence. None of that is on the minds of people "in the shit" at that time. All that stuff comes later. As you're well aware, PTSD is no joke.
What I would take away from this is to recognize all the other ways in which we are compelled to act against our own self interest under what are sold as higher moral purposes.
From that perspective, it's not that hard to see how people can treat violence as just another tool. Whether it works is a question of how much those people value life above all else. If you're surprised that's not always the case in every culture, you may want to study that first. Beliefs may devalue life for persistence against a long history of conflict. This is where you may start to find some glimmers of an answer why we in the west sometimes think violence works to get those people to "snap out of it", but it really is ultimately about control of those people or that land at the end of the day.
- I think if you read "On Killing" by Grossman, parades etc are almost like an ancient Greek purification ritual.
Killing is the biggest taboo and people need societal "absolution" afterwards.
The absence of this for Vietnam is what caused issues with veterans.
- > Endangering third parties in an effort to take revenge on your former employer is sociopath territory.
I don't think that really does. I think it's common human behavior to not think about the third parties you're actually endangering and only focusing on who you're trying to hurt.
We don't like to think of ourselves that way but it's relatively easy to push buttons on a human and get them to do things we would regard as "sociopathic" with out the person themselves being a sociopath. See On Killing by Dave Grossman.
- On Killing by Dave Grossman explores the research backing up your friend's assertion in depth. I highly recommend that book to anyone whose interest is piqued by your comment.
- As a person without a uterus and vanishingly unlikely to ever birth a another living being, I accept that abortion is something I don't reasonably have control over, and default to letting decide those who can give birth.
I've mentioned before that I opted for a vasectomy after my spouse and I had enough children (one, in our case, is enough). It's a relative luxury to have access to that surgery, and I'm thankful it is an option. How would it feel if it were an illegal procedure? Or if it were mandated?
Whether or not I ejaculate sperm is nowhere close to the risk of dying in childbirth, or carrying to term a child of a rapist, or giving birth to a child the parent(s) will not be able to properly care for, for whatever reason. I write this to suggest you let go of attempts to control what is reasonably beyond your control. That may be uncomfortable, and that's okay.
When I was in Japan someone told me about the Shinto perspective of souls, something like "if it's not time for that particular soul to inhabit a body, it just gets back in line for another opportunity." This perspective helps me relax a bit about abortion and thinking I should do anything other than promote public money go to organizations like Planned Parenthood (which does far more for people's health than carry out abortions) and keep abortion legal (where to draw the line on how many weeks is not for me to decide).
If you find death and killing an interesting and thrilling topic, I suggest reading On killing : the psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society, by Lt Col Dave Grossman [0]. Fighting and killing each other and other animals is something we all (generally speaking) have access to and can reasonably weigh in on. It is uncomfortable to me how much money and resources we (I'm in the USA) spend on the military (and I served awhile, honorably discharged, blah blah), and I accept we'll keep fighting wars for a long time. Per Gandalf's admonition to Frodo about wishing Bilbo had killed Gollum in the tunnels when he'd had the chance, I don't like the death penalty. I like the banishment option that the Lakota (I think? And likely many other cultures) used, though now we can find belonging online. In some ways I miss the pre-internet days where it was important to get to know one's physical neighbors, regardless of their politics (I make a point to talk with all my neighbors, and sometimes this means we just talk about the weather, and that's fine).
[0] https://www.worldcat.org/title/on-killing-the-psychological-...
- Yes, he also uses "On Killing" to support his argument for video games. It is a very fascinating (and disturbing) book. But most of the book is focused on the changes in military training that led to the increase in "shoot to kill" between WWII and Vietnam.
In addition to the military training the book also talks about dis-association of killing through different methods and how that increased the "shoot to kill". The basic argument is that it is easier to kill someone when seeing them at a distance through the scope of a rifle than being right next to them and stabbing them. The other part of the dis-association is campaigns to dehumanize the enemy in war and not refer to them or acknowledge that they are individual humans.
The video games argument in "On Killing" isn't part of the main thesis of the book, it is more tacked on the end. Whereas the rest of the book is looking at the past and evidence of what has happened. The video game part of it was (at the time) more focused on current feelings and attitudes towards it and was not substantiated.
