The Paradoxes of War teaches us to understand that war is not only a normal part of human existence, but is arguably one of the most important factors in making us who we are. Through this course, I hope that you will come to appreciate that war is both a natural expression of common human emotions and interactions and a constitutive part of how we cohere as groups. That is, war is paradoxically an expression of our basest animal nature and the exemplar of our most vaunted and valued civilized virtues. You will learn some basic military history and sociology in this course as a lens for the more important purpose of seeing the broader social themes and issues related to war. I want you to both learn about war, but more importantly, use it as way of understanding your everyday social world. So, for example, the discussion of war and gender will serve to start you thinking about how expectations of masculinity are created and our discussion of nationalism will make clear how easy “us-them” dichotomies can be established and (ab)used. I will suggest some readings for you to complement the class and assign some activities through which you will be able to apply the theoretical insights from the course to your observations of everyday life. At the end of the course, you will start to see war everywhere and come to appreciate how much it defines our life. All the features of this course are available for free. It does not offer a certificate upon completion.
Endurance
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From the course by Princeton University
Paradoxes of War
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From the lesson
The Experience of War
In order to understand the social creation of war we need to
appreciate that this is an activity VERY few would engage in
with control or inducement.
Meet the Instructors
Miguel A. CentenoMusgrave Professor of Sociology and Professor of Sociology and International Affairs
Sociology
So given these horrors, given these pains, given this level discomfort, although
that sounds like an inappropriate word for it, how do humans endure?
How do we come to terms with the pain and discomfort of battle?
Simply put, no human being can exist in a constant state of battle.
It is impossible.
No human being is that powerful, to be able to live through days and weeks
and months in battle, and years of battle without some kind of effect.
What we find is that the productivity, in a
sense, of a soldier is an inverse U curve.
And this pattern applies whether we're talking about an
individual solder in a battle or soldiers over campaign.
And it goes like this.
At the very beginning, the level of inexperience, in a
sense, makes a solder not very productive, not very efficient.
At one point, up here, in the middle of battle, he becomes his most effective.
This is would the equivalent of achieving a heart
rate of 120 to 145 when one was exercising.
But one can't stay at that.
After a while, the body and the mind begins to collapse, and what you
can think about is that any army has to worry about this particular curve.
They want to minimize this amount of non-productivity.
They want to maximize this top of the curve, when
you are most productive and you can endure the most.
And they want to minimize the amount of time
that you are in battle when you become essentially useless.
Long term utilization of soldiers is impossible.
Soldiers need time to become effective.
But continued exposure could wear at soldier's
souls and make them very, very ineffective.
All soldiers have eventual psychological breaking points.
Among soldiers in combat for more than 60 or
90 days, 98% suffer from some sort of psychiatric strain.
You can't see the caption here, but it's the fear of silence.
Here's a soldier who's been in the front, who's been hearing this noise, and
all of a sudden, the absence of the noise is what's going to wake him.
Longer term exposure may permanently harm lives.
Those who survive through this kind of
horror, may actually find long term stresses, long
term physical and psychological stresses, that make
it very difficult for them to be healthy.
So a big part of any kind of army managing is trying to limit battle exposure.
Keeping soldiers permanently at the front line is obviously not a viable action.
You basically will end up with non-performing soldiers.
But rest from battle can actually make
the experience worse because it is the contrast.
Here's a soldier coming home.
This moment is wonderful.
He's returning.
He's seeing his wife.
He's seeing his daughter.
He's back home.
But I want you to think about this soldier and three or four days, or even a
week, when he has to leave this place an go back to that hell that he knows exists.
Imagine, so at the same time that you want to give
this soldier this kind of relief, that you want to
give them a rest, you also have to be very
careful that you're not condemning them to a greater fear.
Limiting exposure to battle also comes with a cost.
We see this particularly in World War in Vietnam War.
Soldiers, as we will see, rely on a sense of camaraderie.
Soldiers rely on the sense of cohesion
that comes from being together and facing this.
If you remove soldiers individually from this, in order to give the kind of
rest, as was done during the Vietnam War, you threaten this kind of cohesion.
Soldiers are focused on their return home.
And every single military has to play a
very, very intricate dance between giving the soldiers
enough relief, but also not allowing them to make this the center of our lives.
So how do we explain soldiers' endurance in war?
While desertion and non-participation are significant, the majority of
the soldiers minimally remain at their posts despite tremendous risks.
Here we have a painting of the deserter.
He is, he's here, he has gone back home, but now they're coming after him.
But this is relatively rare.
Most of the time, soldiers will remain where they're supposed to be.
A good soldier sticks to his post and that's what they do.
How?
Why do they do this?
Why do they do this?
Sociobiologists argue the participation in battle is a form of selfish behavior
through which soldiers contribute to the success of survival of their gene pools.
That is, we explain this endurance because inside every soldier
is a sort of carrier for genes and that carrier
for genes wants to continue, wants to fight in the
battle in order to protect the other genes back home.
Now this makes a great deal of sense when
we're talking about small clans or families or villages.
But could this really make sense when we're talking
about the artificial aggregates of nation states, for example?
Soldiers may also come to believe that they will not
be killed or that the potential benefits outweigh the possible costs.
The question then becomes how do you get them to convince this.
How do you convince this soldier to feel this triumphant?
How do you convince this soldier to feel immortal?
The interest in analyzing the
psychological institutions and patterns of this.
This is the, this is the purpose of this course.
In order to understand how we can take this, again, ordinary human being who has
gone through this horrific experience and yet he can come out triumphant and strong.
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