For much of human history, wars were always part of human existence, whether people liked it or not. Many study wars, analyze combat strategies, and even try to predict what would happen next. Throughout these times, people have always questioned whether war and killing others are innate to humans or if the existence of a peaceful social system is possible. David Grossman’s “On Killing” provides an insightful view on how soldiers can be conditioned to kill people alike, and how this conditioning happens. Mainly, Grossman (2014) argues that killing is not the innate nature of a person, rather soldiers are exposed to thorough conditioning.
The author begins by digging into one of the most important times of human existence: childhood. Childhood experience shapes our understanding of the world, morals, and our future life in many ways. Grossman (2014) begins by explaining how conditioning from the media can affect our instinctual responses to some situations in life. For instance, the author claims that media enables violence, which can further contribute to existing conditions among Black communities, such as poverty and the existence of gangs. Thus, telling people that they can just stop acting on those conditioned instincts is not the best solution, as the factors around children can contribute to violence.
Grossman (2014) argues that people are not hateful and confrontational in their nature. Mostly, humans try to avoid their bullies, or afraid of being in a non-peaceful situation, because most are afraid and find these situations very difficult. As an evidence of this statement, the author claims that many soldiers, who are, first and foremost, humans, try to commit suicide, because there is an extreme fear of confrontation. Soldiers on a battlefield are conditioned to live through these situations and keep persisting in a combat through the learned sense of helplessness, where escaping is seemingly impossible. As a result, Grossman (2014) claims that being afraid of conflicting situations is in human nature, whereas violence is not.
Another important conditioning for killing in war comes from language and trust in the community of soldiers. Grossman (2014) discusses the very strong and crucial bond soldiers and their leaders share because everyone trusts one another with their lives. For many people, if not all, their lives are the most crucial thing they have. During peaceful times, it is challenging to imagine putting your whole life into someone’s hands and trusting their judgment, but the combat differs greatly from peaceful conditions. Given this heavy judgment and the amount of responsibility, leaders often make tough decisions on the battlefield, which can lead to wrongdoings and killing the enemy. Often, to escape from this burden, soldiers use different language, so they cannot associate themselves with killing somebody (Grossman, 2014). The commonly used euphemism for killing is saying that “the enemy was knocked over, wasted, greased, taken out, and mopped up” (Grossman, 2014, p. 153). The language is altered to relieve soldiers from the burden of killing in combat.
To conclude, Grossman’s book “On Killing” (2014) offers a theoretically backed psychological look into the nature of the killing. Discussion around war is dominated by strategic plans, geopolitics, and economic aspects, and the main component, the killing is mostly overlooked, or sometimes even tabooed. The book discusses this extremely complicated, yet crucial topic, in an attempt to answer the question of how people can kill other people during the war.
Reference
Grossman, D. (2014). On Killing. Open Road Media.