Questioning Grossman's on Killing

Grossmans central thesis is that "soliders are paralyzed in battle because of a natural aversion to killing other human beings"

his data and his methods have been questioned, I just wanted to ask what people's instinctive response to this notion is

this it my non empirical, untested response:

humans are in no way evidenced to be adverse in any other spectrum of life to hurting or killing each other, why would they be in war when their life and the lives of people they care about fighting towards and for a cause they care about are at immediate risk? that just doesnt make sense to me

how do we account for war attrocities? doesnt every peice of historical and psychological evidence we have suggest that UNLESS governed heavily soldiers will "wreak havoc", rape, loot, pillage, kill and mutilate? They dont need to be trained to do it, quite the opposite they have to be leashed to stop them from doing it TOO MUCH

just a thought

over to you guys (and gal )

Here is one thing I stumbled upon.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17868-gamers-are-more-aggressive-to-strangers.html

Here is some of the article.

Quote :

After the Onslaught matches, Geary and Oxford found that testosterone levels of the winning team members spiked immediately after the tournament, particularly among players who had contributed most to their team's victory. Yet when team members played one another, the highest-ranking males tended to produce less testosterone than their defeated teammates.

John Wagner, an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, says the results tally with a study of competitive domino players on the Caribbean island of Dominica that he conducted. When men played against people in their own village, the winners' testosterone levels took a dive and stayed low, whereas losers' testosterone levels fell then rebounded. Yet after these men played people from other villages, their testosterone levels tended to rise.

And we're back to the tribe again. Refrain from killing your tribe, but strangers are fair game.

You could argue that this is an instinctive biological leash to stop us violent apes from destroying our own power base; our tribe.

We are predators. We have teeth designed to rend meat, we have binocular vision to ascertain distance from prey, We have a shortened gut & a useless appendage called an appendix which doesnt work anymore & is an actual liabilty to our health, leading me to the conclusion that we as a species are actually moving away from a herbivorous diet.

The desire to kill & torture which anyone with a pet cat will recognise is innate in us, as well & usually these traits are reduced by conditioning as people grow and age. Kids when young are sociopaths. They have to be taught to care about others, the desire for comfort may be stronger than any other in young children, the need for security but it doesnt extend outside themselves, to wanting to comfort others. They have to learn that. Anyone here with young kids is going to find that out.

Is Gross's opinion a representation of the then arguement of the day, the peace & liberty crowd post-vietnam?

I suspect that people may not have shot back as it involved getting up from or revealing your postion from cover. Thus making yourself a target. Just self preservation.

Paralysed is an interesting word. Makes me think of fight, flight or freeze. Perhaps it was only adrenal response.

Oh & its gals, now mate.

Richard Grannon wrote:

Grossmans central thesis is that "soliders are paralyzed in battle because of a natural aversion to killing other human beings"

Sounds like a misquote to me, if I may be honest. No scientist could ever make such an absolute statement (well, you know what I mean).

It also depends heavily on which soldiers.
Ask the Argentinian conscripts at Goose Green who were shitting themselves in the dark, and they'll probably give you a different reply to the sections of trained men who were charging at them after an artillery barrage.

Hurriedly processed conscripts are not trained soldiers. They might know how to use a gun, but their minds won't have the same psyche as men who have been specifically trained for a long time.

WW1 is a good example. The Powers that Be decided that the only mental training British soldiers needed was nationalistic fervour and anger at Germany. If this is truly present then I wonder why the football match occurred in no-mans-land in 1915?

Figures showed a shocking number of soldiers firing high deliberately in WW1, and i'm almost certain that by Vietnam 'They' had lessened the percentage to a very small figure. Don't have the figures though, sorry!

Probably worth remembering also that whilst we do have a natural aversion to killing other human beings, not always are the enemy seen as human.. Or not ever. So the statement may in fact be inadvertently correct.

Alright a couple of things about Grossman's "On Killing". First I own the booking and enjoyed it as a thought provoking book which forced me to spend some time assessing the nature of killing, but also forced me to research some of the data as well as Grossman’s theories.

Some of his data is flawed and speculative based on his sources such as Marshal’s works as well as some others and this has been debated on other sites….here’s a link if you care to read:

http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/Main-R.htm


Another flawed belief on his behalf is that it is an unnatural thing for humans to kill others based on the belief that no other species does this with such ease. Research has shown that other species do this more often than humans such as lions, hyena, and chimpanzees for territorial purposes.

This “natural aversion” appears to be situational . In a normal relatively peaceful society most of our basic needs being met the concept of killing is abhorrent to most , but shift the situation such as not meeting the need for food and our mindset begins to shift. This seems to indicate the need for a triggering process to accelerate or motivate the shift of mindset.

All of this seems to fall in line with Rich’s use of the Supra State in creating this shift, but in this case it is triggered by the participants decision to adapt to the situations required mindset.

Finally, the paralysis quote. This Grossman’s supposition , but there is no hard data to support it. Just as possible is the idea that the soldiers froze because their minds had no familiar patterns to reference to indicate how they should act. This is a high stress environment and situation and most research indicates that the brain attempts to base it’s decisions in these situations are heavily controlled by the amygdala portion of the brain for the initial response. This would also explain the initial “freeze” or paralysis of the soldier’s.

That being said I do recommend "On Combat" for more thought provoking reading and I can say first hand that Col. Grossman is very charismatic in person and is one hell of a motivational speaker.

Keep safe and train hard/smart, Mark H

Mr.Grossman may have a natural aversion to killing, as do many people.

However, if you and 12 of your mates are being shot at, firing back and killing the enemy is often the only logical response. Nothing unnatural about wanting to protect your mates.

Lets think about what constitutes a natural response... I think protecting those close to you, and especially loved ones, no matter what it takes, would be a VERY natural response.

If someone broke into your home and was planning on raping and killing your wife, girlfriend, fiancee etc, what would be a natural response? My personal safety at that point would be a distant thought, and I'd do anything and everything in my power to protect my fiancee. If I had to kill to do that, well so be it. In that context to me, it'd be the only natural thing to do.

I think some soldiers back in WWI and WWII who were drafted probably froze at times... some people don't have the mindset to do certain things. I'm also sure that shots being fired high and wide and generally missing were largely also due to the limited amount of training under pressure soldiers were given back then. Freezing to me, would mean they couldn't pull the trigger at all.

I like how you summed it up RichardB, the protecting of the 'tribe' mentality definitely seems to fit.

D.M.B. wrote:

Mr.Grossman may have a natural aversion to killing, as do many people.

However, if you and 12 of your mates are being shot at, firing back and killing the enemy is often the only logical response. Nothing unnatural about wanting to protect your mates.

Lets think about what constitutes a natural response... I think protecting those close to you, and especially loved ones, no matter what it takes, would be a VERY natural response.

If someone broke into your home and was planning on raping and killing your wife, girlfriend, fiancee etc, what would be a natural response? My personal safety at that point would be a distant thought, and I'd do anything and everything in my power to protect my fiancee. If I had to kill to do that, well so be it. In that context to me, it'd be the only natural thing to do.

I think some soldiers back in WWI and WWII who were drafted probably froze at times... some people don't have the mindset to do certain things. I'm also sure that shots being fired high and wide and generally missing were largely also due to the limited amount of training under pressure soldiers were given back then. Freezing to me, would mean they couldn't pull the trigger at all.

I like how you summed it up RichardB, the protecting of the 'tribe' mentality definitely seems to fit.

i agree with all--the way the dialogue is progressing. i have a suspicion that when soldiers come home to pacifist arseholes
who conveniently catagorize cowardice under the respectible monikar, "kind"...soldiers, in kind, play their verbal chess match
[accompanied by real self doubt and shame whilst encountering such views] and say killing was abhorrant to them.

i didn't really process this until i read DMB's example of family. i've made instant choices--when my mother was still alive, that reflect my desire to keep her safe. i remember coldly and calmly being ready to ram a bread knife through someone
if they managed to get the door open. i actually felt calm, one dimensional, and committed. it took my mother--oddly, to
trigger this weird place in my head. i think because i had watched her commit herself to my safety and happiness whilst being
emotionally and physically abused. it was the least i could do to send someone to the next world if they tried to harm her.
that was my calm place, like my life finally had some purpose that fit the anger inside. it had a goal, and it was the guy outside the door--among other near misses. i feel that way about my daughter now, oddly because she is the spitting image of my mother [to address subconcious triggering response unaware until... from another thread].

conversely, i couldn't stand being with my exwife a moment longer than i needed to be because the lack of respect she
gave me made me--a physical and protective prototype if ever there was one, feel the conflict of NOT wanting to protect
her but knowing it was tied to my ego as a male TO protect her. like the feeling of not wanting to protect someone's 'back'
if they're a shit'head that is always starting stuff with others when you hang out. i can't reach that place unless the person,
or cause, has deep meaning to me. and if i can't reach it, if feels unempowering to me, a set up for something mildly like
cowardess in it's unwillingness to act. i hate the feeling, and the people that go with it. i try and pick my friends carefully as a
result of vaguely understanding that early on. now i really understand the feeling, and pick my friends very carefully.

interesting thread to me, i like the subject. tah again Richie.
ultimately regarding the preservation of life and all things relating, we are all projecting, but in my opinion a greater
number of us represent the capacity to violence that grossman finds distastefull, but spend a life time clothing it in many
guises for the shame society placed on such sentiments--for good reasons. you ALWAYS find the media showing violence,
but i submit that they reflect moments of subconscious revealing themselves when people are forced, under terrible conditions, toward self honesty.

