"Why soldiers like Killing" -Sci Am.

[IJesusChrist]

First, this has been an issue due to the video release of soldiers mowing down reuters employess with cameras mistaken as militants with guns.

Secondly, I'd like to point out that this writer is the same writer who wrote about DMT. I feel the need to email him to express my greate appreciation for his articles.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/ ... 2010-04-23

studies of World War II veterans suggest that very few men are innately bellicose. The psychiatrists Roy Swank and Walter Marchand found that 98 percent of soldiers who endured 60 days of continuous combat suffered psychiatric symptoms, either temporary or permanent. The two out of 100 soldiers who seemed unscathed by prolonged combat displayed "aggressive psychopathic personalities," the psychiatrists reported. In other words, combat didn't drive these men crazy because they were crazy to begin with.

 

[spice]

What it really goes to, at the root of the matter, is a disrespect for life in general. It's no coincidence that most military men come from backgrounds where 'huntin' and fishin' are considered pre-requisite courses to manhood. Hell, I came from that background. But when you hunt and fish and you do not do it to eat, then you have automatically lost touch with the spirit of the land, you have automatically renounced your natural 'right' to do these things, because you are not doing it for the only valid one; survival....what comes eventually is desensitization, followed by contempt. Seen it a million times.

"I hunt for sport" is a line I hear often.....no you don't, you hunt to massage your already bloated ego, motherfucker.


I'd like to hunt your ass with some LSD tipped darts is what I think everytime I hear this kind of shit.

'

 

[IJesusChrist]

I detest "I hunt for the sport of it"

Fuck you you scrawny fuck. How fun is it to walk in the woods, natures balance, the thing your ancestors prayed upon to live, the mother of all land dwellers, and bring an explosive to kill an animal that has no idea what you are, where you came from, or why you just shot it's heart?

Oh the thrill of killing for a meal - the release of endorphines after a hunt that you NEED. But to go out a weekend, talk around the fire, get drunk, and then shoot shit in the morning and go back to your job?

rage.

 

[spice]

The hardest part, i think, is to convince somebody, really convince them inside, where they live with themselves, that it is probably not a healthy way to think.

The defenses come up immediately and the 'tradition' card will be played, if the person can even get that far in their thinking.
Usually, its just something they've been doing ever since they can remember. Which gives you the root of the problem, the passing of a meme. In this case, the 'hunter' meme and all that goes with it.

I don't know if you are familiar with the meme concept, but its basically the passing on of outlooks, values, zeitgeists, from one person to the other. In these areas, the passing of the meme is like the passing of the genetic code, it occurs parentally.
when the child is reared in an environment of isolation, lacking stimulation or opposing points of view, in particular, they come to eventually believe (without even knowing they 'believe' it...they've never thought it out) that their ignorant perception and value-set is the only one, simply because it has thrived in the perfect conditions to propagate ignorance; (again)

the lack of opposing viewpoints that are presented with passion and eloquence; diversity, practiced and preached.

The answer is easy, but people like being stupid. :drinkers:

 

[viljo]

my father once told me a story he had a gun and shot down an animal but it wasn't untill after did he come to realise it was pointless.
me too i once was involved in a fight at a young age but within a minute of smashing his head in a i actually told myself i would never do that to another human, stange i was only very young but had made a rather large decesion.
kept me word to!

 

[IJesusChrist]

I love fishing, I fish. I do it to sit in the sun, relax, watch the clouds go by, and get a sense of euphoria from that intial bite. I pull up the fish and I hate myself. I am intentionally sticking a peice of steel through this lip of this fish. Once in a while it will die from internal bleeding. How can I live with that? I blind myself - oh they aren't conscious. Oh they don't feel pain like we do... but they do. I now only fish when I am isolated in the woods and require some type of food.

I have killed animals, and watched them suffer. I don't understand why I do it - there is the dominance aspect, the ability to destroy something. Having done it, I have always swore I will never do it again. And probably won't.

Two very distinct parts of the brain at work - empathy, which is relatively new and evolutionarily greater than the other; prehistoric instinct, rage, blood thirst.

You are correct spice, the story, the fake feeling, the tradition is passed down. 'Son, today's gonna be the day you get to shoot your first gun, I'm prouda you." "Thanks dad..."

BOOM.

