Transforming Warriors: The ritual organization of military force 2015048239, 9781138642836, 9781315629711

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: symbolic and mythological perspectives on war and peace join the archaic with the modern
2 A portrait of the warrior as a beast: hunter, man, and animal in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Schwarzenegger’s Predator
3 Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the young warrior in Europe’s past
4 “Laughing I shall die!” The total transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar in Old Norse society
5 Professionalization of transformation: from knights to officers in the Renaissance
6 Transformation into manhood: sex, violence, and the making of warriors, women, and victims in early modern Europe
7 Japanese warrior transformations: bushidō as the continuation of death by other means
8 Mystical and modern transformations in the Liberian Civil War
9 Transformation into nature: Swedish Army Ranger rites of passage
10 From total to minimal transformation: German oaths of loyalty 1871–2014
11 The warrior on the edge of tomorrow
12 The haunted road: failed transformations and the return from war or, a historical sociology of war veterans
13 Conclusions: the transformations of the future
Index

Citation preview

Transforming Warriors

This volume offers an interdisciplinary study of how different cultures have sought to transform individuals into warriors. War changes people; however, a less explored question is how different societies want people to change as they are turned into warriors. When societies go to war they recognize that a boundary is being crossed. The participants are expected to do things that are otherwise prohibited, or at least governed by different rules. This edited volume analyses how different cultures have conceptualized the transformations of an individual passing from a peacetime to a wartime existence to become an active warrior. Despite their differences, all societies grapple with the same question: how much of the individual’s peaceself should be and can be retained in the state of war? The book explores cases such as the Nordic berserkers, the Japanese samurai, and European knights, as well as modern soldiers in Germany, Liberia, and Sweden. It shows that archaic and modern societies are more similar than we usually think: both kinds of societies use myths, symbols, and rituals to create warriors. Thus, this volume seeks to redefine theories of modernization and secularization. It shows that military organizations need to take myths, symbols, and rituals seriously in order to create effective units. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, war studies, sociology, religion, and international relations in general. Peter Haldén is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Swedish Defence University (SDU) in Stockholm. He is the author of Stability without Statehood (2011), Geopolitics of Climate Change (2007) and co-editor of New Agendas in Statebuilding: Hybridity, Contingency and History (2013). Peter Jackson is Professor at the department of History of Religions at Stockholm University. He is the author of The Transformations of Helen: IndoEuropean Myth and the Roots of the Trojan Cycle (2007), and editor of Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice: Disengaging Ritual in Ancient India, Greece and Beyond (2015).

Cass Military Studies

Contemporary Military Culture and Strategic Studies US and UK armed forces in the 21st century Alastair Finlan Understanding Military Doctrine A multidisciplinary approach Harald Hoiback Military Strategy as Public Discourse America’s war in Afghanistan Tadd Sholtis Military Intervention, Stabilisation and Peace The search for stability Christian Dennys International Military Operations in the 21st Century Global trends and the future of intervention Per M. Norheim-Martinsen and Tore Nyhamar (eds) Security, Strategy and Military Change in the 21st Century Cross-regional perspectives Jo Inge Bekkevold, Ian Bowers and Michael Raska (eds)

Military Families and War in the 21st Century Comparative perspectives René Moelker, Manon Andres, Gary Bowen and Philippe Manigart (eds) Private Security Companies during the Iraq War Military performance and the use of deadly force Scott Fitzsimmons Military Innovation in Small States Creating a reverse asymmetry Michael Raska Researching the Military Helena Carreiras, Celso Castro and Sabina Fréderic (eds) Drones and the Future of Air Warfare The evolution of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Michael P. Kreuzer Transforming Warriors The ritual organization of military force Peter Haldén and Peter Jackson (eds)

Transforming Warriors

The ritual organization of military force

Edited by Peter Haldén and Peter Jackson

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 selection and editorial matter, Peter Haldén and Peter Jackson; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Haldén, Peter, editor of compilation. | Jackson, Peter, 1971– editor of compilation. Title: Transforming warriors : the ritual organization of military force / edited by Peter Haldén and Peter Jackson. Other titles: Ritual organization of military force Description: New York, NY : Routledge, [2016] | Series: Cass military studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015048239| ISBN 9781138642836 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315629711 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Military socialization. | Soldiers–Psychology. | Soldiers– Training of–History. | Sociology, Military–History. | Military life. | War. | Ritual. | War–Religious aspects. Classification: LCC U21.5 .T68 2016 | DDC 306.2/7–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015048239 ISBN: 978-1-138-64283-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-62971-1 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents

List of illustrations Notes on contributors Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: symbolic and mythological perspectives on war and peace join the archaic with the modern

vii viii xi

1

PETER HALDÉN AND PETER JACKSON

2 A portrait of the warrior as a beast: hunter, man, and animal in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Schwarzenegger’s Predator

19

JOHAN TRALAU

3 Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the young warrior in Europe’s past

36

PETER JACKSON

4 “Laughing I shall die!” The total transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar in Old Norse society

49

ANDREAS NORDBERG AND FREDERIK WALLENSTEIN

5 Professionalization of transformation: from knights to officers in the Renaissance

66

GORM HARSTE

6 Transformation into manhood: sex, violence, and the making of warriors, women, and victims in early modern Europe MARIA SJÖBERG

88

vi Contents 7 Japanese warrior transformations: bushidō as the continuation of death by other means

109

DAN ÖBERG

8 Mystical and modern transformations in the Liberian Civil War

126

ILMARI KÄIHKÖ

9 Transformation into nature: Swedish Army Ranger rites of passage

144

JAN ANGSTROM

10 From total to minimal transformation: German oaths of loyalty 1871–2014

163

PETER HALDÉN

11 The warrior on the edge of tomorrow

183

CHRISTOPHER COKER

12 The haunted road: failed transformations and the return from war or, a historical sociology of war veterans

202

GORM HARSTE

13 Conclusions: the transformations of the future Index

223 232

Illustrations

Figures 5.1 9.1

Separation of forms of power Theory of warrior rituals

73 150

Tables 5.1 9.1 9.2 12.1

Scheme of François de la Noue’s forms of army Analytical scheme of stages of warrior rituals Swedish Army Ranger rituals The simplified categories of individualization and collective processes

79 152 160 203

Contributors

Jan Angstrom is Professor of War Studies at the Swedish Defence University (SDU) in Stockholm. He earned his PhD in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London and is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. His latest book (coauthored with J.J. Widén) is Contemporary Military Theory: The Dynamics of War (Routledge, 2015). Christopher Coker is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of 23 books, including: Why War cannot be Eliminated (Polity, 2014); Warrior Geeks: How 21st Century Technology is Changing the Way we Fight and Think about War (Hurst, 2013); The Improbable War: China, the United States and the Logic of Great Power Conflict (Hurst, 2014); and Men at War: What Fiction tells us about War from the Iliad to Catch-22. His next book is Rebooting Clausewitz: Why his Theory of War still Matters in the 21st Century. Peter Haldén is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the SDU in Stockholm. His recent publications include: the monograph Stability without Statehood (Palgrave, 2011); the articles “Reconceptualizing state formation as collective power” (Journal of Political Power, 2014), “A non-sovereign modernity. Attempts to engineer stability in the Balkans 1820–1890” (Review of International Studies, 2013); and the co-edited volume New Agenda for Statebuilding (Routledge, 2013). Gorm Harste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Government at Aarhus University. He is an expert on systems theory and the sociology of Niklas Luhmann. His research interests include: modern and classical sociology; political theory; historical sociology; European statebuilding; risk society; European democracy; war and peace; and organizational theory. He has written eight books and 110 scientific articles published in several languages. Peter Jackson is Professor in History of Religions at Stockholm University. He received his PhD from Uppsala University in 1999. He specializes in the study of Indo-European religions, with a particular emphasis on Ancient India and

Contributors ix Iran, Mediterranean antiquity, and the pagan Germanic world. Among his publications are The Transformations of Helen: Indo-European Myth and the Roots of the Trojan Cycle (2007) and the edited volume Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice: Disengaging Ritual in Ancient India, Greece, and Beyond (2015). Ilmari Käihkö is a PhD candidate in the Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership at the SDU in Stockholm and in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, with funding from the Nordic Africa Institute. He has more than two years of field experience in West, Central, and East Africa in the fields of development cooperation, the military, and research. He has previously written about Liberian and other African conflicts and he has collaborated with Jan Willem Honig to write about the SwedishFinnish strategy in Afghanistan. Andreas Nordberg is an Associate Professor in the History of Religions at Stockholm University. Since his PhD in 2003, which he achieved with the dissertation Krigarna i Odins sal (“The warriors in Odin’s hall”), he has written three additional books and numerous papers on Old Norse religion. He is currently active as a researcher and lecturer at Stockholm University. Dan Öberg holds a PhD from Yokohama National University and is a Senior Lecturer in War Studies in the Department of Military Studies at the SDU in Stockholm. He is currently a visiting fellow on the PEAK programme at the University of Tokyo where he teaches courses on philosophy, gender, and war. His research focuses on war and warfare from a critical perspective. Recent publications include research articles in the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, and the Journal of Narrative Politics. Maria Sjöberg is Professor of History in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Gothenburg. Her latest books include: Kvinnor i Fält 1550–1850 (“Women in Campaigns 1550–1850”), Gidlunds, 2008; and Kritiska Tankar om Historia (“Critical Thoughts on History”), Studentlitteratur, 2012. She has also edited En Samtidig Världshistoria (“A Contemporary World History”), Studentlitteratur, 2014. Johan Tralau is Professor of Government at Uppsala University. His current research interests include: the origins of political philosophy in Ancient Greece; Homer; Hesiod; Aeschylus; Sophocles; Euripides; metaphors and monsters in Thomas Hobbes; and developing a normative theory of table manners. In 2013, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Johan Lundblad Prize in classical philology and ancient history. His most recent book (Monstret i mig. Myter om gränser och vilddjur, Atlantis, 2015) is about monsters in myths – the Minotaur, Centaurs, Heracles, violence, hunting, war (the most fundamental prohibition in the history of human societies), Egyptian mice, bulls, eyes, cannibalism, wolf men, a river that runs in the wrong direction, and other things.

x

Contributors

Frederik Wallenstein is a PhD candidate in the history of religions at Stockholm University. His thesis discusses the problems of cultural–historical continuities and discontinuities in the oral tradition preceding the medieval Icelandic sagas. He has published on subjects such as Old Norse conceptions of the soul, berserkers, sorcery, and ideals of masculinity in Old Norse culture.

Acknowledgements

This book was a long while in the making and many people were involved in its journey from idea to reality. First of all, we would like to thank the Swedish Armed Forces, who generously financed the work of Angstrom, Haldén, Käihkö, and Öberg as well as a workshop held in December 2014 at the Swedish Defence University (SDU) in Stockholm. Thanks are due to all the participants in the workshop. In particular, we would like to thank Colonel Hans Ilis-Alm for his support of an input to the project. Naturally, we would like to thank all the contributors to this project for their hard work, imagination, and dedication. It has been a deeply rewarding experience to see scholars from so many different disciplines and traditions unite in a common endeavour to understand a fundamental but often overlooked aspect of the human condition. Many times we were struck by the profound knowledge of and commitment to their subjects that the contributors showed. It made us proud that they wanted to be a part of this project. We would like to extend our thanks to Andrew Humphrys at Routledge for his support. On first contacting him he immediately engaged with the project and not only helped but also inspired us with his unyielding dedication and professionalism in seeing it through. We would also like to thank Hannah Ferguson, our managing editor, for her hard work and helpfulness in guiding us through the editorial process and for her gentle reminders to keep us firmly on track. We owe a debt of gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers whose encouragement and incisive and thoughtful comments helped us to greatly improve this book. A sincere thank you. We would also like to thank Ann-Mari Karlsson who helped us with foreign language translations. We would like to direct special thanks to Krysia Johnson who copy-edited the entire manuscript with great skill and dedication. She has helped to make this a better book. The book would not have got off the ground had it not been for Per Faxneld, who brought the two editors together for an initial and very productive conversation about warriors, werewolves, and other shape-shifters at a Christmas party long ago. We are very grateful to him. Last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank our respective families for their patience and love.

This page intentionally left blank

1

Introduction Symbolic and mythological perspectives on war and peace join the archaic with the modern Peter Haldén and Peter Jackson

Introduction When societies go to war they recognize that a boundary is being crossed. The participants are expected to do things that are otherwise prohibited, or at least governed by different rules. The most fundamental breach of normal rules is, of course, killing other human beings. This edited volume analyses how different cultures have conceptualized the transformation of an individual passing from a peacetime into a wartime existence as an active warrior. Despite their differences, all societies grapple with the same question: how much of the individual’s peace-self should be and can be retained in the state of war? The transition for an individual as well as for a society from one sphere to another and back again is a serious and perilous one. All societies have, therefore, devised not only rational rules but also very concrete rituals in order to transfer individuals from the sphere of peace to the sphere of war and – crucially – back again. Becoming a warrior is only one of the experiences that individuals have in relation to war. We may add that gaining combat experience is another transformative moment in an individual’s life story. Entering into the role of a warrior – the person who can and may kill and can and may be killed – is thus only the first stage. This book focuses upon said stage but not on the experience of combat and its many forms. The book also deals with the converse process of becoming: leaving the sphere of war and becoming a civilian. We talk about ‘warriors’ in this book, a term that might seem odd, old-fashioned, limited to certain cultures, or even romantic. We do not use it any of those senses. Rather, it was chosen in order to describe a diverse group of people participating in war in different times and different settings, a group encompassing modern soldiers, samurai, knights, and berserkers. We distinguish between three ideal types of transformation: total, partial, and minimal. The most extreme cases of total transformation are the Nordic berserkers and other ‘shape-shifting’ warriors that shed even their humanity when going into battle. The most extreme case of a minimal transformation is the German doctrine of innere Führung (“inner leadership”) – the ideal that one should change as little as possible and maintain peacetime conscience and morals. Most societies, however, are located on a spectrum between these two extremes. This

2

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

edited volume brings together scholars of comparative religion, sociology, and war studies in a study of the problems of the boundary between the state of peace and the state of war. The comparative perspective enriches our understanding of each individual society but also of universal problems in the joint scholarly assessment of society, ethics, and war. In this book we want to open the existential, even metaphysical aspects of war to academic study. Usually, this has been the domain of writers, many of whom have their own personal experiences of fighting, indeed of undergoing the transformation from a peacetime into a wartime existence – in short of becoming warriors (e.g. Coker 2014). Their number include Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Ernst Jünger, Erich Maria Remarque, Claude Simon, and Ernest Hemingway from the twentieth century. From further back in history we find some of the major names in any literary canon: Miguel de Cervantes and Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle). Even though this is such a strong theme in literature, it is remarkably neglected in war studies and the history of religions. Individuals experience war in many different ways (Merridale 2005; Grossman 2009; Stargardt 2015): as unarmed victims caught up in the maelstrom of combat and conflict; as leaders who have to shoulder the responsibility of making decisions of life and death not only for themselves but for other human beings; and as warriors who take part in fighting, with the readiness and ability to shed the lives of other human beings and, of course, to lose their own lives. Regardless of the point of entry into the phenomenon of war, the experience of war is a deeply existential one. What we mean by an existential experience is something that touches upon the very essence of a person as a human being; it is an experience (or sequence of experiences) that profoundly alters a person’s life story, and it touches upon ultimate questions to do with the taking and giving of human lives. As noted by Gorm Harste in this volume, Albert Camus (2005) famously said: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” However, we could turn this portal statement of existentialism around, put it in the framework of war studies and add that killing is also one of philosophy’s ‘true’ questions, something that Camus (2004) himself suggested in a later work, The Stranger. An existential experience is something out of the ordinary, an exceptional occurrence. Thus, we argue that war is a state of exception, not just legally and politically but also experientially (Schmitt 2007). Max Weber argued that modernity is the age of rationalization, of bureaucratization and of routinization. Modern militaries are vast loci of all three processes. Indeed, as Foucault (1991) suggested, since the seventeenth century, military organizations have been drivers of all three processes. However much military organizations routinize the tasks of combat or training and of the creation of military force, they cannot take away the exceptional and hence existential aspect of war and of combat. Indeed, we could argue that there is a danger to the psyches of individuals and, if that expression may be allowed, ‘collectivities’ too if we believe that we can ‘routinize’ away the exceptional nature of war and the experience of it. First, there is the obvious democratic danger if we no longer perceive wars as the state of exception. Second, if we fail to recognize the

Introduction 3 existential aspect of war we turn a blind eye to the very human needs of people experiencing it: as victims, leaders, spectators, or warriors. Central to those needs is a framework that makes sense of their experiences – certainly not only in a justificatory or legitimating sense as numerous ideologies have attempted, but as part of a human condition. Since time immemorial such frameworks have framed the beginning, conduct, and endings of war – collectively and individually – through symbols, myths, and rituals. We should do well to remember that we moderns need these meaning-creating practices too. Through this insight we arrive at the phenomenological similarities between war and religion. Today we tend to see religion as a delimited field of activity, beliefs, and practices alongside other functional subsystems such as law, politics, economy etc. Before the nineteenth century in Western Europe, such a neat division would not have made sense and in many parts of the world today it still makes no sense to divide the human world in that way. Rather, what we call religion was an integrated part of the human condition, namely the sacral dimension to the cosmos. However, the intensity of the experience of the sacred fluctuated; not all times were equally charged. Charles Taylor (2007) describes a threefold division of time into intensely experienced sacrality, mundane, and routine time, and periods of perceived distance from the holy. Thus, religious experience was more strongly present at certain times. Common to the intensely religiously charged periods in the life of a person or a collective was that these were periods of exception. Indeed, we can say that religion is the state of exception par excellence. During religious festivals, rituals, and practices the existential and essential qualities of the human condition are experienced more intensely. Religion is also the sphere of rituals, symbols, and myths that make the human condition meaningful by putting its occurrences into a larger framework. Rites of passage are excellent examples of practices that connect the individual and the existential at junctions where a person’s life story is changed or, in fact, made. Of course, rituals typically follow similar (but not identical) patterns year after year. However, they are not routine since they typically mark the breakthrough of the exceptional or the holy into the otherwise mundane trajectory of life (Turner 1969). Thus, we can identify phenomenological similarities between war and religion on several levels: first, they are both states of exception in the human experience; second, they are deeply existential activities; third, we see similarities in patterned and institutionalized actions to create meaning as well as individual and collective roles. The connection between political community, war, and religion has considerable resonance in classical sociology. In his work Politics as Vocation, Max Weber argued that political orders, among them the modern state, have the power to give meaning to individual human death if this death occurs on the battlefield in the service of the state (Poggi 1978: 99–100). This is a form of power that only political orders share with religions. The idea that dying for the fatherland bestows meaning – sometimes even explicit transcendental rewards (the word transcendental meaning, for example, immunity from sin) – is found throughout European history. Pericles’ funeral oration over the fallen in Athens’

4

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

war against Sparta constructed a framework in which the political collective, the polis (city), was the entity that made the sacrifice just. Or, conversely, the sacrifices made the polity. Canonists have argued since the 1100s that war was just if it was fought for the defence of the fatherland, the faith, and the Church (Kantorowicz 1997: 236). Similarly, Ivo of Chartres distinguished between private killing (forbidden) and public killing (allowed) (Kantorowicz 1997: 236). If war is fought to defend one’s country and its socio-political order, then it is just. For Ivo and other medieval Europeans, the issue of iusta causa in war was not only a question about worldly legitimacy, it was about whether one’s actions were sinful or not. The answer to this question would determine the fate of a human soul for millennia after the corporeal death. An example from modern times is the granting of a ‘state funeral’ to a deceased person as a higher form of funeral which in many countries is considered to be a most honourable way to end an individual life because it is linked to and recognized by the state. Thus, if we understand religion broadly, in the sense of systems of thought that give meaning to life by employing transcendental, metaphysical, and mystical ideas and topoi – war, the state, and the transcendental have always co-existed. Consequently, studying war as a collective endeavour with metaphysical, existential aspects is a venture that is well grounded in the classical sociological tradition. Several recent works emphasize that social theory has neglected wars, warfare, and – we might add – warriors, and have sought to remedy the situation (Joas, 2003; Malešević 2010; Joas and Knöbl 2013). The present volume joins this venture and expands it by focusing on symbolic action, ritual, and myths as parts of human (inter)subjectivity. For instance, Siniša Malešević uses classical social thought in combination with organizational materialism to shed new light on the problems of war. Similarly, military sociology, the subfield devoted to military organizations, makes regular use of mainstream organizational theory. However, perspectives that emphasize symbols and myths as conveyors of meaning and the creation of different spheres of human action are rarely used. On the other hand, such approaches are not rare in organizational sociology, as exemplified by the work of John Meyer and Brian Rowan (1977). We have instead opted to employ theories of symbols, myths, and rituals in the history of religions and anthropology alongside social theory and theories taken from war studies. Military sociology has discussed the relation between the military and civilian spheres of life since the 1960s. Huntington advocated a total transformation, arguing that in order to be effective, officers should leave their civilian selves behind when they enter into a state of war. In contrast, Janowitz claimed that some of the individual’s civilian roles and skills should be carried over into the military sphere. Even further removed from Huntington, Moskos et al. argue that in the postmodern era, a civilian self ought to be retained as much as possible when an individual enters the military profession and the sphere of war (Huntington, 1957; Janowitz 1961; Franke 1999; Moskos et al. 2000; Murray and Sinnreich 2006). This volume touches upon this debate yet from a somewhat different angle. Our broad cultural and historical perspectives demonstrate that

Introduction 5 all countries share the problem of transformation, and that they have oscillated along the spectrum from total through partial to minimal transformation of an individual entering the sphere of war. Huntington, Janowitz, and Moskos discuss the normatively and instrumentally desirable relation between the peacetime and wartime roles of the individual in terms of rational institution building. In contrast, our focus on transformation shows that the ritual practices and symbolic shifts of ‘shapes’ entail a change of world-views, identities, and patterns of action. In other words, the organization of initiation and habitus determine actions stronger than rational planning. Our argument is not that Huntington, Janowitz, Moskos etc. or their successors (e.g. Nielsen and Snider 2009) are wrong. Rather, we want to adopt a somewhat different perspective from large parts of the civil–military research field. This field of research began with investigations of the relation between two parts of modern societies, both from a ‘purely’ scholarly angle and from the normative interest of understanding how the civilian authorities can control the military (Huntington 1957; Finer 1962). Now the field has broadened to micro- and meso-level investigations that seek to identify and often rectify problems of coordination in the myriad concrete situations of different kinds of modern operations (Egnell 2011; Ruffa 2013). A core assumption in much of this literature is the importance of formal–legal authority (in the Weberian sense, 1968) and of structural–functional analysis, with a view to increasing effectiveness (LomskyFeder and Ben-Ari 1999). This volume represents a different view with regard to what we see as two spheres of human activity and focuses on the movement of individuals through the two spheres. Theoretically we align closely with another of Max Weber’s inventions: the formulation of charisma in the early works of the great sociologist as the command of the “symbolic foundations of order” (Kalyvas 2002). We are not primarily interested in charisma as a means of exercising coercive power (e.g. Dahl 2005) but in the assertion that all orders in the human lifeworld have symbolic foundations. Professionalization as a historical process and the different variations of the military profession in time and space are central parts of the literature on civil–military relations. We do not deny the importance of either as a subject of research; indeed Chapters 5 and 8 of this volume deal, in their own ways, with these problematics. However, we argue that the military sphere – or indeed, the sphere of the lives of human beings that is constituted by war – must be understood as something deeper than a profession or a corps. It is rather a ‘lifeworld’ in the phenomenological sense (e.g. Husserl 1978) in which the individual’s experience of the world is created by cultural and historical patterns. In this respect we have been inspired by the important work of Lomsky-Feder and Ben-Ari (1999) that studies how military reality is created through narratives, symbols, bodily practices, etc. Charles C. Moskos et al.’s The Postmodern Military (2000) highlights the new character of contemporary armies and the exceptionality of the postmodern West. By applying a longer perspective, this volume emphasizes the family resemblances across cultures and across epochs to demonstrate how armies and soldiers struggle with choices and problems that are deeply ingrained in all

6

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

cultures, and how the perennial ethical, symbolic, and social problems of war and peace do not radically change with modernization or postmodernity. The study that most resembles this book is Martin van Creveld’s (2008) The Culture of War. Like our volume, it opens up the study of war to a ‘culturalist’ perspective that emphasizes how people strive for symbolic rather than instrumental aims. For example, it discusses at length the issue of uniforms as well as the ritual symbolism of the initiation and conduct of warfare. However, our book delves deeper into some of the problems and issues only briefly touched upon by van Creveld, such as the connection between magical thinking, symbolism, and ritual action. This volume’s focus on the theme of individual transformation highlights precisely the culturally variable connections between symbolism, identity, ethics, and different patterns of action. However, the majority of works addressing these issues have done so from within a late modern Western cultural framework, typically using a rationalistic means-and-end analytical point of departure. This comparative study of modern, medieval, and archaic cultures avoids approaching all these cultures through an analytical perspective exclusively based on modern Western ideas and institutions. By using this method we avoid the reproduction of taken-for-granted assumptions and conclusions. All authors operate within a theoretical framework of symbols and rituals in order to shed new light on the societies at stake. By framing the problem of transformation in world–historical or world–cultural terms, this volume opens up to a broad comparative perspective in both time and space. In this respect the volume is similar in scope and ambition to the numerous sociological works on the continued importance of symbolic, religious, and even mythical aspects of societies and social action (Taylor 2007; Bellah and Joas 2012). However, these widely read seminal works in sociology do not deal with the issue of war and particularly not with individuals as warriors. This book explores three important propositions of direct relevance to the fields of social theory, war studies, and the history of religions: modernity, professionalization, and secularization. While recognizing the tremendous contributions of previous scholars we take the following stances vis-à-vis the existing literature on civil–military relations: (1) Contrary to classical sociological notions, modernity is not only an era of rational–legal authority and ‘disenchantment’. Both premodern and modern societies use symbolic and ritual actions and myths to generate intersubjective meaning about the existential experience not only of war but also of joining a military organization. (2) Creating warriors is about establishing new roles in a particular lifeworld or habitus not only through rational instrumental training and education, or ideology and indoctrination, but through symbolic action. (3) The relation between the civil and the military parts of a society is a relation between two different systems with different codes and symbolic repertoires. The boundary between them is upheld by symbolic and legal means and passages across them are enabled through ritual action. Civil– military relations are thus not merely the relations between two different kinds of organization.

Introduction 7

The state of peace and the state of war We propose a novel theoretical contribution with regard to the relation between peace and war. The framework that we use and propose is based on Luhmann’s sociology and on binary structural approaches to the history of religions and anthropology. All societies depend on distinctions and boundaries between different spheres of activities. Distinctions are guides securing the codification of occurrences into intersubjectively meaningful events, and actions into categories of allowed, prescribed, and prohibited spheres. A fundamental distinction in all societies is the one between peace and war. It is no exaggeration to say that this distinction is a precondition of social life itself. The historical innovation of containing collective violence by relegating it to a particular sphere enables a society to perform more complex operations in the sphere of peace and to create systemic trust, thereby steadily increasing the number of possible actions and relations (Luhmann 1988; Hobbes 2008). However defined, the distinction between peace and war is older and deeper than, for instance, the distinction between modern functional subsystems such as politics and economics. It is more akin to binary distinctions such as sacred/profane or inside/outside. Hence, the boundary between peace and war as well as the crossing of that boundary is best studied without distinguishing greatly between approaches from sociology and the history of religions. A distinction between a sphere of ordinary, everyday existence in peace, and an exceptional existence in a sphere of war, exists in all societies to the same extent that the crossing of that boundary, collectively and individually, is made through a series of patterned actions that make the crossing intersubjectively meaningful. These actions are legal, political, symbolic, and ritual. In the latter case we talk of a transformation of the individual into a warrior. As we shall see below, whether this transformation tends towards the total or towards the partial depends on how the boundary is conceptualized. We can imagine peace and war as two spheres separated by a boundary that is crossed when a society enters into war – or into some other culturally recognized and sanctioned form of collective violence. The distribution of things and events on either side of the boundary is necessarily a matter of great cultural variation. For example, in some societies, enforcing compliance by means of coercion by superiors may be common in both spheres. However, other actions, most importantly killing other humans, are normally prohibited in the sphere of peace but prescribed and necessary in the sphere of war. The crossing of the boundary is both a social and an individual act. Although the distinction between a sphere of peace and a sphere of war is universal, the two spheres may be more or less similar, depending on the cultural context.

