Revenge and War

[chris_gerrib]

Via Bruce Schneier I came across this very interesting (if long) article about warfare and revenge in the New Guinea highlands. As background, the tribes up there are in nearly continuous war with each other. They use mostly traditional weapons, arrows and the like, but considering the population density, there's a high rate of violent death. The article covers one three-year-long war with at least thirty deaths and a number of serious maimings.

What I found interesting, as did Jared Diamond, the author, was the mentality of the combatants. Most of the fighting is for revenge, and the warriors, who are trying to kill war "owners," don't appear to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Killing for revenge is not abnormal - it's part of their daily life.

Diamond is also interested in the development of nation-states, and wonders how we get from this "revenge is normal" phase to the "call the cops" phase. He notes, using a personal story of his in-laws, that not getting revenge can bother somebody just as much as doing a violent deed. In this case, Diamond's father-in-law had an opportunity to kill the people who murdered his family during WWII (they were Jews, hiding from the Nazis) but didn't.

This last part, about revenge not being served, I think will work its way into my writing. At any event, go read the whole article.

Comments

[bdunbar.livejournal.com]

Most of the fighting is for revenge, and the warriors, who are trying to kill war "owners," don't appear to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Killing for revenge is not abnormal - it's part of their daily life.

Interesting. A two-war Marine (Korea and Vietnam) named Gene Duncan wrote (I'm paraphrasing) that lions don't get PTSD: they do their thing, they come home. Victims, he said, get PTSD.

He cited some statistics about PTSD cases from low-morale plug-in replacement infantry battalions vice units that trained, deployed and came back from Vietnam together.

My layman's guess is that having or not having PTSD is something you can choose. Not at that moment of trauma, but how you approach life leading up to it.

Which isn't to say that going to war is a stress free experience, nor does it not change a person. Just that .. it doesn't have to automatically ruin a person for life.

Me, I dunno: I didn't go to Desert Storm so I have no direct experience in the matter.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I agree that PTSD doesn't have to ruin somebody for life.

[jetfx.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the scale of contemporary warfare compared to tribal warfare may help explain things in relation to PTSD. Tribal wars based essentially on vendettas are highly personal, as all combatants have a stake in the conflict. Modern wars are so massive and the enemy so distant (in the emotional sense), that it's hard for soldiers to feel much for the war, and desire to arrive home in one piece. I think there is something to be said, that human beings do have an aversion to violence and as a conflict becomes less and less personal, the insulating affect that vengeance has on our psyche disappears, and the violence we commit gets to us.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Go read the cited article. Part of it points out that somebody had opportunity to take personal revenge and didn't. That "failure of revenge" bothered them more then the other killings.

[jetfx.livejournal.com]

Actually I did read the article (fascinating) before posting, but I was just speaking in generalities. Regardless of the scale of the conflict, war is still highly personal in its effects.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Sorry - that didn't come out as I intended - I wasn't trying to be snippy.

PTSD not limited to combat

[rodney-g-graves.livejournal.com]

Seems the PLA is having issues with it amongst troops assigned to perform disaster relief duties.

June 18, 2008 (http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20080618.aspx): In the wake of the relief efforts for the recent earthquakes in China, army doctors find themselves faced with thousands of soldiers exhibiting strange symptoms. These include severe fatigue, shortness of breath, palpitations, headaches, excessive sweating, dizziness, disturbed sleep, fainting and flashbacks to traumatic situations encountered during the weeks of working in the earthquake zone (where nearly 100,000 people died). A few of the army doctors recognized the symptoms as PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).