 

[Illegalsmile]

do you guys know the show moral orel? the entire series is a critique of the WASP family (white anglo-saxon protestant)
in my favorite episode about nature his dad talks about "natures shortcut" its a really underrated show
the clip is 40 seconds long, sorry i couldnt include the vid in the post but its not from youtube

http://video.adultswim.com/moral-orel/natures-shortcut.html

 

[Bastiaan]

Reminds me of a scene in the movie 'powder' 1995, where the total asshole guy that killed the deer is being made felt what the dying animal is feeling and never hunts again after that.
Human nature.. I don't really believe in that. If there's such a thing I'd say the human psyche isn't equipped/made to endure the kind of suffering that is common today, hence these kind of sick. sadistic tendencies. Life is propably meaningless without a little pain, but thats a different story then the way it is now. I do somehow dislike hunting a lot more then fishing by the way.

 

[Bastiaan]

@ Illegalsmile Just saw the episode of moral Orel with Orel's father, the pastor, the policeman and the doctor in the bar. The rant that Orel's father makes at some point is brilliant.

 

[_Avatar_]

In other words, combat didn't drive these men crazy because they were crazy to begin with.

Exactly, although the term "crazy" is a bit misleading.

Here's a citation from 1961 (On Becoming a Person, by Carl R. Rogers) that basically says the same thing:

"One of the most revolutionary concepts to grow out of our clinical experience is the growing recognition that the innermost core of man's nature, the deepest layers of his personality, the base of his 'animal nature', is positive in nature - is basically socialized, forward-moving, rational and realistic. We do not need to ask who will socialize him, for one of his own deepest needs is for affiliation and communication with others. He is realistically able to control himself, and he is incorrigibly socialized in his desires. There is no beast in man. There is only man in man."

And: "Humanistic psychology is not just a new brand of psychology, to be set side by side on the shelves with all the old brands. It is a whole different way of looking at psychological science. It is a way of doing science which includes love, involvement and spontaneity, instead of systematically excluding them. And the object of this science is not the prediction and control of people's behavior, but the liberation of people from the bonds of neurotic control, whether this comes from outside (in the structures of our society) or from inside." (Ordinary Ecstasy - Humanistic Psychology in Action, by John Rowan, 1976)

 

[IJesusChrist]

Avatar, I agree... but disagree slightly with the second quote, I find if we seperate our psychology so far from animals we begin to blind ourselves from the connections we have - giving us some divine psychology, a purpose beyond animal.

Atleast thats what I believe; I don't think that should be the case.

 

[_Avatar_]

Avatar, I agree... but disagree slightly with the second quote, I find if we seperate our psychology so far from animals we begin to blind ourselves from the connections we have - giving us some divine psychology, a purpose beyond animal.

Are you sure you meant "the second quote"? Because only the first one mentioned things like "animal nature" and the "beast in man". In any case, I do not think that humanistic psychology separates us very much from animals. Abraham Maslow created a scheme of needs we all have. The basic needs in this scheme we share with most animals. It's only some needs which seem to be uniquely human, or rather: where the human manifestations of those needs are more complex than the same needs in animals (for example the need to be creative, to understand self, to understand the world we live in etc., I mean: even the way we have sex differs from the way most animals copulate, especially if you look at tantra or sex magic). Though humanistic and transpersonal psychology give account of transcendental phenomena and acknowledges that contact with "the divine" is a fundamental human need, it doesn't exalt the human being at the expense of the rest of creation, the way certain religions like the Catholic Church have done (for example, the belief that "only human beings have souls").

 

[NEPsychonautics]

I'd like to hunt your ass with some LSD tipped darts is what I think everytime I hear this kind of shit.

Haha, I agree. Although I hate hunting myself and I find most who love it are as you described, there are some who feeling hunting is natural. My father, grandfather, great-grandfather,ect. all hunted (I think I'm the first male in the family who doesn't enjoy it) and when I was younger I went with my dad duck hunting a few times and in that process he taught me the value of life. Respect the animals, only kill what you will use, and always thank the animal for giving it's life. In some ways hunting can be more humane than buying beef in the supermarket, the way they treat animals raised for meat is horrible. My point being hunting can go both ways, it can be an ego thing with some ass thinking of it as 'tradition' but it can also be a learning experince as long as you respect life.

 

[ophiuchus]

i would love to go hunting, but would treat it with the same level of respect that would with a strong trip. i have no desire at all to kill an animal if i am not to consume and use it entirely. therefore, at the same time, i am content in NOT hunting.