my sister was emotionally abused by her ex husband. she left him, he raped her. there are so many different things that people will do under pressure. some will yell. some will punch. and some will kill, or rape. it took this trigger of being left to
reveal this guy's nature. like alcohol--which most certainly does not equal voilence...alcohol, like being at an all time low,
invokes the very realist of someone's inner core to emerge. heat the beacor and the scum comes to the surface to be skimmed. when i used to drink, i was a letcherous and potentially violent [to men] person, but i don't blame it on the beer...i just know not to drink because this is the dog i keep leashed on a daily basis. my dad's father was the town idiot when he drank, but a greater number of us fight. i look for this magical every day examples of triggers. bad times; drink; sleep deprivation. want to know who we are...take a trip down one of these roads. i know my capacity for violence, and cowardice.
and try and walk the narrow path between keeping a life that is worth fighting for, nurturing that which i don't feel is abhorrant to my existance. i like to fight, i think we all do, we just don't want to hurt the innocent or make mistakes. or we'd all take law classes, and become house alarm specialists, or flee to the country to work on a farm co-op with other peace and love hippies
we'd all be bonobos and not chimps
chimps fight, bonobos fornicate--what an odd development of a species.
an aside before i ramble to far off the path
Bush = Chimp
Clinton = Bonobo

when the pressure is on fuk/fight [pick one]

Very good food for thought from everyone.

What an interesting thread. It has been a long time since I read On Killing. If memory serves me correctly, the assumption/theory was based on number crunching and tons of interviews. The number crunching involved things like the number soldiers involved, number of rounds spent and number of kills and compared those to a number of wars. The numbers were really amazing, literally buckets and buckets of hot lead per kill.

Grossman is also heavy into the belief of mental conditioning and how it has affected people and is affecting people today. Now much of the On Killing principles are based on a different time period, so perhaps that may also have something to do with it. That is if you believe in the possibility of societal desensitization. If you look at the mentality of people during WWI or WWII it really is quite different than it is today and on many levels, so I think that is a factor when comparing Grossman’s works from the On Killing time period.

I am not a psychologist, nor have I taken psychology or do I want to. However, I believe that as a whole people do not wish to harm others. Yes they will harm others when presented with the proper stimuli, but that could be a rather lengthy discussion as to what sets people off.

roadkill wrote:

I am not a psychologist, nor have I taken psychology or do I want to. However, I believe that as a whole people do not wish to harm others. Yes they will harm others when presented with the proper stimuli, but that could be a rather lengthy discussion as to what sets people off.

a good discussion at that.
i took a beating once--from multiple attackers whilst drunk as the worm at the bottom of the bottle.
about a year later i was sports fighting and didn't realize initially why i wanted to beat the guy in front
of me to a pulp. i always represented a mediocar showing [about a dozen trophies but mostly going through
the motions]; in this match i started fighting, not sparring. the refs kept pulling us apart. the whole
fight was over in seconds. they didn't disqualify me, which was a mystery in of itself. he looked like one
of the guys beating me whilst drunk. i sort of knew it, but intellectually let go of it before the match began. i was
still amped up afterwards and nailed the next guy as well. i only came down off of my odd anger orgasm after
that. it was 'last call' for me, and the end of my tournament. bye bye angry man. i process it after, at first just
sort of enjoying the ride--i have to admit, then later intellectuallizing why it happened.

I read the book quite recently, and agree with your precis, Roadkill. The furthest back the book goes is the American Civil War, late 1800s that is, and his data comes from the records kept of ammo fired vs kills, and the high number of double, triple and more, loaded guns (old style black powder, of course) they found unfired on the field after the battle was over.
I have no reason to doubt these early records, and if they are true, and hence his conclusion that humans are not very good at killing others, it would seem that the armed forces have considered this as a problem, and devised plentiful ways in the intervening years to up the killing potential in recruits.
The book says that from interviews with soldiers, and from journals of the wars, that personal safety and the so called 'will to live' does not factor very high. As I remember it, loyalty to the group and not wanting to let your mates down was right near the top, along with desensitization and more realistic scenario training.
I suspect there is a big difference in the will to injure, and the ability to actually KILL another.

Do you think that has changed, Maija? As a species as Mike said, we fight to dominate, not to kill, we hunt to kill & it appears nothing like a dominance battle.

But if you train to kill, dehumanise the enemy, make it nothing more than a disgusting diseased filth ridden target, that seems to get past most peoples deep seated natural behaviours.

Computer games, shootemups are interesting for this.

Not only because the story lines are simplistic, good vs evil, the bad guys generic & they do bad things & you watch them, they appear bad in dress & expression, & then to to top it off, you get rewarded for every death. Classical conditioning in action.