Peace and war as separate systems This book takes as its starting point the conception of peace and war as two separate spheres of human activity. While not strictly speaking functional systems,

8

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

they still contain different codifications and modes of observation. Seeing the peace/war distinction as one of the oldest and most fundamental means that the issues, problems, and stakes are older too, and more general than simply democratic control over the military. The introductory section discussed various ways in which this distinction has been constructed through rituals, laws, and regulations. What we have chosen to call the spheres of peace and war may differ in two significant ways. The first is the functional distinction between peace organizations and war organizations – in our culture simply the difference between civilian and military organizations, cultures, habitus, and subjectivities. The second is a distinction in time between peacetime and wartime. In this sense, a whole society may make a transition from the sphere of peace into the sphere of war and back again. It is important to emphasize the role of both kinds of distinctions and that they co-exist in the same society: a military organization is not the same in peacetime as in wartime, and neither is a civilian organization the same under the two conditions. Most societies seek to avoid blurring the boundary between the spheres of peace and war, between a sphere of human existence where violence is closely contained, exceptional, and often delinquent, and a sphere where violence is sanctioned, normal, and (within certain boundaries) allowed. The danger of not closing the boundary properly once the war is over is that violence seeps into societies and undermines their capacity to function – namely to create specific meanings, codifications, and actions. Thus, in the ideal type of the model, there is a desire for purification and a sense of danger that the two spheres might pollute each other (Douglas 2001). The discourse of danger falls into two major subtypes: one centres on the risk of the peace sphere polluting the war sphere with its codifications, thereby endangering military effectiveness by placing restrictions on action or by substituting military virtues with civilian ones; the other centres on the risks of the war sphere polluting the peace sphere with its codifications. The social formation and its order are threatened not only by the risk of violence being released but also by the invasion of the morality of war into the sphere of the morality of peace. The German historian Reinhart Koselleck understands European societies before the onset of modernity (c.1780–1850), as well most non-European societies (to the extent that they have not altered themselves according to the Western pattern), as ritual societies. The most important aspect of this characteristic is not, he argues, the symbolism and strict patterning of action into standard operating procedures of the ritual scheme, but rather the division of social life into discrete and temporally defined spheres in which actors operate according to different observations and codifications. It is, of course, important to stress that in non-secular societies rituals are not simply functional exercises that are intended to bring about a symbolic effect on another level. The actions in a ritual have intrinsic value since they create magical effects on the participants, often by linking micro- and macro-cosmos (Bell 1997: 35).Two broad kinds of rituals exemplify this practice of distinction: seasonal rituals and rites of passage. Seasonal rituals are recurring segments of exceptional time that break the regular

Introduction 9 patterns of everyday temporality (Taylor 2007). This time is governed by other codifications, often taking the shape of different actions that have to be undertaken or, more spectacularly, indicated by the reversal of social roles such as debasing the high in society and elevating the low. The carnival is perhaps the clearest example of this type of seasonal feast (Bachtin 1984). Exceptional and recurrent sacred time is also a time of danger when normal stratification and codifications are rocked; sometimes peril is present in supernatural shape as ghosts, spirits, or gods walk the earth with potential malicious intent. It is thus a time of heightened awareness and heightened tension that has to be managed both through codes particular to the exceptional time and standard operating procedures intended to guide society and its actors through these perilous but inevitable segments of time. Rites of passage are similar in the sense that they divide time and social life into normal and exceptional segments. Examples of rites of passage are rituals that make boys into men, girls into women, rituals of marriage, and death and burial, the installation of rulers, and initiation into secret societies. In his now classical contribution to the topic, van Gennep (1909) argued that rites of passage or “transitional” rites follow the same pattern of separation, margin (liminality) and aggregation. Limen means “threshold” in Latin and the term is used to signify that a society, sub-group, and/or individuals cross a boundary between what we have chosen to call two social systems, with different codes and subjectivities. For van Gennep the sequence of ritual actions is the most important. The temporal framework and segmentation of a ritual – its before, during, and after – is what gives it meaning (Bell 1997: 36). Normal and exceptional sets of codes, or in Victor Turner’s phrase “structure and anti-structure”, may be spatially as well as temporally limited. In some societies topographically marginal areas, such as wilderness and badlands, may be constructed as ontologically exceptional areas where evil, malevolent, or chaotic beings and entities reign (Fuller 2004). We also see this geographical distinction mirrored in mythological ontologies – for example in the Old Norse description of the liminal realms of the so-called Jǫtnar (“eaters” or “strangers”) that surround the realm of gods and men. A similar conception found in Islamic thought is the distinction between dar-al-Islam (“the world of Islam”) and the dar-alharb (“the world of war”), as two geographical areas in which different rules and codes can and must be followed. Thus, the separation between normal and exceptional with their respective codifications can be spatial. An essential part of Turner’s perspective is that opposites (structure and anti-structure) constitute each other and are indispensable to each other’s function (Bell 1997: 40). Seasonal rites and rites of passage differ in relation to time and normality. Seasonal rites are cyclical and recurrent. In contrast, there is a direction in rites of passage. An individual undergoes a permanent change and there is no return to the previous stage of existence. On a social level, rites of passage are, of course, recurrent since every new generation will pass into man/womanhood, marriage, death, and new rulers will be installed. However, for the passaging individual there is a linear movement. Still, both seasonal rites and rites of passage represent essentially closed systems’ distinctions of social life. In both

10

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

cases, there is a distinct emphasis on keeping the two spheres apart and, indeed, often taboos on introducing codifications from one sphere into another. The model of a ritual society can be read as an ideal-type description of a particular kind of society, which we often call ‘premodern’. Central to these societies is the overt and explicit connection of distinctions and systems to an ontological dimension and the link between drawing boundaries and survival in the face of the supernatural. Another reading suggests that the theories of Gennep, Turner, and Taylor point to more universal phenomena. As such, understanding ritual societies may help us understand modern ones. Different spheres contain different subjectivities or Weltanschauungen (since they are, after a fashion, Welten, worlds) and individuals transform to a greater or lesser degree when they move between spheres. In ritual societies, transformations are often held to be taken literally and seriously and they are explicitly communicated. In a modern society, on the other hand, they often appear to be taken more figuratively and to be less explicitly communicated. However, as we argue below with special attention to the matter of peace/war distinctions, they all entail shifts between systems of codifications and of individual subjectivities (Bell 1997: 254ff.). In more recent anthropological theory a great deal of effort has gone into scrutinizing the hyperbolical sense in which moderns conceive of themselves as occupying an exclusive vantage point with regard to premodern societies (Descola 2013). Some societies construct wartime explicitly in terms close to the ritual and liminal paradigm outlined by van Gennep and Turner. There is also an obvious affinity between rites of passage and the process of training to become a warrior or soldier. Indeed, in many traditional societies where all males are warriors, the ritual of maturity is also connected to the ritual of initiation into warriorhood. Turner’s description of the ideal type of a rite of passage may be worth quoting at length due to its many similarities with military training, in particular the initial ‘boot camp’ period. Liminal entities, such as neophytes in initiation or puberty rites, may be represented as possessing nothing. They may be disguised as monsters, wear only a strip of clothing, or even go naked, to demonstrate that as liminal beings they have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing indicating rank or role, position in a kinship system – in short, nothing that may distinguish them from their fellow neophytes or initiands. Their behaviour is normally passive or humble; they must obey their instructors implicitly, and accept arbitrary punishment without complaint. It is as though they are being reduced or ground down to a uniform condition to be fashioned anew and endowed with additional powers to enable them to cope with their new station in life. Among themselves, neophytes tend to develop an intense comradeship and egalitarianism. Secular distinctions of rank and status disappear or are homogenized. (Turner 1969: 95)

Introduction 11

Bringing the archaic ‘back in’ to modernity This volume studies a wide palette of cultural approaches to the problem of wartime transformation both because of its intrinsic scholarly value and because it puts our own modern/Western culture in another perspective or, if you will, into another context, a context in which we, at least from the onset, may feel less at home. Because of its identity as a rational, modern, and secular culture, Western culture has, at least since the late nineteenth century, claimed that it has nothing in common with the cultures that it calls ‘premodern’, ‘archaic’, or even ‘primitive’. We disagree, and a major goal of this volume is to show that the story modern societies tell about themselves is not entirely cogent. Instead, modern and archaic cultures have much more in common that we usually think. They may express themselves very differently, but still grapple with the same eternal problems and use similar tools to solve them. The social sciences have been weak when it comes to understanding the existential dimensions of peace, war, and combat as well as the ways in which human beings have made their experiences and expectations meaningful. It rather appears that it is particularly important to understand these fundamental parts of the human condition as existential experiences. In contrast, anthropology and the history of religions have been strong in creating such an understanding, not only of war but of the human condition as a whole. This is why a meeting of the social sciences and the humanities is necessary to create an understanding of peace, war, and combat in an academic way for certain, but perhaps for more practical reasons as well. How do human beings create meaning and make sense of their existential predicament, as individuals and as collectives? One way in which they do so is through symbols, rituals, and myths. According to classical or ‘hardcore’ modernization theory, these are things that we do not occupy ourselves with at the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, there is plenty of evidence that suggests otherwise; such evidence shows, in fact, that we moderns, as much as our archaic forebears, approach and appropriate the world in this way. Indeed, the following chapters provide several examples of how symbols, rituals, and myths were used to give meaning to the experiences of peace, war, and combat and how they were, and still are central to transforming individuals into warriors.

The structure of the book Chapter 2, “A portrait of the warrior as a beast: hunter, man, and animal in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Schwarzenegger’s Predator”, is written by Johan Tralau. It analyses a theme of warrior transformation in two fictional accounts from the archaic and the modern age: in order to prevail over his superior enemies a warrior has to shed the trappings and shape of human civilization and become a beast. Tralau thus highlights the longevity of the mythical idea of a total transformation away from humanity in order to become a powerful warrior.

12

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

First, in the story of Heracles’ first labour, the hero slays a magical beast, the Nemean lion, in order to steal his skin and wear it. The lion’s golden fur provided a supernatural armour as well as a new shape for the semi-divine warrior. When he returned to human civilization, he was forbidden to enter the city while wearing the skin of the lion, in other words, until he had transformed back to human form. Second, the hero of the Hollywood blockbuster Predator faces an invincible extraterrestrial monster. Ultimately, the human warrior defeats the monster but only by abandoning his weapons as well as his human appearance. Sophocles portrays Heracles as unable to shed the animal nature he acquired to become a warrior, an inability with tragic consequences for himself and for his family. Chapter 3, “Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the young warrior in Europe’s past”, by Peter Jackson, deals with the ritual transformation of young men into wolves. Jackson thus continues with the idea of a (symbolic) total transformation into animal form in order to become a warrior. He reconsiders the hypothesis that the fractured matrix in which such notions and practices survived derives from Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Iranian rival cattle herders in the Pontic-Caspian steppe. This chapter considers whether tribal equestrian economies in the Pontic-Caspian steppe region were upheld by an ideology of looting, aristocratic fame, and the sacrificial redistribution of wealth. In this particular setting, the topos of young men’s periodical transformation into wolves receives particularly deep and transparent treatment. Through diagnostic readings of Livy’s account of the Roman Lupercalia and the mythical foundations of Rome, the Old English poem Beowulf, and the sixteenth-century Swedish scholar Olaus Magnus’s key account of confraternities of werewolves in Livonia, Jackson attempts to unpack the poetic imaginations of, and the institutional preparations for the career path of the young aristocrat towards his future role as chieftain and ritual patron. Chapter 4 continues with analysing the idea of total transformation into animal or animalesque form, taking the shape-shifting warriors of Old Norse society, the berserkers and ulfhednar, as its focus. Written by Andreas Nordberg and Frederik Wallenstein, the chapter explores the different and seemingly contradictory accounts of the so-called berserkers and ulfhednar in Old Icelandic literature and archaeological material. Descriptions of the nature and social status of the berserkers range from the criminal brutes terrorizing farmers of the Icelandic sagas to the elite soldiers of King Harald Fairhair in the poem Haraldskvæði by the ninth-century skald Thórbjǫrn Hornklofi. By addressing these themes in the light of relevant archaeological sources, the authors seek to delineate a more coherent image of the Old Norse bear- and wolf-warriors as a counterpoise to the apparent contradictions emerging from the various sources. Additionally, this new perspective will add further depth to the oral tradition(s) underlying the different genres of Old Icelandic literature. Chapter 5, “Professionalization of transformation: from knights to officers in the Renaissance” is written by Gorm Harste. He investigates changes in the roles of the warrior and in the ways that transformation took place at the dawn of the

Introduction 13 early modern era. The chapter investigates the ideas of professionalization of the French officers at the end of the sixteenth century. Transformations into warriorhood in European society were no longer based on a pattern of symbolic myths inherited from the pagan past or medieval chivalry. Instead, ideas of rationalization and professionalization provided the template for transformation. The chapter demonstrates that military professionalization was part of a larger process of abstraction and inclusion of elites into a form that emerged as the modern state. Power became disciplined and embedded in organizations such as military academies. Thus, military officers became clearly and organizationally distinguished from lawyers, priests, and state officials. However, it would be a mistake to believe that rationalization and professionalization ended the era of mythical and symbolic thinking. Instead, symbolism and rituals lived on, partly in parallel to the rationalist paradigm. Moreover, modernity created its own myths of rationality, transparency, and perfectability through planning, something that is dealt with in the conclusions. Chapter 6, “Transformation into manhood: sex, violence, and the making of warriors, women, and victims in early modern Europe” by Maria Sjöberg analyses how the construction of male and female gender roles has been concomitant with the roles of warriors and victims in Western society. Sjöberg makes an important contribution by critically historicizing this distinction and demonstrating its historical rather than perennial nature. During the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedish side used the atrocities committed by the Imperial troops against women (who were coded as the essence of innocence) as rhetorical proof of their perfidiousness. Interestingly, there were many examples of women who strayed from their roles as innocents and victims by joining the armies as camp followers or even as cross-dressing combatants. Women who behaved not as victims but as agents have been used in war fiction from the early modern to the modern eras as examples of the horrors of war. Even pacifist fiction relied on stereotypical gender roles to propagate an anti-war message. Sjöberg goes on to demonstrate that women were not anomalies in the sphere of war during the early modern age. Instead, multi-gender households were central to army and camp life during the period. It was only at the dawn of the modern era that women were banished from the armies and relegated to a role at the home front or to specialized roles as nurses. Thus, it was during high modernity that men became alone in the sphere of war. Now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, women are returning to the armies but in a transformed version: as warriors themselves, a development discussed in the conclusions. Chapter 7, “Japanese warrior transformations: bushidō as the continuation of death by other means”, is written by Dan Öberg who explores the Japanese conception of bushidō as a means of existential transformation. In the classical Japanese literature on bushidō, ‘death’ is the quintessential characteristic of a warrior’s identity. The most classical text, Hagakure, famously speaks of bushidō as being “realized in the presence of death” and numerous works also emphasize closeness to death as key in becoming samurai. But what does it mean to say that bushidō is realized through death? This chapter traces the

14

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

notion of death in the classics to map the construction of the warrior through two hypotheses. The first understands the warrior transition as a translation of death by other means. In this view bushidō becomes a pure expression of the samurai spirit. The second understands death as part of Japan’s transition to an era of peaceful stability in which the samurai class became bureaucrats, losing touch with the battlefield. Hence, death becomes an expression of lingering nostalgia for a historical warrior subjectivity that had already disappeared. The iteration of death in the classics is not there to explain the samurai spirit, but rather to hide the fact that bushidō didn’t exist in real life. This view would enable us to understand contemporary warrior transitions as part of a militarization of nostalgia more broadly. The chapter concludes by outlining the impact of each hypothesis both on our understanding of the role of death in bushidō and on the warrior subjectivities it enables. Chapter 8 deals with a conflict between two ways of becoming a warrior in modern-day Africa. Ilmari Käihkö writes about “Mystical and modern transformations in the Liberian Civil War”. In this war (1998–2003) older men, often uniformed, commanded groups of youngsters. The first group had previous military experience and had established ideas about the nature of war: according to them, “war is an exact science”. However, the second group they commanded, the ‘children’, saw war as an “experimental science”. These differences materialized in the transition from a civilian to a warrior: while the first group trusted their military training, the second resorted to protective rituals. The nascent professionalism of the first group contrasted with the second group’s organization into secret societies. One result of these differences was that the groups regarded each other with disdain. Another difference was that the first group proved to be more cohesive due to their professional identity. Through the examination of these two ideal types this chapter analyses the combatants in a modern African conflict, where international military training mixed freely with mystical ‘African science’. This chapter sheds light on the makings of military organizations and on civil–military relations in West Africa. Chapter 9, “Transformation into nature: Swedish Army Ranger rites of passage”, written by Jan Angstrom, asks why military organizations use different soldiering rituals. There is a whole variety of rituals when modern military organizations prepare their soldiers for combat. In following these rituals, soldiers try to appropriate the powers of either machines, beasts, experts, or the forces of nature. The reasons for this variety are less clear. This chapter tests the intuitive notion that the degree of professionalism of military organizations and military culture (operationalized as combat expectations) can explain the contents of rituals of combat. The study consists of a cross-temporal comparison of Swedish Army Rangers during and after conscription. The particular unit in question has experienced processes of professionalization recently. In order to observe pre-combat preparation rituals, recruitment and educational films as well as memoirs from soldiers serving in the unit have been used. Angstrom finds that the recruits of this elite army unit were socialized into a collective mythology of rangers as warriors in a symbiosis with nature. Angstrom demonstrates

Introduction 15 similarities between nature in the Swedish ranger mythology, death in the Japanese samurai culture, and the iconic animals of the Norse shape-shifting warriors (bears and wolves). All three cultures turn to forces or conditions beyond human experience in order to create liminal warrior roles that give meaning to the existential experience of war. However, the extra-human must be domesticated to some extent in order for humans to mobilize it. Still, domestication cannot go too far. If it did, the object of transformation (animals, death, nature) would not remain effective. Chapter 10, “From total to minimal transformation: German oaths of loyalty 1871–2014” is written by Peter Haldén. This chapter studies how three successive German societies constructed the boundary between peace and war: the German Empire (1871–1918); Nazi Germany (1933–1945); and the Federal Republic of Germany (1949–present). In each case the ritual of taking an oath of allegiance was a central act, both collectively and individually, in making an individual into a warrior. Oaths are powerful tools of governmentality since they are a means of controlling the conscience of a subject and linking personal salvation to compliance. In the Imperial and the Nazi period, taking the oath was considered a binding deed that transformed the individual and commanded his loyalty. Military oaths in Imperial Germany were highly detailed arrangements that stipulated the rights and duties of subjects and of their overlord, thus resembling a contract in which both parties enjoyed extensive protection. The military oaths taken by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS were radically different. They were short affairs that gave the Führer carte blanche to command unlimited loyalty – with disastrous consequences. The Army of the Federal Republic, the Bundeswehr, is legitimated by its tight subjugation to the democratic political system. Chapter 11, “The warrior on the edge of tomorrow”, by Christopher Coker, turns its eye towards the future by analysing some of today’s emerging cuttingedge military technology that changes the combat soldier. Wars of the future will test concepts of personhood, as they will concepts of ‘character’. Since Aristotelian virtue ethics may be rendered redundant by algorithmic gatekeepers, ‘ethical governors’ of machines will increasingly take moral decisions. How will ubiquitous computing (which will allow commanders behind the lines to register feelings, even the moods of individual soldiers) change the personal dynamic in war; how will monitoring the collective consciousness change the dynamics of primary group cohesion? Once men are in, on, or out of the loop how will they co-exist with robots? How will the increasing man–machine interface (the cyborg condition) change the existential experience of war? Chapter 12 deals with the difficulties of transforming from a wartime existence to a peacetime one. In “The haunted road: failed transformations and the return from war”, Gorm Harste uses a system-theoretical approach to outline a new historical sociology of war veterans. He shows that the return to a peacetime existence can take many forms. Some veterans make a successful transformation to a civilian existence and the possibility of communicating and operating according to the codes particular to that sphere. Others make a more

16

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

partial transformation; they retain a military mindset and habitus but are still able, albeit to different degrees, to function and communicate according to civilian codes. Depending on how the surrounding society has changed during the war they can be celebrated as heroes or labelled as dangerous quasi-outcasts that subversive movements can use as a focus for mobilization. Others undergo an involuntary transformation that leaves them outside both the wartime and peacetime spheres of action and communication. Harste analyses veterans who have been traumatized and as a result have been disconnected from all systems of communications, collective meanings, and symbols. These individuals are left in a state of limbo, coping with homelessness, drug abuse, and insanity. The chapter presents a framework for understanding this state and the processes leading to it. Thereby, future research and policy might hopefully address this problem in a novel fashion. Chapter 13 summarizes our contribution of this book to war studies, sociology, and history of religions, “Conclusions: the transformations of the future”. The chapter also discusses some ‘stones left unturned’ by the book – the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the militaries of the West, terrorist groups, and religiously motivated warriors. We suggest that our perspective radically enriches the scholarly understanding of these themes.

References Bachtin, Michail (1984). Rabelais and his world. Midland Book edition. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). Bell, Catherine (1997). Ritual. Perspectives and dimensions. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Bellah, Robert Neelly and Joas, Hans (eds) (2012). The axial age and its consequences. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Camus, Albert (2004). The stranger. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Camus, Albert (2005). The myth of Sisyphus. (London: Penguin). Coker, Christopher (2014). Men at war. What fiction tells us about conflict, from the Iliad to Catch-22. (London: Hurst). Dahl, Robert A. (2005). Who governs? Democracy and power in an American city. 2nd edn. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Descola, Philippe (2013). The ecology of others (Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press). Douglas, Mary (2001[1966]). Purity and danger. An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. (London: Routledge). Egnell, Robert (2011[2009]). Complex peace operations and civil–military relations: winning the peace. (London: Routledge). Finer, S. E. (1962). The man on horseback: the role of the military in politics. (London: Pall Mall Press). Foucault, Michel (1991). Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. (Harmondsworth: Penguin). Franke, Volker (1999). Preparing for peace: military identity, value orientations, and professional military education. (Westport, CT: Praeger). Fuller, Christopher J. (2004). The camphor flame: popular Hinduism and society in India. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

Introduction 17 Grossman, Dave (2009). On killing: the psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society (New York: Little, Brown and Co.). Hobbes, Thomas (2008). Leviathan (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Huntington, Samuel P. (1957). The soldier and the state: the theory and politics of civil– military relations. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University. Press). Husserl, Edmund (1978[1970]). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology: an introduction to phenomenological philosophy. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press). Janowitz, Morris (1961[1960]). The professional soldier: a social and political portrait. (Glencoe, IL: Free Press). Joas, Hans (2003). War and modernity. (Malden: Polity). Joas, Hans and Knöbl, Wolfgang (2013). War in social thought: Hobbes to the present. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Kalyvas, Andreas (2002). “Charismatic politics and the symbolic foundations of power in Max Weber”. New German Critique, 85: 67–103. Kantorowicz, Ernst Hartwig (1997[1957]). The king’s two bodies: a study in mediaeval political theology. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Lomsky-Feder, Edna and Ben-Ari, Eyal (1999). “Introduction” in Lomsky-Feder, Edna and Ben-Ari, Eyal (eds), The military and militarism in Israeli society. (New York: State University of New York), pp. 1–25. Luhmann, Niklas (1988). “Familiarity, confidence, trust: problems and alternatives” in Gambetta, Diego (ed.), Trust: making and breaking cooperative relations. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), pp. 94–107. Malešević, Siniša (2010). The sociology of war and violence. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Merridale, Catherine (2005). Ivan’s war – the Red Army 1939–45. (London: Faber and Faber). Meyer, John W. and Rowan, Brian (1977). “Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony”. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2): 340–63. Moskos, Charles C., Williams, John Allen and Segal, David R. (eds) (2000). The postmodern military: armed forces after the Cold War. (New York: Oxford University Press). Murray, Williamson and Sinnreich, Richard Hart (eds) (2006). The past as prologue: the importance of history to the military profession. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Nielsen, Suzanne C. and Snider, Don M. (eds) (2009). American civil–military relations: the soldier and the state in a new era. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press). Poggi, Gianfranco (1978). The development of the modern state: a sociological introduction. (London: Hutchinson). Ruffa, Chiara (ed.) (2013). “Explaining coordination and breakdown in complex operations”. Small Wars and Insurgencies, special issue, 24(2): whole issue. Schmitt, Carl (2007). The concept of the political. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Stargardt, Nicholas (2015). The German war: a nation under arms 1939–1945. (New York: Basic Books). Taylor, Charles (2007). A secular age. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Turner, Victor (1969). The ritual process. Structure and anti-structure. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).

18

P. Haldén and P. Jackson

van Creveld, Martin (2008). The culture of war. (New York: Presidio Press/Ballantine Books). van Gennep, Arnold (1909). The rites of passage. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). Weber, Max (1968). Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology. (New York: Bedminster Press).

2

A portrait of the warrior as a beast Hunter, man, and animal in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Schwarzenegger’s Predator Johan Tralau

Introduction Myths have long shadows. In the following, it will be argued that an archaic conception of man and animal has survived, and that it organizes social institutions and thought in ways that we are often not aware of. We will follow the  tracks  of  an  old  idea  about  a  certain  affinity  between  a  big,  dangerous  animal on the one hand and the hunter or warrior on the other, and we will discover that this affinity is present in civilizational contexts where we might not  expect  it.  Moreover,  and  specifically,  we  will  see  that  this  focus  will  yield  a  better, more precise understanding of two works of art, Sophocles’ tragedy about the death of Heracles and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator. Heracles becomes similar to the monsters and beasts he has defeated – the Nemean lion, the Hydra, the Centaur.1 Schwarzenegger, likewise, makes himself similar to the monster – the extraterrestrial predator that looks like a crustacean or something similar, walking upright and sporting something resembling dreadlocks on its head. The argument will unfold as follows. After having presented two theories of the relation between man, animal, and monster, we will proceed to the dramatic masterpieces, their plots, and previous interpretations. After that we will step by step try out the hypothesis that the relation between man on the one hand and the beast or monster on the other is about similarity, about taking on the traits of the other,  at  first  by  resembling  the  body  of  the  other,  then  by  appropriating,  or  losing, that greatest gift of the human being: language.

Man, monster, animal: two rival accounts There are different ways of understanding the relation between human beings and animals, and the disconcerting monstrous forms that transgress their species. In the context of this argument we will address notions of hunting, animals, and  more or less human hunters. The purpose of the following is not to provide an overview of research on monsters and animals in Ancient Greece or in Hollywood,  but  to  sketch  –  albeit  most  briefly  –  two  possible  and,  to  some  extent, 

20

J. Tralau

opposing interpretations of animals and monsters in myth, one of them stressing difference, the other one similarity.   According  to  the  first  approach,  a  monster  that  is  essentially  indeterminate  species- wise  –  such  as,  we  may  surmise,  the  extraterrestrial  Predator  –  is  precisely about difference. Now, it is a truism to say that monsters transgress boundaries and defy our categories and concepts. But the question is how we are to understand this blurring of boundaries, what role it plays. One strand of interpretation of such monsters is about representing absolute and irreconcilable difference.  Exemplary  of  and  influential  within  this  approach  is  the  work  of  Jean- Pierre Vernant and others. According to this interpretation, beings that are  indeterminate – that is, beings that are disconcertingly difficult or impossible to  categorize – represent complete difference from the everyday human world. A monster such as Medusa is perhaps the best example: she is a classic composite  monster in having wings, scales, tusks, and snakes on her head instead of hair, and she is sometimes depicted with male genitals. These mutually incompatible features of the Gorgon make her into something completely different – in the words of Vernant and Frontisi- Ducroux (2001: 29): “Cette altérité radicale, les  artistes  grecs  l’experiment  formellement,  pour  la  rendre  visible  aux  regards  humains, par la monstruosité” (“In order to make it visible to the human gaze,  the Greek artists formally express this radical alterity by monstrosity”) (Vernant  and Frontisi- Ducroux 2001: 29). The indeterminacy of the mythical creature, its  combination of opposing and contradictory traits, be they those of different species or other qualities, is thus a way of depicting what is fundamentally different from our world, that of human beings. This is not only true of monsters in the strict sense, but also of other beings that are represented as having indeterminate and contradictory features. Dionysos, for example, brings about “l’irruption,  au centre de la vie publique, d’une dimension d’existence totalement étrangère à  l’univers  du  quotidien”  (“the  irruption,  in  the  very  centre  of  public  life,  of  a  dimension  that  is  completely  foreign  to  the  everyday  universe”)  (Vernant  and  Frontisi- Ducroux  2001:  42;  for  Dionysos  see  Massenzio  1969:  60ff.;  Vernant  2001: 256). According to this account of monstrosity, then, the monster represents absolute difference. There is, however, another perspective on the animal which might prove fecund for our understanding of mythical creatures such as those tackled by Heracles and Schwarzenegger – a perspective more often considered pertinent in the case  of  ordinary  animals.  For  a  powerful  current  of  thinking  on  hunting  and  ritual  in  the  ancient  world,  there  is  a  perception  of  a  fundamental  affinity  between  the  hunter  and  the  prey.  According  to  Walter  Burkert  (1997:  88),  the  point of the hunting of the great animals of prey is not that of banishing the predator, but appropriating  it:  “Das  ‘große’,  ‘männliche’  Beutetier  ist  also  in  gewisser Weise der Gruppe zugehörig, φίλος im eigentlichen Sinne des Wortes.”  (“The  ‘big’,  ‘masculine’  prey  thus  belongs  to  [one’s  own]  group  in  a  certain  way, φίλος in the proper sense of the word.”) This notion of a peculiar identity,  and a sense of belonging between the hunter and hunted can be traced, or so Burkert argues, in myth and in ritual: it is a fundamental feature in the societal

A portrait of the warrior as a beast 21 grammar of ancient societies. The hunter not only defeats the dangerous predator – the wolf, the lion, the leopard, the wild boar, and so on – but makes it part of himself. There are various practical ways of establishing or maintaining this fundamental affinity apart from the mental, mythical, and ritual representation of such  an identity. One of them is about devouring a part of the body of the great predator. In Snorri’s Heimskringla (Heimskringla, ch. 34) we are told that the legendary King Ingjald Illråde, who is supposed to have ruled parts of present-day Sweden, ate the heart of a wolf (hjarta ór vargi), when he was a child. For this  reason, he became a cruel king, that is, he acquired the character of a wolf. The consumption of the great beast thus transforms the person eating its body. Yet a second way is about using the body of the animal in a different fashion. The appropriation of the strength of the big beast is often represented by the fact that the hunter and hero takes on the body of the predator. A mythographer tells us that, as someone killed a bull ravaging Arcadia, he “clad himself in its hide” (τὴν τούτου δορὰν ἠμφιέσατο), thereby making its strength his own (Apollodoros II:  1.2). This is, as also argued by Burkert (1997: 186), an act of very special significance, of fundamental importance for the relation between the hunter and the big  predator:  “Der  Besieger  des  Stiers  wird,  mit  der  Haut  des  Opfers  umhüllt,  gleichsam selbst zum Stier.” (“The person who defeats the bull, covered by the  skin of the victim, himself becomes like a bull.”) For this conqueror was Argos,  the being whose body was covered with eyes, who persecuted Io after she had been transformed into a cow, and who has bovine traits – the hunter and the prey are of the same kind. This notion of the affinity between the hunter and warrior  on the one hand and the dangerous beast of prey on the other is surely not only prevalent in Ancient Greece or the greater context of the ancient Mediterranean  civilizations, sometimes labelled the “near Eastern koiné” (Burkert 2011: 186ff.). Whether the great predator is eaten, skinned, and used as a garment, or employed in some other way, the point is clear: by defeating the predator, the hunter appropriates its strength, makes hunter and prey similar, and establishes a relation  of  affinity  and  identity.  This  is  not,  then,  about  difference:  this  understanding of myths and rituals relating to hunting emphasizes similarity and identity. The act of hunting is the discovery or bringing about of identity between the hunter and the hunted, between man and beast.   It  may  seem  strange  to  connect  this  hunter–animal  complex  with  war  and  warriors. But the activities of hunting and war have often been considered to be intimately related. Even so urban a philosopher as Plato (Laws 823b) talks about  them as analogous. In a discussion of hunting and sacrifice, Pierre Vidal- Naquet  points out that hunting and war are similar in being “expressions du passage de  la  nature  à  la  culture”,  (“expressions  of  the  passage  from  nature  to  culture”  (Vidal- Naquet  2001:  137).  Moreover,  in  a  number  of  languages,  including  German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, ‘hunter’ (jäger, jeger, jägare, and so on) denotes certain infantrymen, often ranger- type troops. There is, then,  a  long  tradition  of  conceptions  of  affinity  between  hunting  and  war.  Jan  Angstrom’s chapter later in this volume provides an in-depth treatment of this theme.

22

J. Tralau

  Absolute difference on the one hand then, and similarity and affinity on the  other. What remains to be done in this context is to probe the fecundity of the  opposing approaches in the case of Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Schwarzenegger’s Predator. These ideas may appear historically specific, archaic, and atavistic, yet in the following it will be argued that they have not disappeared along with the rituals in which they may have originated.

