[lit-ideas] Re: Seriously/SLAM
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:13:33 -0700
On Jun 10, 2010, at 10:29 AM, Lawrence Helm wrote:
And about being 'trained killers," that is one way of looking at
it, I suppose, but when I was in we were trained to function as
units and not individually. We were trained to move toward the
enemy in rifle teams, leapfrogging each other. No one told us we
were trained killers, but that was another time and another war.
He begins where I thought he might, with Marshall's finding that even
people who were fired upon in WW2 were very reluctant to fire back.
This to me has always been a heartening finding; that humans are
actually quite reluctant to kill one another.
"There has been controversy concerning S.L.A. Marshall's findings
about World War II firing rates. Basically a small group of scholars
claimed that Marshall had fabricated and falsified his research. His
methodology may not meet modern scholarly standards, but when faced
with scholarly concern about a researcher's methodology, a scientific
approach involves replicating the research. In Marshall's case,
every available parallel scholarly study replicates his basic
findings." I find myself diverted into geometry at this point,
wondering whether something that is parallel can be also be a
replication--I think it can--and who or what is doing the facing in
this sentence. And then, of course, this being military writing, we
move into abbreviations and other mysterious terms, "The definitive
U.S. military source, the United States Training and Doctrine Command
(TRADOC) historical monograph titled 'SLAM, the influence of S.L.A.
Marshall on the United States Army,' strongly defends Marshall's
observations." There's no explanation of "SLAM." Past these
obstacles, I find the first conclusion clear--armies and other forces
who are training with guns have given up shooting at bulls-eye
targets because these do not help humans overcome their reluctance to
fire at other humans. From Vietnam onwards studies show much higher
firing rates. These, the author immediately assumes, come as a
result of this difference of training. It seems to me that counting
bullets is no good way of discovering who is firing *at* the enemy.
If there was a change of doctrine--laying down a field of fire,
rather than picking individual targets--you could easily account for
increased expenditure of ammunition without needing any causative
psychological change in the explanation. Then we leap to how the
media are changing people all over the world, causing youth to suffer
from "Violence Immune Deficiency." It's violence on television and
in video games that is causing an increased willingness to kill. Now
I'm started I'll have to read further, but I wonder if I've wasted
$15.99--yes that's the cost of the paperback.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
Other related posts:
