By its violent nature, war inflames our emotions. As humans, we have reactions that are in part biological as well as deeply ingrained through our cultures, and the naked confrontation which leads to war as well as the violence embodied in it trigger those emotions.
bq. “I have often preached that the proper antidote to fear is anger, and I see no reason to change my opinion on this. However, there is another mental condition that serves as well or possibly better, and that is concentration. I have discussed this matter at great length with people who are in a position to know, and I am not without experience of my own, and I can state positively that when you find yourself facing deadly danger, your ability to concentrate every mental faculty upon doing what needs to be done to save yourself leaves no room for fear.” — Col. Jeff Cooper
bq. “In strategy your spiritual bearing must not be any different than normal. Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased… Do not let your spirit be influenced by your body, or your body be influenced by your spirit. Be neither insufficiently spirited nor overspirited. Do not let the enemy see your spirit.” — Miyamoto Musashi
Much martial arts training, and much military training (as I understand it) is about learning to manage those emotional reactions. But note that ‘managing’ them is not to completely deny them…Because, in truth, they serve as an engine for the human reluctance to confront or to risk and commit violence.
When faced with confrontation, hatred, or violence, part of our human nature is to withdraw, to look away, to act like prey – not predator. Another part reacts aggressively.
The question in any instance is which is the appropriate reaction?
In this case, we’re taking about the anger in response to the events in Falluja – and let’s make one thing clear; the events are not simply the attack on and killing of the civilian guards. That’s tragic, but in most of our worlds would have been a blip. It was the brutal treatment of their bodies once they were helplessly dead, in defiance of Islam, which like most religions, requires a certain respect for the dead.
So we’re angry. And to an extent, it’s important that we have some anger, because otherwise we would be helpless.
And to that extent, when we see things like suicide bombings, when we remember the images of 9/11, anger’s not a bad thing. It is, as Cooper says, far better than fear.
But in the actual conflict, in the actual decision to fight and fighting, I’ll take Cooper’s ‘concentration’ and Musashi’s ‘settled yet unbiased’ spirit. Showing anger – standing in front of the enemy or potential enemy, and frothing at the mouth in rage – does two bad things. First, it helps create a fight where it might have been possible to avoid one. And second, if your enemy is at all strong, it shows weakness.
One of the things that the Arab media shows me, with their constant displays of rage, is how weak the Arab world really is.
That doesn’t mean we have nothing to fear from them, and it’s not a suggestion that we ignore them.
Because, as I’ve noted, an eleven-year old with a shotgun still warrants your attention and reaction.
But if we want to win – which I’ll define as coming out on top without turning the Arab world into rubble – we’ll do it in the spirit of Jeff Cooper and Musashi.
Sometimes I wonder if you’re really Robert Pirsig.
When I read the phrase “I have often preached that the proper antidote to fear is anger,” I was immediately annoyed, and the thought that went through my head was “no, the proper antidote to fear is calm.” Then, I was gratified to see that the author then proceeded to say essentially the same thing.
But then it struck me: have I really felt any fear or anger at the terrorists or the Iraqis?
I certainly haven’t felt fear. Sure, I know that terrorism is a danger, but I tend to view it among all the other dangers of the modern world: I can get hit by a car, I could get killed by a terrorist, I could die from medical malpractice. Serious issues, but I don’t feel any clenching in my chest, I don’t feel my pulse quickening.
What about anger? The Arab world has been engaging in atrocities forever. When I first realized this, about fifteen years ago, I was angry. But I can’t sustain vivid anger for fifteen years. All that remains is a vague feeling of irritation at them for being consistently unreasonable.
Even on Sep/11 itself, there was no fear. There was anger, but it quickly faded back into my background irritation that I’d sustained for fifteen years. Mostly, there was sadness – but even that faded after a week or two. It doesn’t reflect very well on me, but to be honest, I have to admit: the strongest emotion I felt was excitement that something “big” was happening.
So tell me: have you felt any real anger or fear toward either the terrorists or the Iraqis?
I think this is an important question because I believe that most of the “anger” I see isn’t real. I think some of it is people manufacturing outrage in order to justify their agendas. I think some of it is just people who were born angry and are looking for somebody to vent it at. I think very little of it is normal anger, the kind which occurs when somebody does something bad. The reason I think that is because Arab violence has been goign on so long, I think any normal person would have been desensitized to Arab violence by now.
On the other hand, I know that people react to different situations differently. So fill me in: Have you, personally, experienced real, strong emotions about this war recently?
Short answer to your question: yes. And anger was among them.
> Short answer to your question: yes. And anger was among them.
No time for a long answer? 🙂
Thanks for quoting Musashi.
I have never known war. But 30 years of martial arts training tells me that anger and hatred are distractions. That’s why I was glad to see (or at least infer) the preparations before the assault on Fallujah in response to the killings there–no headlong assault. I sincerely hope there will be no vengeance-taking and no reprisals–just doing their job.
But if we want to win – which I’ll define as coming out on top without turning the Arab world into rubble – we’ll do it in the spirit of Jeff Cooper and Musashi.
I’m glad to see your definition of victory–it’s virtually identical to mine.
I fear that with each passing day while the certainty of the former does not change the likelihood of the latter rises.
Anger at injustice is a necessary motivator if justice is to be done. At the same time, anger is a good servant, but a terrible master.