From Trachis to the jungle Sophocles’ Trachiniae would appear to be somewhat gloomy. The setting is Trachis, the city where Heracles and his wife Deianeira lived. In the first scene  we learn that the hero has been gone for a long time and that Deianeira is concerned. A messenger appears, however, and lets us know that Heracles is on his way  home.  Soon  Deianeira  understands  that  her  husband  is  accompanied  by  a  young woman – part of the spoils from a city he has sacked – whom he intends to marry. Deianeira believes, however, that there is a way of winning Heracles  back. Many years earlier, she was carried across a river by a Centaur named Nessos. The latter tried to abuse her, but Heracles shot him with an arrow from his bow, the arrows having been dipped in the venomous blood of the Hydra (this  is  Sophocles’  version;  in  vase  paintings  we  usually  find  Heracles  slaying  Nessos  with  his  sword  or  club)  (Daszewski  1977:  31;  Stansbury- O’Donnell  1999:  95;  Padgett:  2003:  23).  The  Centaur  dies,  but  manages  to  tell  Deianeira  that if she ever loses Heracles’ love, she can have it back by applying Nessos’ blood to the hero’s skin. For that reason, Deianeira has kept some of the blood in  a casket in order to protect it from the light of the sun. She now sends Heracles a piece of clothing covered with the Centaur’s blood. But Nessos has betrayed her: the garment sticks to Heracles’ body, poisoning him and inducing unspeakable pain. Deianeira commits suicide when she realizes that she has unwittingly killed  her husband. Heracles screams and shouts in agony, and finally instructs his son  to burn him on a pyre and marry the woman that Heracles himself wanted to marry  (Merkelbach  and  West  1997:  20–5).2 Later, after the death of Heracles, Zeus brings his son to Mount Olympos, revives him, and makes him a god.   Previous  scholarship  has  had  very  different  views  of  this  drama.  The  dominant debate has been between ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’ readings. More  often than not, the grounds for optimism or its opposite seem to be tied up with the understanding of the character of Heracles. Ulrich von WilamowitzMoellendorff (1895: 155) argued that the Heracles of the Trachiniae is unbearable and devoid of dignity His whining – that of Heracles, of course, not of von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff – is neither heroic nor tragic. Another commentator has claimed that “he is one of the most unpleasant characters in Greek tragedy”  (Winnington- Ingram 1980: 83, 85). Others have spoken of “ruthless selfishness”  and  “maßloser  Egozentrismus”  (“boundless  egocentrism”)  (Hösle  1984:  117;  Kirkwood  1996:  117).  Karl  Reinhardt  concluded  that  the  end  of  the  tragedy  is  “gloomy” (dumpf ) (Reinhardt 2006: 72). In contradistinction to this assessment,  Ove Strid has recently argued that the end of the tragedy shows Heracles

A portrait of the warrior as a beast 23 overcoming his fate, bearing it in a heroic manner (Altmeyer 2001: 82–6; Strid  2013). Others have, however, made the case that there are other discordant tones in the drama. One scholar has pointed out that there appears to be a beastly, animalic  quality  in  the  sickness  of  Heracles  (Biggs  1966).  Another  commentator,  Charles Segal, suggests that the tragedy depicts Heracles as an animal. Like Strid, however, Segal concludes that Heracles defeats the animal in him and confronts  his  own  death  with  exemplary  dignity  and  self- control  (Segal  1999:  60–108). In the following, it will instead be argued that we should read Trachiniae as a drama about the fragile relation between man as a hunter and warrior, and the predator  or  monster.  Von  Wilamowitz- Moellendorff ’s  complaints  about  the  unmanliness of Heracles are arguably beside the point. Heracles does not become unmanly; on the contrary, he turns monstrous (cf. Elliott Sorum 1978:  59–73). Trachiniae was staged sometime between 450–424 bc. The date of Predator is much more certain: 1987. The film was directed by John McTiernan and  starred  Arnold  Schwarzenegger.  At  the  beginning  of  the  film  there  is  a  starry  sky. A spaceship, perhaps slightly insect- like, flashes by, dropping off something  that races towards earth. At this juncture we do not know what it is. The subsequent story itself is not complicated, and most of the details need not detain us here. A group of special forces operators on a secret mission land in Val Verde,  a  fictional  country  in  Central  or  South  America,  and  are  killed  one  by  one  in  superhuman and atrocious ways by a mysterious being that is nowhere to be seen. We gradually realize that this being is a technologically superior monster that moves through the trees and has a camouflage device that makes it invisible,  a monster that walks upright like a human being but has claws, advanced weapons technology including stealth camouflage, and a face resembling a crustacean, mollusc, or insect. As the group realize that they are being killed one by one, they understand that they are being destroyed for sport: “A hunter”, a terrified soldier says. The soldiers  use  firearms,  booby  traps,  and  everything  at  their  disposal,  but  it  soon  becomes  clear that modern military equipment cannot kill the beast even when they do hit it. The beast kills the men for the pleasure of it; it is a hunter and a predator, and  they are its prey. In the end, there is only Schwarzenegger’s character (‘Dutch’)  left but, in the following for the sake of convenience, he is referred to as “Schwarzenegger”. Through a series of complicated, sophisticated, and at the same  time primitive moves, Schwarzenegger finally manages to kill the monster. While the interpretation of Predator deals with a work of art that has seldom been considered interesting in scholarly literature, its implications reach beyond the  field  of  Schwarzenegger  studies,  for  it  raises  questions  about  the  relation  between humans, animals, and monsters, and about the persistence of ancient mythical structures in contemporary narratives at a great distance from the archaic societies in which these structures originated. The literature on Schwarzenegger’s œuvre is very sparse, and on Predator especially so.3 Perhaps  it has not been considered worthy of consideration. As one critic puts it:

24    J. Tralau Schwarzenegger’s somewhat wooden features and thick Austrian accent would  have  made  it  difficult,  perhaps  impossible,  for  him  to  excel  in  the  kind of realistic all- American character roles that Reagan favoured. But they  posed no bar to success in American science fiction cinema, with its traditional de- emphasis of psychological depth and intellectual complexity. (Freedman 2004: 541) In  contrast,  Venturelli  (1998:  58)  argues  that  Predator  has  a  “ricchezza  certamente superiore” (certainly a supreme richness). In a brief yet remarkably innovative note, David Frauenfelder (2005) has argued that the monster in Predator is strangely similar to the foes – men, animals, monsters – of Heracles. We will see that  there  is  in  fact  astonishing  intellectual  complexity,  and  long  shadows  of  myth, in this film.

Dressing up in the body of the predator: Heracles the Lion Hunters and warriors often cover themselves in the body of the animal. So does Heracles, of course. We do not need to look to Sophocles for that and, in fact, we should perhaps begin by looking at something else. On an Attic amphora from the sixth century, now to be seen in the Louvre, we find Heracles and Cerberos, the  hellish dog that the former had to bring up from Hades as part of his labours. The vessel, with the inventory number Louvre F204, is not reproduced in this volume,  but the reader is encouraged to look it up while reading. This is a fascinating image. To begin with, Heracles’ appearance is remarkable. The lion skin that covers him is in perfect continuity with his back and head, and it does not just look like a piece of clothing. The hero’s face protrudes through the mouth of the lion, making the upper part of the body similar to that of a lion, yet with a human face between the fangs of the beast. Later, in Roman sculpture, for instance, the  lion skin is often worn draped over Heracles’ arm – a garment, nothing more. But the skin seems to play a very particular role in the image on the amphora. It makes Heracles lionesque. His body looks like that of a semi-leonine, semihuman creature with a man looking out through the mouth of the great beast’s head. This is not the image of a hero casually wearing the hide of an animal; this  is a man who has a very special relationship with the dangerous predator that was his prey, and which he now wears on his body; it is now part of him. In this case, Heracles’ foe and prey is Cerberos. And the confrontation between beast and man has a very special quality here. The hound of hell is usually known to have three heads, but as tradition would have it we sometimes hear that he had only one, or a great number of heads (Hesiod Theogony: 311).  Snakes emerge from the head.4 But what is most interesting about Cerberos is the fact that we see two heads. The faces of Cerberos look at Heracles and, as Heracles is portrayed as having, as it were, two heads, it looks as if two twoheaded beings look at each other. The image thus has an intriguing, mirroresque quality, an evident reciprocity between the warrior and the predator. Man and beast are similar and, in the case

A portrait of the warrior as a beast 25 of Heracles and the lion, they are to be distinguished only with difficulty. Heracles’ struggle against the lion was a model of masculinity in antiquity and beyond  (Parisi  Presicce  1998:  141–50).  But  Heracles  himself  is  depicted  as  a  lion (Schnapp- Gourbeillon 1998: 109). This depiction mirrors the conception of  the community of hunter and warrior on the one hand, and the great predator on the other. This community is visible in, indeed perhaps established by, the fact that the hunter has clad himself in the body of the defeated beast. This is the story  told  by  Sophocles  as  well  –  part  of  the  same  mythical  complex,  and  yet  completely, disconcertingly different. In Trachiniae, Heracles puts on the body of one of his victims, and this makes him the victim. This is reported by his son, Hyllos: ἱδρὼς ἀνῄει χρωτί, καὶ προσπτύσσεται πλευραῖσιν ἀρτίκολλος, ὥστε τέκτονος χιτών, ἅπαν κατ᾽ ἄρθρον· ἦλθε δ᾽ ὀστέων ὀδαγμὸς ἀντίσπαστος· εἶτα φοίνιος ἐχθρᾶς ἐχίδνης ἰὸς ὣς ἐδαίνυτο (Sweat came up on his skin, and the tunic clung close- glued to his sides, at  every  joint,  as  if  by  a  craftsman;  a  spasmodic  itching  of  his  bones  came;  then the murderous venom, as if from a hateful viper, devoured him.) (Trachiniae: 767–71) The garment is glued to Heracles’ body: he dons it, and can then no longer remove it from his skin. A “spasmodic itching” overcomes him, and ‘spasmodic’  is ἀντίσπαστος, literally drawing “against, back, in the opposite direction” (ἀντί).  It is in fact not only the itching that ‘draws back’. Heracles was “consumed as if  by the bloody venom of a hostile viper”, but ‘venom’ plays on the two meanings  of ἰὸς – on the one hand “poison”, and on the other “arrow”. It is “as if ” (ὥς) an  arrow comes back. But, strictly speaking, this is not “as if ” at all: what is coming  back to Heracles is in fact the arrow with which he once killed Nessos, in whose blood the venom of the Hydra was conserved and later administered by Deianeira.   The poison is likened to that of a “hostile viper” (ἐχθρᾶς ἐχίδνης), and ‘viper’  (echidna),  recalls  another  monster  –  the  subterranean  Echidna,  half  snake,  half  woman. The latter was, incidentally, the issue of one of the monsters once defeated by Heracles, to be precise, Cerberos. Moreover, it could be added that Herodotos, probably adapting a Scythian myth, says that Heracles had to have sexual intercourse with Echidna, or a creature like her, mingling with the semi-  human  semi- viper  (Herodotos  Histories:  IV.9).  One  commentator,  R.  C.  Jebb,  says that Hyllos’ “conjecture comes near the truth” (Jebb 1908 ad loc; cf. Easterling 1982 ad loc). But there is probably more to it than that – a complete web  of  monstrous  allusions.  Hesiod  tells  us  that  Echidna  devours  raw  flesh  deep  below  the  earth  (Hesiod  Theogony:  295–300).  Interestingly,  it  is  now  Heracles  who is “consumed”; literally the venom “feasts on” the hero (ἐδαίνυτο) (e.g. The

26    J. Tralau Iliad:  XXIII:  29).  And  the  wording  of  the  metaphorical  eating  of  Heracles  is  noteworthy: δαινύναι denotes civilized eating, as at a banquet, not that of beasts  or monsters eating each other or humans (e.g. The Iliad: XXIII: 29). Now it is  Heracles who is being devoured, not his prey. He has donned the tunic on which lies the venom containing the blood of two of his monster victims along with echoes of other monsters, but in this case he does not control his prey, does not appropriate their strength. On the contrary, they control him. The order of warrior and beast has been inverted, and the former no longer gains strength from the other, but is reduced to a whining animal. This is no longer the lion man controlling the world, ridding it of monsters – this is the poisoned, monstrous man who has been taken over by a world we thought was all gone.

Becoming the predator: Arnold in mud The monster in Predator is very different, very far from anything human. When we  finally  see  it,  we  see  a  biped  and  two- armed  being  that  walks  upright,  that  has claws on its fingers, and a remarkable rastafari hairdo. It is not until the end  that we see his crustacean-, insect-, or mollusc-like face. It would appear to be the ideal object that matches the conception of a monster as something that is fundamentally different. When all the others – apart from an unarmed local woman – are dead, Schwarzenegger is chased by the Predator, and this is where the drama is transformed into a mythical account of cosmological proportions. He goes down a river, through a waterfall, and is thus submerged in the formless element of water. The fall into the water represents a transformation – or, rather, the beginning of one. In myth and ritual, this would appear to be a historical and anthropological universal: entering the water can signify entering formlessness and acquiring  a  form  that  is  both  new  and  primordial.  Mircea  Eliade  has  explored  this topic in the case of such diverse ideas as those of baptism and inundation. (Eliade  1969:  74,  cf.  106f.):  “Le  baptême  équivaut  à  une  mort  rituelle  de  l’homme ancien suivie d’une nouvelle naissance. Sur le plan cosmique, il équivaut au déluge: abolition des contours, fusion de toutes les formes, régression dans l’amorphe.” (“Baptism is equivalent to a ritual death of the old human  being, followed by a new birth. On the cosmic level, it is equivalent to inundation: undoing of contours, fusion of all forms, regression into the amorphous.”) Schwarzenegger has begun his metamorphosis, has shed his old self as a modern soldier. When he struggles to get out of the water, for a moment he and the viewer believe that he is safe. Immediately afterwards, we ‘see’ something  invisible diving into the water. The extraterrestrial hunter steps out of the water,  now visible – we may suppose that the camouflage is temporarily out of order  because of the contact with water. Unable to get away, and having lost his assault rifle, Schwarzenegger reaches for his pistol only to realize that he has lost  it. He is unarmed, defenceless. But the Predator cannot see him. It looks around  and then walks away, searching for its human prey. Schwarzenegger and the viewer then understand that despite its sophisticated visual devices, the hi-tech

A portrait of the warrior as a beast    27 extraterrestrial predator cannot see him since he is inadvertently covered in the  most primitive camouflage there is: mud. Man, the prey, has reverted to a state  with no or only the most primitive artifacts, and by his regression into mere nature, he has mimicked his inhuman hunter. It may appear implausible that a being with such superior technology would be unable to spot a warm-blooded creature when it is covered in mud, but plausibility is not on the menu here, for we are trading in the realm of myth. What is important is that Schwarzenegger makes himself similar to the beast that is hunting him, and he does this by reverting into dead amorphous matter. And the transformations, reversals, and acts of imitation and simulation of primordial forms will continue.

The language of the loser Language  is  something  to  be  proud  of.  Aristotle  (Politics  1253:  a9–10)  hailed  complex language as a uniquely, and normatively relevant, human capacity. And for the Greeks, this notion was fundamental. In a choral ode in Antigone, the tragedian speaks of the greatness of the human being and all its accomplishments, naming, for instance, language (Sophocles Antigone: 354). Conversely, the Other World, that of the beasts, before and outside of civilization, is one without language. When speaking of the great animals and monsters that he has defeated, Heracles speaks of the Nemean lion as κἀπροσήγορον (Trachiniae  1093).  ἀπροσήγορος  is  usually  rendered  by  “unapproachable”,  “wild”,  “intractabilis”  or  something  similar.5 But, literally, it refers to what “cannot  be  spoken  to”.  The  lion  lacks  language,  of  course.  Yet  the  fierce  man  who has clad himself in the animal’s skin, who has appropriated its strength, has reason to fear this lack of speech. The hunter and warrior who assimilates the great prey and makes himself similar to it jeopardizes his own human capacities and thus his language.   Pain is sometimes the road to loss of language. In Sophocles’ Philoctetes we hear the hero screaming and uttering woes and meaningless sounds again and again when he is afflicted by the effects of the venomous serpent that once bit  him  (Philoctetes:  732–54).  And  Heracles,  another  victim  of  a  snakish  animal,  will likewise lose his language. When dying, he begs his soul to suppress speech: Χάλυβος λιθοκόλλητον στόμιον παρέχουσ᾽, ἀνάπαυε βοήν (Giving me a bit of steel, fitted with stone, stop my shout) (Trachiniae: 1260–2) The words are enigmatic, and several interpretations are possible (Jebb 1908 ad loc;  Lloyd- Jones  1957:  14–15).  Heracles  asks  his  soul  to  give  him  a  bit  (of  a 

28    J. Tralau bridle) of steel.6 But this desired bit is to be λιθοκόλλητον “fitted with stone” –  either quasi-literally a bit equipped with stones, or as if pressing the lips together tightly, as tightly as stones fitted in a wall (Davies 1991 ad loc). In any case, we  are  dealing  with  a  complex  image,  a  fusion  of  two  different  visual  elements  (Kamerbeek 1959: ad loc 253). Heracles asks his soul to suppress his scream, to  bridle it. Charles Segal has argued that the bit is an image of Heracles overcoming himself and his enemy, implying, then, a happy ending. Segal’s reading trades heavily on this assumption about the metaphorical bit being a “traditional  metaphor for civil order” and thus “self- control” (Segal 1999: 105). This view is,  however, arguably incorrect. When Sophocles employs images of bits, bridles, and other tools used for the domestication of animals, they typically take the form of similes or metaphors indicating political control, but not civic order. The bit, bridle, yoke, and so on imply the rule of the tyrant. The despotic ruler Aegisthus, in the Electra, speaks precisely of the “bits” (στόμια) that the citizens will  need to subject themselves to; in Antigone, Creon uses similar imagery of bridles and  yokes,  and  many  other  examples  present  themselves  (Sophocles  Antigone: 291,  350–1,  477–8;  cf.  Aias:  944;  Electra:  1462;  and  Aischylos  Agamemnon: 1618, 1624, 1632, 1640; Persians: 50, 72; Prometheus: 562, 597, 672, 682, 693,  1009–10.). The image of the bit is thus troubling. It carries a smell of tyranny,  political repression, and violence – when this kind of tool is used on human beings, the cosmological hierarchy is inverted and perverted, for humans are treated as beasts.7 Moreover, in this case, the image of the bit implies the silencing of Heracles.8 There may be a reflection of combat- related psychological disorders in Sophocles’ treatment of the anguished hero – Christopher Coker has argued  that  it  is  reasonable  to  read  Greek  experiences  of  post- traumatic  stress  disorder into Philoctetes. Perhaps this is the case in Trachiniae as well. But, at least as importantly, this is about a fundamental subversion of the cosmological order  (Coker  2014:  255f.).  A  man,  a  demigod,  is  being  deprived  of  language.  And this reduces him, makes him merely subhuman, in two ways: he is subjected to the instruments of control properly used on animals, not humans; and  he is without that most cherished gift of mankind: language.

Losing language When Schwarzenegger’s body has become similar to that of the predator from outer space, the tables are turned. The hunter, who happens to be a monster, becomes the hunted. The prey, Schwarzenegger, now deliberately paints himself in mud, slowly, in a manner conjuring up associations with ritual. This is war paint. War paint is, of course, still employed in combat – and at least partly for cultural  reasons  (van  Creveld  2009).  But,  by  covering  himself  in  dirt,  Schwarzenegger makes himself conspicuously archaic. In fact, he makes himself resemble dead matter. The scene is suggestive: his eyes staring, Arnold carefully paints himself in mud. This is reminiscent of ideas about a human urge to make oneself similar to matter and to be as one with the natural world. Roger Caillois  argued that this tendency – most clearly manifested by some insects such as the

A portrait of the warrior as a beast    29 mantidae (praying mantises) – is in fact fundamental to all living beings (Caillois 1998: 75ff.). But, most importantly, Schwarzenegger not only makes himself  similar to his foe as well, but rids himself of most of any remaining civilizational components. By becoming one with lifeless, decaying matter, the protagonist becomes almost invisible. Schwarzenegger is now reduced to a primitive, archaic condition. He constructs a spear as well as a bow and arrows. He takes apart the remaining cartridges from his firearms, that is, he reduces them to their natural  components, sulphur and nitrate, which he employs in making arrows with primitive explosive devices. In a narrow passage between two rocks he sets traps. He  lights a fire. The scene is archaic: a lone man, painted in dirt, with simple prehistoric weaponry, and a fire. The fire is a decoy, intended to indicate his position.  And while the Predator is polishing his hunting trophies, the would- be prey, who  is now the crafty hunter, screams – Schwarzenegger howls, a mighty, wordless, primordial  scream,  just  barely  human.  We  see  the  Predator  turning  his  head,  alarmed by the challenge. The scream completes the transformation from powerless modern soldier to primitive hunter and warrior. The guttural sound emerging from Schwarzenegger’s mouth betrays no familiarity with human language and, at the same time, it is  part  of  a  ruse,  the  scheme  of  the  hunter  facing  a  superior  predator.  Specifically, the  translation into  the  primitive condition  is  never  really complete; it  is  part of the intelligence of the hunter.   When the Predator arrives, Schwarzenegger is covered in mud, clinging to a  tree, waiting for his prey to show itself. In a remarkable scene, we ‘see’ the Predator climbing past Schwarzenegger, unable to see him, while the latter discovers the monster only when it is right beside him. Schwarzenegger then uses his explosive devices and arrows, throwing a stone and luring the Predator to reveal  its position by using its own weapon, the shots from which are visible while its user is not. In an intriguing play of reversals, the roles of hunter and hunted are exchanged.  Schwarzenegger  injures  the  Predator,  hunts  it,  hurts  it  again,  is  hunted again, and falls into the water, thus losing his primitive camouflage – the  mud covering his body. The Predator seizes him. This must be the end. Yet the  Predator has something else in mind. He removes his weapon, and then takes off  his mask, revealing an unusually monstrous face. He evidently wants to take on Schwarzenegger with his hands. Schwarzenegger has masked himself, then lost his camouflage; the Predator now unmasks himself, and he has no stealth device,  no mask, no weapons – apart from the sharp, knife-like metal blades attached to his hands. Once again, the hunter and the hunted have made themselves similar. This part of the hunt began with Schwarzenegger’s non-verbal battle cry, but the  hunter  has  not  lost  his  language.  The  Predator,  superior  in  strength  and  combat skills, slowly, tortuously, even playingly persecutes its prey, and Schwarzenegger tries to flee, conspicuously terrified. Yet, the ruse of the hunter  has not been superseded. The human prey escapes into a narrow passage between two rocks, and the spectator realizes that this is part of the trap set for the monster. Yet, the monster hesitates, then inspects the passage, seeing the spiky

30

J. Tralau

objects  that  Schwarzenegger  has  carved.  Schwarzenegger  finally  resorts  to  speech: “Come on, kill me, I’m here, kill me!”, but the Predator avoids the trap,  goes around the rock and approaches his prey from the other side. This is, however,  or  so  the  viewer  finally  understands,  what  Schwarzenegger  hoped  or  planned from the beginning. He sets off the real trap, a huge log that comes crashing  down  from  a  tree,  and  the  Predator  is  hit  and  fatally  wounded.  Schwarzenegger looks at his victim and once again speaks: “What the hell are  you?”. Indeed, a good question, coming from a being who has been going in and  out of primitiveness and language.

Oak trees, monsters, and other speakers Heracles appears to lose his language. There are many talking phenomena in Trachiniae: a talking monster, Nessos, and a talking tree, namely, the oak from which Heracles has received the prophecy about his troubles and labours. The hero  himself  tells  us  that  it  was  spoken  by  Zeus’  “many- tongued  oak”  (πολυγλώσσου δρυός) (Trachiniae: 1168). Perhaps the oak did not speak. It may  have been the people that lived by the oak in Dodona, in northern Greece, that  interpreted the sound of the wind in the trees – a passage in the Iliad would seem to suggest that (Iliad: XVI: 235; Trachiniae: 1168; cf. however, Odyssey: XIV:  328). Perhaps the speakers were priestesses; Sophocles says that “doves” spoke  the prophecy, and the word may signify that women were responsible for this particular cult (Trachiniae: 171–2; Kamerbeek 1959: ad loc. 238, cf. 64). Cults have often been associated with trees, and many scholars have surmised that the trees themselves were considered holy. In another context, the historian  of  religion  Thede  Palm  has  soberly  pointed  out  that  the  important  thing  was  probably the rituals performed in conjunction with the trees, not the trees themselves  (Palm  1948:  48,  50–1,  71–4).  In  the  present  argument,  however,  we  should note that Sophocles’ words allow the possibility of a speaking tree. As a matter of fact, Aischylos – or the poet writing the preserved Prometheus often attributed  to  him  –  speaks  of  the  trees  in  Dodona  as  τέρας τ᾽ ἄπιστον, αἱ προσήγοροι δρύες “the unbelievable portent, the speaking oaks” (Aischylos Prometheus: 832). (And, for what it’s worth, a few hundred years later, in Corpus Hermeticum, we still hear that God speaks to us διὰ δρυός “through  the  oak”)  (Corpus Hermeticum, Poimandrès:  XII:  19).  Heracles  may  no  longer  speak,  then, or hope to lose his voice, but there appears to be a speaking tree around. Moreover, and stranger, more disconcerting, there is a speaking animal: a very special animal, the monster, Nessos. When the characters talk about him, they consistently refer to him as the “animal” (θήρ) (Trachiniae: 556, 568, 680,  707,  935,  1096,  1162).  This  may  not  seem  surprising;  it  is  the  word  used  by  Homer when he speaks of the Centaurs. Yet when the persons in Trachiniae mention this animal, they systematically mention the fact that it – or he – has spoken.  The  animal  “taught  [Deianeira]  beforehand”  (προυδιδάξατο)  (Trachiniae: 681). Animals typically do not teach humans anything, and they do not do it  ‘beforehand’ since they lack the kind of reflective and cognitive skills required 

A portrait of the warrior as a beast 31 for long-term planning. But this is a very special animal, with speech, and cunningly planning his future revenge at the moment of his own death.   Moreover, Sophocles tells us that Deianeira acted “according to the animal’s  instruction” or “according to the animal’s pretext” (προφάσει θηρός). (Trachiniae:  662).  The  wording  emphasizes  the  fact  that  the  monster  has  employed  language: πρόφασις means “pretext” or “instruction”, implying speech. Furthermore, πρόφασις smacks of φᾶναι, “speak”. The Centaur is a very special animal  indeed: it has a hybrid body, a composite of two different species. It is partly human  too,  because  its  foremost  part  is  that  of  a  man  (in  fifth- century  Greece,  there  are  still  no  female  Centaurs).  It  is  thus  troublingly  ambiguous,  a  being  endowed with speech, yet a monster between animal and man.   Furthermore,  this  curious  mixed  creature  has  defeated  the  hero  who  has  defeated the monsters, and it has done so by using language, tricking the wife of Heracles. The chorus tell us that Nessos tortures Heracles by δολόμυθα κέντρ᾽, a strange expression, literally something like “craftily- speaking goads” (Trachiniae:  840).  The  word  κέντρον  probably  echoes  the  name  Centaur;  moreover,  it  signifies a goad or some other kind of sharp point, and this sharp point implies  δόλος “cunning”, as well as μῦθος “speech”. In addition, pointed out by Charles  Segal,  Heracles  “metaphorically  becomes  a  horse”  (Segal  1999:  87).  Interestingly, this is so because of the language used by his erstwhile prey, the language that he himself is deprived of. Speech is now the possession of the monster.

From drums to snake sounds and back to talk and laughter The  first  few  times  we  see  the  work  of  the  monster,  we  hear  the  sound  of  timpani, suggesting archaic, primitive hunter societies. Yet, in the first scene in  which we see the monster itself, the sound is different. This time, and from now on, its ‘musical’ theme is not that of timpani, but its own sound, a disconcerting  clattering noise resembling that of a rattlesnake. This change of pitch is surely significant:  it  suggests  a  transformation  from  artifact  to  mere  animality,  from  culture to raw, undomesticated nature.   When  we  then  see  the  Predator  following  the  soldiers,  watching  them,  we  hear it listening to their voices and beginning to imitate them. It begins to learn the language of the humans. While Schwarzenegger speaks less and less, the monster  begins  to  speak  more.  When  the  fighting  begins,  it  no  longer  mimics  human speech, but shrieks. At the very end, however, when Schwarzenegger has defeated it and asks “What the hell are you?”, we understand how far the Predator has got in learning by listening and imitating, for it responds to the question by  another  question.  “What  the  hell  are  you?”,  the  extraterrestrial  beast  says,  with a clear emphasis on that last syllable. It no longer merely imitates human speech, it uses it, and it has learned that stressing a single word alters the meaning of a phrase.   “What the hell are you?”: this is the final, intriguing move in the strange play  of reversals and assimilations made by the predator and its prey, by the hunter

32

J. Tralau

and the predator. Or not quite the final one. The monster, lethally injured, turns  on a self-destructive device, and it laughs. It may not look like anything human, but it is impossible not to recognize that the monster laughs. Aristotle (De Partibus Animalium: III: 10) once pointed out that only human beings laugh. But, the  great  beast,  technologically  superior,  defiant  until  the  end  and  in  the  face  of  death, laughs.

Shadowing the predator Myths have long shadows. So we said. In archaic myth and ritual, we discover conceptions of the affinity of hunter and warrior on the one hand and the great  predator on the other. In order to be able to employ violence, man needs to identify with the big, dangerous animal and appropriate its strength. Sophocles’ Trachiniae and McTiernan and Schwarzenegger’s Predator play out this theme in different ways. They both play out the reversal of the roles of hunter and hunted but, in Sophocles, the warrior loses it, and loses himself; Schwarzenegger, however, never really does, but moves continually in and out of the primitive, beastlike condition. The happy ending does not necessarily make the more recent work of art less interesting than the earlier one. But we have seen that the perspective of affinity between hunter and prey opens previously undiscovered  layers  of  meaning  in  two  very  different,  yet  also  similar  works  of  art.  Von  Wilamowitz-Moellendorff ’s lament about the unmanly Heracles should be about the monstrous Heracles, who is, in fact, a fascinating creation on Sophocles’ part. The tragedian shows the potential perversion of the ritual and mythical unity of man and predator. The hunter and warrior no longer absorbs strength from the predating beast but is reduced to a mere animal. In that sense, Predator is more traditional and displays a more normal understanding of the man–beast interrelationship. But Schwarzenegger, too, ambiguously moves in and out of the primitive condition.   Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the shadows are truly wide- reaching.  The mythical thought complex of warrior and predator, originating very far from  the urban culture of Euripides’ Athens and Schwarzenegger’s rural Burgenland home village, is remarkably alive and astonishingly present.

Notes 1  Parts  of  the  interpretation  of  Sophocles  were  first  published  in  Tralau  2015:  37–89.  Translations  in  the  text  are  mine.  In  the  following,  poetry,  including  drama,  will  be  cited by verse numbers. When citing modern commentaries addressing a certain verse, I follow the convention of citing the commentary ad loc., that is, not according to page numbers but with reference to the section dealing with the verse in question. Plato and  Aristotle are cited in accordance with the standard pagination (Stephanus and Bekker,  respectively) used in all decent editions. For the Greek tragedies, I use the editions of  Lloyd- Jones and Wilson (Sophocles 1990), West (Aischylos 1990), and Diggle (Euripides 1984–1994), yet refer to the title of the individual drama. The author would like to  thank the participants at the conference in Stockholm, particularly Christopher Coker,

A portrait of the warrior as a beast 33 Peter Haldén, Peter Jackson, and Jan Angstrom, for their constructive critique, as well  as  Jens  Bartelson,  Sara  Danius,  and  Dimitrios  Iordanoglou,  who  commented  on  previous incarnations of the argument. 2    The  narrative  is  found  much  earlier  than  Sophocles;  see  Hesiod  fragment  25.20–5,  Merkelbach and West. 3  For what it’s worth, it could be noted that many Schwarzenegger scholars do not seem  to care particularly for him or his work – e.g. Glass 1990; Messner 2007. 4  Similar things are common; cf. a hydria (water vessel) in Louvren, E701. 5  Cf.  the  Liddell–Scott–Jones,  Menge–Güthling,  and  Ellendt  dictionary  entries  in  Lexicon Sophocleum, respectively. 6  χάλυψ means steel; there may have been an eponymous iron- working people close to  the Black Sea, the Chalybes, famous for the craft. It has, however, been suggested that this was not a tribe but the name – devoid of ethnic content – of the caste of iron forgers, cf. Xavier de Planhol 1963. 7  There may by consequence be reason to revise one component in a previous interpretation of such a passage, cf. Tralau 2008. 8  The  reason  why  Davies  claims  that  these  verses  exhibit  “close  kinship  with  several  [heroic] Homeric passages” is, arguably, incorrect. (Davies 1991: 1260ff.)

