On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Dave Grossman Read Free Book Online

of fawning and exposing some vulnerable portion of the anatomy to the victor, in the instinctive knowledge that the opponent will not kill or further harm one of its own kind once it has surrendered. The posturing, mock battle, and submission process is vital to the survival of the species. It prevents needless deaths and ensures that a young male will live through early confrontations when his opponents are bigger and better prepared. Having been outpostured by his opponent, he can then submit and live to mate, passing on his genes in later years.
    There is a clear distinction between actual violence and posturing. Oxford social psychologist Peter Marsh notes that this is true in New York street gangs, it is true in "so-called primitive tribesmen and warriors," and it is true in almost any culture in the world. All have the same "patterns of aggression" and all have
    "very orchestrated, highly ritualized" patterns of posturing, mock battle, and submission. These rituals restrain and focus the violence on relatively harmless posturing and display. What is created is a
    "perfect illusion of violence." Aggression, yes. Competitiveness, yes. But only a "very tiny, tiny level" of actual violence.
    "There is," concludes Gwynne Dyer, "the occasional psychopath who really wants to slice people open," but most of the

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    participants are really interested in "status, display, profit, and damage limitation." Like their peacetime contemporaries, the kids who have fought in close combat throughout history (and it is kids, or adolescent males, w h o m most societies traditionally send off to do their fighting), killing the enemy was the very least of their intentions. In war, as in gang war, posturing is the name of the game.
    In this account from Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War, we can see the effective use of verbal posturing in the thick woods of the American Civil War's Wilderness campaign: The yellers could not be seen, and a company could make itself sound like a regiment if it shouted loud enough. Men spoke later of various units on both sides being "yelled" out of their positions.
    In such instances of units being yelled out of positions, we see posturing in its most successful form, resulting in the opponent's selection of the flight option without even attempting the fight option.
    8 KILLING AND THE E X I S T E N C E OF R E S I S T A N C E
    Adding the posture and submission options to the standard fight-or-flight model of aggression response helps to explain many of the actions on the battlefield. W h e n a man is frightened, he literally stops thinking with his forebrain (that is, with the mind of a human being) and begins to think with the midbrain (that is, with the portion of his brain that is essentially indistinguishable from that of an animal), and in the mind of an animal it is the one w h o makes the loudest noise or puffs himself up the largest who will win.
    Posturing can be seen in the plumed helmets of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which allowed the bearer to appear taller and therefore fiercer to his foe, while the brilliantly shined armor made him seem broader and brighter. Such plumage saw its height in modern history during the Napoleonic era, when soldiers wore bright uniforms and high, uncomfortable shako hats, which served no purpose other than to make the wearer look and feel like a taller, more dangerous creature.
    In the same manner, the roars of two posturing beasts are exhibited by men in battle. For centuries the war cries of soldiers have made their opponents' blood run cold. Whether it be the battle cry of a Greek phalanx, the "hurrah!" of the Russian infantry, the wail of Scottish bagpipes, or the Rebel yell of our own Civil War, soldiers have always instinctively sought to daunt the enemy through nonviolent means prior to physical conflict, while encouraging one another and impressing themselves with their own ferocity and