Why We Love War
(Page 3 of 7)
January / February 2003
By Lawrence LeShan, Adapted from The Psychology of War: Comprehending its Mystique and Madness
The writer Jo Coudert recounts:
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And in England, shortly after the war, I commented to a Londoner what a relief it must have been to have the bombings ended. “Oh,” she said, “it was a marvelous time. You forgot about yourself and you did what you could and we were all in it together. It was frightening, of course, and you worried about getting killed, but in some ways it was better than now. Now we’re all just ourselves again.”
It is important to note that wartime consciousness is not limited to the front lines. Nor is it only known to men. It was once argued that allowing women to vote would lead to more peace, but in fact the female vote has had no effect on war’s frequency or ferocity. The attraction to war is a human characteristic, apparently not limited by gender. Though war clearly does not deliver exactly what it promises, it does offer temporary solutions to psychological problems for a very large percentage of the population. And once a war begins, the social pressures to continue it are very strong. Anyone who questions an ongoing war is considered a traitor or a lapsed heretic, and such people traditionally are imprisoned or killed. One cannot question the accepted wisdom that the war being waged is a wonderful crusade to rid the world of evil.
And after a war, with the general disillusionment and social confusion that accompanies the failure of the postwar dream, no one cares to examine the contradictions. When Johnny comes marching home with a chronic disability from his wounds, we all try to forget our recent bout of psychological illusion as soon as possible.
There are three ideas that, when they appear in society, should be regarded as signals that we are moving toward war, and that strong action must be taken against this drift:
The idea that there is a particular enemy nation that embodies evil, and that if it were defeated, the world would become paradise. (The latter part of this statement is the crucial danger signal. The first part may well be true—as with Hitler’s Germany.)
The idea that taking action against this enemy (now the enemy) is the path to glory and to legendary heights of existence.
The idea that anyone who does not agree with this accepted wisdom is a traitor.
These danger signals often appear at the same time in two enemy nations, which probably speeds the slide into armed conflict. If they appear in only one, and that nation then attacks its enemy, then the attacked nation is likely to believe that it has been victimized (the great majority of wars start with an armed attack preceding a declaration of war). This in turn increases that nation’s sense that its attacker is evil.
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