References Sources Aischylos (1990). Aeschyli tragoediæ cum incerti poetæ Prometheo, ed. West, M. (Stuttgart: Teubner). Apollodoros  (1965).  Mythographi græci, I, Bibliotheca,  ed.  Wagner,  R.  (Stuttgart:  Teubner). Aristotle (1868). De partibus animalium, ed. Langkavel, Bernhard (Leipzig: Teubner). Aristotle (1993). Politiká = politiken, ed. Blomqvist, K. (Jonsered: Paul Åströms förlag). Corpus Hermeticum  (2006).  I,  Poimandrès,  Traités  II–XII,  ed.  Nock,  A.  D.  (Paris:  Les  belles lettres). Davies, Malcolm (ed.) (1991). Sophocles Trachiniae. (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Easterling, P. E. (ed.) (1982). Sophocles Trachiniae. (Cambridge: Cambridge University  Press). Euripides (1984–1994). Euripidis Fabulæ. I–III, ed. Diggle, J. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Herodotos (1987). Herodoti Historiae. I, ed. Rosén, H. B. (Leipzig: Teubner). Hesiod  (1990).  Hesiodi Theogonia, Opera et dies, Scutum,  ed.  Solmsen,  F.  (Oxford:  Oxford University Press). Homer (1984). Homeri Odyssea, ed. von der Mühll, P. (Stuttgart: Teubner). Homer (1998). Homeri Ilias. I, ed. West, M. (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner). Homer (2000). Homeri Ilias. II, ed. West, M. (Munich and Leipzig: Saur). Jebb, R. C. (ed.) (1908). Trachiniae. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Kamerbeek,  J.  C.  (ed.)  (1959).  The Plays of Sophocles. Commentaries. Part II. The Trachiniae. (Leiden: Brill). Merkelbach, R. and West M. L. (eds) (1997). Fragmenta Hesiodea. (Oxford: Clarendon  Press). Plato  (1900–1907).  Platonis opera.  I–V,  ed.  Burnet,  J.  (Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press). Snorri Sturluson (1911). Heimskringla, ed. Jónsson, F. (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag).

34    J. Tralau Sophocles  (1990).  Sophoclis fabulæ,  ed.  Lloyd- Jones,  H.  and  Wilson,  N.  G.  (Oxford:  Oxford University Press). von  Wilamowitz- Moellendorff,  Ulrich  (1895).  Euripides Heracles.  I.  (Berlin:  Weidmannsche Buchhandlung).

Literature Altmeyer, Markus (2001). Unzeitgemäßes Denken bei Sophocles. (Stuttgart: Steiner). Biggs, Penelope (1966). “The disease theme in Sophocles’ Ajax, Philoctetes and Trachiniae”. Classical Philology, 61(4): pp. 223–35. Burkert,  Walter  (1997).  Homo Necans. Interpretationen altgriechischer Opferriten und Mythen. (Berlin: de Gruyter). Burkert, Walter (2011). “Mythen – Tempel – Götterbilder. Von der nahöstlichen Koiné  zur griechischen Gestaltung” in Burkert, Walter, Kleine Schriften IV. Mythica, Ritualia, Religiosa 1. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), pp. 186–203. Caillois, Roger (1998). Le mythe et l’homme. (Paris: Gallimard). Coker, Christopher (2014). Men at war. What fiction tells us about conflict, from the Iliad to Catch-22. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Daszewski,  Wiktor  (1977).  Nea Paphos II, La mosaïque de Thésée: études sur les mosaïques avec représentations du labyrinthe, de Thésée et de Minotaure.  (Warsaw:  Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe). de Planhol, Xavier (1963). “Geographia pontica”. Journal Asiatique, 251(3–4): 298–309. Eliade, Mircea (1969). Le mythe de l’éternel retour. Archétypes et repetition. (Paris: Gallimard). Ellendt,  Friedrich  (1872).  Lexicon Sophocleum: adhibitis veterum interpretum explicationibus, grammaticorum notationibus, recentiorum doctorum commentariis. 2nd edn. (Berlin: Borntraeger). Elliott Sorum, Christina (1978). “Monsters and the family: the exodos of Sophocles’ Trachiniae”. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 19(1): 59–73. Frauenfelder,  David  (2005).  “Popular  culture  and  classical  mythology”.  The Classical World, 98(2): 210–13. Freedman,  Carl  (2004).  “Polemical  afterword:  some  brief  reflections  on  Arnold  Schwarzenegger  and  on  science  fiction  in  contemporary  American  culture”.  PMLA, 119(3): 539–46. Glass, Fred (1990). “Totally recalling Arnold. Sex and violence in the New Bad Future”.  Film Quarterly, 44(1): 2–13. Hösle,  Vittorio  (1984).  Die Vollendung der Tragödie im Spätwerk des Sophocles. Ästhetisch-historische Memerkungen zur Struktur der attischen Tragödie.  (Stuttgart  Bad Cannstatt: Frommann- Holzboog). Kirkwood, G. M. (1996). A study of Sophoclean drama. (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell  University Press). Liddell,  Henry  George  and  Scott,  Robert  (1996).  A Greek-English lexicon.  9th  edn.  (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Lloyd- Jones, Hugh (1957). “Notes on Sophocles’ Antigone”. Classical Quarterly, 7(1–2):  12–27. Massenzio, Marcello (1969). “Cultura e crisi permanente: la “xenia” dionisiaca”. Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 40(1–2): 27–113. Messner, Michael (2007) “The masculinity of the governator. Muscle and compassion in  American politics”. Gender and Society, 21(2): 461–80.

A portrait of the warrior as a beast 35 Padgett,  Michael  J.  (2003)  “Horse  men:  Centaurs  and  satyrs  in  early  Greek  art”  in  Padgett, J. Michael (2003), The centaur’s smile: the human animal in early Greek art. (New  Haven,  CT:  Princeton  University  Art  Museum,  distributed  by  Yale  University  Press), pp. 3–46. Palm, Thede (1948). Trädkult. Studier i germansk religionshistoria. (Lund: Gleerup). Parisi  Presicce,  Claudio  (1998).  “Eracle  e  il  leone:  paradeigma andreias”  in  Bonnet,  Corinne,  Jourdain- Annequin,  Colette  and  Pirenne- Delforge,  Vinciane  (eds),  Le bestiaire d’Héraclès. (Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège), pp. 18–25. Reinhardt, Karl (2006). Sophocles. (Frankfurt: Klostermann). Schnapp- Gourbeillon,  Annie  (1998).  “Les  lions  d’Héraclès”  in  Bonnet,  Corinne,  Jourdain- Annequin,  Colette  and  Pirenne- Delforge,  Vinciane  (eds),  Le bestiaire d’Héraclès. (Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège), pp. 141–50. Segal, Charles (1999). Tragedy and civilization. An interpretation of Sophocles. (Norman,  OK: University of Oklahoma Press). Stansbury- O’Donnell,  Mark  (1999).  Pictorial narrative in Ancient Greek art.  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Strid, Ove (2013). “The Homeric prefiguration of Sophocles’ Heracles”. Hermes, 141(4):  381–400. Tralau, Johan (2008). “The revolt of images: mutual guilt in the Parodos of Sophocles’ Antigone”. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 48(3): 237–57. van Creveld, Martin. (2009). The culture of war. (Brimscombe Port, UK: Spellmount). Venturelli, Renato (1998). Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Rome: Gremese). Vernant,  Jean- Pierre  (2001)  “Le  Dionysos  masqué  des  Bacchantes  d’Euripide”,  in  Vernant, Jean- Pierre and Vidal- Naquet, Pierre (eds), Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, II. (Paris: La Découverte), pp. 237–70. Vernant,  Jean- Pierre  and  Frontisi- Ducroux,  Françoise  (2001).  “Figures  du  masque  en  Grèce  ancienne”  in  Vernant,  Jean- Pierre  and  Vidal- Naquet,  Pierre  (eds),  Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, II. (Paris: La Découverte), pp. 25–43. Vidal- Naquet, Pierre. (2001). “Chasse et sacrifice dans l’Orestie d’Eschyle” in Vernant,  Jean- Pierre  and  Vidal- Naquet,  Pierre  (eds),  Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, I. (Paris: La Découverte), pp. 133–58. Winnington- Ingram,  Reginald- Pepys  (1980).  Sophocles. An interpretation.  (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press).

3

Cycles of the wolf Unmasking the young warrior in Europe’s past Peter Jackson

The return of the werewolf Men’s periodical transformation into wolves has fascinated artists, writers, and academics since antiquity. While the refutation of the werewolf as a fact of nature has long lost its scientific relevance, the cultural fact remains a matter of serious inquiry. Why did such notions spread and endure, among what groups did they first emerge, and with what aspects of life were they primarily associated? In two influential works of historical scholarship, the German classicist Walter Burkert and the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg proposed, albeit along altogether different lines of argumentation, that the Eurasian werewolf complex had its formative antecedent in the rites and cosmologies of prehistoric huntergatherers.1 Despite their distinct topics of etiological investigation – the Ancient Greek institution of blood sacrifice in the case of Burkert, and the medieval conception of the witches’ Sabbath in the case of Ginzburg – both scholars had conceived their original ideas in a climate of growing dissent from the classical humanistic tradition. As the social sciences were gaining ground in the 1960s, a new generation of historians and classicists had begun to take an interest in the determining structures beyond the unique cultural achievement (Burkert 1983: xxiii). While Burkert leaned strongly towards the sociobiological theories of Konrad Lorenz, occasionally even evoking the Jungian notion of inborn psychological dispositions, Ginzburg preferred a formalistic approach to cultural homologies in the tradition of Roman Jakobson and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Still, the methodological ideals of Burkert and Ginzburg converged in the spirit of the latter’s reference to Lévi-Strauss’ plea for a “collaboration between historians and anthropologists” as a means to reach deep beneath the surface of empirical data (Burkert 1983: 23, 32; Ginzburg 1991: 21). In search of a common patrimony of superficially heterogeneous phenomena, to which the myths and rituals associated with werewolves contributed decisive clues, both Burkert and Ginzburg ended up, guided by a vast array of diagnostic details, with a simple yet endlessly evocative scenario in the distant past. Not unlike Freud’s outline of the “primal horde” (Urhorde) in Totem und Tabu, it presented a distressed band of Palaeolithic hunters who first collect the bones of dead animals in order to ensure their

Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the warrior 37 resurrection. Ginzburg is hesitant about the Palaeolithic connection: “it isn’t even certain that a ritual of this kind [. . .] was practiced during the Palaeolithic age”, but insists on the foundational character of the event: whoever the hunters were who first collected the bones of a dead animal so that it would be reborn, the meaning of their act seems clear: to establish communication between the visible and the invisible, between the world of sense experience, governed by scarcity, and the world beyond the horizon, populated with animals. (Ginzburg 1991: 261f.) I must confine myself to mentioning only a few of the phenomena considered to ensue from this foundational ritual event: ecstatic (shamanistic) practices; confraternities of young warriors disguised as animals; a demonic adversary symbolically killed; a (more or less pretended) sense of sacrificial guilt; and acts of lustration designed to pay back an original debt. Suffice it to say that the subsequent development of such phenomena induced Burkert and Ginzburg to consider the hunting scenario as a legitimate point of departure, a sort of matrix or formative antecedent, the full awareness of which was not a precondition for long-term cultural transmission, elaboration, and spatial diffusion. I appreciate the intellectual boldness and sense of imagination with which the two scholars aspired to push beyond the limits of historical vision. Complaining about the indirect and fragmentary nature of the evidence seems inappropriate on purely generic grounds. Grand statements are usually costly in terms of precise knowledge (Burkert 1983: 12ff.; Ginzburg 1991: 22). What makes me hesitant about the hunting hypothesis is not so much its nature of being conjectural, but rather its explanatory economy with regard to the werewolf complex. Before reconsidering parts of the textual evidence, let me begin by rehearsing an argument originally given in response to Burkert’s hunting hypothesis by Jonathan Z. Smith: “Sacrifice, in its agrarian or pastoral context, is the artificial (i.e. ritualized) killing of an artificial (i.e. domesticated) animal.” (Smith 1987: 201.) Whereas the hunter interacts fortuitously with an indeterminate resource of game, the herder slaughters systematically in order to protect a perpetual resource of moveable wealth. Furthermore, if the hunter’s inability to ‘own’ game is most glaringly echoed in the notion of supernatural ownership (e.g. the figure of the ‘Master of Animals’), the herder’s sense of extended ownership can also work inversely to elicit notions of supernatural theft and treachery (e.g. Geryon or Cacus in the classical tradition, the Vedic Paṇis, etc.) (Smith 1987: 203.) The two scenarios, or matrices, appear particularly cogent in contradistinction to each other; much less so, in fact, if the one is considered the formative antecedent of the other. Their most apparent feature of coordination is that of inversion, not that of continuity. Following Smith’s lead in regarding sacrifice as “an elaboration of the selective kill” (Smith 1987: 200), we may continue the analysis by regarding young men’s symbolic transformation into wolves as an elaboration of the organized cattle raid. The acquisition of animals from the

38

P. Jackson

‘outside’ as a source of wealth and prestige requires warlike confrontations with an artificial (i.e. demonized) human enemy. The wolf ’s semiotic ‘fitness’ for such a system in terms of its social, economic, and ecological conditions is evident. Not only did the wolf dissimulate the dog as its undomesticated counterpart, it was also the quintessential ‘enemy of the herd’ and thus a looter’s perfect token of identification. These are preliminary and highly tentative considerations. Still, they should be kept in mind when we now move on to reconsider the primary data.

Olaus Magnus and the Baltic werewolves A decisive piece of evidence in Ginzburg’s deciphering of the witches’ Sabbath, the case of the Livonian werewolf Thiess, merits recapitulation in this connection. In 1692, the 86-year-old man was brought to trial in the Livonian city of Jürgensburg. The townsmen had considered him an idolater. He confessed to the judges that he was a werewolf. However, as he refused to admit that he had ever made a pact with the devil, he was sentenced to ten whiplashes. The full story of Thiess’ confession, found in trial records first published by Hermann von Bruiningk in 1922, is summarized by Ginzburg as follows:2 Three times a year [. . .], on St. Lucy’s night before Christmas, the night of St. John, and of the Pentecost, the werewolves of Livonia go into hell, “at the end of the sea” [. . .], to fight with the devil and the sorcerers. . . . Similar to dogs (they are the dogs of God [. . .]), and armed with iron whips, the werewolves pursue the devil and sorcerers, who are armed with broomsticks wrapped in horse tails. . . . At stake in the battles was the fertility of the fields: the sorcerers steal the shoots of the grain, and if they cannot be wrested from them there will be famine. However, that year the Livonian and Russian werewolves had both won. The harvest of barley was going to be abundant. (Ginzburg 1991: 153) Numerous reports from the same period and region have been adduced to demonstrate the conformity between Thiess’ confession and a recurrent set of motifs, all of which testify to the relative stability of the Baltic werewolf complex through the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, even into the nineteenth: werewolves crossing water, attacking cattle, a tall figure (the ‘master’ of the werewolves) armed with an iron scourge, initiatory patterns involving ritual toasts, etc. (Straubergs 1955). Nevertheless, Ginzburg was not particularly keen on developing the underlying bellicose theme that was a preferred point of departure among philo-Nazi students of the Germanic warrior myth (such as Otto Höfler) in the 1930s and 40s (Ginzburg 1991: 153, 159, 173). Instead, he emphasized the fact that Thiess and his compatriots, according to the model of the Friulian benandanti, were indeed fighting battles for fertility (Ginzburg 1991: 153ff.). He also stressed the fact that members of the latter group had claimed to

Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the warrior 39 embark on their nightly journey “in spirit”, which suggested to him a distant connection to the ecstatic practices of Eurasian shamans rather than to the fury of the Germanic warrior (Ginzburg 1991: 167, 171). Ginzburg effectively inoculated the data at stake with a whole new register of notions and practices, applying the art of anthropological bricolage to make earlier interpretations of the Baltic werewolves appear hopelessly romantic and provincial. Nevertheless, my impression is still that he dismissed the themes of war and sodality too easily. Even to the extent that such connections are “to be understood in a purely symbolical sense” (Ginzburg 1991: 159), we need to acknowledge that understandings are always fostered by reinterpretations and that they are situated in circumstances to which earlier understandings would no longer apply – a point of view that, incidentally, would conform well to Ginzburg’s general methodology, in particular the emphasis on re-elaboration (Ginzburg 1991: 242). There is a detail in Thiess’ testimony to which Ginzburg never paid explicit attention. It concerns the werewolves’ organization into corporations, so-called Roten (Middle High German singular Rote, rotte from Middle Latin rupta) (Straubergs 1955: 123). From the Middle Ages onwards, this term was primarily used to denote a military unit (e.g. “the squad”) as opposed to the individual fighters of which it was composed (or who could break through it from the outside). For example in Tristan (6877): “eȥ was ein offener strît von zweien ganzen rotten” (“it was an open fight between two whole squads”); or in Ludw. Kreuzf.: “der viende rotte er brach” (“he broke the enemy squad”) (Ludw. Kreuzf. 3113 in Benecke et al., 1863). This is a significant detail in view of the attested references elsewhere to werewolves forming leagues, engaging in ordeals, and identifying themselves as “fellow drinkers” (Olaus Magnus 1555: 442–3; see also Straubergs 1955: 113). Furthermore, we are informed by an important source for the subject that “magnates” and “nobles” (magnates and atque ex prima nobilitate viros) were found in the midst of such leagues. The curious datum suggests, at least provisionally, that werewolf sodalities, no matter how we choose to imagine their latent historicity, were not just (or conceived to be) a concern of disempowered peasantry. Our source in question is the large exposition Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (History of the Nordic Peoples), a work completed in 1555 by the Swedish scholar and clergyman Olaus Magnus during his exile in Rome. In his treatment of lycanthropy with special regard to the region of Livonia (ch. XLV), a few details are particularly noteworthy for our current comparative purposes: Between Lithuania, Samogitia, and Courland there is a wall, the remainder of a broken down castle. At a fixed time of the year, several thousands of them [i.e. the wolves {lupos}] come together there to test each one’s fleetness of foot: those who fail to leap over the wall, as usually happens to the fat ones, are beaten by their commander with a whip. It is indeed firmly asserted that great men from this land abide in the midst of the crowd, even such of noble birth[.]3

40

P. Jackson

Judging from the peculiarity of the report, there is little to suggest that Olaus Magnus contrived it ad hoc, nor that he culled it from a classical source, in which case it would have been easily recognizable. A more reasonable assumption is that he obtained the information, directly or indirectly, from some local source in the form of hearsay or perhaps a written testimony. Hence the emphasis on external assertion (constanter asseritur). A tall figure armed with a whip (or iron scourge) is a recurrent element in several accounts of Baltic werewolves from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, none of which exactly matches Olaus Magnus’ description of the “commander” (praefectus). (Straubergs 1955: 124; Ginzburg 1991: 157). I am inclined to regard such variations on a locally distinctive theme as being indicative of a still-thriving popular tradition. Add to this the ubiquitous fact that the provincial regions of Livonia remained strongholds of pre-Christian belief and practice well into the early sixteenth century (Tuchtenhagen 2005: 26). Another remarkable observation can be made with regard to Olaus Magnus’ report. It requires us to focus less on the sum total of the message, but instead on singling out a set of diagnostic details: 1) the wolfish traits of men “leaping over” (transilio) a wall; 2) the beating with a “whip” (flagellum); and 3) the presence of nobility. Taken together, they seem to be echoing myths and customs of which sixteenth-century Livonians could not have had any direct knowledge. I am thinking of the ancient Roman festival of fertility and purification known as the Lupercalia. Olaus Magnus could not have created such an illusion of deep affinity by merely interposing a classical topos, for it is only when the ritual details of the Lupercalia are examined in relation to the legend of Romulus and Remus, with which the festival was traditionally intertwined, that the whole set of details appears complete. Furthermore, the fact that the whip is not used as an instrument of lustration by the praefectus, but that it does have such a function in Thiess’ testimony, bespeaks an underlying tradition of great depth and complexity. Once again, the details reach us through a fractured matrix. They do not add up to form a univocal message, but rather rise to the surface of an emergent whole that may, at best, be described as multifarious.

From wolf to king: Romulus and the Luperci A good millennium before the publication of Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, Pope Gelasius I (494–496) addressed a letter to a group of senators in which he defended the abolishment of the Lupercalia. It is astounding that the ancient rite could linger for so long at the very core of Western Christendom without having been fully expiated and adopted into the calendar of the Church.4 The Imperial suppression of public pagan worship from the mid fourth century onwards appears to have been definitely effectuated by the year 408. We must assume that those who partook in the carnivalesque celebrations were nominally Christians. Nevertheless, Gelasius could not find excuses for the fact that the purificatory purpose of the rite, as well as some of its external features, had remained unchanged since ancient times (Green 1931: 68). The totality of the

Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the warrior 41 festival cannot be deduced from the few examples touched upon in the letter, such as the presence of nude runners carrying “cords” (resticula5) and engaging in vile songs. Among the details said to be things of the past, however, Gelasius mentions sacrifices to the god Februarius (Guenther 1895, vol. XXXV: 456ff.) and matrons deliberately exposing parts of their bodies in order to be publicly scourged by running nobles (Guenther 1895, vol. XXXV: 458). The last piece of information hinges on a fact no doubt well known to Gelasius and his contemporaries, namely that the running Luperci had originally been members of an equestrian priestly sodality. There is even sufficient evidence to suggest that membership of the sodality was considered a particularly honourable recognition of a young man’s elevation to the rank of “knight” (eques [lit. “horseman, rider”]).6 Due to the discontinuation of all pagan priesthoods by Emperor Gratian in 382, however, we can infer that such institutions no longer had a part in the festivities by the late fifth century (Green 1931: 66). Extensive descriptions of the Lupercalia appear in works such as Ovid’s Fasti (Robinson 2011: 2.31f.) and Plutarch’s Romulus (2000b). We also learn from Livius7 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1929) that the festival was supposed to recall the time of the brothers Romulus and Remus in their “wild” state as herders before the rise of the city, its civic institutions, and the auspicious appointment of Romulus as its first king. Several authors emphasize the festival’s association with the Arcadian cult of Pan, as well as with the Arcadian festival of Lykaia, but we need not rely on such secondary elaborations to indicate that the Lupercalia was a wholly integrated Greek import. The performance of the rite within the limits of Rome’s oldest city centre (the so-called antiquum oppidum Palatinum) suggests that it had a very early provenance. Celebrated annually on 15 February, the rite commenced with a goat sacrifice in the so-called Lupercal, a sanctuary on the Palatine Mount identified as the cave in which Romulus and Remus had been nurtured by the she-wolf. Having cut thongs (so-called februa [lit. “means of purification”]) from the goat’s skin, the Luperci ran half naked with their instruments of lustration around the Palatine Mount over the Forum and along the Via Sacra. Women would deliberately cross their course, offering themselves to be hit by the thongs (apparently in a rather harmless fashion) in the hope of improving their own fertility and reducing their labour pains (cf. Ferguson 1979: II.142; Plutarch 2000a: LXI.2). It is with the spectacular nudity (or half-nudity) of the Luperci in mind that Ovid begins his expositions of the origins of the Lupercalia (Robinson 2011: 2.269). After elaborating on some putatively imported features of the festival, such as the legendary introduction of the cult of Pan by the Arcadian king, Euandros (Robinson 2011: 2.279), he goes on to ask about its indigenous causes (Robinson 2011: 2.359–60). We are told that Romulus and his brother, at the time of the preparation of a sacrificial meal in honour of Faunus, are running around naked in a field in the company of the other young herders. They are said to be engaging in competitions and carrying gauntlets and lances. Suddenly, a herder shouts to them from a hill that robbers are driving away their herd. Unarmed and in a still competitive spirit, Remus and his Fabians intercept the

42

P. Jackson

thieves. Remus returns in triumph with the herd, pulls off the sacrificial meat from the skewers, and announces that no-one, except for the victor, shall eat from the meat. When Romulus returns empty handed with his Quintilians, he is met by the sight of naked bones and empty tables. With a laugh, nonetheless, he accepts the fact that his brother has been victorious. The deed is still famous, Ovid concludes, for they (i.e. the Luperci) still run without clothes. “And the success achieved enjoyed a lasting fame (et memorem famam)” (Robinson 2011: 2.361–80). The young twins’ competition for fame is construed by Ovid as the festival’s original cause of imitation. Furthermore, as implied by this interpretation, Remus’ retrieval of the herd is echoed in the acts of lustration carried out by the scourging youths.8 Competitive acts of youthful heroism, performed in an imaginary state ‘before’ and ‘beyond’ the city, are emulated in the rite to secure the future wealth and abundance of the community. The good fortune of Remus was not to last, however, for we learn from the legend about the city’s foundation that it was Romulus who received the auspices to found Rome on the Aventine. When Remus resolved to mockingly “leap over the walls” (transiluisse [per. inf. act.]9 muros), his brother killed him in rage.10 The state of exception has been resolved. No longer marked by his wolfish traits according to the familiar dynastic pattern of the feral child, no longer a half-naked herder, Romulus embarks on a new career as the first king of Rome. Intruders from the outside, whence he had once arrived himself, are henceforth doomed to be kept off from the inside: “Sic deinde, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea” (“So hereafter [perishes] whoever else shall leap over my walls” [1.7]). The symbolic status of the wolf in the ritual drama of the Lupercalia is perplexing. Consider, for instance: 1) the deified she-wolf ’s (Luperca) association with Roman sovereignty in the emblematic image of her suckling Romulus; 2) the Luperci symbolically “keeping off ” (arceo) the wolf in order to protect the herd,11; and 3) the identification of the Luperci as priests of Faunus in the god’s capacity of protecting the flocks from wolves (Latin: Lupercus, Greek: Pán Lūkaī́os). A possible clue to the apparent confusion is the transitory nature of an institution that had perhaps already lost its immediate relevance and intelligibility by the time of the first documented celebrations of the Lupercalia. The transitory act of ‘joining the wolves’ can be variously construed as a necessary precondition for a future career as tribal chief. It is a pattern well established in the Old Irish mythical chronicles, for instance in the prophecy of King Cormac’s youth as féindid (i.e. a member of a fían [a “band of {landless or roving} warriors”]) (McCone 2002: 52), but also hinted at in more explicit accounts of lycanthropy in classical sources. According to the Hellenistic author Euanthes, a male member of a specific Arcadian lineage is regularly selected by lot to spend eight years in the wilderness as a wolf.12 He first has to strip by a lake, hang his clothes on an oak tree, and then swim across the lake. If he manages to abstain from human meat during his eight years as a wolf, he can return to his community as a fully grown man by reversing the procedure (cf. Burkert 1983: 87f.; Ginzburg 1991: 158).

Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the warrior 43 The details and variations of the pattern need not be rehearsed here. Instead, what I wish to emphasize by adding yet another datum to the comparison is the residual theme of nobility.

An Anglo-Saxon mirror for princes The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is the oldest of the long epic poems to have survived in a European vernacular (except, of course, in Latin and Greek). It was written down in England around the year 1000 and covers more than 3,000 alliterative lines. The composition as such, or earlier versions of it, may be considerably older. Despite a few superficial Christian and biblical details, the core of the poem exhibits all the religious, ethical, and aesthetic ideals that we have come to associate with the pre-Christian Germanic world, not least with the visual art and poetry from pre-Christian Scandinavia. Set in Denmark and the area south of present-day Sweden, the major part of the narrative revolves around Beowulf ’s heroic achievements as a thane of Hygelac, the king of the Geats. However, it is not “at home” that Beowulf boosts his career as the future king of the Geats, but as a rescuing guest at the court of one of Hygelac’s allies, the Danish king, Hrothgar. At the peak of his power and fortune, Hrothgar has suddenly come under the fatal threat of a monstrous creature called Grendel, an inhabitant of the desolate marches beyond Hrothgar’s “guest hall”, Heorot. The reasons for Grendel’s nightly attacks are never fully developed. We are told that Grendel grieves at the sound of convival feasting and singing in the guest hall (89–90). If we read between the lines, however, there are also scraps of information to suggest that Grendel carries the features of monstrosity as a social stigma. In other words, he appears in the hyperbolic role of an out-group subject, as an ostrasized “stranger” or “outsider” (in the widest sense of the word gǣst/gæst), and to that extent in the very mirror image of Beowulf himself. While both Grendel and Beowulf are represented as “strangers” at the court, they mirror each other’s roles by realizing the worst fears and most vain hopes of their host. The logic behind such social representations easily translates into the doctrine of hospitality that played such an important role in early Germanic society. When young Beowulf is received at the court of Hrothgar, he declares his determination to fight Grendel, and eventually succeeds in defeating the creature with his bare hands. No sooner is Beowulf honoured at Hrothgar’s court than the Danes have to face yet another threat. Grendel’s mother is desperate to avenge her son. She attacks the court when Beowulf is absent, creating havoc and sorrow in the hall, not least by killing Hrothgar’s best warrior, Æscere. Beowulf is summoned by the king, sets out for the underwater abode of Grendel’s mother, and defeats the second creature in a context mirroring that of Grendel’s intrusion into Heorot. Before embarking on his expedition, Beowolf addresses the sorrowful king with a plea to the same aristocratic ideal of undying fame as we have just witnessed in Ovid’s treatment of Remus’ victorious cattle raid:

44

P. Jackson Do not mourn, wise man; it is better for each (man) to avenge his friend, than to lament greatly. Each of us shall await the end of (this) worldly life; achieve let the one who may glory before death (domes ær deaƿe); this remains for a warrior when he no longer lives afterwards the best.13

After a set of typical hiatuses, depicting feasts at which the visiting warrior is richly rewarded with gifts and heroic song, a major break in the storyline is marked by Beowulf ’s return and restoration to the court of Hygelac (2144–99). In the last episode of the poem (beginning at line 2219), Beowulf has already ruled the Geats for 50 years, and is now facing a threat comparable to the one facing Hrothgar at the beginning of the poem – a dragon which, once again in the role of the quintessential “outsider” infuriated by a violation of its legitimate heritage, destroys everything in its path. Beowulf eventually manages to kill the dragon with the assistance of a young warrior, but is mortally wounded in the combat. The poem concludes, in a style much reminiscent of Homeric epic, with a description of the king’s funeral (3137–82). So what about the wolf? May we assume that it obstinately clings by its teeth to the hero throughout the whole poem, in the form of a speaking name: Beowulf? No matter how we choose to interpret the first part of the compound, the second (-wulf ) is fully transparent and univocal. A most persistent view on the first part of the name (Beo-) dates back to Henry Sweet (1884: 202), who took it to mean ‘bee’ and hence assigned ursine rather than lupine qualities to the hero (‘bee-wolf ’). Other suggestions have been proposed since, none of which appears to have finally settled the case. Dithematic names containing the semantic component ‘wolf ’ (Gall. -(v)ulcus [Catuvulcus], Gr. -lukos [Autólukos], etc.) were certainly widespread among speakers of Indo-European, but it is only in the extant heroic poetry that such names are reunited with the poetic idiom from which they originally developed. The recurrent themes of ‘fame’, ‘warfare’, ‘hospitality’, and ‘feral rage’ testify to the aristocratic raison d’être of IndoEuropean onomastics and poetics. We may thus speculate that Beowulf fulfils the heroic destiny inherent in his name. He does this first in his role as the wolfish ‘outsider’ who accumulates fame and wealth for his tribe, then in his new role as a leader and protector of his people. While such coincidental pieces of evidence should not be considered crucial to the argument, they certainly do apply to the social logic of the narrative. It is only when we look at the case of Beowulf in conjunction with those of the Lupercalia and the Livonian werewolves that we see that logic emerging. Before I conclude, I need to touch upon another aspect of the poem that was recently emphasized by André Crépin. In his introduction to the new French translation, Crépin (2007: 23) suggests that Beowulf is not just a heroic epic relating the glorious deeds of yore – it is also a mirror of princes. If Crépin’s observation proves tenable, we need to add a didactic dimension to the already familiar framework of early Germanic poetry. More than just a work of art, the

Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the warrior 45 poem – or rather the ancient genre from which it developed – would then seem to encode an underlying social message directed at a specific member of the community: the young warrior aspiring to become a king.

