Call of Apathy: Violent Young Men and Our Place in War

[CptStern]

excerpts from a longer article written by a military contractor on video game's depiction of war

TLDR: soldiers are sociopaths not heroes. video games shouldnt glorify war

I am a private military contractor, and I have an issue with the depiction of war in videogames — or more specifically, the soldiers in those games.

In military videogames, you tend to get “good guy” characters that are the rough and ready types. The situation may be chaotic, but they crack on with the task in hand to the best of their ability, never let anyone down, and may or may not die in a dramatic fashion. Good, wholesome stuff.

Good enough for entertainment, but should war be sterilised and glorified in this way? Here is the crux of my beef with the military videogame genre:

None of the stereotypes exist. They are put in place by a media and a military that hates the wars we fight but loves the men fighting in them.

There’s a reason the new guy always gets put on point and nobody really cares when he gets blown up, that so many incidents of collateral damage go unreported, that failed missions are spun into something positive like gathering “valuable intel,” and why only roughly 20% of combat troops ever get PTSD – when if you think about it, it should affect everyone that ever sees combat.

It’s because the vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths.

Heroes are a myth. Every incident I can recall in war that created a hero was either an accident or ended up with said hero in a body bag.

A friend of mine came under fire inside a compound. He followed up the shooter, who disappeared into an escape tunnel. My friend followed standard procedure and threw a grenade into the tunnel entrance before following up. When entering the tunnel, he found only the bodies of a woman and a small child, whom the terrorist had used to cover his escape.

When I spoke about it to my friend years later, he recalled how pissed he was at losing the insurgent, and how bad he felt afterwards about it. He’d had his professional pride tarnished. I asked him if he ever thought about the woman and her kid and he just looked at me blankly.

He didn’t even remember they were there.


War is the most horrific, sickening thing mankind can inflict upon itself, fought by and large by uneducated maniacs that have no other place in the world. Videogames have the attention of the youth and can educate as well as entertain. The real horrors need to be made very public to keep the next generation from turning out like us.

My friends and I are not represented anywhere in mass media. People need to realise that their wars are not fought by the guy on the news that lost a leg and loves his flag — he was the FNG [ed: ****ing new guy] that got blown up because he was incompetent, who left the fight before it turned him into one of us.

The world needs to be made aware of my kind: the silent majority of fighters, those that do not care about politics, religion, ethics, or anything else other than war for war’s sake.

One last thought: My psychologist estimated that roughly 80% of infantrymen have an undiagnosed violent personality disorder. These aren’t hard stats, but’s it’s interesting when compared to the 20% that suffer from PTSD.

http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/03/01/call-of-apathy-violent-young-men-and-our-place-in-war/

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

You have to have at least a little streak of crazy to enter that environment willingly. Same goes for any abnormal hyperviolent or hyper suspicious environment like criminal enterprise. I wouldn't use the word sociopath but at least a bit of what I like to call "straight not giving a ****!"

It's not necessarily a bad thing, it depends what happens and how that is applied. It doesn't always imply a lack of moral character either. Also to note, I've found moral character is easily switched on or off in humans depending on the needs of the situation. Again- sometimes a good thing, sometimes bad, depends on the end result in each scenerio.

 

[KiplingsCat]

It's not necessarily a bad thing, it depends what happens and how that is applied. It doesn't always imply a lack of moral character either. Also to note, I've found moral character is easily switched on or off in humans depending on the needs of the situation. Again- sometimes a good thing, sometimes bad, depends on the end result in each scenerio.

Could you give me an example of a situation in which a lack of moral character gave a desirable end result?

(Moral character is a pretty loose term. Does it mean not hurting people? Or not killing people? Or only killing people who deserved it? Where would you draw the line? It's a hard one to call, no?)

 

[Krynn72]

A LOT of conjecture and hearsay in that guys post. My doctor says this guy is 80% bullshit.

 

[Shem]

A LOT of conjecture and hearsay in that guys post. My doctor says this guy is 80% bullshit.

Your veterinarian, you mean.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Or you have to come from a poor background w/ v. few options available to you & a recruitment officer coming into your high school classes to tell you about all the opportunities that the military can give you (and by the way we'll pay for your college education) & you live in a culture (or perhaps even a family) that needs to glorify war for the sake of self legitimacy

Why would they enlist into the infantry or special ops then? That is what the article and this thread is referring to. Not "fobbits" and administrative/support troops.

