Lust for war fills historic human need
Myth glamorizes battle, promises greater glory
By Barbara Hey
Special to The Denver Post
Sunday, March 02, 2003 - As America prepares for war in Iraq, pundits are busy discussing the political reasons - economic uncertainty, aggression, power, terrorism and homeland security.
But as they debate, another group of thinkers is exploring a more basic issue: Why human beings wage war against each other and have throughout history.
Their conclusion? We love war, says research psychologist Lawrence LeShan, author of "The Psychology of War," and because we enjoy it, "it promises to fulfill some fundamental human need.
"It resolves a basic human tension, that is, it enables us to feel our individuality and to be part of the group at the same time," says LeShan, whose book was published in 1992 and was reprinted in the fall.
Add our ability to shift between vastly different sets of values, based on the conditions at hand, and even the most peace-loving people can support war.
One signal that a nation is gearing up for war is the increased use of the rhetoric of good and evil, he says.
"You start hearing conflicts described in almost fairy tale terms, that once the evil country is defeated all will be paradise, that there will be a happy ending."
When war looms, our perception of reality shifts, says LeShan. We cease viewing situations in what he calls a sensory mode - where we interpret things as they are, and instead perceive events in a mythic sense, giving them an exalted significance.
Language reflects that shift. Talk takes on an "us against them" theme.
"We tell the truth, they speak in propaganda; our motives are pure, theirs always suspect," he says. "We are all good, they are all bad. We have God on our side, the enemies are demonized."
The quest takes on overtones of a crusade, something deftly utilized by speechwriters. Consider President Bush's well-tuned phrase to describe the enemy: The "axis of evil".
This distortion is echoed by Chris Hedges, the author of "War is a Force That Gives us Meaning" and former correspondent in such conflict zones as El Salvador, Bosnia and the Persian Gulf.
"What is most attractive about war is its myth - glorious heroism, self-sacrifice, words that on a battlefield mean nothing," he says. "It takes a soldier about 30 seconds in combat to realize that the myth of war is not at all true.
"The myth of war is enticing because it allows us to suspend our individual conscience. All becomes sacrificed for the greater glory."
But reality is much different - messy and tragic. "In the Gulf War, I watched fire balls go up, indiscriminate bombing night after night," says Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. "The precision-guided missiles were a tiny percentage. I saw that huge portions of Iraq were destroyed. We devastated the place.
"What we lose sight of is that war is ultimately death," he says. "The inevitable cost of war is the death of innocents."
And of combatants. "Battlefields are organized industrial slaughter," says Hedges.
There's no doubt that war creates untold suffering, death and destruction, and usually doesn't result in lasting peace. That was true in the days of Plato, and is just as true in the age of religious terrorists and biochemical warfare.
But war also elevates us above the mundane, LeShan says. In wartime we feel as if we are living on a higher plane of existence, involved in something greater than what happens in regular time. We become a nation united - fighting for common good, against the scourge of evil, whoever and whatever that may be.
That can result "in pleasure similar to that of a fanatic sports fan whose week or year is shaped by the success or failure of the home team," explains Tom Farer, dean of the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies.
"The anger and the passion are authentic but also disturbing. War provides an acceptable arena for nonrational emotions, to express on a national and personal level the chant, 'We're number one."'
As the talk of war grows, it can justify what in peacetime, LeShan says. "You take a nice Midwestern guy driving down a country lane, late for an interview for the most important job opportunity in his life. He sees that a bike-rider has fallen and he stops to help, sacrificing his job because he feels the moral responsibility.
"Six months later this same guy is flying a wartime mission, and he drops bombs on a city where 10,000 innocent children are asleep, without compunction. That's how war changes our perceptions."
The adrenaline rush of the front lines can, for some, also be addictive. "War is a narcotic," says Hedges. "It's one of the most potent there is and so debilitating it can kill you. I've seen that in rescue workers, some war correspondents. They can't function outside the culture of war."
But for most, war is something else again: terrifying.
"Fear is a fundamental element of war," he says. "It coils itself around you, and you often find out that in the stress of it you are not the person you think you are. You might think you'd be someone who'd run into open fire to save a comrade. But the fact is in battle the whole body reacts in self-preservation."
As a nation, we've lost touch with the reality of war, says Hedges. "We think we can wage war, and it won't touch us. War is a disease, and among countries, there's no difference between one infection and the other."
But, says LeShan, there is a cure.