Conclusions On account of the data treated so far, I am prepared to reconsider the hypothesis that the fractured matrix in which the werewolf complex survived, even long after the official Christianization of Europe, originated in a tribal society of rivalling cattle herders identified as the prehistoric speakers of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Iranian. My reappraisal of the issue is not meant to downplay the strong politicization of the Männerbünd hypothesis in the 1930s and 40s. Quite on the contrary, the premodern data set must remain a matter of historical scrutiny in its own right if we are to appreciate its rhetoric potentiality in modern political discourse. However, when we consider the extent to which historical spin-offs of tribal equestrian economies in the Pontic-Caspian steppe region were upheld by an ideology of looting, aristocratic fame, and the sacrificial redistribution of wealth – parts of which can even be grasped by archaeological means (Anthony 2007) – the topos of young men’s periodical transformation into wolves gains a depth and transparency that would otherwise get lost in a sea of vague connections. In other words, such a pattern seems less likely to have persisted as a cohesive whole either among the early hunter-gatherers of Eurasia or among the sedentary populations of Neolithic Europe. As I hope to have shown, the theme of periodicity in the treatment of man as wolf was once resonant with a social reality involving young men’s periodical exclusion from the community. It was a period of geregeltes Ungestüm (of “regulated impetuosity”) – to paraphrase an interdisciplinary contribution to the topic (Cieminski 2002; Das and Meiser 2002; McCone 2002) – allowing unmarried men to accumulate wealth and fame ‘on the outside’ in order to secure social restoration in the form of rank and trust. We are thus led to assume that the pseudo-medical attribution of temporary insanity (or ‘lunacy’) to the cycles of the moon, which the werewolf phenomenon is often thought to reflect, is not so much based on an inaccurate understanding of natural phenomena, rather it seeks to make sense of an obsolete yet once cohesive cultural complex.

Notes 1 Walter Burkert’s Homo Necans first appeared in German in 1972. Available in English translation since 1983, the book’s increased international renown during the 1980s is evident from the conference volume Violent Origins: Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation (Hamerton-Kelly 1987), to which Burkert himself and two other influential scholars of religion, René Girard and Jonathan Z. Smith, contributed original statements. Carlo Ginzburg’s Storia notturna: Una decifrazione del Sabba (1989) appeared in English as Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath in 1991. The book was conceived as a sequel to a study that had appeared in Italian more than 20 years earlier, I benandanti (1966). When Ginzburg’s early work first appeared in English in 1983, his characteristic criminological style was already familiar to the

46 2 3

4

5

6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13

P. Jackson Anglo-American public through the translation of Il fromaggio e i vermi (The Cheese and the Worms), a study of the sixteenth-century Friulian heretic, Menocchio. Bruiningk’s publication is falsely dated in Ginzburg 1991: 173. Intra Lithuaniam, Samogethiam, ac Curoniam est paries quidam, ex quodam castello diruto reliquus, ad hunc certo anni tempore aliquot millia eorum conveniunt, ac viniuscuiusque agilitatem in saltando explorant: qui hunc parietem transilire nequierunt, uti pinguioribus fere evenit, flagellis ab eorum praefectis caeduntur. Denique constanter asseritur, inter hanc multitudinem etiam istius terrae magnates, atque ex prima nobilitate viros versare[.] (Olaus Magnus 1555: 643). Green 1931: 63. The remaining cover of an eighth-/ninth-century manuscript from Fulda, the Indiculus superstitionun et paganiarum, suggests that pagan practices related to those of the Lupercalia survived among Germanic tribes until the time of Charlemagne. One of the chapters is said to concern “The pollutions in February” (De spurcalibus in Februario), which simultaneously seems to hint at the februum (“means of purification”) that gave the month its name and a feast (Spurcalia) inverting the intended purpose of the Lupercalia. Green (1931: 68) takes the amendment made by Guenther (who reads resticulo [n. dat. of resticulum] instead of rediculo) to suggest that the runners were no longer carrying goatskin thongs as in earlier days. This would confirm that the practice of animal sacrifice had indeed ceased. References to the relevant sources are found in Wissowa 1912: 561. See Livius 1982 Ab urbe condita 1.5. For a different approach to the subject matter, cf. Ginzburg’s (1991: 258f.) comparison of Ovid’s story with ethnographical records of a myth passed on by the Siberian Vogul-Ostyak. [per. inf. act.] means a perfect infinitive in the active voice of tranisilio, in actuality, “to have leapt”. The legend is first attested in Fabius Pictor (fr. 5a–b), see Beck 2005. I am following Livius’ (1982) version (Ab urbe condita 1.7). Cf. Serv. Aen. VIII.343: Lupercal, quod praesidio ipsius numinis lupi a pecudibus arcerentur. While the etymological interpretation of lupercus as “preventer of the wolf ” (lupu- + -arcere) apparently made sense to classical authors, modern scholars have tried to interpret the name as “follower of the wolf ” (via lupo- + -sequos) (Cieminski 2002: 111). Euanthes is paraphrased in Pliny the Elder 1991 (8.81). “Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bið æghwæm, ƿæt he his freond wrece, ƿonne he fela murne Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se ƿe mote domes ær deaƿe; ƿæt bið drihtguman unlifgendum æfter sēlest.” (The text follows Dobbie’s edition 1953)

References Sources Beck, Hans and Walter, Uwe (eds.) (2005). Die frühen römischen Historiker. Vol. 1. Von Fabius Pictor bis Cn. (Gellius Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche. Buchgesellschaft). Dionysius of Halikarnassos. Dionysi Halicarnasensis: antiquitatum romanarum quae supersunt, ed. Usener, Hermannus and Radermacher, Ludovicus. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1929).

Cycles of the wolf: unmasking the warrior 47 Ferguson, John (ed.) (1979). Juvenal: The satires. (New York: St Martin’s Press/London: Macmillan Education). Guenther, O. (ed.) (1895). CSEL (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum). (Vienna: Tempsky). Livius. The early history of Rome: books I–V, trans. Sélincourt, Aubrey de. The History of Rome from its Foundation, 45 books. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982). Olaus Magnus (1555). Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus. (Romae). Robinson, Matthew (ed.) (2011). A commentary on Ovid’s Fasti. Book 2. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Pliny the Elder. Natural history, trans. Healy, John F. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1991). Plutarch. “Caesar” in Lives of noble Grecians and Romans, ed. Clough, Arthur Hugh, trans. Dryden, John. (New York: Modern Library, 2000a[1992]). Plutarch. “Romolus” in Lives of noble Grecians and Romans, ed. Clough, Arthur Hugh, trans. Dryden, John. (New York: Modern Library. 2000b[1992]).

Literature Anthony, David W. (2007). The horse, the wheel, and language: How Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Benecke, G., Müller, W. and Zarncke, F. (1863). Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch. Band 2 [M–R]. (Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzei). Burkert, Walter (1983). Homo necans: The anthropology of Ancient Greek sacrificial ritual and myth. (Berkeley, CA: California University Press). Cieminski, Marita von (2002). “Jugendgruppen in der griechisch-römischen Antike” in Das, Rahul Peter and Meiser, Gerhard (eds), Geregeltes Ungestüm: Bruderschaft und Jugendbünde bei indogermanischen Völkern. (Bremen: Hempen Verlag), pp. 91–116. Crépin, André (2007). Beowulf. Édition revue, nouvelle traduction, introduction et notes de André Crépin. (Paris: Livre de Poches). Das, Rahul Peter and Meiser, Gerhard (eds) (2002). Geregeltes Ungestüm: Brudershaft und Jugenbünde bei indogermanischen Völkern. (Bremen: Hempen Verlag). Dobbie, Elliot Van Kirk (ed.) (1953). Beowulf and Judith. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records IV. (New York: Columbia University Press). Ginzburg, Carlo (1991). Ecstasies: deciphering the witches’ Sabbath, trans. Rosenthal, Raymond. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press). Green, William M. (1931). “The Lupercalia in the fifth century”. Classical Philology, 26(1): 60–9. Hamerton-Kelly, Robert G. (ed.) (1989). Violent origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on ritual killing and cultural formation. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). McCone, Kim (2002). “Wolfsbessenheit, Nacktheit, Einäugigkeit und verwandte Aspekte des altkeltischen Männerbündes” in Das, Rahul Peter and Meiser, Gerhard (eds), Geregeltes Ungestüm: Bruderschaft und Jugendbünde bei indogermanischen Völkern. (Bremen: Hempen Verlag), pp. 43–67. Smith, Jonathan Z. (1987). “The Domestication of sacrifice” in Hamerton-Kelly, Robert G. (ed.), Violent origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on ritual killing and cultural formation. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press) pp. 191–205.

48

P. Jackson

Straubergs, Karils (1955). “Om varulvarna i Baltikum” in Erixson, Sigurd (ed.), Studier och översikter tillägnade Erik Nylander. (Stockholm: Samfundet för svensk folklivsforskning), pp. 107–29. Sweet, Henry (1884). Anglo-Saxon reader in prose and verse. (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Tuchtenhagen, Ralph (2005). Geschichte der baltischen Länder. (Nördlingen: Verlag C. H. Beck). Wissowa, Georg (1912). Religion und Kultus der Römer. (München: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchandlung).

4

“Laughing I shall die!” The total transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar in Old Norse society Andreas Nordberg and Frederik Wallenstein

Introduction The berserk is a well-known figure. From history books as well as from popular culture most of us have an image of the berserk as an extremely violent warrior under the influence of an uncontrolled rage that makes him unpredictable and dangerous. In Old Norse sources the berserkers (Old Norse nom. sing. berserkr, pl. berserkir,) and the úlfheðnar (nom. sing. úlfheðinn) are described as warriors of Odin, clad in the skins of animals and fighting in an ecstatic rage called berserkersgangr. Connected to this wild fury is another reoccurring detail: after the battle, the berserkers and úlfheðnar become exhausted and lie on the ground completely immobilized and helpless until they regain their strength.1 Their names are synonymous with their clothing. Berserkr means “bear-shirt” (i.e. “warrior clad in bear skin”) and úlfheðinn means “wolf-shirt” or “wolfskin”. The name berserkr has been the subject of much debate and some scholars have interpreted it as “bare shirt” (i.e. a warrior fighting naked or at least without armour). Today though, most scholars agree on the other etymology, making the word a parallel to úlfheðinn (Blaney 1972: 9, 14, 20–5, 27–31; Hellquist 1980: 122f.; Ström 1982: 178). As we shall see, there is also iconographic material depicting this wearing of animal skins. When Snorri tells us of Odin in his Ynglinga saga we learn, among other things that: His men went forth without armour and were as mad as dogs or wolves, they bit their shields and were as strong as bears or bulls. They killed men and neither fire nor iron did them any harm. That is called berserkersgangr. (Aðalbjarnarson 1979: XXVI: 17) Other sources, such as the more contemporary skaldic poem Haraldskvæði, by Þórbjǫrn Hornklofi – usually dated to around 900 – tell us that the berserkers “roared”, that the úlfheðnar “howled” and shook their spears and that they bore bloody shields.2 This type of animalistic/predatory rage or fury is by no means something unique to Old Norse culture, quite the contrary. It has widely distributed parallels in the history of religions, as well as in the history of war. Interesting parallel

50

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

examples can be collected from Indo-European cultures (the Greek notion of lyssa, the Celtic ferg, and the Iranian aēŝma). All are connected to a larger IndoEuropean complex of wolf symbolism (Lincoln 1991), as well as to wolf symbolism in the Americas and Asia (for example, the cannibalistic frenzy in the rituals of the Hamatsa ceremony of the Kwakiutl (Hultkrantz 1967: 102ff.), the behaviour of the jaguar and eagle warriors of the Aztec) (Townsend 2009: 212–18, Speidel 2002: 285), the furious battle trance of the Zulu warriors (Knight 1995: 220–5), and the Malaysian conception of amok. These types of conceptions of raging animal warriors are not only widespread but are also quite comprehensible if understood in the light of altered states of consciousness and and in the framework of a distinct warrior culture and religion, such as Old Norse. Taken together, the available Norse sources show that during the Viking age, and in all probability also quite some time before that, the berserkers were groups of elite soldiers comprised of members of the aristocratic stratum of society. They were members of the king’s bodyguard or his elite troops, often fighting in the vanguard. They were also part of a religious context; as followers of Odin they were inspired by him, fighting in an ecstatic rage making them invulnerable and infused with what seemed like supernatural strength, causing them to act completely without fear or regard for their own health. At the same time, it is quite obvious that the written sources describing berserkers and úlfheðnar give contradictory accounts of their place, their social status, and their function (or lack thereof ) in Old Norse society. Some of the Icelandic family sagas particularly, give an image that clearly diverges from the accounts given in skaldic poetry, other genres of saga literature, and archaeological sources (Boberg 1966: 124f; Blaney 1972: 180–5; Blaney 1982: 293). The image of the berserk as elite soldier and member of the king’s guard (the warrior-aristocrat) is obvious in Haraldskvæði but also in some episodes in the family sagas.3 Parallel to this image there is the one of the berserk as an outlaw, a brutal and dangerous robber or thug who suddenly appears to challenge farmers (and sometimes noblemen as well4) to hólmganga5 and to rob them of their possessions and of their wives and daughters. Blaney (1982) discusses extensively the motive of the berserk as an “unwelcome suitor”. Such episodes are numerous in the sagas. The image of the berserk as robber, ‘monster’ or adversary in general is by far the most common image in the sagas. The descriptions are stereotypical literary clichés in which the berserkers can be exchanged for any other ‘monster’ or adversary such as a troll or a draugr (living dead) that can fill the same narrative function. But the co-existence of these images is in itself perhaps not as strange as it has sometimes been considered. If one views the sagas as literary reflections of a lost oral tradition, the parallel existence of older and younger motifs (or indeed motifs from parallel but differing oral traditions) even in one and the same saga is to be expected. The image of the berserk as ‘villain’ is in all probability due to a later ahistorical development of the oral tradition about them caused by the end

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 51 of the institution of the berserkers, attested in the legislation against them in Norwegian and Icelandic laws (Jónsson 1936, ch. 19 (ÍF VII: 61)). This, perhaps, could have led to a situation where former berserkers made a living as robbers or mercenaries but at the very least led to a narrative tradition which was no longer based on the old social and religious framework that was needed to understand the cultural, social, and religious position and function of the berserk (Blaney 1972: 130–73). This later image mainly belongs in a medieval Christian context and mode of interpretation. In the following our interest will be focused on the pre-Christian image, that of the berserk as a high-status warrior.

The cultural–historical framework: warlords and warbands When we meet the berserkr and the úlfheðinn in contemporary archaeological and somewhat younger early medieval literary sources, the social contexts are almost always related to the warrior aristocracy – i.e. the warlord and his warband, the comitatus. The comitatus was a pan-Germanic institution. It is described in detail as early as ad 98 by the Roman ethnographer Cornelius Tacitus.6 It was a central foundation for much of the political and military course of events during the Migration period and as such it even lasted during the Viking age in Scandinavia (Lindow 1976; Enright 1996; Evans 1997; Landholt 1998; Steuer 1998; Timpe 1998). The foundation of the warband was a mutual bonding relationship between an aristocratic warlord and a group of free men, usually from distinguished families, who were voluntarily subordinate to their leader in return for certain specified services and for the glory of being a member of his retinue. As members of the warlord’s band, the men were also considered as belonging to his household and family. The warlord expected unlimited support and loyalty from the men, and in return he provided them with food, drink, lodgings, and weapons. He was also expected to reward his men with lavish feasts in his ceremonial hall, at which they were presented with gifts of treasure and war booty (Enright 1996). The hall was a central place for the aristocratic exercise of power. Initially, these halls generally consisted of a certain part of the lord’s house. However, from the fourth century onwards, there is archaeological evidence of more exclusive ceremonial hall buildings on, or in close proximity to the residences of aristocrats (Herschend 1998). Here, the lord held receptions for visiting aristocrats, friends, and subjects. Alliances were made and gifts were exchanged. Decisions were taken on war and peace. All in all, the hall was in many respects a substantive manifestation of the warlord’s prominent position in society. The hall was also a stage for certain religious ceremonies which the lord and his lady (and daughters) attended as the leading officiants. These ceremonial observances were highly formalized and constituted not only a religious communion but also a social foundation of the warband. Among the most essential parts of the ceremonies were the ritual eating and drinking. Meat from slaughtered animals was served at the banquets, while the blood and skulls were sacrificed to the gods and the dead (cf. Hultgård 1997; Sundqvist 2002: 176–213.).

52

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

Of even greater importance was the ceremonial drinking of mead (and beer). According to several sources, the phrase ‘to earn one’s mead’ could be used to imply ‘to follow one’s warlord into battle’. At the centre of this ritualized observance was usually the warlord’s wife. As the lady of the hall, she was expected to ceremonially offer the mead in order of precedence to her lord and his men. Socially, these drinking ceremonies in the hall constituted the cohesion within the warband and the loyalty between the lord and his men (Enright 1996: 2ff., 10ff., 69–96; Evans 1997: 58ff., 96f., 106ff.). With regard to religion, the alcoholic intoxication seems to have been interpreted as a mystical experience of Odin and as an initiation in the mysteries of death (Drobin 1991). The ceremonial eating from the sacrificial animals and the drinking of the sacred mead were thus ways of reaching communion with Odin and with the dead members of the warband, and of being initiated into the mysteries of the Other World (Nordberg 2004: 185–98). These ceremonies in the warlord’s hall were also mythologically mirrored in the nightly feastings in Odin’s otherworldy residence, Valhǫll. In the surviving parts of Old Norse mythology, Odin stands out as an extremely complex god. Not only is he the god of the aristocrats and warriors, he also appears as a god of, for example, death, trade, wisdom, runes, poetry, and the mead. In military contexts, Odin is a dark and frightening god: violent, deceitful, and hard to construe. As the god of war, he presents the two complementary aspects of warrior behaviour. On the one hand he appears as the tactical counsellor in military situations. On the other hand, a part of his very nature is the ecstatic battle rage. This second aspect is even reflected in his name, Old Norse Óðinn, derived from Proto-Germanic *Wōðanaz, where *Wōð-7 means “rage” or “fury” (compare German Wut) (Höfler 1976: 300; Drobin 1991: 110; Kershaw 2000: 69ff.; Sundqvist and Hultgård 2004: 589). In Old Norse -óðr the semantics are extended to “raging”, “possessed”, “ecstatic”, but also “(intellectually) inspired” (de Vries 1962: 416; Puhvel 1987: 193; Kershaw 2000: 72ff.). In some sources, Odin even seems to appear under an alternative name, Óðr. Odin is thus the god of ecstasy, and this ecstasy could take different forms: shamanistic soul flight, ecstatic visions, or sublime poetic inspiration, as well as predatory rage. In about 1080, the German Magister Adam of Bremen comments on an idol of Odin at the cult centre in Uppsala (Middle Sweden) in a way that encapsulates the very core of the god’s nature. “Odin,” says Adam, id est furor “that is the fury” (Adam of Bremen 1917, Book IV: schol. 139). As the god of war, Odin was the primary cause of feuds among men. He instigated conflicts and violence, and he also determined their outcome (perhaps in conjunction with his female spirits, the valkyrjor (meaning “choosers of the slain”)). While giving some warriors protection and strength, others he chose to fall on the battlefields. Interestingly, skalds depicting these deadly events frequently use concepts primarily belonging to a ritualistic sacrificial terminology. This indicates that the actual slaying in combat had many religious aspects. On the one hand, killing one’s enemy in battle was ultimately regarded as an act of sacrifice to Odin. Fighting until the end in defiance of a certain death could likewise be regarded as a self-sacrifice to the god (Nordberg 2004: 120–48). On the

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 53 other hand, death on the battlefield could be perceived as a warrior’s final reward. To Odin’s dedicated warriors, violent death was an initiation into an otherworldly communion with their god.

Becoming a berserk: the initiation of young warriors How did a young warrior applicant become an úlfheðinn or a berserkr? Much evidence suggests that these young men (or rather teenage boys) entered into adulthood and the warrior bands only after certain initiations. According to some sources, these ceremonies even concern the initiation of ulfhednar and berserkers. Since secrecy is generally a fundamental character of initiation rituals, circumstantial knowledge of the wolf and bear warriors’ initiations was only for the initiated. Such information is, therefore, lost today to a large extent. Nevertheless, a basic structure as well as some important details concerning the initiation into the warband can actually be identified, mostly from evidence in Icelandic sagas. The question of the initiation of berserkers and úlfheðnar has been thoroughly investigated by Benjamin Blaney (Blaney 1972: 64–129). An important precursor (as well as Otto Höfler’s Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen (Höfler 1934) and Lily Weiser’s Altgermanische Jünglingsweihen und Männerbünde (Weiser 1927) to Blaney’s work is Mary Danielli’s “Initiation Ceremonial from Norse Literature” (Danielli 1945). In a very generalized summary, this material outlines the following: A teenage boy descending from a well-established family is placed with a foster father, who is often a local chief or a warlord. At his new home, the boy is harassed and degraded by the men in the warlord’s retinue and, therefore, has a squalid and miserable appearance. Quite often he is only partly clad in a ragged pelt. The boy becomes a protégé of the foster father or more frequently of a certain member of the warband. This older warrior, who is usually a berserk or an úlfheðinn, takes the boy to a certain secluded place or into the woods. Here, the boy is trained in military techniques and battle tactics, and initiated into secret religious knowledge (usually related to the cult of Odin). As a test of courage and strength, the boy then fights and defeats a ferocious animal, usually a bear, sometimes a boar or a wolf. He then clothes himself in the skin of the defeated animal and thus acquires its animalistic qualities. Following this, the protector and protégé act as brothers in arms for a certain liminal period, during which they behave as outlaws, as if they did not belong to the ordered social world. On returning to the foster father’s farm, the protector sets up a mock battle between his protégé and a fake monster or an abnormally huge but already killed bear. Having watched the young warrior defeat this monstrous enemy, the older warriors in the retinue now recognize the young man as a warrior. As a result he is given a new name suitable for his rank. This name is usually associated with the characteristics of the defeated animal. Sometimes, the young warrior then proves his skills and courage even further by defeating two berserkers in

54

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

battle. This usually represents the end of the initiation period; he is finally admitted as a member of the warband communion and a great feast is held in his honour, at which he receives a new weapon as a symbol of his new warrior status. This structure actually corresponds well to the three steps of separation → marge → aggregation, which Arnold van Gennep once highlighted in his classic study on passage rituals (van Gennep 1960). Some of the most crucial elements in this series of initiation stages even seem to be depicted on certain decorated helmet plaques dating back to the seventh century. One interesting motif illustrates a warrior armed with a battle axe who is holding a bear in a leash while the bear is licking him in the face. Another motif illustrates a warrior, who is being licked in the face by two bears while stabbing the two animals in the abdomen.8 These motifs in all probability reflect a critical part of the initiation of boys into becoming men and warriors. According to the Greek–Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus († c.391), all boys among the Germanic tribe Taifali had to prove their courage by singlehandedly capturing a boar or killing a bear before being admitted among the adult men (Ammianus Marcellinus 1936, XXXI: 9: 5). According to Saxo Grammaticus, the young Danish prince Scioldus was attacked by an unusually large bear while walking in the forest. Weaponless, Scioldus struck the bear with his belt. His reputation was established and it grew even more when he singlehandedly defeated several great warriors. As a result, at the age of 15, he was admitted to the king’s warband (Saxo Grammaticus 1998: Book XII). According to the Vǫlsunga saga, Sigmundr and his nine brothers were fettered to a log deep in the woods. Each night there came a wolf, who feasted on one of the brothers. On the tenth night, the wolf came to devour even Sigmundr. But when the animal began to lick Sigmundr’s face, Sigmundr killed the wolf by catching the wolf ’s tongue between his teeth and tearing it out of the wolf ’s throat. From this, Sigmundr acquired his strength and predatory characteristics (Jónsson and Vilhjálmsson 1943). Another motif with equal interest illustrates what seems to be a weapon dance performed by an úlfheðinn and a one-eyed character, which might be Odin or someone who is embodying the god in the ritual drama. This scene has been interpreted as illustrating the final stage of the initiation, in which the wolf warrior ceremonially receives his weapons as a symbol of his admittance to the warband, or even to the wolf warrior Männerbünd. As mentioned, the berserk or wolf warrior initiate received a new name during his initiation. Some of these names are still known to us. For example, the names HaþuwulfR ‘battle wolf ’ and HariwulfR ‘war-host wolf ’ are mentioned on two rune stones from Stentofen and Istaby in the Swedish province of Blekinge. The rune stones date back to ad 550–650. The name HaþuwulfR is also mentioned on yet a third stone from Gunnarp in the same province. It has been suggested that these names belong to the warrior initiation complex (Sundqvist and Hultgård 2004). The text on the enigmatic rune stone from Rök in the Swedish province of Östergötland actually contains groups of names, which seem to indicate small bands of wolf and bear warriors:

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 55 This I tell the thirteenth which twenty kings sat on Sjælland for four winters, with four names, born to four brothers: five Valki, sons of Hráðulfr five Hreiðulfr, sons of Rugulfr, five Háisl, sons of Hôrðr, five Gunnmundr/ Kynmundr, sons of Bjǫrn. (Jansson 1987: 33f.) The name Úlfheðinn appears on two Viking Age rune stones from the Swedish provinces of Uppland and Södermanland9 (Wessén and Jansson 1949–1951: 8: 398–401, 3: 283f.) The same name, as well as the parallel Bjarnheðinn, “bear skin”,10 appears in Old Norse as a personal name as well as in place names (Blaney 1972: 32). Landnámabók has three different Ulfheðinn, supposedly living during the tenth century.11 In Old High German this name appears as Wolfhetan and has been attested as early as the eighth century (Müller 1967: 201). Related to this name are other continental Germanic names with very similar or identical meanings (signifying the wearing of a wolf ’s skin), such as Hedenulf, Wolfhroc, Hrocculf, Scrotulf, and the like (Müller 1967: 202–5). In fact, the great variety of names in combination with heðinn and hetan suggests that they have been in use long before they are mentioned in written sources. It seems probable that these names were originally appellatives, only later being used as personal names (Blaney 1972: 34). This explanation is supported by other groups of names that seem to denote an initiatory context, among the most interesting being those signifying the wearing of wolf and bear masks, helmets, or headgear, such as Old Norse Bjarngrímr, Úlfgrímr, and Grímólfr and continental Germanic Berengrim and Wolfgrim (Breen 1997: 6ff.). Furthermore, it must be considered more than mere coincidence that the areas where these names (especially Wolfhetan) occur are precisely the areas where the iconographic depictions of ulfhednar are found (Blaney 1972: 69). Clearly, these depictions and the appellatives and proper names belong to the same panGermanic warrior tradition.

Going berserk: shape-shifting and ecstatic battle rage The main trait of the berserkers and the úlfheðnar in the Old Norse sources is their ferocious and violent battle rage. This rage is even attested in non-Nordic sources. For example, in the year 970 the Byzantine historian Leo Diaconus witnessed a group of Scandinavian warriors12 who fought in a violent rage, bellowed like wild animals, howled eerily, and acted as if possessed.13 The berserkers are described as “shifting shape” and, in some sense, as transforming into animals. This transformation takes place on the mental level, but is still to be considered a type of shape-shifting, where the transformation is a shift in ‘nature’ visible through behaviour rather than external shape (see Wallenstein 2015). The predatory nature of the berserkers and the úlfheðnar is made visible through their howling, biting, and (according to some sources) drinking blood. Perhaps this predatory nature should even be considered a kind of ‘wolfishness’ brought on by identification with Odin. An interesting example worth mentioning

56

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

in this context is an episode in the Eyrbyggja saga about the two berserkers Halli and Leiknir, who “went berserk and were not of human nature, when they were in rage, they went forth mad as dogs and feared not fire nor iron” (Sveinsson and Þórdarson 1935, ch. 25 (ÍF IV: 61)). According to the saga, the two warriors were no longer of “human nature” (mannligu eðli) when they were in rage. This choice of words really seems to emphasize the nature of the warriors’ transformation. Further on in the saga, Halli is said to be filled with “wolfishness” (úlfúð14) and “maliciousness” (illsku) when he realizes that Vermundr does not want to help him find a wife. This “wolfishness” seems similar to the abovementioned Greek notion of lyssa and is comprehensible in the light of the odinic warrior’s relation to his god. The wolfish or predatory nature that is lit within the berserkers and úlfheðnar should probably be understood as an aspect of the god himself being awoken in them. When trying to express this relation between the berserkers and Odin in scholarly terms one could speak of the berserkers experiencing a state similar to what scholars of mysticism would call an identification, or a unio mystica with a god, or indeed a form of ritual (voluntary) possession, where the god, or an aspect of the god, is thought to possess the warriors, thus inducing the fury. This type of ‘possession trance’ is well known from many areas, not least from Siberian shamanism where this state is preceded by careful preparations and to achieve which the intervention of only a fully trained shaman is thought to be able to ‘manifest’ the god or spirit. Apart from acting in “a deity specific behavior pattern” (Siikala 1978: 44), typical of this state are physical consequences such as spasms, convulsions, and trembling and a diminished sensory receptivity (Siikala 1978: 37f., 43f.; 2002: 245), resulting in, among other things, a reduced sensitivity to pain (on this see further below). A tendency in earlier research has been to try to understand or explain the battle fury of the berserkers as a medical phenomenon: mental illness, rabies, or a genetic predisposition to violent rage in certain individuals. This ‘medicoreductionist’ perspective was prevalent during the early 1900s and is visible also in, for example, the attempt at explaining (away) shamanism as ‘arctic hysteria’ brought on by lack of vitamins and genetic damage. Another line of reasoning has been trying to identify some psychoactive substance (such as the stillunidentified soma/haoma) that can explain the behaviour of the berserkers. The most famous attempt in this direction is probably Samuel Ödmann’s theory from 1784 (Ödman[n] 1784) about the berserkers inducing their frenzy by consuming the fly agaric mushroom (amanita muscaria). Even though this specific theory has been disproved, the use of drugs cannot be excluded, but at the same time there is nothing to suggest it in the sources and if arguing any such theory, one would also have to be careful not to simply reduce a complex cultural and religious phenomenon to one simple variable. The reason for scholars trying to identify an outside variable that would explain this behaviour was probably that there was very little research done on altered states of consciousness before the middle of the twentieth century. From the knowledge we possess today of extreme mental states that can be induced by

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 57 religious practices, it seems that the ecstatic state of the berserkers is to be considered a ritually induced altered state of consciousness, and this view makes the assumption of an outside variable (such as drugs or mental illness) superfluous. These types of mental states also have strong parallels with the berserkersgangr when it comes to the effects of the ecstasy (Siikala 1978: 40–52, 340), such as the insensitivity to pain (Sharma 1987: 2681) and the sleep of exhaustion following the frantic period (Siikala 1978: 44). There is every reason to believe that the berserkers and the úlfheðnar induced their ecstatic state by ritual means of some sort, even though we can say very little about the details of these rituals. The ritual dance indicated in some sources about berserkers may have been one part. The usual techniques utilized by shamans are different kinds of sensory deprivation: rhythmic drumming, chanting, dancing, and the like. Shamans sometimes induce their trance with the aid of drugs (the Siberian shamans mainly use the fly agaric mushroom for this purpose) though this is by no means necessary. The basis for the shaman’s trance behaviour is the “mechanical” stimuli (Siikala 1978: 42, 333). The use of animal masks is also shown in the iconograpical material and indicated in the names mentioned above; the wearing of animal skins and the berserkers’ animalistic behaviour (howling, biting and, perhaps, drinking blood) must have been used to aid identification with the predators they sought to mimic. It seems very reasonable, therefore, to consider the warriors’ transformations into predatory beings as part of their mental preparation before battle, – collective ecstasy-inducing pre-battle rituals. Thus, the seemingly ‘insane’ battle fury of berserkers and ulfhednar was not beyond control in the sense of lacking battle technique or tactics. No matter how ferocious and bloodthirsty they seem in the sources, they were also highly valued and admired elite soldiers and considered very effective in combat, something that seems unlikely if they were totally beyond control. Admittedly, some sources do describe berserkers as being “uncontrolled” and that they “could not tell friend from foe”, but this should probably be considered a question of perspective. For people watching the berserkers, or even standing on the opposite side of them in combat, these howling, biting, and blood-drinking warriors must have been perceived as insane and totally beyond control or reason. This must, of course, have instilled great fear in their opponents and functioned as a way of giving the berserkers a psychological advantage by means of causing terror. The mental state of the berserkers during the berserkersgangr can be considered as a kind of inspired, focused battle trance in the form of a violent, ecstatic, and instinctive animal state. When the predator takes control over the warrior, his human side is distanced from his violent actions. This dehumanization results in freedom from moral responsibility and human feelings and inhibitions, which in turn makes brutality and fearlessness in combat easier. Dehumanization in war can take this form, but may also be used rhetorically in order to make enemy soldiers appear as less than human, this way freeing oneself from the moral responsibility of killing other human beings. Thus, we have on the one hand soldiers/warriors who are freed from moral responsibility

58

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

and human feelings and inhibitions by not being considered humans themselves and, on the other, soldiers killing something less than human, resulting in the same moral and emotional distancing. Thus the function of the berserkersgangr can be described as twofold: a method of dehumanization and moral distancing on the individual level and one of psychological warfare and terror on the collective level.

