11-07-2018, 12:18 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-07-2018, 12:24 PM by Bob Butler 54.)
And yet the blue need rural votes.
I’ll get back to that soon enough…
In his book On Killing, Lt. Col Dave Grossman goes into how humans have specific instincts that prevent killing of members of a tribe, counter instincts to allow soldiers to kill at need members of other tribes, how the US Army is aware of these instincts, and conditions it soldiers to kill. Among other things, specific drills are designed to condition soldiers to obey orders without question, to kill without thinking. The victory parade among other things is therapy against post traumatic stress. If society shows approval, the shock induced on soldiers becomes less. Part of it is dehumanizing the enemy though demonization, humiliation, of reducing them to stereotypes. It is easier to kill the enemy if you give him buck teeth and thick glasses.
]It is exceedingly dangerous to remove the conditioning to prevent killing. You wind up with people primed to kill.
In the Industrial Age, we had good reason to do just that. Much of the Enlightenment ideals of progress was achieved at gunpoint, by demonizing the conservatives who resisted with older clinging to traditional privilege and power. Wars and violence marked each crisis, and with that came stereotypes, hatred and violence. It was the natural and perhaps correct thing to do, to paint the enemy as other, to justify, glorify and enable the instincts to kill.
But what if in the new age we can solve the great cultural problems without war and violence? What if you can do the same cultural changes through democracy? Why ride so many on the killing edge? Why mark fellow members of society as plausible targets?
Kings and slaveholders were once rather easy targets for past crises. I will grant that the victors write the history books, but they made those history books very easy to write. I have been looking for something as easy to see in hindsight. The readiness to demonize, to label as other, to treat with contempt, may be the lesson to be learned. The red radio talk shows, the blue late night humor, may be the obvious elephant in the room. Everyone is just addicted to the old Industrial Age habit to prime up for a conflict.
You want new values? You want to change the culture? Maybe you just do not in any way want to stimulate the instinct for violence.
I’ll get back to that soon enough…
In his book On Killing, Lt. Col Dave Grossman goes into how humans have specific instincts that prevent killing of members of a tribe, counter instincts to allow soldiers to kill at need members of other tribes, how the US Army is aware of these instincts, and conditions it soldiers to kill. Among other things, specific drills are designed to condition soldiers to obey orders without question, to kill without thinking. The victory parade among other things is therapy against post traumatic stress. If society shows approval, the shock induced on soldiers becomes less. Part of it is dehumanizing the enemy though demonization, humiliation, of reducing them to stereotypes. It is easier to kill the enemy if you give him buck teeth and thick glasses.
]It is exceedingly dangerous to remove the conditioning to prevent killing. You wind up with people primed to kill.
In the Industrial Age, we had good reason to do just that. Much of the Enlightenment ideals of progress was achieved at gunpoint, by demonizing the conservatives who resisted with older clinging to traditional privilege and power. Wars and violence marked each crisis, and with that came stereotypes, hatred and violence. It was the natural and perhaps correct thing to do, to paint the enemy as other, to justify, glorify and enable the instincts to kill.
But what if in the new age we can solve the great cultural problems without war and violence? What if you can do the same cultural changes through democracy? Why ride so many on the killing edge? Why mark fellow members of society as plausible targets?
Kings and slaveholders were once rather easy targets for past crises. I will grant that the victors write the history books, but they made those history books very easy to write. I have been looking for something as easy to see in hindsight. The readiness to demonize, to label as other, to treat with contempt, may be the lesson to be learned. The red radio talk shows, the blue late night humor, may be the obvious elephant in the room. Everyone is just addicted to the old Industrial Age habit to prime up for a conflict.
You want new values? You want to change the culture? Maybe you just do not in any way want to stimulate the instinct for violence.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.