On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

Based on Pavlov’s experiments with dogs, classical conditioning is the association of pleasurable experiences with activities. It has been used to desensitize soldiers to violence. Grossman alleges that violent movies desensitize young people to violence, which they associate with positive experiences, such as food and dating.

A close-range kill is any kill with “a projectile weapon from point-blank range, extending to midrange” (114). These kills are personal, with no denial of responsibility possible on the part of the killer. Grossman argues that killing at this range causes intense psychological trauma.

Confusional or confused states are a manifestation of psychological casualties, which are common in sustained combat. Soldiers in such states lose a sense of identity and awareness of location. Symptoms include “delirium, psychotic disassociation and manic-depressive mood swings” (45).

Conversion hysteria, another manifestation of psychological casualties resulting from sustained combat, can cause soldiers to wander aimlessly around the battlefield “with complete disregard for evident dangers” (46). In some cases, soldiers suffering from this condition are unable to function at all.

Emotional distance refers to cultural, moral, social, and mechanical factors that separate the soldier from the enemy. Any one of these factors—which are often encouraged by commanders and leaders—allow the killing soldiers to deny the humanity of their opponents. It makes killing the enemies easier.

Eros is the psychologist Sigmund Freud’s name for the “life instinct.” Such an instinct dwells within humans and battles with a “death instinct.” Grossman postulates that the innate inhibition to killing might indicate the greater strength of the life instinct, or Eros, in most human beings.

Guerrilla warfare refers to a form of war in which it is extremely difficult to distinguish combatants from non-combatants. Fighters do not wear uniforms and blend into the civilian population. American soldiers faced this form of combat in Vietnam, and it made the remorse stages of killing more intense, as children and women were sometimes slain.

While hand-grenade range can be “anywhere from a few yards to as many as thirty-five or forty yards” (112), the killer does not have to see his victims. If soldiers do not see victims or hear their screams, there is less psychological trauma.

Killology is the “scientific study of the act of killing within the Western way of war and of the psychological and sociological processes and prices exacted when men kill each other in combat” (xxxi). Grossman founded this new field of study with this book.

In long-range killing, a soldier might be able to see the enemy but is unable to kill without some form of special weaponry, such as tank fire (108). Soldiers at this range “begin to see some disturbance at the act of killing” (109), but it is not as traumatic as closer-range kills.

A mid-range killing is one in which “the soldier can see and engage the enemy with rifle fire while still unable to perceive the extent of the wounds inflicted or the sounds and facial expressions of the victim” (111). There is enough physical distance for deniability, but remorse can still be powerful at this range, especially if the killing soldier goes closer to observe the dead victim.

A maximum-range killing takes place when “the killer is unable to perceive his individual victims without using some form of mechanical assistance” (107). Given the physical distance between killer and victim, there are no instances of soldiers refusing to kill, nor are there any cases of psychiatric trauma at this distance, at least to Grossman’s knowledge.

Associated with B.F. Skinner, operant conditioning uses rewards and punishments to shape behavior. The military uses operant conditioning to increase the ratio of fire by having soldiers fire at human-shaped targets and rewarding them for hits. Grossman worries that violent video games are similarly conditioning young people to kill.

PTSD is a “’reaction to a psychologically traumatic event outside the range of normal experience’” (285), which can occur immediately after the event or years later. Symptoms include intrusive dreams and thoughts, difficulty sleeping, “emotional blunting, social withdrawal,” and difficulty with intimate relationships (285). It can last for years. A significant percentage of Vietnam veterans experience PTSD because of the inattention to their psychological needs.

The ratio of fire refers to the percentage of combat soldiers who fire at the enemy. Grossman argues that behavioral conditioning has dramatically increased this ratio without paying sufficient heed to the psychological costs.

Thanatos is the “death instinct,” which psychologist Sigmund Freud believed each human being had. The military must overcome the “life instinct” and unleash this “death instinct” in times of war via conditioning in training.