The ageing berserk: from warrior to . . . what? Seen from a religious dimension of Iron Age reality, war among men was merely a reflecting reiteration of a divine prototypical war initiated by Odin and fought among the gods in illo tempore (cf. Nordberg 2014: 92–120). No wonder then, that not only was waging war an ideal way of life in warband ideology, but falling in combat was even the ideal way of death. This is a recurrent theme in much of the preserved Germanic, Old English, and Scandinavian poetry and early medieval narrative texts. For example, according to the anonymous composer of the twelfth century poem Krákumál, the Danish king, Ragnarr lóðbrokr, fully emphasized this conviction when he recognized that he was about to fall in an ongoing battle (Simek and Pálsson (1987: 218): Fýsumk hins at hætta, heim bjóða mér dísir, þær´s frá Herjans hǫllu hefir Óðinn mér sendar; glaðr skalk ǫl með ǫsum í ǫndvegi drekka; lífs eru liðnar vánir, læjandi skalk deyja.

I dare to go freely the dísir are calling me home, From the hall of Odin the war god has sent for me; Happy I shall drink beer In the high seat with the gods, All hope of life is gone, laughing I shall die15

But if death in battle was the ideal way to end the earthly life and to ensure oneself a future existence alongside Odin in the hereafter, then what about the odinic warriors who did not fall in combat? Maintaining the ideological military perspective, it is obvious that dying from sickness or old age was considered the absolute opposite of a glorious death. For example, when the Norwegian skald Þiodolfr (ninth century) and the Icelandic law speaker Snorri Sturluson (early thirteenth century) recount the story of Aun the Old (a semi-mythic king of the svear, said to have ruled in Uppsala in Middle Sweden in the sixth century), they relate with ill-concealed condescension that Aun, decrepit and infirm in old age, had to lie in bed and drink from the narrow end of the drinking horn like a baby (Aðalbjarnarson 1979, ch. 25 (ÍF XXVI: 49)). Another example of this is the fate of the famous warrior-poet and committed Odin worshipper Egil Skalla-Grímsson, who lived to be over 80 years old. From the perspective of an Odin worshipper, the fact that he lived to lose the strength of his youth must have been considered a betrayal from the god. In one of the last chapters of the Ynglinga saga (ch. 85) we are told that Egil had difficulty

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 59 walking, that he couldn’t see very well, was hard of hearing, and that he felt the cold. In one section, the saga relates how a couple of women laughed and made fun of him when he fell over. Another woman drove him away when he wished to lie down by the fire to keep warm. This episode clearly demonstrates the unforgiving ethos of Old Norse religion in this respect. Under no circumstances was it an option to live on past glory! Ending the earthly life in such a way was clearly not a coveted destiny for a warrior. Luckily, there were means to avoid this dishonourable end. The undefeated old warrior could stage his own violent death. For example, according to the Danish bishop and historian Saxo Grammaticus (c.1150–1220), the odinic hero Starkhother (Starkáðr in Old Norse texts) urged a fellow warrior to decapitate him with his own sword to avoid his impending death from old age: “Starkhother willingly offered him his sword and then bent forward his head beneath it; he urged Hather not to fulfil his task of executioner squeamishly or handle the blade like a girl” (Saxo Grammaticus 1998: Book VIII). Similarly, the ageing odinic hero Haddingus (Haddingr in Old Norse texts), finally publicly hangs himself (Saxo Grammaticus 1998: Book I). This action is usually considered a self-sacrifice to Odin (See Dumézil 1973: 44), who was not only known as “lord of the gallows” (gálga valdr) and “god of the hanged” (hangatýr, hangagoð) (Jónsson 1973: 94, 114, 182), but as the chief recipient of human sacrifice as well. Prototypically, Odin even established the very ritual of human sacrifice by wounding himself with his spear while hanging himself from the branches of the world tree, giving himself to himself (gefinn Óðni, sjálfr, sjálfum mér). This act is depicted in the esoteric Rúnatal-stanzas of Hávamál (see von Neckel 1983: 138–45). It is of course impossible for modern scholars to determine how common it was for ageing warriors to stage their own ritualized violent deaths, but the literary narrations at least indicate that there were living traditions in the early medieval period about odinic warriors who intentionally did end their lives in this way. Furthermore, the literary sources offer information about yet another custom in which ageing warriors freely chose to be ritually killed, rather than to die from sickness and old age. Again this custom was associated with Odin. In the Ynglinga saga, Snorri euhemeristically pictures Odin as an ancient king of the svear, who stabbed himself with a spear on his death bed to avoid a degrading natural death: Óðinn died of sickness [varð sóttdauðr] in Svíþjóð [Sweden]. And when he was on the point of death he had himself marked with the point of a spear [lét hann marka sik geirsoddi] and claimed as his own all men who were killed by weapons [eignaði sér alla vápndauða menn]. He said he was going to go to Goðheimr and be reunited with his friends there. [. . .] Njǫrðr died of sickness. He also had himself marked for Óðinn before he died [Lét hann ok marka sik Óðni, áðr hann dó]. The Svíar burned him and wept bitterly over his grave. (Aðalbjarnarson 1979, ch. 9 (ÍF XXVI: 22))

60

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

Snorri’s euhemeristic approach aside, other evidence indicates that this information might actually reflect a genuine custom which, judging from Snorri’s account, was prototypically first established by Odin. For example, the Ostrogoth historian Procopius (c.500–560) relates a similar custom among the Heruli (or Eruli). In earlier research, the Heruli was usually recognized as a Germanic tribe originating from southern Scandinavia who joined the Goths on the migrations to eastern and southern Europe in the third century. Today, many scholars see the Heruli rather as an Odin-worshipping warrior association with strong ethnic and cultural connections to Scandinavia (Hyenstrand 1996: 122–3; Simek 1996: 145–6; Taylor 1999). In either case, Procopius recounts a custom among the Heruli that shares many common features with the tradition which, according to Snorri, was established by Odin: For they [the men among the Heruli] were not permitted to live either when they grew old or when they fell sick, but as soon as one of them was overtaken by old age or by sickness, it became necessary for him to ask his relatives to remove him from the world as quickly as possible. And these relatives would pile up a quantity of wood to a great height and lay the man on top of the wood, and then they would send one of the Eruli, but not a relative of the man, to his side with a dagger; for it was not lawful for a kinsman to be his slayer. And when the slayer of their relative had returned, they would straightway burn the whole pile of wood, beginning at the edges. And after the pyre had ceased, they would immediately collect the bones and bury them in the earth. And when a man of the Eruli died, it was necessary for his wife, if she laid claim to virtue and wished to leave a fair name behind her, to die not long afterward beside the tomb of her husband by hanging herself with a rope. And if she did not do this, the result was that she was in ill repute thereafter and an offence to the relatives of her husband. Such were the customs observed by the Eruli in ancient times. (Procopius 1919, ch. xiv: 403, 405) There must be some sort of connection between the information in all these similar accounts: warriors voluntarily slain in order to avoid shameful deaths by natural causes; old warriors being ritually killed on their death beds; old warriors hanging themselves; old warriors’ wives being voluntarily hanged; and in every case, strong associations to the cult of Odin. In yet another historical account, the Arab diplomat Ibn Fadlan tells of a similar custom. In ad 922 he met up with a group of travellers from eastern Scandinavia on the shore of the Volga in order to attend a funeral of one of their chieftains. The chief ’s ship had been pulled up on the riverside and a tent had been erected on its deck. On a wooden bed inside the tent the group had placed the body of the dead chief. Then, according to Ibn Fadlan, a slave girl who had volunteered to follow her master to ‘paradise’ was led on to the ship and into the tent by an old women who was directing the ceremony.

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 61 They laid her down beside her master and two of them took hold of her feet, two her hands. The crone called the “Angel of Death” placed a rope around her neck in such a way that the ends crossed one another (mukh¢alafan) and handed it to two [of the men] to pull on it. She advanced with a broadbladed dagger and began to thrust it in and out between her ribs, now here, now there, while the two men throttled her with the rope until she died. (Montgomery 2000: 19) Again, there are obvious similarities between this description and the customs mentioned earlier. According to Ibn Fadlan, the slave girl was voluntarily killed – literally on her master’s death bed – in order to be welcomed in paradise with him. The actual ritual killing was conducted in a twofold mode of procedure closely resembling Odin’s twofold death hanging from the branches of the world tree. According to Procopius, the Odin-worshipping warriors among the Heruli were voluntarily stabbed to death on their own funeral pyres to avoid shameful deaths from sickness and old age. According to Snorri, Odin stabbed himself with a spear to avoid dying from sickness and old age, thus dedicating all slain men to himself and promising to welcome them to his abode among the gods. Later, dying from old age, Njord dedicated himself to Odin. Obviously, there is a pattern here that cannot be dismissed as mere chance. Within warband ideology, to be slain in combat was viewed as an ultimate earthly end. Consequently, undefeated warriors in the autumn of their lives could avoid the shame of dying from natural causes by taking their own lives or even voluntarily letting themselves be ritually slain, thus allowing themselves their coveted rewards in the afterlife. How general this behaviour actually was is of course impossible to say. The will to live and the fear of death are human instincts, which are not easily repressed even for ideologically motivated warriors. It is possible, therefore, that sometimes these kinds of rituals were carried out by the surviving relatives only after the warriors’ deaths. In fact, certain archaeological evidence might indicate such a scenario. In some Viking age graves in Scandinavia, swords and spears (and in a few cases, battle axes) are found thrust down vertically into the ground next to the inhumated corpse, or through the cremation deposits next to the urn. This practice has also been found in several so-called chamber graves in the then Alemannic and Frankish areas, as well as in what is today Sweden. These types of graves were usually constructed for professional warriors. For what reason did the participants of the funerals thrust swords and spears into the graves? It is possible that this custom was conceived of as a way for living relatives to influence the afterlife of the deceased. By ritually ‘killing’ the already deceased, the dead were initiated into a favourable existence in the Other World (Nordberg 2002; 2004: 278–86). It is not unusual for public rituals within one certain social group to spread to others; surely all graves with weapons thrust into them did not belong to ulfhednar and berserkers. But, usually, this tradition is associated with warrior graves. It is probable that in most of these cases, the dead were members of the warband community and thus in life as in death were affiliated to Odin.

62

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

Conclusion The life of a berserk is characterized by a series of important transformations. During his initiation into adulthood, he is transformed from a youth into a man. In being admitted to the warband, he is transformed into a warrior companion of the comitatus. As a member of the comitatus, he is transformed from a state of ignorance to a state of wisdom by being initiated into the mysteries of death and into the secret knowledge of Odin. By mastering the art of shape-shifting, he is able to transform himself from man to animal and from animal to man. Finally, when falling in battle, he is transformed from a member of the earthly warband to the otherworldly retinue of Odin.

Notes 1 See Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar (ch. 27), Svarfdæla saga (chaps 15 and 18) and Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 28). It is known also from the fornaldarsǫgur, for example Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (ch. 3). 2 See Hornklofi 1967–1973. 3 See, for example, Vatnsdæla saga (ch. 9), Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar (ch. 9) (both describing the berserkers of King Harald Fairhair at the battle of Hafrsfjord) and Snorris, Haralds saga hins hárfagra (ch. 9). 4 This is the case, for example, in Flóamanna saga (chaps 15 and 16) and Svarfdæla saga (chaps 7–9, ÍF F IX: 141–7, see also p. 147, note 2 on the division of the chapters due to lacunas in the manuscript). 5 Hólmganga was a kind of judicial duel practised by early medieval Scandinavians. 6 See Germania, ch. 13–14, pp. 151, 153. 7 The asterisks (*) are used by philologists in this way to show that a word is written in a reconstructed form. In other words, the form is not documented in writing. 8 See also the very similar iconography on the finds from Sutton Hoo. 9 Uppland (ulueþin, U799) and Södermanland (ulfhiþin, Sö307). 10 Attested on two Swedish rune stones (U 920 and U 1038) is also the name hiþinbiurn/ hiþinbiarn (i.e. Heðinbjǫrn). Müller 1967: 202. 11 Landnámabók, (ÍF I). These are Úlfheðinn a Víðimýri (170f.), Úlfheðinn Brúnasson (244) and Úlfheðinn Véfrøðarson (226). The name also survived into the Christian era and a famous bearer of it was the lawspeaker Úlfheðinn Gunnarsson who held the office 1108–1116. At this point these names had obviously lost their original significance and become personal names like any other. 12 This group of people was called Rús, probably derived from the Swedish name for the coastal area in eastern middle Sweden, Roslagen. Compare also the names for Sweden in Finnish, Ruotsi and Estonian, Rootsi. 13 See Leo Diaconus’ Byzantine history, especially Book 8. See also Ellis Davidson 1976: 113f. who points out the great similarities between these Rús and the warrior aristocrats of the Odin cult. 14 That is: úlf-hugð, (see Eyrbyggja saga p. 63, note 2) meaning, with a wolf ’s hugr (a wolf´s mind), i.e. being of wolfish nature. The same term is used in Egils saga SkallaGrímssonar to describe Skalla-Grímr Kveld-Úlfsson, who is also a berserk. See Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar (ch. 25, ÍF II: 65). 15 Krákumál, st. 29, Skj. B1: 656.

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 63

References Sources Aðalbjarnarson. Bjarni (ed.) (1941). Haralds saga hins hárfagra Snorri Sturlusson Haralds saga hins hárfagra in Heimskringla I. Íslenzk Fornrit XXVI Bindi. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). Aðalbjarnarson, Bjarni (ed.) (1979). Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga I. Íslenzk Fornrit XXVI Bindi. (Reykjavík: Bókútgáfan Forni). Adam of Bremen (1917). “Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum” in Schmiedler, Bernhard, Hamburgische kirchengeschichte. Dritte Auflage. (Hanover und Leipzig: Hahnsche Buchhandlung). Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus III, trans. Rolfe, J. C. (London: Harvard University Press, 1935). Benediktsson, Jakob (ed.) (1986). Landnámabók Íslenzk Fornrit I. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). Hornklofi, Þórbjǫrn (1967–1973). “Haraldskvæði” in Jónsson, Finnur (ed.), Den NorskIslandske skjaldedigtning 800–1400. (København: Rosenkilde og Bagger). Jónsson, Finnur (1973). Den Norsk-Islandske skjaldedigtning. Boka 1. (København: Rosenkilde og Bagger). Jónsson, Guðni (ed.) (1936). Grettis saga Ásmundarssonar. Íslenzk Fornrit VII Bindi. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). Jónsson, Guðni and Vilhjálmsson, Bjarni (eds) (1943). Vǫlsunga saga Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda. (Reykjavík: Bókútgáfan Forni). Kristjánsson, Jónas (ed.) (1956). Svarfdæla saga in Eyfirðinga sögur. Íslenzk Fornrit IX Bindi. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). Nordal, Sigurður (ed.) (1933). Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar. Íslenzk Fornrit II Bindi. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). Procopius (1919). History of the wars: books V and VI, trans. Dewing, H. B. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Saxo Grammaticus. Saxo Grammaticus. The history of the Danes. Books I–IX, ed. and comm. Ellis Davidson, H., trans. Fisher, P. (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998). Sveinsson, Einar Ól and Þórdarson, Matthías (eds) (1935). Eyrbyggja saga. Íslenzk Fornrit IV Bindi. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). Sveinsson, Einar Ól (ed.) (1939). Vatnsdæla saga. Íslenzk Fornrit VIII Bindi. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). Tacitus. Agricola, Germania, dialogus, eds Henderson, Jeffrey and Goold, G. P., trans. Hutton, M., and Peterson, W. Loeb Classical Library. (London: Harvard University Press, 2000). VIlmundarson, Þórhallur and Vilhjálmsson, Bjarni (eds.) (1991). Flóamanna saga in Harðar saga. Íslenzk Fornrit XIII Bindi. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka forntitafélag). von Neckel, G. (ed.) (1983). “Hávamál” in Edda, die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern I. Text. (Heidelberg: H. Kuhn), pp. 17–44.

Literature Blaney, Benjamin (1972). “The berserkr, his origin and development in Old Norse literature”. PhD diss. (University of Colorado).

64

A. Nordberg and F. Wallenstein

Blaney, Benjamin (1982). “The berserk suitor – the literary application of a stereotyped theme”. Scandinavian Studies, 54(4): 279–94. Boberg, Inger (1966). Motif-index of early Icelandic literature. (Copenhagen: Munksgaard). Breen, Gerard (1997). “Personal names and the re-creation of berserkir and ulfhednar”. Studia Antroponymica Scandinavica, 15: 279–94. Danielli, Mary (1945). Initiation ceremonial from Norse literature”. Folk-Lore. Transactions of the Folk-Lore Society, 56(2): 229–45. de Vries, Jan (1962). Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. (Leiden: Brill). Drobin, Ulf (1991). “Mjödet och offersymboliken i fornnordisk religion” in Bäckman, L., Drobin, U. and Berglie, P.-A. (eds), Studier i religionshistoria tillägnade Åke Hultkrantz professor emeritus den 1 juli 1986. (Löberöd: Plus Ultra), pp. 97–141. Dumézil, Georges (1973). From myth to fiction: the saga of Hadingus. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). Ellis Davidson, Hilda (1976). The Viking road to Byzantium. (London: George Allen & Undwin Ltd). Enright, Michael J. (1996). Lady with a mead cup: ritual, prophecy, and lordship in the European warband from La Tène to the Viking age. (Dublin: Four Courts Press). Evans, S. S. (1997). The lords of battle. Image and reality of the comitatus in Dark-Age Britain. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press). Hellquist, Elof (1980). Svensk etymologisk ordbok. (Malmö: Gleerups). Herschend, Frands (1998). The idea of the good in late Iron Age society. Occasional Papers in Archaeology 15. (Uppsala: Uppsala universitet). Hultgård, Anders (1997). “Från ögonvittnesskildring till retorik. Adam av Bremens notiser om Uppsalakulten i religionshistorisk belysning” in Hultgård, Anders (ed.), Uppsalakulten och Adam av Bremen. (Nora: Nya Doxa), pp. 9–50. Hyenstrand, Åke (1996). Lejonet, draken och korset. Sverige 500–1000. (Lund: Studentlitteratur). Höfler, Otto (1934). Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen. (Frankfurt: M. Diesterweg). Höfler, Otto (1976). “Berserker” in Hoops, Johannes (ed.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 2. (Berlin: Beck), pp. 298–304. Hultkrantz, Åke (1967). De Amerikanska Indianernas religioner. (Stockholm: Bonnier). Jansson, Sven B.F. (1987). Runes in Sweden. (Möklinta: Gidlunds förlag). Kershaw, Kris (2000). The one-eyed god. Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Männerbünde. Monograph no. 36. (Washington, DC: Journal of Indo-European Studies). Knight, Ian (1995). The anatomy of the Zulu army, from Shaka to Cetshwayo 1818–1879. (London: Greenhill Books). Landholt, Christoph (1998). “Gefolgschaft §1. Sprachliches.” in Beck, Heinrich and Hoops, Johannes (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 10. (Berlin: de Gruyter), pp. 533–7. Lincoln, Bruce (1991). “Homeric Lyssa: ‘wolfish rage’ ” in Lincoln, Bruce, Death, war and sacrifice: studies in ideology and practice. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press), pp. 131–7. Lindow, J. (1976). Comitatus, individual and honor. Studies in north Germanic institutional vocabulary. (Berkeley, LA and London: University of California Press). Montgomery, James E. (2000). “Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah”. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 3(1): 1–25. Müller, G. (1967). “Zum Namen Wolfhetan und seinen Verwandten”. Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 1: 200–12.

Transformations of berserkers and úlfheðnar 65 Nordberg, Andreas (2002). “Vertikalt placerade vapen i vikingatida gravar”. Fornvännen, 97(1): 15–24. Nordberg, Andreas (2004). Krigarna i Odins sal: dödsföreställningar och krigarkult i fornnordisk religion. (Stockholm: Stockholms universitet). Ödman[n] Samuel (1784). “Försök at utur Naturens Historia förklara de nordiska Kämpars Berserka-gång”. Kungl. Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar, July, August, September: 240–7. Puhvel, Jaan (1987). Comparative mythology. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press). Sharma, Arvind (1987). “Ecstasy” in Eliade, Mircea (ed.), The encyclopedia of religion. Vol. 4. (New York: Macmillan), pp. 2677–83. Siikala, Anna-Leena (1978). The rite technique of the Siberian shaman. (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia). Siikala, Anna-Leena (2002). Mythic images and shamanism – a perspective on Kalevala poetry. (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia). Simek, Rudolf (1996[1993]). Dictionary of northern mythology. (Cambridge: Brewer). Simek, Rudolf and Pálsson, Hermann (1987). Lexikon der altnordischen literatur. (Stuttgart: Kröner). Speidel, Michael P. (2002). “Berserks: a history of Indo-European ‘mad warriors’ ”. Journal of World History, 13(2): 253–90. Steuer, H. (1998). “Gefolgschaft §3. Archäologisches” in Beck, Heinrich and Hoops, Johannes (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 10. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter), pp. 546–54. Ström, Åke V. (1982). “Erzbischoff und Berserker” in Holm, Nils G. (ed.), Religious ecstasy – based on papers read at the Symposium on Religious Ecstasy held at Åbo, Finland, on the 26th–28th of August 1981. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell). Sundqvist, Olof (2002). Freyr’s offspring. Rulers and religion in ancient Svea society. Historia Religionum nr. 21. (Uppsala: Uppsala universitet). Sundqvist, Olof and Hultgård, Anders (2004). “The lycophoric names of the 6th to 7th century. Blekinge rune stones and the problem of their ideological background” in van Nahl, A., Elmevik, L. and Brink, S. (eds), Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde. Band 44. Namenwelten. Orts- und Personennamen in historischer Sicht. (Berlin: de Gruyter), pp. 583–602. Taylor, M. (1999). “Heruler” in Beck, Heinrich, Geuenich, Dieter, and Steuer, Heiko (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 14. (Berlin: de Gruyter), pp. 468–74. Timpe, D. (1998). “Gefolgschaft. §2. Historisches” in Beck, Heinrich and Hoops, Johannes (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 10. (Berlin: de Gruyter), pp. 537–46. Townsend, Richard (2009). The Aztecs. (London: Thames and Hudson). van Gennep, Arnold (1960). The rites of passage. (Chicago: University. of Chicago Press). Wallenstein, Frederik (2015). “Varggudens raseri – Extas och djurblivande hos bärsärkar och úlfheðnar”. Aiolos- tidskrift för litteratur, teori och estetik, 49: 25–44. Weiser, Lily (1927). Altgermanische Jünglingsweihen und Männerbünde. (Baden: Konkordia). Wessén, Elias and Jansson, Sven B. F. (eds) (1949–1951). Sveriges runinskrifter. Vol. 8, Upplands runinskrifter. Part 3. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International).

5

Professionalization of transformation From knights to officers in the Renaissance Gorm Harste

Introduction Since Samuel Huntington’s The Soldier and the State (1957) and Morris Janowitz’s The Professional Soldier (1960), military sociology has unanimously maintained certain narratives about the basic constitutive elements of the professional officer. The stories hinge upon the establishment of formal education at places like West Point, Saint-Cyr, Sandhurst, and other defence academies. These narratives are part of the classic tale of the founding of the modern social order of industrial society and the establishment of bureaucracies in Max Weber’s sense. They are almost part of what Hegel described as a ‘second nature’. In his time, this ‘social nature’ began to include Gerhard von Scharnhorst and Carl von Clausewitz’s military academy in Berlin, which was then situated in Prussia. In Huntington’s narrative the Prussian academy laid the foundations for modern professionalized military departments that developed as parts of a departmentalized state with a separation of powers, but still with checks and balances. The development of a military order is, of course, much older and just one estate among many other estates, so to speak. However, military order is one thing, quite another is an organized body that is professionalized in line with other professions such as civil servants, judges, and the clergy. These four orders developed centuries before the classical Prussian state. The emergence of this early modern professionalized military order of officers is the concern of this chapter. In particular, it focuses on the conception of French military organization in the 1580s. In the first section, I describe the hybrid form of political organization in Western Europe that was fundamentally disrupted by the Renaissance. In the next section, I consider why the French early military compagnies d’ordonnance initiated the professionalization of military officers. In a third section, I briefly describe the context of the more generalized transformations in professional corporate spirit during the Renaissance. The fourth section analyses the linkage between the transformation of civil servants described by Jean Bodin’s sociology of law and organization from 1576. The fifth section analyses Francois de la Noue’s description of the new form of military academies and professionalized officer from 1589 onwards. Both scholars proposed the new abstractions, formalizations, and professionalizations as solutions to the French Wars of Religion.

Professionalization of transformation 67

Preconditions of the Renaissance revolution in professionalization During the Renaissance, which lasted from the mid fifteenth century until the early seventeenth century, an abstraction process took place in the formation of power. ‘Power’ was conceptualized as two interdependent aspects: 1) the capacity to get things done; and 2) the need to handle other people in order to do so. Knowing when synchronization of matters and people needed to take place linked the two. Power, in French, is a verb which implies ‘doing’ and ‘pouvoir’ expresses the idea that power is a relation between two or more parties, necessary for the ‘doing’ to take place. Hence, when we say that power ‘empowers’ we refer to the self-referentiality (Luhmann 1997: 64ff.) implied in ‘pouvoir’. In German we may say ‘Macht mach Macht’, in other words, power empowers power. Since the High Middle Ages, power has been authorized to handle networks and therefore to coordinate and synchronize, to include some and exclude others. These operations were theologically authorized and institutionalized in the body politic, the corpus spiritus, of the Church. The Holy Spirit synchronized communication, making distance no object, thereby empowering the Church to be in power to handle itself. In this way, almighty ‘might’ combined eternal authority and temporal might into an idealized form of unified absolute power. With the legal revolution of the twelfth century, this new shape began to form semantics of rules and derogation of rules (Harste 2013). Without doubt, such discussions constitute organizational problems in the modern world to a considerable extent. Modern analyses of teamwork, human resource management, networking, organizational culture, strategic management, and professionalization seldom contribute ideas that had not already been discussed during the five centuries between the formation of the organizational pattern in the High Middle Ages and the late Renaissance. The organizational models were often painted on the walls of monasteries or the walls of city halls. They depicted, almost invariably, variations of the Last Supper, on the one hand along very formal lines with little difference between the way each disciple is shown and, on the other hand, along far more fluid lines with the disciples depicted as having more conflictual and individual positions. These paintings invoke the story told in this article: the break-up and dissolution of the integrated form of corpus spritus used in Catholic diplomacy and conflict resolution which was followed by escalations in the early modern wars of religion (Elwood 1999; Gisey 1999). Amazingly, the most famous depictions of the Last Supper, the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci (1495) and Veronese (1573), suggested the organizational form of the future – the central perspective – which was (re)formulated in Max Weber’s model of bureaucracy. What was the new form of membership about and how did this concern the military forces that empowered and depicted the new form of organization and rule? What kind of power was possible once such an abstraction of professional membership from the personal rule was coded, accepted, and brought into use? These are the questions to be answered in this chapter and they will be addressed through an analysis of the professionalization

68

G. Harste

of both ordinary soldiers and officers too. The investigations involve a range of historical material as well as methodological and theoretical approaches from historical sociology, military history, and social theory. The problem is about the leadership of soldiers, not only in war, but also in the preparation for and in the aftermath of wars. It is about a form of conduct which the Roman military called ‘dux’, from ducere, to lead. The key to the present analysis can be taken from Niklas Luhmann: The political complexity that is attained can best be understood if, for the purpose of historical comparison, the theory of the ‘reasons of state’ . . . is considered. By the year 1600 the idea of ‘state government’ was already detectable. But the organization of the state and the holding of offices (especially the holding of leading offices by a prince) were not clearly distinguished in the concept of the state. Therefore, ‘reasons of state’ was justified by the necessity of government itself. In other words, the concepts of domination and state were not yet separated, so that one could still say, ‘L’état c’est moi’. The code functions of leading offices – the fact that their occupation by one person excluded another – were not yet differentiated from the program function, i.e. not distinguished from the question of by whom and according to which programs the government should execute its task. (Luhmann 1989a: 86–7) In particular, Chris Thornhill (2011: 65–72) has focused on the systematic constitutionalization of modern society as being based on this abstracted form of power. Yet, in his seminal studies, he has mainly focused on legal and political developments, whereas I will focus on the organizational and military developments, in particular the increasing popularity of codes with the self-codifications of ‘organizational’ and ‘military’ (Luhmann 1997: 565; Harste 2013). Apart from classical studies by Durkheim and Weber, only a small number of modern studies, by Michel Foucault and Niklas Luhmann for example, have exposed the pastoral power and the early learning processes of the corporate spirit and the development of its corresponding models of inclusion, exclusion, and membership (Durkheim 1930; Kantorowicz 1957; Luhmann 1977; Rossum and Böckenförde 1978; Weber 1980; Elwood 1999; Foucault 2004). Semantics, codes, membership, and professionalization, however, do not stay unaltered and untransformed throughout centuries; they have to re-adapt to new circumstances and new structural couplings between the societal functional and organizational systems that in turn become increasingly complex in the way that they differ, but are also mutually interdependent. Studying the Renaissance transformation confronts the scholar with the difficulties of understanding both unclear distinctions and the networks of family names; yet, reading the old texts, the point is to find the distinctions that make a difference. To put it another way: evolution takes place with the peculiar invention of involution that makes innovation visible and meaningful. This was what the Renaissance was about (Luhmann 1980; 1997: 536ff., 678–87). The Renaissance revolution has been

Professionalization of transformation 69 studied from many different angles. The present study concerns how the mesoand micro-levels of organizational and professional transformations were structurally coupled with developments in the war system and established the beginnings of a military organizational system.

