In Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997), American author Barbara Ehrenreich analyzes the psychology of war and of warriors. In this passage from the opening chapter, she explains why the ritualistic experience of boot camp is a psychological necessity for new soldiers.
from Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War*
by Barbara Ehrenreich
. . . So if there is a destructive instinct that impels men to war, it is a weak one and often requires a great deal of help.
In seventeenth-century Europe, the transformation of man into soldier took on a new form, more concerted and disciplined, and far less pleasant, than wine. New recruits and even seasoned veterans were endlessly drilled, hour after hour, until each man began to feel himself part of a single, giant fighting machine. The drill was only partially inspired by the technology of firearms. It's easy enough to teach a man to shoot a gun; the problem is to make him willing to get into situations where guns are being shot and to remain there long enough to do some shooting of his own. So modern military training aims at a transformation parallel to that achieved by "primitives" with war drums and paint: In the fanatical routines of boot camp, a man leaves behind his former identity and is reborn as a creature of the military--an automaton and also, ideally, a willing killer of other men.
This is not to suggest that killing is foreign to human nature or, more narrowly, to the male personality. Men (and women) have again and again proved themselves capable of killing impulsively and with gusto. But there is a huge difference between a war and an ordinary fight. War not only departs from the normal; it inverts all that is moral and right: In war one should kill, should steal, should burn cities and farms, should perhaps even rape matrons and little girls. Whether or not such activities are "natural" or at some level instinctual, most men undertake them only by entering what appears to be an "altered state"--induced by drugs or lengthy drilling, and denoted by face paint or khakis.
Selected Works of Nonfiction by Barbara Ehrenreich
- Women in the Global Factory (1983)
- The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment (1983)
- The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (1990)
- Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War, (1997)
- Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America (2001)
- This Land is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation (2008)
* From Chapter One, "The Ecstasy of War," in Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War, by Barbara Ehrenreich, published by Henry Holt and Company in 1997.
