Are humans killers by nature? A new article, posted at Greater Good Magazine, examines the consensus view of the military on this question—and they ought to know.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, M.Ed., is the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. He describes the history of research into the reluctance of soldiers to kill on the battlefield:
A resistance so strong that, in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it.
Indeed, the study of killing by military scientists, historians, and psychologists gives us good reason to feel optimistic about human nature, for it reveals that almost all of us are overwhelmingly reluctant to kill a member of our own species, under just about any circumstance.
The evidence is that even when troops follow orders to shoot, most intentionally miss the enemy. The result has been a calculated program of indoctrination in the modern military, designed to overcome this innate resistance through "desensitization, classical and operant conditioning, and denial defense mechanisms"—a form of psychological warfare, conducted not upon the enemy, but upon one’s own troops."
This kind of training increases the number of actual hits on the battlefield, while, at the same time, increasing the frequency of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Even when soldiers can be programmed to kill, a good many end up traumatized by the experience.
Grossman offers two conclusions:
- A society that desensitizes soldiers, conditioning them to killing and denial, owes it to them to provide the necessary psychological help to recover from the experience.
- The fact that humans will die rather than kill a member of their own species gives one great hope for humanity.
I second both.