"Begin working with children, with cultivating the individuality of each," he says. "Let them sing their own songs so that their lives are so rich, so full that they don't have the slightest interest in war."
Another option is to use spiritual methods of fulfilling basic human needs. The meditative traditions of Zen and Sufism, as well as the Christian, Hindu or Jewish forms of mysticism provide another way of heightening both the sense of self as an individual and connectedness to the whole, obviating the need for war. Most important of all, says LeShan, is learning to identify the dangerous perceptions shifts - the identification of one nation as the embodiment of evil, the idea that defeating them is the path to glory, and the idea that anyone who disagrees is a traitor - that begin to show up in a society moving toward war.
"Some believe that war is inevitable," says LeShan. "That is simply not true. It used to be thought that slavery was an unavoidable situation of existence; even Plato and Socrates wrote of that. Now it is unthinkable. We can do the same with war."
Peace, says LeShan, begins within. His advice: "Enrich your life and your relationships so that going to war will seem like a terrible interruption."
There are startling differences in the ways we perceive reality during wartime compared with peacetime
PEACETIME
1. Good and Evil have many shades of gray. Many groups with different ideas and opinions are legitimate.
2. Now is pretty much like other times.
3. The great forces of nature, such as God or human evolution, are not often evoked in our disputes.
4. When this present period is over things will go on much as they have in the past.
5. There are many problems to be solved, and their relative importance varies from day to day. Life is complex.
6. All people act from pretty much the same motives.
7. Problems start on different levels - economic, political, or personal - and must be dealt with on these levels.
8. We are concerned with what causes the problems we're trying to solve.
9. We can talk to those who disagree with us.
10. All people are fundamentally the same.
WARTIME
1. Good and Evil are reduced to Us and Them. There are no innocent bystanders, there are only those for or those against us. Crucial issues are divided into black and white, and opinions about them are either right or wrong.
2. Now is different from all other times. Everything hangs in the balance; whoever wins now wins forever. It is the time of the final battle between good and evil.
3. "God is on Our Side," "History will absolve us," and other such slogans indicate our belief that the great cosmic forces are with us.
4. Everything will be vastly different after the war. Things will be better if we win and terribly worse if we lose. Winning or losing will change the meaning of the past and the shape of the future.
5. There is only one major problem to be solved. All others are secondary. Life has one major focus.
6. They act from a wish for power. We act from self-defense, benevolence, and reasons of common decency and morality.
7. The real problem started with an act of will by the enemy and can only be solved by breaking his will or by making him helpless to act on it.
8. We are not concerned with causes, only with outcomes.
9. Since the enemy is evil, he naturally lies. Communication is not possible. Only force can settle the issue. We tell the truth (news, education). They lie (propaganda).
10. The same actions are "good" when we do them and "evil" when the enemy does them. There is doubt that "we" and "they" really belong to the same species.
- Lawrence LeShan, Utne magazine
How Colorado feels about war
I grew up on a kibbutz in Israel, and every night from when I was 7 to 9 years old I slept in a bomb shelter. The thing is, we know how war starts but never how it ends. It could be a quick victory; it could not. And then
afterwards, what will happen? Will Iraq be a divided country like Lebanon and have years of civil war?
- Carmi Gazit, Boulder
I am ambivalent. Sometimes I wake up and think
Hussein is such a ruthless killer. He could be a problem down the road, so let's do it. Then I think about the 5
million Iraqis who within a day of bombardment will be
without potable water, and then I think of the possibility of retaliatory terrorist attacks against this country and all the unknown risks of conflict.
- Tom Farer, dean of the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies
War is an unfortunate circumstance that doesn't get us very far. But we're humans, with different views. And like with a 2-year-old, sometimes a swat on the butt is
necessary. I know this conflict is about money and oil, but everyone is flexing their muscles and we must flex back. I don't like the death part of it; the killing of
innocents. For us to stay on top we need to do this.
- Leslie Dean, Englewood
With the U.S. and Iraq, U.S. is like a bully, a super
power with weapons that could blow them to smithereens. They teach us in school that some people become bullies because they were bullied. It could be the same thing with nations.
- Natalia Wilkins, 14, Denver
I was in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and I worked in a neuropsychiatric clinic and I treated a man who said, "I don't want to kill." I thought, he should
always want to keep that belief. I still think now that there is no reason for war ever, and no reason for it now.
- Don Skonieczka, Colorado City
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