Now then, now then…. If I could have found a web link to this workshop, I would have just posted that, but instead I’ll cut and paste the notice I received by email. I think it will be of interest to Kings of War readers, so I hope you’ll indulge my sharing it. I should state that I’m not involved with this workshop, nor will I be going, but I’ll post a few thoughts underneath the notice:
”
Are Soldiers Human?
Workshop at The University of Manchester
Friday 24 September 2010
Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building
Western militaries in conflict and post-conflict situations have
increasingly been positioned as ‘humanitarian’ actors that are expected
not only to make death, but also to bring life to the populations
subject to their interventions. This workshop seeks to engage with a
separate but related phenomenon: that of the construction and
reconstruction of soldiers as human beings, and the dense symbolic
economy that now surrounds the humanity of Western soldiers. As we are
increasingly called upon to properly mark and grieve the deaths of
military service personnel, it seems important to engage a series of
questions concerning the ways in which soldiers are made and unmade as
human beings in the first place.
· How are soldiers made to live?
· How is their humanity worked upon, for instance in military training?
To what extent are soldiers in action properly understood as human? Has
their humanity come to be transcended through the use of technologies
(including performance-changing drugs)?
· How are soldiers treated as human ‘material’, and what constraints are
posed by their humanity? Do soldiers become human only after death, in
their memorialisation?
· What are the consequences when soldiers who act ‘inhumanely’ come to
be viewed as monsters, and as outside of humanity?
· What do we mean by the ‘human’ or ‘humanity’ and can these concepts
(still) inform thinking about war?
To register for this workshop, please contact Rebecca Whitehead,
Institute Manager, HCRI at:rebecca.whitehead@manchester.ac.uk”
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, we’re in the middle of a recession and the most severe spending cuts that anyone can remember…even more severe than 1983.. in fact, 1983 is going to look like a champagne-fuelled party of pound coins, compared to now… so why are the post-structual politics working group (for it is they) having a seminar about whether soldiers are human? For surely this is only likely to attract the adverse attention of those bean-counters looking to take the social sciences at the knees…
And do you know what?
It beats me.
The point about certain training regimes and drugs to inspire infantrymen to perform like robots is an interesting moral, ethical and military question. They can have my reworded version of their question. If killing other humans is inherently repellent (and the incidences of post-traumatic stress would suggest it is) then desensitising soldiers to this, removes part of their decision-making process. People should talk about this, as it might have caused problems in the theatres today, and will obviously cause mental health problems to a larger number of coalition soldiers in the future. But as for the other questions, I would need to see something pretty interesting come out of it to be convinced…
So, what do we reckon? Are soldiers human? (Dons tin hat, and hides)
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Isn’t it a fundamentally flawed question because it assumes that soldiers are an amorphous mass to be treated and characterised en masse, when the reality is they are nearly as diverse in opinion, intellect, outlook and ability to manage with trauma as any group. PTSD is equally complex and diverse and not always related to the issues of killing others, remarkably few soldiers are actually involved in the direct process of killing
Certainly, they are human, even those who act ‘inhumanely’. But as I argued here a while ago, they don’t have the same human rights as the rest of us: http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2009/05/do-soldiers-have-human-rights/
Ugh – what an annoying question to pose.
Are academics human? Let’s explore!
Maybe the first question to ask is: what is human?
Sascha, you’re moving waaaay to fast for a postmodernist. The first question, surely: What is?
I am too impatient ;-) But sure is: what is said, is.
Come now. Aren’t you being a little uncharitable? Your disciplinary colleagues (yes, even those who work in different sub-fields) are not total idiots.
The question is obviously not a literal one. The actual vocabulary makes it clear that we are dealing with ideas about soldiering, not the reality of their genetic relation to civilians. After all, this is a humanity that is ‘made’ and ‘unmade’, ‘constructed’, ‘reconstructed’ and ‘worked on’. Consequently, the assumption is not that soldiers are ‘an amorphous mass’, but that the way soldiers are thought of is historically and politically variable, perhaps importantly so. There is no need to imagine that this reduces to the claim that there are no differences among soldiers in terms of opinions, life trajectories or IQs.
You may have issues with something called ‘post-modernism’, but that doesn’t mean that the only questions worth asking are those about operational efficiency. There are all kinds of ways of discussing soldiering. It doesn’t seem particularly arguable that in some narratives soldiers are imagined as psychotic killers, in others as brave (if naive) young men thrown into situations beyond their ken, and in still others as cold-minded mercenaries or adrenalin-junkies. In current TV adverts for the British military they are portrayed principally as a rescue service for African children. For sure, soldiers can be all this and more, but different narratives are dominant at different times. Is it irrelevant if the ways we collectively commemorate the dead have changed? Should scholars be silent regarding the different tropes that go with being a stalwart British soldier in Halmand or a rapacious predator in Darfur?
Well, good soldiers aren’t…
“Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a Marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts — a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.”
Then again, if I wasn’t human, would I read Thoreau?
Erm…with respect, are you not conflating “mere” soldiers (human or otherwise) with those indominatable, intrepid and ever entertaining if not always human, Soldiers of the Sea, the US Marines? ;-)