You only go infantry if you want to see combat, or you're conscripted. That's pretty obvious, there are a hundred other jobs in the enlisted military available- while they may and probably will see combat too it's not on the same level of an infantryman.

Could you give me an example of a situation in which a lack of moral character gave a desirable end result?

(Moral character is a pretty loose term. Does it mean not hurting people? Or not killing people? Or only killing people who deserved it? Where would you draw the line? It's a hard one to call, no?)

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Could you give me an example of a situation in which a lack of moral character gave a desirable end result?

(Moral character is a pretty loose term. Does it mean not hurting people? Or not killing people? Or only killing people who deserved it? Where would you draw the line? It's a hard one to call, no?)

Maybe killing someone before they're able to kill you or those close to you. Or you see some cash fly out of someones purse as theyre getting into their car and you just gather it up and it gets you enough gas money to make it home, etc. Being able to do things like that when necessary without having it burden you with guilt for the rest of your life. While in another instances you would do 'the right thing' and if you didn't it'd bother you. People are fickle.

 

[KiplingsCat]

]Or you see some cash fly out of someones purse as theyre getting into their car and you just gather it up and it gets you enough gas money to make it home, etc.

See, that just highlights how a person's own sense of morality is really a silly way to judge what should or shouldn't be done in a situation. I would never feel good about doing that. You would. So which of us is right? Who decides what's acceptable and what's wrong/crazy?

Also, obviously a lack of moral character would work out well for you there in that situation. What about the person who lost the money? What about the person you killed because you decided they posed a threat? Who were you to judge whether or not they should die?

(I'm not saying those things are right or wrong...just pointing out that you can't really say that either. Nobody can, and so you can't categorically say that lack of moral character ever benefits anyone, in my opinion).

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

See, that just highlights how a person's own sense of morality is really a silly way to judge what should or shouldn't be done in a situation. I would never feel good about doing that. You would. So which of us is right? Who decides what's acceptable and what's wrong/crazy?

Also, obviously a lack of moral character would work out well for you there in that situation. What about the person who lost the money? What about the person you killed because you decided they posed a threat? Who were you to judge whether or not they should die?

(I'm not saying those things are right or wrong...just pointing out that you can't really say that either. Nobody can, and so you can't categorically say that lack of moral character ever benefits anyone, in my opinion).

That's kind of the point I was getting at. Depending on your circumstances at that exact moment the human mind has a funny way of judging and reflecting on its own morality, and it varies from incident to incident. When I say 'benefit' it's for the one doing the action. You're looking at it from a 'what benefits every person effected' which isn't what I'm saying.

By the way these are just examples, I wasn't saying I would 'feel good' about doing that. Just depending on the situation one could live without regret doing those actions if they felt the ends justified the means.

 

[Bad^Hat]

This Reddit comment feed offers some differing views from other servicemen.

But yeah that guy's ideas about modern shooters are dumb and wrong. Not even Arma is that realistic, and for good reason (even though I've killed my share of civvies in it~).

 

[repiV]

Why would they enlist into the infantry or special ops then? That is what the article and this thread is referring to. Not "fobbits" and administrative/support troops.

You only go infantry if you want to see combat, or you're conscripted. That's pretty obvious, there are a hundred other jobs in the enlisted military available- while they may and probably will see combat too it's not on the same level of an infantryman.

I know a number of Royal Marines, since their HQ is 8 miles down the road from me. There are a fair few at my jiu jitsu club, as you might expect. Amazing individuals, without exception. There is one guy who's been in the Marines for over 20 years and has potentially sociopathic tendencies, who was telling us about how he wanted to beat his record kill count on his leaving do just before he went out to Afghanistan last time. But then what do you expect when your job is to kill? Quirks aside, he's a really nice guy, great company and has always been extremely helpful to me. The others I know are all much younger, and perfectly normal people other than the fact they have a work ethic and determination not usually seen in young people these days and tend to be somewhat wise beyond their years. And these are not ordinary soldiers by any means, they have the toughest and longest basic training of any infantry unit anywhere in the world (32 weeks). Surely you would expect them by this reasoning to be extra sociopathic.

I want to join the Royal Marines Reserves (hey, by now I have a career and a life I don't want and can't afford to give up). There's a moderate likelihood of that actually happening due to various medical issues I'm trying to get resolved, but that's besides the point. The reason I want to do it is that it's a way of achieving the pinnacle in mental and physical resilience, and accomplishing something that a very small minority of people have the determination or willpower to see through. I think most people who join elite military units have similar views. People with an overtly violent and therefore volatile nature wouldn't last in such a self-disciplined, regimented environment. There are a great many virtues to be found through military service, despite the darker nature - those same virtues which seem to be increasingly lacking in our society the softer and more detached from reality we become. I can't speak for anyone else but, as a crass generalisation, Britain is a nation of spineless pussies who don't stand for anything.

I also happen to think that war is a grotesque and disgusting thing, incomprehensible in its futility and inhumanity. Then again, I don't consider Afghanistan to be a "war" in the traditional sense. Anyone who has even a basic grasp of reality couldn't possibly deny that Britain is completely and utterly in the right over the Falklands (for once), but it doesn't make it any less sickening to think about 18 year old conscripts being killed in horrific ways by people who would be their friends under any other circumstances, over some stupid islands most of those people had probably never even heard of before. Evidently we were right to go to war there, but it's nothing but one big colossal tragedy from all sides nonetheless. Taliban, however? Fighters of ideology, not circumstance. I wouldn't give a shit about killing them.

I will admit I have some very aggressive tendencies, which has become quite obvious to me since I started doing martial arts. Our training is quite violent and militaristic, and I really enjoy it (although by the same token people's cavalier attitudes to causing injury piss me right off, some of us would like not to ruin all our joints for the sake of a hobby). On the couple of occassions I've been started on I've turned violent very quickly, which surprised me afterwards. It's like a switch that turns on when the situation demands it, and then off just as quickly. It's something I've thought about a lot, and I have no doubt that I could kill others if it were necessary to do so, not to say that I wouldn't be left traumatised afterwards (that's what really worries me, not the prospect of being in danger). I honestly have no idea whether this is unusual or not. Generally speaking, I'm not a violent or threatening person in the slightest, although I'm not passive either by any means. I guess it's something people don't tend to talk about. But it may provide some perspective on my earlier comments.

Ultimately, I feel very conflicted about the whole thing. I have always wanted to join the military, however I never thought I would be able to. Having discovered there's now a real possibility of it in recent months, I've thought at great length about all of this. The closest I can come to a conclusion is that I find it all very distasteful and yet I'm increasingly drawn to it anyway. Perhaps to hide from the reality of war is to deny what it really means to be human. I'm a firm believer in seeing and acting upon the world as it is and not as you wish it to be.

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make exactly. I just wanted to share my perspective as someone who has wrestled with this issue extensively, and to point out that a man can have the capacity to do violence without being psychologically imbalanced. It's just that, in the polite society we are so fortunate to live in, the vast majority of us never have the need to inflict any serious violence upon another person.

 

[Krynn72]

Quirks aside, he's a really nice guy

he wanted to beat his record kill count

I stopped reading here because I was laughing so, so god damned hard.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

The job of a Marine is quite literally killing people or dying in the process. At least this fellow is honest.

I have an enormous amount of respect for the few Marines I know, they are not all meatheads and braggarts, and they do a job I'd hate to do, often just to make ends meet.

...better them than me, I'd rather not have another draft, you know, after signing my ticket as all males must do in this country.

 

[Maestro]

I think he's got this idea of sociopathy overblown. Most people pass a substantial number of the characteristic requirements to be considered a sociopath, but there's a reason antisocial personality disorder is only diagnosed if you meet a large majority of the criteria.

Most people are capable of flipping a switch, when required, to go into stone-cold killer mode, none moreso than men in the 18-25 age bracket. Physical resilience isn't the only reason men in this age group are chosen, they often haven't developed a strong sense of empathy that would make it difficult to willingly take other peoples' lives. That trait generally develops as the brain ages and develops into full maturity in the late 20s.

 

[repiV]

I stopped reading here because I was laughing so, so god damned hard.

It was pretty funny, especially when he started to do some very animated hand gestures to accompany his story of how he stabbed this guy in Afghanistan in the middle of a crowded restaurant.