It's not a question of being "for or "against" war. The phenomenon brings massive destruction and death. It's a profound illness.
Psychiatrists are willing to identify "shyness" as a disorder, but shy away from identifying warfare as such ("fear and trembling, sickness unto death")--a disorder monumentally more destructive than "social anxiety."
Why the fear of calling war what it is? Because warfare rests at the heart of civilizations. To say that warfare is a disorder is to recognize profound psychopathology at the core of human societies.
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Mary Helen Guider-Shaw
Director of Public Relations
Library of Social Science
Phone: (630) 212-0485
Email: mhgs@libraryofsocialscience
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The Psychopathology of War
"Beneath the sound, fury, and grandiosity of warfare lies a profound psychopathology: willingness to kill, die and maim in the name of nations. Historical accounts deny psychopathology by depicting war as a normal, even natural human activity.
"The case study of the First World War that I've presented illuminates the pathological quality of warfare. Nations of the world continued to send men to die, day after day, month after month, year after year, producing a quantity of casualties so mind-boggling that even now people are attempting to comprehend and come to terms with what occurred.
"Perpetuation of the institution of warfare requires a denial of what happens to the body of the soldier. Delusions of honor and glory are sustained only by turning away from the results of battle. Haig’s son reported that the British Commander-in-Chief felt that it was his duty to “refrain from visiting the casualty stations because these visits made him physically ill (in Gilbert, 1994, 221)."
The French Commander Joffre—after pinning a military decoration on a blinded soldier—said to his Staff: “I mustn’t be shown any more such spectacles. I would no longer have the courage to give the order to attack (221)."
"War is about the mutilation of the body of the soldier in the name of a sacred ideal. We want the “beautiful” ideals, but don’t want to look at the body of the soldier.