The Science of Evil
I’ve gotten some pushback in the comments for citing S.L.A. Marshall’s findings on how many soldiers actually fired on the enemy during World War II.
Marshall came up with an improbably low figure — perhaps around 15-20%. Many soldiers never fired, deliberately fired over the heads of the enemy, or just busied themselves on other tasks (fetching supplies, rescuing comrades, delivering messages), or so he claimed.
The implication of Marshall’s work, of course, that taking another human life really is horrible, and that ordinary people may find it very hard to do.
Was he right? Frankly, I’m not sure. Some studies do corroborate his work. Others cast doubt on it. His methodology wasn’t nearly as strict as one would have liked. So I admit that don’t really know. It’s not a hill, as they say, that I’m willing to die on.
Instead, let’s posit for a moment that Marshall was completely wrong. Let’s suppose that war is just a part of human nature. As we all know, most people are highly obedient to authority anyway, so in the end, maybe killing is pretty easy, at least under the right conditions. Cue Philip Zimbardo, and Stanley Milgram, and Christopher R. Browning, and ponder for a moment that humans may in fact be rat bastards. At the very least we are able to prompt them in that direction with the right outside stimuli. It’s a view for which I have great sympathy. Indeed, I even once invited Zimbardo to speak at the Cato Institute, which he did.
Would the military be more right, then, to adopt training techniques that are designed to dehumanize the enemy? Does dismissing Marshall’s work in favor of the Zimbardo/Milgram/Browning model of personal decisionmaking render dehumanization morally better? As the modern-day Thoreau noted, the right response to a study showing that 20% of men will use deadly fire on strangers is most emphatically not to go to work on the other 80%.
It’s also possible, even if Marshall is not correct on his numbers, that voluntary non-firers are still an important component of any military engagement. And Z/M/B may have a point as well; the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Dehumanize the enemy, and more people will shoot. Make them seem like real, ordinary people, and fewer will.
This seems thoroughly plausible to me, even if some dead guy did make up a bunch of numbers way back when. It’s also presumably plausible to the U.S. Armed Forces, because they train their recruits on just this assumption.
If all of this is correct, then the decision of whether or not to fire is based, on the margin, on one’s evaluation of the basic humanity of one’s enemy. In such a world, it behooves us to appear humane to our enemies. Next time, they could be the ones not shooting.
So… What could we do to appear more humane? Without, of course, actually being more humane. That’s for chumps.
Not torturing your POWs is a good start.Report
No, no, no!
We have to seem humane, while actually being evil. That’s the game-theoretical optimum here. So we need to torture in secret prisons, and just do a better job of making sure no one ever finds out.Report
Part of the new training implemented in response to Marshall’s findings actually incorporated the idea of ‘missing’ one’s shot.
The concept of suppressing fire, while certainly present during World War II, was emphasized as a way to get soldiers to fire with the possibility of not hurting anyone. Kind of like the one blank cartridge in the firing squad (obtusely).
But also, as for humanity, compare the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. In one, we were fighting ‘Hitler’, in the other our enemy was ‘the Japs’. Yet both ended in victory – arguably the ETO was easier. So was dehumanization a response to Japanese persistence, or the cause of it?Report
There are so many variables to consider in comparing the European and Pacific theaters of World War II that I don’t imagine there’s a scientific result to be had from it.Report
What are you talking about? Suppressing fire is at a target and not designed to “miss.” Now you may only have a general idea of the location of the target due to cover or concealment but you are shooting at them so they don’t fire at the other part of your unit that is maneuvering to kill them.
The US was dehumanizing the Japs even before WW2. Victory in the ETO was easier b/c most Germans but not all would give up if the knew they would be allowed to surrender and they didn’t possess the fanatical fight to the death mentality that the Japs had. Not to mention that the Japs dehumanized allied forces just as we did to them. Look at the effects it had on civilians on Siapan and Okinawa were the Japs convinced them to kill themselves rather than be held by US forces.Report
Sorry, let me rephrase that. I don’t mean “designed to miss” so much as ‘not necessarily to kill’. You’re trying to make them keep their heads down while other units maneuver and flank. To prevent them from adequately responding. Suppressing fire itself probably isn’t going to wipe out the enemy. I mean, if it does, great – and it’s not like that would be discouraged – but any casualties inflicted by suppressing fire are secondary to that first purpose.
From the official NATO definition (PDF): “Fire that degrades the performance of a target below the level needed to fulfil its mission.”Report
So Japanese resistance was dependent on what the US did or didn’t do? It had nothing to do with Japanese values and cultural norms? Theywere just our yellow little brothers dancing on puppet strings?Report
This is just one veteran’s perspective, so you can take it with a grain of salt.
Taking human life is psychologically difficult. But no part of my training or combat experience was ever focused on the idea of “missing” shots. You work to compartmentalize the part of our mind that recognizes the target as human, to reduce it to an abstract shape in motion, and target it as accurately as possible.
The moral question only comes with the aftermath.Report
On the above point, listen to the language this Marine sniper uses in his recounting of an engagement.
On this, I remember testimony from a celebrated Viet Nam war sniper. He returned home and became a police officer with the (IIRC) the Newark Police department. One day he found himself in a clear-cut “good shoot” situation — his life/the lives of others were in danger — and he could not bring himself to fire his weapon. I don’t remember if he quit, or moved to desk duty, but he took himself out of service that might put him in that position again.Report
Might help to actually include the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRYwMrsaLxsReport
What Casey said makes sense to me. Rather than act which must be prepared for, it seems like something the individual must deal with after the fact.
I’m a big believer in environments shaping the way people act. War is a certain stage where upon certain actions are acceptable and others necessary or demanded of an individual. The same soldier who was able to “dehumanize” his targets in a military conflict might be have a completely different reaction to a threat in a civilian context, though perhaps not.
It’s only a hypothesis, but all of the cultural, societal, and physical environmental factors of the “war scene” might itself be a scene in which human life is “dehumanized,” but I’m not sure that it’s something the military must enforce directly or drill into it’s soldiers, or that the soldiers would consciously be doing themselves.Report
“As we all know, most people are highly obedient to authority anyway, so in the end, maybe killing is pretty easy, at least under the right conditions. ”
People are much more obedient to whatever their peer group demands they do tha to some authority figure above them. Watch kids on a playground. They certainly don’t need someone in charge to tell them to bully, beat or kill someone.
Just following orders is never a valid explanation, let alone and excuse.Report
“They certainly don’t need someone in charge to tell them to bully, beat or kill someone.”
Wait.
Have I missed a news story or two?Report