The disruption in the early Renaissance For Norbert Elias (1976), Georges Duby (1978), and Jean Flori (2001), to become a knight was to be the chosen servant of God. He was to be an incarnation of the disciples, which meant that he had to be disciplined. According to Duby, this was unlikely to happen since it would be rare to find adults who would be comfortable with the situation of being mounted on a horse, burdened with 70 kilos of armour and able to attack adversaries who would be similarly equipped, even thought their nature as children might have marked them out as being suitable warrior material when they reached adulthood. Yet, an equally overwhelming burden of semantics and codes about honour, courage, shame, pride, and guilt transformed such a possibility into reality through the means of training and communion with the Holy Spirit (de Charny 1873). Philip Gorski (2003) has coined the term “disciplinary revolution” to describe the effect of the Calvinist transformation of discipline that was developed in Dutch military academies and which was part of more far-reaching reforms applied to commercial life, urbanization, and education. To the noble life of a knight, we should also add a requirement for ascetic discipline. Hence, we find many insights in Weber’s (1980) study about the transition from patrimonial social orders to early modernity. This includes a number of vocational codes that link Protestant ethics with the early spirit of bureaucracy, capitalism, urbanity, and a sense of ‘time is money’. In the latter part of the fifteenth century, the printing press revolutionized communication. Now communication could turn itself inwards and, as Luhmann (1997: 291–301) has put it, communicate about communication. Before the Reformation and the widespread exploration that accelerated the discovery of new worlds, it became possible to write, for example, an instruction manual about the extremely difficult process of transforming iron into cannons, at the same time as books and the laws of the land too, could be published in large numbers. From the days of the monks writing illuminated manuscripts things had been written down by hand. Now, with the advent of the printing press, books containing standardized information could be printed so that the same text and the same instructions were available to all; processes could be carried out in the same way by anybody reading a particular book. (Black 1991: 10). The transformation of the knightly order of warriors began with the so-called compagnies d’ordonnance of the French king, Charles VII. Between 1445–1446 he instigated a permanent group of 15 captains who each commanded about 600 men. Each 600 was composed of about 100 knights, 200 archers, 100 logistical coutiliers, 100 valets, and 100 young pages (Contamine 1992a: 201–8). Such a very expensive combined complex order was in need of a new form of semantics,

70

G. Harste

new symbols, and new forms of political thought. This new fighting force was an outstanding novelty in the competition between the European dynasties and it was certainly comparable to a military revolution of society and politics, and signalled advances in early modern state formation. Over the next few decades, France emerged as a superpower on another scale altogether, since the permanent troops soon acquired particular skills and could conduct campaigns that demolished the dynastic state of Burgundy and secured the peripheral regions of France existing at the brink of the royal domains, the so-called pays d’élections (Contamine 1992b; Potter 1995: 110ff.). These regions were called the pays d’états and the idea of estates constituting a monarchical republic (res publica) became crucial to the state semantics of the raison d’état. The concept état, in fact, originated as a hybrid description, the ‘status’ of the staff and the ‘estate’ on which the livelihoods of the king’s staff, his court and especially his family depended. In 1495, for example, King Louis XI had a staff of 365; a few decades later Francois I had a staff of over 600, and in 1560 Henri II had a staff of 1,049. This development certainly marked a transformation from the patrimonial dynasties with their feudal ban and arrière ban used to associate knights and commoners under heraldic orders and dynastic flags respectively. The armies were no longer simply selffinancing troops supplemented with some financial contributions from provincial estates. The French monarchy campaigned abroad on the Italian peninsula from 1492 onwards. According to several scholars, this series of wars enforced the military competition as a still ongoing evolutionary and revolutionary endeavour (Porter 1994; Knox and Williamson 2001). Hereby, the role of knights was profoundly transformed and eventually constituted at a very different level of power abstraction and institutionalization. The military organization system merged with an amazingly new form a couple of generations later.

The debate The transformation was indeed indebted to new semantics and communication codes about inclusion of warriors into membership of a new elite and its esprit de corps. According to a romantic description used by Norbert Elias, a knight was forced to kneel in a particular ceremony which, once undergone, gave admittance to an exclusive group at court. Another and more widely discussed analysis, sustained by Arlette Jouanna (1989; 1991; 1996; 2013) and Robert Descimon (2000), describes a much more organizational transformation of inclusion and exclusion. This points towards an organizational modernity that was the classical position of Max Weber – his definitions of state and bureaucracy, for example – yet these authors also challenge the ‘official’ French narrative of a simple top-down administrative revolution, inherited from Alexis de Tocqueville (1988) and continued by Roland Mousnier (1971; 1974; 1980), which seems a bit too ‘Machiavellistic’. More recently, Niklas Luhmann (1980; 1981; 1989b; 1995; 1997: 678–743) has defended the “take-off” of modernity as commencing with the professionalization

Professionalization of transformation 71 of membership in the grand corps d’état, whereas Pierre Bourdieu (1994: 97–131; 2004; 2012) defends a position of it being later than this, as if the ancient regime continued to dominate. An important part of this discussion of the organizational form of the early modern state concerns the form, codes, and semantics about professions. A historical sociology should cope with a sociology of professions, i.e. questioning the when, where, how, when considering semantics, communication codes, and codes about codes (Harste 2013). The modernization thesis is particularly concerned about such transformations. The legal profession has been analysed by Françoise Autrand (1981) and François Bluche (1986). Transformations in the semantics, codes, and forms of the military profession, however, have not been the subject of much study since Jean-Antoine Guibert and Carl von Clausewitz, and any studies that do exist have then only been positioned in between those concerned with codes of chivalry and those concerned with modern professionalization. This is probably due to the deplorable fact that war studies seem to have been neglected by social theory. Social theory has mainly focused on domestic social order and has largely forgotten concerns about the conflicts that can exist in transformations that concern relations abroad, such as the construction of military organizations. As has happened with military revolutions, there are a number of transformations that have taken place in the professionalization of military organizational systems. Some, like Victor Hanson (2007), may stick to the simultaneous logocentric and hoplite revolutions in Greek early antiquity and advance views on the corporate spirit of the hoplite. At the other end of the scale, Jeremy Black pleas for a professionalization that arrived with Frederick the Great, Guibert, and Napoleon Bonaparte in the late Enlightenment. They are both right but Luhmann’s analysis of the abstraction process with regard to inclusion/membership focuses the “take-off ” (Luhmann 1997: 565) on the self-description in the organizational systems. This narrows the ‘take-off ’ that we are searching for to what Barnard Barbiche (1987) calls the “organizational revolution”, and in particular the codes of military professions that conditions such a revolution. The focus is delimited in the search for transformations taking place between the time at which Niccolò Machiavelli’s Dell’Arte della Guerra (Machiavelli 1991) as well as, more famously, his Il Principe (Machiavelli 1962) were written, and the time Frederick the Great (1738) wrote Anti-Machiavel. AntiMachiavellism was the name for the extreme endeavour to find social, legal, political, and organizational communication codes beyond those of cynicism. These efforts were less about the Machiavellian opportunistic and unethical ways of manipulating people, but about the social might of enabling synchronization and disciplined coordination inside a framework of loyalty that was no longer indebted to a Catholic semantic of a common corpus spiritus. Still, these thinkers did not simply wish to replace Machiavellianism with a secular form of esprit de corps or military corporate spirit. This theme, and its paradoxes, is a classic topic in military sociology (Huntington 1957; du Picq 2005; Ouellet 2005; King 2007).

72

G. Harste

Barbiche (1987) calls our attention to the separation of legal power from organizational power that took place at the end of the sixteenth century. With Luhmann’s systems theory we may observe how codes of organization begin to code organization in Jean Bodin’s famous Six Books of the Republic from 1576. This text owes its reputation to its description of the perpetual sovereignty of the monarchy. Indeed, it launched a revolution in its description of magistrates in their positions as commissioned officers with perpetual tasks: The officer was modelled according to the idea of Jesus who became conceptualized as an eternal Christ (Kantorowicz 1957; Luhmann 1977: 273ff.). Just like the king had two bodies, as temporal Jesus and eternal Christ, his officers would also have two bodies. Bodin’s analysis was meant to ascribe new functions to the monarch, his estate, and the hierarchical estate society in which this new form of the monarchial estate should place itself as the highest estate. The distinction between temporal commission and eternal office was kept until later. “An officer is the public person who has an ordinary charge defined by law. The holder of a commission is the public person who has an extraordinary charge defined in the terms of the commission” (Bodin 2014: 81). In the Roman military, this concept of permanency had some significance, but it remained a minor point and continued to be a problem for the stabilization of Roman administration. The concept is, in fact, a very Christian invention by the Western Catholic Church, which became very different from the still clientilist Orthodox Byzantine Church that later heavily influenced Russian clientilism from the Tsarist regime to Stalin and, much later, Putin (cf. Thornhill 2011: 327ff.). Yet, it became decisive for those descriptions of military officers in an environment where Huguenot thinking prevailed. This advocated Bodin’s re-constitution of the monarchy to encompass Huguenot assistance due to the fact that Henri IV’s (King of Navarre from 1572 and King of France from 1594) military chief of staff was the moderate Huguenot François de la Noue, who published his Discours Politiques et Militaires in 1587. In a first attempt, we could depict the social forms discussed so far in Figure 5.1, which includes a few interpretations of the form of power invested.

Jean Bodin’s reconstruction of the officer and the commissionaire From the late fifteenth century onwards, the king’s staff in France was the largest among European monarchies. On the basis of the staff estate, its functions, its salaries, and its positions, Roland Mousnier was able to write an account of the weight of the dynastic administration as it was maintained and delegated. We should not use today’s ideas of centralization and decentralization, although such ideas could be observed from a more central perspective. The officers were nominated and patrimonialized into positions; they were not employed in the later sense of delimited employment. They did not have a certain job or an office as a place for working on tasks. Neither did they have delimited budgets, or an administratively recognized education. Yet, nevertheless, Mousnier found a total

Professionalization of transformation 73 Religion, Church Pastoral power (Quillet, Berman)

Law, parlements Legal power, état de justice (Jouanna, Berman)

Mousnier, Weber Organizational power

Administration, central state

Economy, domains Financial power (Braudel)

War, military Military power (Contamine, Roberts)

Figure 5.1 Separation of forms of power.

of between 7,000–8,000 nominated officials for the year 1515 when Francis I came into power. The reign of Francis I marks a turning point in the symbolization of government: He symbolically authorized rule but questioned quite a number of the rituals and symbols hitherto monopolized by the Church. It was a time when all kinds of symbols and concepts were “essentially contested” (Connolly 1983). It is important to remember that these were the years when the writings of Seyssel, Machiavelli, Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin were written and published. The New World was detected. The old world with its symbols, concepts, organizations, and social orders had come adrift (Wilentz 1999). Amazing new powerful symbols began to appear, such as statues of Justitia, who represented a hybrid form between a half-naked innocent virgin (Mary), a warrior with a sword, and a balance between virtues and vices. Religion, the military, and justice were about to find new forms – in public places (Robert 1993). The hybrid statues of Justitia indeed expressed this highly contested debate about concepts. In 1560, about 25,000 state administrative positions were in place and in 1660 about 46,000. These were not simply nominated any more, but were occupied by employed personnel. Employed persons did not figure much before the 1730s, however, at which time more than 125,000 such jobs existed. Yet, French society was not richer or bigger in 1730 than it was in 1515, but it carried and used the weight of the state in a different way. This difference is explained by the military organization and its costs.

74

G. Harste

Yet, although he certainly belonged to the group of anti-Machiavellians, due to his position close to the moderate so-called ‘politiques’, Bodin attacked decentralists such as Calvinist Guillaume Budé and his l’Institution de Prince and the monarchists Hotman and Béze as “dangerous people”. They all favoured the freedom of the decentralized estates and sovereign courts (Hotman), and the free corps of the king’s officers (Béze). Bodin was certainly influenced by his young contemporary Étienne de Boétie’s Discours de la Servitude Volontaire from 1548 (see Jouanna 2013: 100–2, 111–12). Will, even the king’s will, always has to be defended in a reasonable way, i.e. in an institutionalized form, as Bodin had claimed already in his Methôde de l’Histoire (1951: 405–6). It would be wrong, however, to see the completely opposite position to the decentralists in Bodin’s theory of state and politics. Rather, he aims towards some kind of unity in complexity. This unified complexity can be observed in the following description: It follows that there are two sorts of public persons with a right to command. One is the sovereign right which is absolute, unlimited, and above the law, the magistrates and all citizens. The other is the legal right, subject to the laws and the sovereign. This is proper to the magistrate, and those who have extraordinary powers conferred on them by commission. These persons can exercise the right only until their office is revoked or their commission expired. The prince after God recognizes no superior whatsoever. The magistrate, under God, holds his powers of the prince and exercises them subject to the prince and the laws. The citizen, under God, is each according to his degree subject to the prince, his laws, and his magistrates, each in his proper sphere. I should add that I comprehend under the name of magistrate all those who have rights of jurisdiction annexed to their fiefs, for these rights they hold of the prince just as does any other magistrate. Only sovereign princes have an absolute right to command, in the sense that they alone can use the phrase “I ordain that . . .” The will of the magistrate, and of all others who have power to command is subject to the will of the sovereign, to which they are strictly bound, for he can revise, amend, or revoke his orders at will. Therefore the magistrates can never, either individually or collectively use the phrases “for such is our good pleasure”, or “on pain of death” in the commissions they issue. Only the sovereign can do this in his ordinances. This raises an important question which has never been properly determined, and that is whether the power of the sword is peculiar to the prince and inseparable from his sovereignty, so that the magistrate has only the right of execution of high justice, or whether such power is proper to the magistrate because communicated to him by the prince. (Bodin 1961: 431–2; 2014: 92–3) We see that Bodin distinguishes between the prince, the magistrates, and the particular subjects. In fact Les Six Livres de la République contains one book on the sovereign (book I), one book on the magistrates (book III) and one book on the

Professionalization of transformation 75 different combinations of government and state (book II). My point is that the strength of Bodin’s famous definition, “Sovereignty is that absolute and perpetual power vested in a commonwealth” (Bodin 1961: 409; 2014: 85),1 lies less in the old idea of potestas absoluta as in the idea of permanency, and that the meaning of permanence is shown in a theory of permanent magistrates whether ‘officers’ or ‘commissars’. The lawgiver is sovereign because he can refer to two kinds of magistrates, those who judge for him, the ‘officers’ and those who command him, the ‘commissars’ As far as de la Noue is concerned, we will see why the idea of permanent command was so important in order to conceptualize a permanent military organization. Thus, the sovereign presents what Bodin calls “the state” as a unified state, and he can govern because his government is executed. Bodin in fact elaborates an early idea of the bureaucracy needed by the sovereign: After the sovereign, the magistrate is the chief personage in the commonwealth, for upon him the sovereign devolves his authority and his power of commanding obedience. We must therefore consider what obedience is due from the magistrate to the prince, since this is his first duty. Unlike the sovereign who knows no superior, but sees all his subjects obedient to his power, or the private citizen who has no official right to use compulsion against anyone, the magistrate is many personages of different quality, bearing, appearance, and mode of action in one. (Bodin 1961: 409) Now, why should the magistrates obey? Are they not just networks of more or less trustworthy (fidèle) persons, more or less loyal? Bodin’s point is that they do not only have to obey the laws, they are also suppressed according to a natural divine law. Why do they want anything to do with a natural divine law? Because they thereby get a completely new status as perpetual parts of the monarchical estate. Here, Bodin uses a current distinction between juridical ordinary officers and commanding commissars, the latter being extraordinary appointed “king’s men” (Bodin 2014: 56–9).2 Hitherto, the tenure of the commission ended when the commissioning sovereign died; now Bodin reverses the argument: the commission stays valid until it is changed. In book 4, chapter 4, however, Bodin attacks permanency as a kind of substantial everlasting delegated condition; the position is not a patrimonial part of someone’s body, but a delegated part of the body of the prince. The point is that it should not be the commissioned employee or the officer in charge who himself keeps the permanent power; the perpetual moment is only what the lawgiver delegates to the office or the commission. Yet, the commission stays as a charge because of the institution of the king’s corps et college. Thus, Bodin transforms the administration into a “system”, an abstract body, desubstantialized, but with another form of reality. As such, the administration realizes what the king is by natural law, rather than what the substantive members of the administrative bodies are by way of their own particular history.

76

G. Harste

The possibility of this abstraction from bodily substance is exactly what the quarrel about the Reformation was about (Jouanna 1996: 306; Elwood 1999). This small transformation of a detailed legal argument seems to be the turning point for the sovereign monarchy. It is important to note that the scope and number of commissars were increasing dramatically during the years of intensified military revolution. Later on, after the formalization of the Code Michaud’s 461 articles in 1629, the use of commissions “operated in a way as a revolution” (Mousnier 1980, vol. II: 493). These commissars were later to be known as the famous ‘intendants’ whose power, according to Tocqueville’s somewhat exaggerated analysis, gave rise to an opposition of such strength that it became the French Revolution. According to Bodin, the magistrates are to be differentiated by a number of classifications. First, we have the legal status of their temporal perpetual position: judges are ordinary and commissars extraordinary, especially in the case of war. Second, Bodin observes an original Justinian classification according to qualities (qualitées): there are those who are “the well educated, the representable, the honourable, and the perfect” (“les illustre, les spectables, les clarissimes (les digne), et perfectissimes”). (Bodin 1961: 395). Third, Bodin observes a rather large scope of different tasks (mandements), which in his classification are still not as specialized as August Dorwart’s (1953) later description of the Prussian departmentalization of administrative sections (from the reforms in 1722). In remembering that before the late Enlightenment most chancellors divided the work according to a simple distinction between incoming and outgoing letters, Bodin’s classification is quite differentiated according to functional needs: For the prince issues orders of various sorts. There are general and perpetual edicts, binding on all sorts and conditions of his subjects whatsoever; or there are laws relating to certain persons, or certain circumstances, by way of provision; there are grants of exemption in favour of a single person, or a small group of such; or there are grants of privilege which do not involve any suspension of the law; there are grants of offices and commissions; there are the orders that declare war, publish peace, raise the army, or equip a fleet; there are levies of taxes, aids, subsidies, new imposts, and loans; there are the despatches issued to ambassadors instructing them to felicitate or condole with foreign princes, and treaties of marriages, alliances, and such like matters; there are letters of execution for the expediting of justice, the restitution of minors, the remission of sentences, or pardon of offences and such like matters. (Bodin 1961: 410) A fourth and final classification is hierarchical and comprises Bodin’s chapters on the different levels of magistrate: First of all, of course, there is the relation between the king and the magistrates, then the relation between higher and lower magistrates and, finally, the relation between magistrates and the subjects of governance. These are what Bodin calls distinctions in gouvernement. However,

Professionalization of transformation 77 his distinction between état and gouvernement is rather the opposite of the one currently in use. État is still used as the political state, i.e. the monarchical ‘estate’. The sovereignty of the ‘estate’ might be monarchical, tyrannical, aristocratic, or popular. Yet the word ‘state’ is in full transformation (Luhmann 1989b: 65–148; Koselleck et al. 1990: 9–18, 99–110). Government as ‘administration’ is still in use; however, it is rather now taken to mean the link between politics and administration. Moreover, ‘state’ today rather refers to the unity of a departmentally differentiated administration. In the concluding last chapter of Bodin’s Les Six Livres de la République, the distinction état/gouvernement is used to reduce the complexity of the different forms of estates and their relation to governmental complexity. The king, of course, needed his employees (Spitz 1998: 86–103). He could not, as Hobbes falsely thought, have instrumental power over employed magistrates. According to what principles should they then obey the law? My point is that this is a definite administrative problem that arose time and time again with the new commissars and the huge numbers of recently employed persons, usually not from the nobility. As long as the government relied on noble persons, who were thought to have virtue and honour, their acts were somehow sanctioned by their families, reputation, and ambitions. During the first half of the sixteenth century, large groups of people were surprisingly upwardly mobile (Jouanna 1991) due to a lack of regulations to hinder advancement, and the criteria used for their appointments were subject to intense discussion (Jouanna 1989). Had these people simply possessed traditional so-called ‘ordinary’ positions in the juridical corps, then their status would have been institutionalized and guaranteed. In particular, this included military officers who were not mercenaries, knights, or common soldiers, but who were a new kind of personnel with specializations, including experiences as private condottieri, but still part of the military estate of the monarchy.

François de la Noue and the professionalization of officers When de la Noue was captured and imprisoned in the castle of Limburg in 1580, the French Wars of Religion had already disrupted political rule for about two decades. Under such circumstances, it is somewhat peculiar that people such as Bodin and de la Noue had the time and could make the effort to write such seminal books as Les Six Livres de la République and Discours Politiques et Militaires. First, however, we should not forget that from very beginning the conflict was about intellectual theological matters: the question of the form of retained or delegated power according to the model of the substantial Catholic or symbolic Calvinist model of the Eucharist (Calvin 1541; Elwood 1999). In today’s language, we can say that the conflict was about the management concept of society: how centralized or decentralized should society be? Furthermore, the printed versions of the Bible, including the many interpretations, were in favour of the decentralized model certainly already in existence. Hence, Bodin’s solution was to propose a compromise: a new version, written from the

78

G. Harste

point of view of the middle ground and which allowed for a combination of the two, in a real Hegelian upheaval. This, by virtue of its description, favoured a less strong Catholic stance. Yet what would be the form of the military under such circumstances? This was de la Noue’s real problem. It was not enough any more to rely on the traditional model of some kind of loose gathering of noble knights governing condottieres in the Italian way each with groups of mercenaries recruited from the lower levels of society. There were Catholic interpretations with regard to the same matter, however, such as the Savoyard adviser Réné de Lucinge’s De la Naissance, Durée et Chute des Estats (1984). As de la Noue did, de Lucinge also proposed a military campaign against the Turks in order to reconcile the Catholic and Protestant adversaries. Whereas Lucinge proposed a small expeditionary force, de la Noue imagined a major campaign to include all Christian princes, with the aim of eventually reinstating Orthodox Byzantine rule. The last 200 pages of de la Noue’s publication are concerned with this issue. He probably saw a major role for himself in such endeavours. De la Noue used the first chapters to complain about the bad manners among young persons who became uncivilized through the civil wars. According to him, war destroys moderation in thought, mind, spirit, and body and classical social virtues such as honour, dignity, and respect are eradicated too. Hence, the classic notion of esprit de corps, as a social and political notion, should be differentiated and integrated into a new form. Discipline in spirit and discipline in body are both necessities if conflicts have to be subject to any kind of consensual moderation. Conflicts should become encapsulated instead of dispersed into disintegrated centrifugal forms of destruction. De la Noue’s first depiction of a new form was the founding of military academies, namely those whose specialization is the training of mounted soldiers. In German the concept is well known as Ritterakademien (Conrads 1982). This might at first sight seem to be a rather old-fashioned idea. In his first Discours, chapter 5, he uses Plutarch to introduce the idea, and it seems to be a proposal for a sports school where the likes of horseriding, vaulting, fencing etc. would be taught. In addition, the disciples should have discipline and disciplines such as geography, mathematics, writing, music and art, as well as lessons in social etiquette were suggested. The points to note are: first, about the repeated exercises and training programmes; second, about the notion of salaried teachers, invited over from Italy for three years who would develop teaching students who eventually would become teachers. The educating of teachers, learning to learn and teaching others about the best way of learning appeared to be the idea of creating a new corps with a “profession” of its own (de la Noue’s term). Students would enter the school at age 18–19 and stay for 4–5 years. However, the debate was not only about centralization/decentralization. Just as important was the conflict between Machiavellism and anti-Machiavellism. De la Noue enters into that conflict zone in the following chapters. On the one hand, he recognizes Machiavelli’s form of argumentation depicted in The Prince and in The Discourses, but de la Noue was certainly better acquainted with

Professionalization of transformation 79 Machiavelli’s The Art of War. De la Noue aimed to reinforce the critique, already exposed in 1571 by Innocent Gentillet, in a publication soon known as Anti-Machiavel (original: Discours sur les Moyen de Bien Gouverner). Once again, the problem is the instrumentalization of conflict, hatred, and aggression to which youth became socialized. Machiavelli accepted the existence of violence at the same time as he favoured the militia model. Hence, soldiers and their violence were not moderated from the inside of organized armies, but only through their civilian backgrounds. Throughout the sixteenth century, however, it became more and more obvious that wars socialized young soldiers in a secondary way and instilled in them a form of manners different to the one they had learned from family life. Since the works of du Picq and Émile Durkheim, army life has created today what we would describe as ‘secondary socialization’. Hence, in modern and future armies where firearms would be the rule and not the exception, this kind of instrumentalization of fighting had to be subject to learning and to professionalization. The new officers had to be encouraged not to develop crude cynicism – the problem being how to moderate and discipline cynicism and how to teach good judgement in its use. The military academies were all about teaching the young disciples to judge and, eventually, to aim and fire. This was celebrated as the new form of power, crystallized in the aforementioned statue of Justitia, the hybrid of a virgin and an armed soldier. If it is impossible to love your enemy, then at least be aware of what love and compassion is so that you can respect him. This is an obligatory virtue. Unfortunately, however, aggressive young people more often used injurious and/or bad words. If any form of decentralized army was to be acceptable, it had to be combined with a highly scholarly and disciplined form of behaviour. Social forms of cynicism, in one form of Machiavellism or another, became widespread during the Thirty Years’ War, in the colonial wars, and again from 1914–2014, and cruelty in armies developed to unprecedented levels. The answer was to let elites escape from an irresponsible and shallow life, and to teach them more of what, in the sixteenth century, was intensively discussed as ‘competencies’. Quite amazingly for our modern mind, intellectual figures such as Bodin and de la Noue really thought that the devil was around, in the form of Table 5.1 Scheme of François de la Noue’s forms of army Decentralized organizational form of army

Centralized form of army

Cynicism, instrumental behaviour

Neo-Machiavellian cruelty, Absolute tyranny uncontrolled and un-disciplined aggression, hatred

Disciplined behaviour

Modern (Protestant or Catholic) professional officers in modern armies: socialization to moderation, respect, virtues

Ancient Catholic form of virtues (small armies) or a new Bodinian form of rule (of legal power)

80

G. Harste

witches, for instance. Bodin even wrote an entire book on witches and de la Noue refers to accounts about 30,000 witches in France (de la Noue 1967: 26). A notion regarding cruelty, other than that which pertained to superstition, is that it was seen as something inherent in human beings – a sin and a simple desire, even desire for revenge. According to Jean Calvin, only a few people were chosen to be human beings without an innate wicked side, and it was not known who would, in fact, be chosen to be clean and pure. Diabolic cynicism was, therefore, surely inherently dangerous in armies and in the hands of soldiers; it had to be controlled. When we remember it was a mindset common for most people before Descartes – magic (black or white), mysteries, miracles, and wonders were around and could be subject to abuse – then Bodin and de la Noue are not so irrational, because their aim was to establish some kind of rational form in a social life that was vulnerable and which could easily fall apart when violence erupted. During the French Wars of Religion, cruelty was certainly practised among the adversaries of faith: the enemy was dehumanized, and massacres, rape and torture began to occur in increasing numbers. Pure violence happened more and more often. During the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, for example, about 20,000 Huguenots were killed. De la Noue insists on some kind of good judgement. The economic costs of wars should, therefore, be an important part of judging the need for war. Amazingly, this was indeed an important consideration of wars between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, all the way up until Kant, who considered taxes and credits as important parts of the interpretation of war costs (Kant 1977). De la Noue, in Discours VIII, mainly considers the costs of 35 years of civil war in France. Furthermore, as an important analysis, he considers if nobles used to living in luxury and affluence can accept such costs. As later discussed by Clausewitz, the economic and moral costs are mainly due to the protracted nature of such wars and the exhaustion at their continuance felt by citizens. They disrupt virtues and the capacity to reproduce. Noble elites who are responsible for wars should consider as a rule of thumb that one year of war costs two years of reparation of production capacities. Due to such considerations, de la Noue argues that a noble life of chivalry as a warrior or knight is over. Such a life he describes with a Spanish poem that is well known among French warriors: The war is my fatherland My harness is my house: And in every season To fight, that is my life

(de la Noue 1967: 211)

The “perpetual warriors”, in fact, lose their love for their fatherland and the sentiments they may have with regard to being good citizens (de la Noue 1967: 212). Amazingly, French nobles learned about new architecture and new, more civilized virtues during the Italian Wars (1492–1525); they learned about luxury, and there is no doubt that we can observe a radical transformation in architecture

Professionalization of transformation 81 among the French nobility in the sixteenth century. The nobles acquired a taste for peaceful living: Those people, who in their estate only can live attached to war to such a degree that they also make it their profession, they err immensely; and they ignore or want to ignore that man is principally made for peace and tranquillity, and thereby to live a more just life. (de la Noue 1967: 210) The dilemma imposed with regard to the codes of honour among the knightly ranks was surely a question of life and death. In no period were duels so much in use as in France before the military way of organized life began to take over. Fighting was about conflicts in the face-to-face interaction system and did not yet take place between state organizations: about 8,000 French nobles lost their lives in duels in the ten years between 1598 and 1608 (Corvisier 1992: 332). Honour and nobility had to be preserved in a sword fight that took place to prove ‘justice’ or ‘satisfaction’, i.e. it re-established justice and honour. Furthermore, nobles saw the idea of working with ‘the mechanical arts’, i.e. firearms, as an uncivilized activity that should be reserved for commoners. Yet, de la Noue argues that commoners abused such weapons and that only scholarly disciplined nobles should be allowed to use them because this type of person should have the necessary mathematical knowledge necessary in order to calculate with precision how guns should be loaded and fired. The use of firearms was a particular challenge for the noble knights, and the problem was far more than the simple tactical one of armour against a bullet or, somewhat later, shells against mounted, armoured knights. The three famous battles of Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415) showed again and again that commoners who were archers could cause serious problems for mounted knights, albeit the commoners were inferior in rank. Groups of mounted knights were also part of the forces of the English and the Dukes of Anjou. The social and political problem was obvious: it created a social disorder in which commoners could kill higher-ranked chevaliers whereas duels were only held between equals in social standing. Later, guns created the same disorder, and from the 1440s this was to the disadvantage of the English. The social and political misery created with the problems of knights is probably similar to the problems of being ‘Western’ and supplied with immensely costly and elaborate and technically revolutionized capacities, but faced by war enemies such as Vietnam, Algeria, Afghanistan, and Iraq who are poorer and less technologically advanced. Hence, the failures are repeated and, as a tragic paradox, in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, British officers were in front when they attacked German machine guns. This was, however, what de la Noue found a solution for: knights should be officers and thereby they would be in better control of not only the artillery, but also the logistics behind military forces. Officers, not knights, were about to institutionalize the new role for nobles. To satisfy Henri IV, de la Noue advised calling up 2,000 cadets to the new

82

G. Harste

military schools (Corvisier 1992: 335). At the same time officers, whose military education was more advanced, attended Maurice of Nassau’s famous Dutch academies. The estate hierarchy of grand nobility down to lower nobility was applied to officers at this time, but their counterparts 100 years later would be known as marshals, generals, colonels, captains, and lieutenants. The order of the estates, however, offered quite a different social, political, legal, economic, symbolic, and even scientific and aesthetic form than the hierarchy of military order. De la Noue argues for a new kind of army that was soon implemented in France and in the Netherlands under Maurice of Nassau, in Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus, and in England under Oliver Cromwell (Roberts 1973). Whereas the Spanish tercio was an extremely strong but virtually immobile square, more than 50 ranks deep, of between 2,500 and 6,000 men armed with pikes and shots, the French Wars of Religion made smaller groups necessary. This actually also corresponded to the hierarchical ranks and created less political disturbances; it was in line, too, with the more decentralist principles favoured by Calvinism and better applied to troops scattered in provinces. Later, Maurice of Nassau was to establish even smaller companies with only 550 men, similar to the Roman cohorts, whereas Gustavus drew the line at companies of not more than 200 men, four to eight deep in formation.

