It is well documented in reliable, measured accounts that ordinary people become brutalised in war. Now when I say brutalised, I mean that in addition to enemy soldiers, non-combatants including children and people who are unable to defend themselves are injured, killed, rendered homeless, humiliated, raped and their basic human rights violated. It would appear that something terrible happens to us (or at least a critical mass of us) and we become killing machines.
So how are the nicest of young men (and nowadays young women) from the most upright and honest families turned into (potentially) killers?
Some years ago I came across a little booklet dated from World War One – issued by the UK War Office. [1] It was entitled ‘When I Join the Ranks’. It was a very interesting read, almost quaint, promoting all that was good and healthy about military service but making no mention of the horror facing soldiers in war, nor the grief, sadness and suffering of families bereaved. The purpose of the text was, of course, to get young men (most probably conscripts) to think of the positive aspects of military life.
This is not untypical of the process of desensitisation that continues to this day.
Apart from the very explicit messages in such publications, another way to desensitise is to get immature, impressionable young men and women to think a certain way to the point that they are not even aware that they have an option not to do what they are told to do – really. (And, once again, aware is the important word here).
In the military, common-sense thinking becomes subservient to army thinking. This, of course, gives rise to great comedy (e.g. films like M-A-S-H, Kelly’s Heroes, even TV series like Blackadder, Dad’s Army, Sgt. Bilko and many similar productions) as the struggle between common-sense and what has to be done at the behest of the military is lampooned. (Myth and Reality, in a more general sense, will be further explored in a later post).
I will digress here to observe that there are very few films or series of that type – so popular a few decades ago. Or, if there are, I do not know of them. Perhaps the reason for this lies in the post on the media where I discussed how the media focuses on what is familiar and/or fashionable. Such sentiment was fashionable at that time – not so now. Is this because of a general trend towards glorification of making war – driven by neoliberalism and the corporate world of the military-industrial complex? [2]
Perhaps such films and/or programmes challenged the desensitisation process, which is almost always accompanied by group-think.
Let me explain what I mean here.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, in the Republic of Ireland, the establishment, (the Pillars at that time) would have deemed the Provisional IRA to be our enemy. Not only were they bent on overthrowing the government in Northern Ireland, they intended to destabilise the Republic too. It was not that easy to speak in their defence in any circumstance, or give a measured response to the general situation of the Troubles. (For younger readers, have a think about our current mainstream opinion – the group-think – on what we call Islamic terrorism).
Anyone who even thought differently (not to mention people who went out on the street and protested peacefully, or were against the established order in some other way) were subtly portrayed as some sort of an enemy of the state. These might have been organisations like Amnesty International, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CND), the then Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. Even organisations like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth were, by some, seen to be fellow travellers, promoters of anti-establishment sentiment, at best naive eccentrics, and/or at risk of being infiltrated by what were known as subversives – people who were a danger to the State.
Once again, I merely mention the above as my observations. I invite you to make up your own mind and come to your conclusions.
[1]. Actually I Googled the booklet and found it in a website selling memorabilia – which is where I got the link above!
[2]. Yet another desensitisation process (very popular in the so-called Allied countries that fought in the 20th Century World Wars) is symbolism, such as the wearing of the poppy. The poppy commemorates those who died pointlessly on the fields of France during trench warfare in World War 1. If the soldiers who suffered in trenches on both sides (or their families, or children) could speak, my guess is that they would consider a fitting commemoration to be the winding down of the industry that produced the weapons that killed them rather than an annual wearing of a flower that would grow over their graves. This is also an example of the denial mentioned in this post on Politics and Addiction.