Why We Love War
(Page 5 of 7)
January / February 2003
By Lawrence LeShan, Adapted from The Psychology of War: Comprehending its Mystique and Madness
There was one way in which the Persian Gulf War in 1991 was a complete success: It once again made war widely acceptable in this country. The media as a whole was magnificently managed by the military, showing how well they’d learned the lessons of the Vietnam fiasco, at least in terms of the press. The war had a mythic goal—a “New World Order” in which the forces of aggression would be stopped by a civilized “coalition” led by the United Nations. Brave allies were on the scene and the media carefully avoided criticizing them. Murder, rape, and other domestic issues largely disappeared from the television news as all our problems became one problem. By the time the bombing got underway, the war was a fully mythic one.
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The Persian Gulf War was, in fact, the cleanest, most bloodless, most idealized picture of war in a century and a half. The military had finally solved the dilemma of how to present war to a civilian population. The United States had clearly entered a new era. Whether this was a conscious goal of the government remains unknown, but its effect today is clear.
Indeed, before we can understand the psychology of war we have to explore the role that government plays in perpetuating it. As history shows, governments are remarkably inept at preventing wars, even when it is clearly against their interests to fight them. This fact is especially striking in light of how efficient they can become once a war begins. War seems to be a “natural” way of behaving for governments; indeed, our governmental forms today are descended from earlier governments who saw war as their central function. In the ancient world, war was an accepted way to solve problems. (It wasn’t until the 17th century that peace began to be discussed as a natural and permanent state.) In theory, a constant, deeply concealed pressure toward war may be exerted by the structure of our governments, a structure “designed” partly for this purpose.
As a holdover from the violent past, every government today has officials in charge of “war” or “defense” at its highest level. Nowhere, to my knowledge, is there an official at similar levels in charge of “peace.” The U.S. Constitution is perfectly clear as to which organ of the government has “the power to declare war.” Nowhere does it state which organ has the power to declare peace or to strive to maintain it. That perhaps explains why our government has developed the idea of an active peace program to only a minuscule degree compared to war programs.
Any serious effort to protect ourselves against war must concentrate on two areas: why war is so attractive to humans, and why governments so often act against their interests in moving away from peace. Our first step is to increase our awareness of the fact that war is a tempting way to solve certain human problems. We then must begin to teach our young how to achieve these benefits without resorting to armed conflict.
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