I am and have been angry at terrorists, but I’m also a reasonably calm person, so the anger does not rule me. If I were confronted with the subject of this anger–let’s say I was on an airplane that got hijacked–I’m confident that I would do everything in my power against them, but in a spirit of resolve, not rage.
I totally agree with your ideas about enemy and anger, but I am not in agreement with u on the definition of an enemy.
the enemies are not iraqis nor arabs (I am not an arab I should say, I am a persian), its the way they think, the enemy is their thoughts, its the brutality which is a consequence of illiteracy, and the best soldier in my opinion is the guy who makes an opponent a friend, not a corpse.
farshid,
No, some of our enemies ARE Arab. I’ll remind you that the 9/11 terrorists were middle-class and well-educated. They were neither poor nor ignorant. They may have been misled, but their own actions were evil, and resulted in about 3000 deaths.
I have blood on my hands from Nam. It didn’t get there by reflective thought and an objective thought process.
We defend ourselves against our real enemies in part out of pure reflex and that reaction is one that is learned.
Innocent people, some bearing arms, have died in all wars. That’s part of the business and the produce of war.
Some of the “army” members of the current chap holed up in that mosque are so poor and uneducated that they don’t have a clue who they’re really fighting, let alone why.
But in war you must kill them as indifferently as those who foster the hate. It goes with the territory. “Collateral damage” is a joke. While there may be benefits to keeping the pressure on the military to minimize such events, what about those where the bombs hit in the places intended and kill those who are as blameless as those killed by that marvelous new euphemism?
War is about killing those in power. You always have to wade through the innocents to get to the bad guys. The whole matter is really quite simple. The fact that even individuals like Patton say they “hate war” is meaningless. Why is the leader of any group opposing the present war more holy than Patton in his/her thoughts?
The Yerkes-Dodson law states that performance quality varies as an inverted-U with increasing arousal. That is, as you awaken and become more alert, your performance quality improves. But you reach an optimal level and any further increase in arousal leads to declining performance quality. Easterbrook’s explanation of this effect is that increasing arousal causes a reduction in the number of things you attend to. At first, this means that you cease attending to things that are irrelevant, and you eventually get to the point where you are only attending to ‘signal’ not ‘noise’ – only attending to things that are relevant to your mission or objective. Any further increase in arousal now has a cost because you begin to lose some of the things you should be attending to, until, when you’re hysterical, your performance is completely unrelated to the situation you’re in.
A more recent corollary is that the optimal level of arousal varies with the complexity of your task – the optimal level is lower for more complex tasks. So, if this view is correct, being alert but calm will produce the best performance in complex tasks, military or otherwise, and the explanation is found in consideration of how cognitive functions vary with arousal.
Successful military leaders like George Patton and Stonewall Jackson were great believers in anger/hatred as a shield against fear. It is not a momentary impulse (“I must get really mad so I can throw this grenade”) but an attitude towards the enemy which is intended to sustain morale through a long war or campaign.
This anger goes beyond rational anger – it was rational to be angry at Germany for a whole range of things, but not rational to seriously believe that “We’re going to kill every last Hun bastard and use their guts to grease the treads of our tanks.”
But the motivations required for combat are not exactly rational: setting aside the primary instinct of self-preservation, killing people you don’t know, etc. A soldier who has to logically deduce his next action, or morally justify every pull of the trigger, is likely to be dead in a hurry. And his cause is likely to be lost.
Josh –
You wrote:
Well, that pretty much expresses the root of our differences in policy; you see Islamist terrorism as a vague irritant, and I see it as a looming crisis.
Try this, if you will; graph the incidence and severity of Islamist terrorist acts over the last 30 years. I have. Come on back and let me know if you’re still so sanguine.
A.L.
Hi.
Jeff Cooper and Musashi – who has the right to argue against such big names? Not me.
Being convinced is of course another matter. Is a fight that will be resolved with your own hands in seconds or less really much the same thing as a big, long war, and does the latter really call for Kwai Chang Caine impressions throughout its length and everywhere in the world? I suspect not.
There’ll be times to be angry and times to weep, and times for all sorts of uncool emotions before this thing is over. I hope there’ll be more times as legitimately jubilant as when they got Saddam. 🙂
“So fill me in: Have you, personally, experienced real, strong emotions about this war recently?”
Of course. Pity (an uncool word but an important emotion) for the Spanish victims of terror. A mix of negative emotions about the Spanish surrender. Pity for the dead victims of the vile display in Iraq – I wanted to reach out my hands with a blanket or something and cover up their shame. Lots of things.
This is for you Glenn,
“Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight.”
There are two critical points we get from this part of the speech:
1. Even in the midst of what was considered a widely popular and just war there were carpers. In other words if we ever get 100% united there is something wrong with us.
2. The love of fighting and the win/loss challenge can keep you in a fight when reason and even morality have lost much of their power to motivate.
Let me close with the close of the Patton speech.
“There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, “Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.” No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, “Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!”
from:
http://www.pattonhq.com/speech.html
AL, thank you for this. I agree that the intention behind action is, while not paramount, what allows us to retain our humanity in wartime. As the Bene Gesserit say, “Fear is the mindkiller.” If we strike out at random, seeking to inflict pain, suffering and death on our enemies as a matter of reprisal – however just, some may argue – what differentiates us from them?