Maybe Grossmans theory was applicable to as you say the data of the day, & it is the society that has changed, & the training methods used to create soldiers that can kill are for want of a better term, better.

I wonder If Grossman is falling out of favour, partly due to poor referencing & partly to the rise of the Hawks at the expense of the Doves.

Grossmans talk about the effects of kids using videogames and becoming effective shooters actually made me take it up too. These aren't just shoot 'em ups. These are the kind where instead of a controller, you have a sensor-gun firing at the screen. And this is exactly the same as when you're dry-firing real guns, training off the range.

Acquire a target, align sights with it, and trigger pull.

You also get immediate feedback from the screen as to where you're hitting, every time. The games are a lot of fun. I used my pistol training from the army as a foundation, and just kept playing within those parametres. At first I played so much my arms hurt from the repetition.

But in time it got habitual. You could argue that there is an element of predictability to where enemies will be at what time during the game. Of course not all those games are predictable. Some are entirely random and reinforce quick reflexes. But this one game was predictable and I'd reflexively headshot about six or seven enemies in about a second. All from a habitual trance. Of course without recoil to worry about and the predictable patterns of the game, that makes it easier to do. But you still have to aim right and fire right to hit. And that is where it comes in as training.

I've seen the army's equivalent of this. It was like a movie theater. Big screen in a big room. And there were various places of cover in the room to use. Because the screen fires back. Soldiers will be wearing a vest and headpiece with laser sensors, and will use regular weapons fitted with a laser device, and using blanks.

The system tells them where they've been shot and the medic has a device he can use to treat injuries, so they can include that element as well. Heck they even have laser grenades to use in house training.

I never tried it in the movie theater room, but we used it a lot in the woods and in houses. It was kinda fun. I actually did the same as a kid in this local place called the "laserdrome" where you'd be a bunch of guys on two teams, running around in a sort of dark, messy, disco place firing at each other with these futuristic red lasers, where you could actually see the beam because of the smoke machines. Same thing really.

It's fancy but I think force on force training with simunitions or even airsoft might be superior. Because you feel a hit and the pain is a quick teacher. But the humble home entertainment system can provide some damn good training for it's value.

A simple shoot 'em up might condition you mind. But the difference that makes all the difference here is that little gun you hold, firing at the screen, so that your physical body and imaginationland actually meet.

Thanks Rich. Nice observations.

I went to one laser match game in a local warehouse when i was 14. Being 6 foot 3 or summat at the time. I spent the entire hour getting shot. If I had kept this up as a hobby I would be a very well trained casualty by now.

Paintball, been twice, couldnt see a bloody thing through the googles but it was a immense fun & I got to shoot an annoying twat I didnt like full auto in the arse. OOOOOOOh the power

Playstation usually the most popular console has lots of gun-like peripherals, but tellingly all new console systems & PC's utilise a trigger in the controller. A very small step for the average teenager to transistion to sighting & firing with a firearm, merely adjusting to alignment & retention, noise, smoke & smell.

Never fired a gun in my life. Keep meaning to try clay pigeon. Easy to do around here.

Miller in Meditations, really bigs up simunitions training.

in a word...ACCULTERATION

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRU7fdmoMcQ&feature=related

seen how it works on a small scale on a personal level, and i see it in my delinquent lads.
almost anything can become not only pallatible, but desirable, under the right/wrong environment.


naturalize it and tabula rasa carries a whole new meaning--like kid soldiers, gang bangers, and prison
rules...etc

we've learned to develop on a higher--less animal, level by way of rational thought and little else.
why we're not still killing on a daily basis. longer lives; happier lives; projection of what brings us
happiness...when life sucks, the impulses are not so far removed--sadly

In the book, Grossman talks about how our grandparents' generation was far more likely to have seen dead animals, and perhaps been close to the killing - living on a farm perhaps and seeing or even doing it - chicken for dinner, or the Xmas pig slaughtered for the holidays.
He points out that many people, especially urban folk, are far, far removed from this familiarity and relationship to death, and so don't 'know' it in the same way. Now, I'm not talking gang bangers or crims here, just everyday folk.
So to answer your question BlackOps, no, I don't think this 'natural' aversion Grossman posits, has changed so much, but what has changed is this fantasy relationship with killing from movies and video games, which might lead people to be more willing to pull a trigger, but less connected to what they are actually doing - i.e. taking a life.
I wonder how a random sampling of people would react if given a live chicken and told to kill it? ...Or perhaps given a baseball bat and told to kill a dog, or shoot a horse perhaps?
I grant that the motivation to kill might be less because the chicken is probably not a very great threat to one's existence, but I guess what I am getting at, is if there is any greater willingness to kill nowadays in comparison to 100 years ago, perhaps it's more due to the 'trigger pulling' being separated from any consequences, or meaning in the act itself.
As I remember it, Grossman alludes to this as a factor in PTSD.