3 ms·

I've seen some of the videos published by Hamas. Some of them are literally filmed with "gopro" or similar cameras during their attacks. Generally I don't reco

by dgb23 3y ago

I've seen some of the videos published by Hamas. Some of them are literally filmed with "gopro" or similar cameras during their attacks. Generally I don't recommend watching these. These kinds of videos are incredibly disturbing. --- Trigger warning: violence. One thing that struck me is how horror-like all of it seemed and how invisible the opponent in such an engagement is. The invaders would often not see where the defenders were and would get shot seemingly out of nowhere. Vice versa they would shoot into small nudges and windows here or there and its often unclear whether they hit anyone or not. My cousins who fought in Bosnia would often tell me similar stories. Their enemies were invisible most of the time, while sometimes someone would get hit on their side. For reference: I once watched Full Metal Jacket with one of my cousins and there was a scene where suddenly, out of nowhere, the protagonists would get attacked in an urban area but they couldn't even see their enemies, just flashes of rifle fire here and there. He said: "This is exactly like war." --- I don't know what to make of it. It all just feels like pointless horror.

bm3719 3y ago
There's certainly other forces at play, but having participated in one, I tend to view the main reason that war is traumatic to the individual is its depersonalized (and in modern times, mechanistic) nature. A person being confronted so undeniably with their place in the machinery of superorganisms in conflict induces all sorts of problems, including cognitive dissonance, and the mind struggles to form the individually senseless nature of strangers lining up to disassemble each other with kinetic force into some kind of cohesive narrative, usually failing miserably. So, that's the true horror of it: the deep destruction of the self. That's why what remains of participants are often these psychological husks, their reality model permanently shattered.

by dgb23 3y ago

bm3719 3y ago

There's certainly other forces at play, but having participated in one, I tend to view the main reason that war is traumatic to the individual is its depersonalized (and in modern times, mechanistic) nature. A person being confronted so undeniably with their place in the machinery of superorganisms in conflict induces all sorts of problems, including cognitive dissonance, and the mind struggles to form the individually senseless nature of strangers lining up to disassemble each other with kinetic force into some kind of cohesive narrative, usually failing miserably. So, that's the true horror of it: the deep destruction of the self. That's why what remains of participants are often these psychological husks, their reality model permanently shattered.