Conclusion: an early separation of powers It is certainly an exaggeration to observe only military professionalization as decisive for the new role of the military, not to say the state. Professionalization was generalized as a phenomenon in which the abstraction of duties and behavioural codes conditioned a new form of membership in the different corps of the emerging state. The emergence of the new and, according to de la Noue, “modern” military officer, was part of a larger and more generalized process that was concerned with a new form of inclusion, of abstraction, and of professionalization of power. Power escaped its religious form linked to the Catholic Church but it did not escape theological semantics. Rather, theological semantics were transformed into a more universalist form, when the idea of a corpus spiritus with its semantics of inclusion and excommunication, rituals of communion, presence/absence, representation, and delegation, for example, was superseded by a semantics of esprit de corps. After the 1770s, the term ‘organization’ replaced the organic idea of parts and wholes, specifically with the double concept of “organization and reorganization” (van Rossum and Böckenförde 1978). Thereby, a reinforced temporal notion of ‘re-form’, not to say ‘(r)evolution’, took power over the hitherto idea of a synchronic form of power in which power was about coordination as a synchronization of social orders and accelerated synchronization of reforms. This “reform fever” as the Bavarian Prime Minister, Maximilian von Montgelas, called it was indebted to reforms that had begun with the Renaissance idea of a central perspective that could compare different parts or sections and replace them according to notions of rotation. An important part of this reform and

Professionalization of transformation 83 reorganization concept was that officers could be removed from their traditional positions and replace their loyalty towards feudal land and families with a discipline that included an attachment to a new body politics of an organizational “system” (Bodin 1961: 1056; Friedrichs 1996). Thus, the very innovation of reform was conditioned by such a stabilization of forms, office holding, central perspective etc. that made the meaning of ‘re-form’ visible. Yet before this particular (r)evolution could take place in the era of Enlightenment, the version that emerged in the Renaissance took absolute power over its own power and its ‘reason of state’. At least four grand corps acquired this more professional form in France during the last decades of the sixteenth century. First, reformation and counterreformation instituted new and far more theological competencies for the devoted priesthood. Second, the state officials were no longer commissioned only to carry out specific tasks but to adopt more permanent functions in what later became known as the state bureaucracies. Third, lawyers and judges transformed into a profession distinguished again from the professionalized chancelleries which, especially after Michel de l’Hôpital’s administration in the mid sixteenth century, specialized only in legal matters (d’Aguesseau 1819). Fourth, the military officer began to have a career forged in the military academies. Together with academics searching for validation and a wish to tell the truth through the mediums of reasoning and doubt in combination with deliberation and writing, these forms of professionalization celebrated a concept of devotion, which Max Weber much later formulated as a meritocracy of Beruf, meaning that a job was bestowed on a person because of superior talent, not because of their birth or wealth. However, after the era of Enlightenment, research became an independent and autonomous profession, simply because the demand for educated elites was so overwhelming that academics became hybrids attached to services in order to gain power. In fact, a full functional differentiation of corresponding organizational systems did not occur before a more structural separation of powers, which in France took place with the legal and administrative reforms in 1738 (Phytilis 1978: 111ff.). Accordingly, the rupture with the noble heritage of the ancient regime was more clearly distinguished with the military schools of the mid eighteenth century in St Petersburg and in France, which had the École Royale Militaire. The very modern Prussian academy, however, continued to base its recruitment on nobles (Paret 2007). Noble virtues and lines of heritage to professions were not disrupted before the world wars, but during these a more universal conscription into the rank and file of military officers took place than ever seen before – apart from during the early years of the French Revolution. Still, the higher ranks in Europe, from Winston Churchill to the generals of the Wehrmacht were distinctively more noble and aristocratic than the lower officers, to say nothing of the common soldiers. This belated modernization of military professionalization, however, does not mean that noble semantics, codes, and forms have left the modern military. Some, such as Victor Hanson or John Keegan,

84

G. Harste

may maintain the view that the military organization has not fundamentally changed since the Greek hoplit and its corporate spirit. This view cannot be sustained in a larger modern sociological analysis, since the military organizations are dependent upon their structural coupling to other social forms that are functionally differentiated from organizations such as corporate bodies, financial institutions, hospitals, universities etc. The state was not established before these corps and an umbrella body with the name ‘state’ did not begin to rule the political and social orders before 1635 at the earliest, with the Catholic French monarchy’s entry into the Thirty Years’ War on the Protestant side. Accordingly, the French monarchy had to find a new name for the hitherto Catholic monarchial republic and invented l’état, (the state). Today, this semantic heritage, its forms, and even its heritage of types of reforms are departures from Renaissance reforms.

References d’Aguesseau, Henri-François (1819[1715]). “Sur les vues générales que l’on peut avoir pour la réformation de la justice” in d’Aguesseau, Henri-François, Oeuvres Complètes T. XIII. (Paris: Fantin), pp. 200–29. Autrand, Françoise (1981). Naissance d’un grand corps de l’état. Les gens du parlement de Paris 1345–1454. (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne). Autrand, Françoise (1998). “Les artisans de paix face a l’état. La diplomatie pontificale” in Contamine, P. (dir.), Guerre et concurrence entre les états européens du XIVe au XVIIIe siècle. (Paris: PUF ), pp. 305–38. Barbiche, Bernhard (1987). “Une revolution administrative: la charge du grand voyer de France” in Stegman, André (ed.), Pouvoir et institution en Europe au XVIème siècle. (Paris: Vrin), pp. 283–96. Berman, Harold J. (1983). Law and revolution: the formation of the Western legal tradition. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Berman, Harold J. (2003). Law and revolution. Vol. 2. The impact of the Protestant reformations on the Western legal tradition. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Black, Jeremy (1991). A military revolution? (London: Macmillan). Bluche, François (1986[1961]). Les magistrates du parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle. (Paris: Economica). Bodin, Jean (1951 [1566]). Methôde de l’histoire. (Paris: PUF ). Bodin, Jean (1961[1583][1576 in Latin]). Les six livres de la république. (Aalen: Scientia). Bodin, Jean (2014[1576]). Six books of the commonwealth, trans. and abridg. Tooley, M. J. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell). Bourdieu, Pierre (1994). “Dans l’esprit d’état” in Bourdieu, Pierre, Raisons pratiques. (Paris: Seuil), pp. 99–105. Bourdieu, Pierre (2004). “From the king’s house to the reason of state”. Constellations, 11(1): 16–36. Bourdieu, Pierre (2012). Sur l’état. Cours au Collège de France 1989–2012. (Paris: Seuil). Braudel, Fernand (1979). Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe–XVIIIe siècle. (Paris: Colin).

Professionalization of transformation 85 Calvin, Jean (1541). Institution de la religion chrestienne. (Genève). Connolly, William (1983). The terms of political discourse. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Conrads, Norbert (1982). Ritterakademien der frühen Neuzeit. Beldung als Standesprivileg im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Contamine, Philippe (1992a). “La guerre de cent ans” in Corvisier, André (dir.), Histoire militaire de la France. T. 1. (Paris: PUF ), pp. 171–208. Contamine, Philippe (1992b). “La première modernité” in Corvisier, André (dir.), Histoire militaire de la France. T. 1. (Paris: PUF ), pp. 233–56. Corvisier, André (1992). “Les Guerres de Religion, 1559–1598” in Corvisier, André, Histoire militaire de la France. T. 1. (Paris: PUF ), pp. 303–30. de Charny, Geoffroi (1873[1350]). Livre de chevalerie. (Bruxelles: Devaux). de la Noue, François (1967[1587]). Discours politiques et militaires. (Genève: Droz). de Lucinge, René (1984[1588]). De la naissance, durée et chute des estats. (Genève: Droz). de Tocqueville, Alexis (1988 [1856]). L’ancien régime et la Revolution. (Paris: Gallimard). Descimon, Robert, Guery, Alain and Le Goff, Jacques (2000). La longue durée de l’état. (Paris: Seuil). Dorwart, Reinhold August (1953). The administrative reforms of Frederick William I of Prussia. (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press). Duby, Georges (1978). Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme. (Paris: Gallimard). du Picq, Ardant (2005[1880]). Battle studies: ancient and modern battle. Gutenberg EBook. (Harrisburg, PA: US Army War College), available at www.gutenberg.org/ files/7294/7294-h/7294-h.htm [last accessed 27 January 2016]. Durkheim, Émile (1930[1893]). De la division du travail social. (Paris: PUF ). Elias, Norbert (1976[1939]). Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation. Vols 1–2. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Elwood, Christopher (1999). The body broken: the Calvinist doctrine of the Eucharist and the symbolization of power in sixteenth-century France. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Flori, Jean (2001). La guerre sainte. La formation de l’idée de croisade dans l’Occident. (Paris: Aubier). Foucault, Michel (2004). Sécurité, territoire, population. (Paris: Gallimard). Friedrichs, Johann (1996[1575]). “Hofordnung Johann Friedrichs von Pommerns” in Roeck, Bernd (ed.), Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung. Band 4. (Stuttgart: Reclam), pp. 73–8. Gisey, Ralph (1999). “Models of rulership in French royal ceremonial” in Wilentz, Sen (ed.), Rites of power. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 41–62. Gorski, Philip S. (2003). The disciplinary revolution: Calvinism and the rise of the state in early modern Europe. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). Hanson, Victor Davis (2007). Le modèle occidental de la guerre. (Paris: Tallandier). Harste, Gorm (2013). “The big, large and huge case of state-building – studying structural couplings at the macro level” in Febbrajo, Alberto and Harste, Gorm (eds), Law and intersystemic communication: understanding ‘structural coupling’. (London: Ashgate), pp. 67–96. Huntington, Samuel (1957). The soldier and the state. The theory and politics of civil– military relations. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Jouanna, Arlette (1989). Le devoir de révolte. (Paris: Fayard).

86

G. Harste

Jouanna, Arlette (1991). “Des ‘gros et gras’ au ‘gens d’honneur’ ” in ChaussinandNogaret, Guy, Constant, Jean-Marie, Durandin, Catherine and Jouanna, Arlette, Histoire des élites en France. (Paris: Tallandier), pp. 17–144. Jouanna, Arlette (1996). La France du XVIe siècle, 1483–1598. (Paris: PUF ). Jouanna, Arlette (2013). Le pouvoir absolu: Naissance de l’imaginaire politique de la royauté. (Paris: Gallimard). Kant, Immanuel (1977[1795]). “Zum ewigen Frieden” in Kant, Immanuel Werkausgabe. Vol. XI. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp), pp. 199–261. Kantorowicz, Ernst (1957). The king’s two bodies. A study of medieval political theology. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). King, Anthony (2007). “The existence of group cohesion in the armed forces”. Armed Forces & Society, 33(4): 638–45. Knox, MacGregor and Murray, Williamson (eds) (2001). The dynamics of military revolution 1300–2050. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Koselleck, Reinhardt, Haverkate, Görg and Boldt, Hans (1990). “Staat und Souveränität” in Brunner, Otto, Conze, Werner and Koselleck, Reinhart (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Band 6. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta), pp. 1–54. Luhmann, Niklas (1977). Funktion der Religion. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Luhmann, Niklas (1980). Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. Vol. 1. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp/Insel). Luhmann, Niklas (1981). Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. Vol. 2. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp/Insel). Luhmann, Niklas (1989a [1986]). Ecological communication. (Cambridge: Polity Press). Luhmann, Niklas (1989b). Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. Vol. 3. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp/Insel). Luhmann, Niklas (1995). Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft. Vol. 4. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp/Insel). Luhmann, Niklas (1997). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Band 1–2. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Machiavelli, Niccolò (1962[1512]). Fyrsten. (København: Borgen). Machiavelli, Niccolò (1991[1521]). L’art de la guerre. (Paris: Flammarion). Mousnier, Roland (1971). La vénalité des offices. (Paris: PUF ). Mousnier, Roland (1974). Les institutions de la France sous la monarchie absolue, 1598–1789. Vol. 1. Société et état. (Paris: PUF ). Mousnier, Roland (1980). Les institutions de la France sous la monarchie absolue, 1598–1789. Vol. 2. Les organes de l’état et la société. (Paris: PUF ). Ouellet, Eric (ed.) (2005). New directions in military sociology. (London: de Sitter). Paret, Peter (2007[1976]). Clausewitz and the state. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Phytilis, Jacques (1978). Justice administrative et justice délégue au XVIIIe siècle. (Paris: PUF ). Potter, David (1995). A history of France 1460–1560. (London: Macmillan). Porter, Bruce (1994). War and the rise of the state. (New York: The Free Press). Quillet, Jeaninne (1972). Les clefs du pouvoir au moyen âge. (Paris: Flammarion). Robert, Nils-Christian (1993). La justice – vertu, courtisane et bourreau. (Genève: Georg). Roberts, Michael (1973). Gustavus Adolphus. (London: Longman). Spitz, Jean-Fabien (1998). Bodin et la souverainté. (Paris: PUF ). Thornhill, C.J. (2011). A sociology of constitutions: constitutions and state legitimacy in historical–sociological perspective. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Professionalization of transformation 87 van Rossum, Gerhard Dohrn and Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang (1978). “Organ, Organismus, Organisation, politische Körper” in Brunner, Otto, Conze, Werner and Koselleck, Reinhart (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Band 4. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta), pp. 519–622. Weber, Max (1980[1922]). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. (Tübingen: Mohr). Wilentz, Sean (ed.) (1999). Rites of power. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania).

6

Transformation into manhood Sex, violence, and the making of warriors, women, and victims in early modern Europe Maria Sjöberg

Introduction Venus and Mars. Female and male. Peace and war. These binary distinctions give rise to expressions of traditional notions of gender where the nature of women is considered to be peaceful and the nature of men is warlike. They have been so tenacious that historiography has been blind to disproving phenomena. (Hagemann 1998). Fighting women have either been marginalized or completely forgotten in history books or simply provided the basis for mythological legends (Lindeborg 2005). The male/female distinction applies to historiography but also to the lives of both women and men in war. Tropes associated with the male/ female binary range from lovestruck women in ancient Athens to contemporary notions of gender and war (Östberg 1999). The perception of women as naturally peaceful and men as naturally warlike is difficult to alter, and the question of why it remains a historiographic blind spot cannot be answered simply. However, considering the normative force of the notion and its use in warfare – with devastating consequences – there is an urgent need for a new perspective. This chapter analyses the wars of the seventeenth century with a view to increasing understanding of the mechanisms in play. The chapter will begin with a brief account of sexualized violence in today’s wars. Examples of war rhetoric from the Thirty Years’ War will then be discussed, looking at how representations of gender in contemporaneous fiction upheld the norm of peaceful women as passive victims of devastating wartime male violence (Sjöberg 2008: 27–52). This normative effort is contrasted with remarks in other sources that portray female participation as a precondition for masculine violence in wars. These contradictions help to compose a chronology of women’s participation in Swedish campaigns between 1600 and 1800. In the light of this gendered history it appears that the predominantly male conscript army that took shape by 1900 can be treated as a fundamentally unjustified historical parenthesis (Sjöberg 2011). The conclusion discusses the ways in which seemingly immutable gender norms led to a repression of historical realities and that this repression served – and still serves – political functions.

Transformation into manhood

89

Sexual violence in wars Mary Kaldor and Herfried Münkler have compared contemporary wars and acts of terrorism with wars in earlier periods and found tragic similarities with regard to tactics linked to normative gender performances (Kaldor 1999; Münkler 2004). As with wars in the past, sexual violence against women still constitutes organized strategic acts by the military. Mass rape and female mutilation are perpetrated in order to insult the men of the population to which the victims belong and undermine their resistance as soldiers in ongoing wars. These practices are based on the perception that women are passive civilian victims of male war violence. According to Münkler, sexual violence as a military strategy has received new and comprehensive support and has now spread almost everywhere. Even in societies where rape has been very rare in the past, it is now incorporated into organized acts of war, mostly within Islamic societies. Examples include: Pakistani soldiers raping at least 200,000 women in the war against Bangladesh in 1971; Taliban soldiers abusing Usara women; and the mass rape that was central to the Rwandan genocide (Münkler 2004: 133–5). The affected face dire consequences: the raped women are forever tainted. It is no longer possible for them to have a family in their own society, especially if the rape resulted in a pregnancy. Mass rape, irrespective of where it occurs, destroys social bonds in war-torn communities for an indefinite time. This makes it extremely difficult for the already fragile infrastructure and economy to recover. Rape and other abuses against women that take place in contemporary wars are not only about sexuality but are also used as a kind of torture. “It is a particularly striking similarity to wars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where sexual violence and the desire to inflict suffering even on women belonged to the tactics of war” (Münkler 2004: 135). Münkler claims that sexual violence against women as a part of systematic tactics has a very long history. The fact that women and their bodies have become one of the battlefields is no coincidence. Notions of gender specifically prevented women from being mobilized as soldiers in the same way as men and also prevented them from being armed in order to defend themselves. The same concepts also play out on a symbolic level: women’s bodies become weapons in brutal male warfare, even though women – and even children – can serve as soldiers in the same war. Münkler’s conclusions raise several questions about seventeenth-century parallels to modern warfare since he is investigating sources that can be linked in various ways to Swedish campaigns during the Thirty Years’ War in particular. How do historic Swedish campaigns fit into the general pattern described by Münkler, and what are the implications?

Femininity and masculinity in the war rhetoric of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) As a part of the Nationalism Project in the nineteenth century many seventeenthcentury documents were collected, edited, and published. Documents written by

90

M. Sjöberg

Gustavus Adolphus, the warrior king par excellence in Swedish history, were of particular interest to the nineteenth-century archivists. Gustavus Adolphus wrote extensively on the virtues he thought should characterize officers. The preserved manuscript concerning this is a draft of four chapters, although the last is incomplete, and offers a detailed description of the work, duties, and responsibilities to be carried out by high-ranking officers. Most of the qualities also applied to civil servants, as well as to male subjects in general, with little distinction between civil and military spheres of society or between private activities and those which were publicly administered. For the king, virtue was associated with honest living, which included being diligent, industrious, and dutiful, qualities deemed desirable for all male subjects (Gustav II Adolf 1861). Of vital importance was maintaining a good name. Additionally, officers in the military should have a strong constitution and be able to complete their duties briskly. Their personal character was also important. The king summed up his opinion about the soldiers suitable for his service when he wrote: Yes, he should find that sweat, toil and night vigil and similar things are sweeter than the most sensual pleasures . . . he must also be brave in danger and not let himself be horrified by the fear of death (that among all fears is the biggest) wherever it appears to threaten him. (Gustav II Adolf 1861: 64) Gustavus Adolphus thus formulated the principles for the ideals of selfsacrificing masculinity. These ideals were also at stake over 50 years later in 1686, when Lagkommissionen (the Commission of Law) was founded, which resulted in the Law of 1734. The work of the commission can be followed in the minutes from their meetings. Among many aspects of the legal system that were discussed, the commission questioned whether a change to the prevailing inheritance rights was necessary. A significant reason for retaining an unequal distribution between men and women in the inheritance law concerned the sexes’ different tasks in war. Members of Lagkommissionen who were opposed to a change in the existing law argued that men should have a larger portion of inheritance rights since they sacrificed their lives in battle for their fatherland, while the women were safely at home with their parents: since he was in the service of the King and Empire, invested his funds, ventured his life and blood for his father land, and often lame and crippled, as well as to the loss of his health, is coming home, and then he shall not enjoy any benefit, or a greater part of the legacy than his sister, who, however, in peace and quiet at home has had her bread and subsistence provided by the parents. (Nilsson 1895: 234) A larger portion of inheritance was thus a legitimate reward for men when they risked their lives and bodies in the service of the king. Lagkommissionen

Transformation into manhood

91

established itself as an interpreter of the then current perception of women: they were not only unable to defend themselves and the fatherland, but they were also lazy and preferred a comfortable lifestyle. Lagkommissionen apparently did not have ordinary women in mind, whose domestic lives were hardly peaceful and comfortable (Lindegren 1999). The notion that women were innocent victims of the horrors of war, and thus male violence, did not feature in the discussion; it was obvious, however, in the reports sent back from ongoing campaigns (published 1850–1860 in a special edition of three volumes concerning wars in the seventeenth century by Svenskt Krigshistoriskt Arkiv (the Archives of Swedish Military History)). When the enemy behaved particularly shamefully and despicably – in the rhetoric of war reports only the enemy behaved so – one of the measures of their cruelty was the treatment of women and children. A report written by the royal secretary Lars Grubbe about the attack of the Imperial forces on Neubrandenburg in March 1631 tells us that General Kniphausen was captured with his wife and children. It says that the enemy assaulted people who were in the church attending mass: “he has yet entered, and just taken the church, where the priest who was preaching was fatally shot and all kinds of horrible acts were committed on men, women and children” (Grubbe 1854: 722–3). We cannot tell from the report if it was citizens of Neubrandenburg who were attending church, or if the people in the church belonged to the Swedish army. In any case, of crucial importance to the rhetoric was the emphasis on this heinous crime being committed in a church, a sanctuary, in which all of the attendees, who were worshipping peacefully, were attacked. The church was a representation of innocence, as were those who were affected. Civilian men, not soldiers, were attacked along with women, maids, and children. Their lack of military affiliation and their simply being in a church highlights their defenceless innocence. Reports from the destruction of the city of Magdeburg in May 1631 highlight similar aspects, but the actions were even worse (Sjöberg 2009). Magdeburg was a strategically located city committed to supporting the Protestant forces. Gustavus Adolphus sent his Lord Chamberlain, Dietrich von Falkenberg, to be commandant of the city in the autumn of 1630. For several months, von Falkenberg strengthened the defences of the city while the troops of Pappenheim were camped outside, where Tilly’s forces were also in place. Magdeburg was then threatened and surrounded. While waiting for help from the troops led by Gustavus Adolphus, von Falkenberg failed to get support from the residents of Magdeburg in order to continue the resistance. Von Falkenberg’s negotiations with Tilly were fruitless and Tilly’s forces attacked the city in May 1631. During the attack, the siege, and the subsequent looting, Magdeburg was set on fire and damaged considerably, and von Falkenberg was captured and killed. He was considered responsible for the blaze at the time, although it is now thought to have been started by accident (Wilson 2010: 469). The destruction of Magdeburg led to violent excesses of which the testimonies are many. Contemporaries compared the destruction of Magdeburg with the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70. The chronicle of the events in Magdeburg was disseminated by means of

92

M. Sjöberg

writing and art and the events became a crucial moment in primarily Protestant historiography (Medick 1999: 386, 406). There are several stories about the destruction of Magdeburg and the German author Peter Milger has published many testimonies, including Catholic ones (Milger 1998). Münkler highlights the statement of Jesuit Gaspard Wiltheim from Luxembourg, who served as an army chaplain with the Catholic League. Wiltheim’s statement confirms not only the physical devastation, but also the moral decay: On the way, I urged soldiers who I met to respect women’s honour, as Tilly has commanded, and that they should refrain from murdering. But, unfortunately, the streets were already covered with dead and quite naked human bodies. The honour of women was not taken into consideration. In front of St. Peter’s Basilica, a heap was piled with desecrated and dead women. Resembling lustful dogs, our victorious mercenaries pounced upon the women of the defeated men in full view of everybody. Through this lust our victorious arm was transformed into gangs of losers. They turned all previous triumphs to constant defeats. Not only the ordinary soldiers were defiled with such a shame, but even the colonels. As if an eruption of passion on one single day wasn’t enough, they then also stole away the desecrated women and lugged them around for a long time to their [the women’s] own destruction. (Milger 1998: 212; Münkler 2004: 71) Such reports were sent to Sweden. In a letter to the Privy Council on 18 May 1631 Johan Adler Salvius describes how Imperial troops raged in Magdeburg. Salvius’ outrage and indignation are clear when he describes how the enemy has “desecrated matronly women and maids, tyranny was committed on children as well as on old, menfolk and womenfolk” (Salvius 1860: 257). He also states that the priests were burned and that wives and daughters were bound and dragged by horses to the enemy’s camp, where they were defiled and treated very badly. Further proof of the brutality of the enemy was the actions at St John’s church, which by this time was full of women. The church was nailed shut from the outside and burning torches were thrown through the windows. The children were also burned in this fire; they were first speared, then lifted up and swung around on the spears before being thrown into the flames. As if this was not enough, the most fashionable and beautiful burgher women were bound to the stirrups of horses and dragged out of the town. The atrocities were unprecedented: “In sum, Turks and Tartars and Heathens could not riot more angrily” (Salvius 1860: 257). Salvius’ letter is explicitly based on second-hand information but is consistent with the testimony given by Wiltheim. In both cases, the soldiers’ treatment of women plays a particularly significant role; the women are targeted as innocents who had nothing to do with the war other than being victims of the soldiers’ senseless violence. In this manner, the two stories transmit gender norms in which women are considered to be peaceful by definition. In both reports the

Transformation into manhood

93

church also symbolizes a sacred and inviolable place against which crimes have now been committed. There are, however, important differences between the two statements. To Salvius, the violence and atrocities are a result of the perpetrators’ beliefs, which allow barbarism and represent a lower degree of civilization. For his part, Wiltheim sadly notes the lack of discipline and that the admonitions of Tilly were ignored. To Wiltheim, respect for the honour of women seems to be a measure of civilized behaviour in general, something that the armed forces tragically rejected. The descriptions of the events in Magdeburg by both Salvius and Wiltheim partly confirm Münkler’s view that modern wars resemble the Thirty Years’ War, since sexualized violence functions as regular tactics. The fact that the Thirty Years’ War took place in cities or in the immediate vicinity of cities and thus involved people who did not carry out military tasks is another similarity discussed by Münkler as is the violent abuse – with symbolic overtones – that was primarily, although not exclusively committed against women: the violence was sexualized. Based on statements from Magdeburg, it is doubtful whether the practice of violence and atrocities can be seen as systematic tactics. The impression from both reports is rather that the abuse was spontaneous and disorganized in the chaos of the fighting and the siege. It would be no surprise if the fighting also affected male soldiers badly. In another and more peaceful context their behaviour could well have been civilized, but being surrounded by violence in war obviously promoted their transformation from ordinary men into monsters. Despite the chaos of the siege, two aspects appear to be particularly systematic: first, impunity for the atrocities – which can also be seen as a tacit acceptance of the violence; and, second, the use of rhetorical concepts in all testimonies in which the motifs of the Church, women, and children represented innocence. Without diminishing the extent of the abuses that actually took place, it is important to discuss the rhetorical aspects of the reports because these present a partial explanation. In addition to interpreting what actually took place in Magdeburg, the purpose of Wiltheim’s depiction was also, according to Münkler, to explain the change in the relative strength between the Catholic League and the Protestant Union that took place shortly thereafter. The latter, led by Gustavus Adolphus, would soon gain a temporary upper hand. According to Wiltheim, moral decay followed by a lack of discipline resulted in victories being converted into defeats. This opinion highlighted moral decay as a cause of defeat and simultaneously became a forecast of the future. Thus, the defeats in war were given meaning (Münkler 2004: 71). Similarly, the rhetoric used by Salvius provides further explanation. His account, formally addressed to the king and the Privy Council, was designed as a report on development in war, but it was also part of the war propaganda. The letter was distributed to others than its addressees, and the descriptions of the enemy’s atrocities were intended to mobilize continued political support for Swedish involvement in the war. On a deeper level, both narratives also formulated standards for future warfare where violence against the unarmed was reprehensible and should be prevented.

94

M. Sjöberg

In general, the symbolic representations of women and children fulfilled political functions. Women and children were part of an ongoing framing and reframing of gender norms where their roles were those of victims. Subsequently, the brutality of male soldiers was highlighted in order to make both roles clear: that of victim and that of male perpetrator of violence. All of this resulted in generally discursive attitudes towards gender performances being confirmed and repeated. These topoi exist throughout history and are also found in war fiction.

Gender in war fiction The drama Mother Courage, written by Bertolt Brecht 1938–1939, expresses anger and disgust with the war raging in Europe, and it is one of the few chronicles of the Thirty Years’ War in which women and children constitute both the main characters and the theme. The tough Mother Courage, who gladly profited from the war through her business while at the same time selfishly seeking to keep her family safe, is meant to illustrate the type of unworthy person war creates. This was something that was especially true for mothers, whom Brecht perceived as the “worst warmongers” (Clason 2003: iv). Mother Courage is often discussed in relation to the Thirty Years’ War and has a number of Swedish connections. Bertolt Brecht wrote the play while in exile in Sweden and Finland. During this time, he encountered the Finnish epic poem, Fänrik Ståls sägner (Tales of Ensign Stål), written by the national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg and which recounts the war of 1808–1809. In Runeberg’s poetry, Brecht found a seemingly timeless ideal of war as an obvious task for men, and a love for the fatherland, central to nineteenth-century nationalism. What particularly angered Brecht was not the fact that there was no tribute to the male warrior, but the fact that women in war were glorified. This was evident in the poem about Lotta Svärd, a sutler who not only fed the brave soldiers, but also, through her lovely if somewhat unsophisticated nature, gave them solace for their soul (Runeberg 1986). Lotta Svärd, after whom women’s associations for national defence with the explicit purpose of caring for soldiers were later named in both Sweden and Finland, personified a disgusting glorification of war for Brecht and meant for him, moreover, a mendacious femininity (Sundevall 2011). Women were no better than men. The play Mother Courage was written as a protest both against wars and the people who made a living through war. Women were certainly not excluded from this group. The third connection with Sweden can be found in the play’s contents. When the drama begins in the year 1624, the main character, the Bavarian Anna Fierling – known as Mother Courage – is with her children in Dalarna, a province in central Sweden. It is here that she meets the army, currently recruiting for the campaign in Poland. Her daughter, the dumb Kattrin, is not eligible for enlistment, but Mother Courage does not want her two sons to enlist either. She is instead willing to join the army herself. She points out the benefits of having sutlers in the army: satisfied soldiers are better equipped for war. When the

Transformation into manhood

95

Swedish army decamps and moves south, Mother Courage and her children follow and live an itinerant life in Poland and Germany. Across the area of Europe increasingly devastated by war, Mother Courage makes her living by selling supplies from her little waggon: “No one should complain about war so that I can hear it. They say that it destroys the weak, but they go to hell in times of peace as well. It’s just that war feeds people better” (Brecht 2003: 84). The Thirty Years’ War results, however, in devastating consequences for Mother Courage when she loses her three children at different times throughout the drama. The voice of reason denouncing the war is the dumb Kattrin, whose muteness in the play is intended to reinforce the inability of pacifists to make themselves heard above the promoters of war. In the end, partly because of her greed, Mother Courage also loses her charitable feelings and her soul. The name Courage is thus an irony; ‘Mother Courage’ did not have much courage at all. She was an inhuman creature, a result of the devastating consequences of war. Although Brecht’s Mother Courage character is fictional, the play includes references to actual circumstances during the Thirty Years’ War. Sutlers – women and men who lived by selling supplies to the soldiers – operated at the fringes of the military. The devastation caused by armies travelling and camping during the Thirty Years’ War is also well known. Unlike the accounts of devastation in Magdeburg, however, the distance in time between the composition of the play and the war depicted is almost 300 years. The authenticity of Bertolt Brecht’s drama is therefore questionable. The time lag is somewhat compensated for by the close relationship of the play to a seventeenth-century one by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1670). Grimmelshausen’s story (Landstörtzerin Courasche) of the resented ‘Courage’, a camp whore during the Thirty Years’ War, clearly inspired Brecht. In the earlier drama, she accompanies various regiments on their marches throughout Germany, first married to a cavalry captain, later as a simple sutler and finally as a tramp. Landstörtzerin Courasche constantly stretches moral standards and is deceptive. This tale, employing the grotesque genre, contains themes in common with an even earlier work of Grimmelshausen’s, a picaresque novel depicting the struggle between the truth-telling and dissolute Courage and the morally hypocritical and simpleminded soldier Simplicius The philologist Synnöve Clason, who wrote the introduction to the Swedish edition of Grimmelshausen’s book, offers a short biography of the author (Clason 1992). He is said to have been born in 1636 and spent his first years with his Protestant parents at the fortress in Hanau. After the war, he settled in Offenburg, married, was knighted, and reached a high social status. It was then that Grimmelshausen began his literary career and wrote about the war that affected his childhood and youth. The ten-volume novel about the soldier Simplicius Simplicissimus was written to oppose wars and became a great contemporary success. It is fascinating that Grimmelshausen chose to tell the story from a woman’s point of view, and not just that of any woman, but one who with great enthusiasm became the proponent of a corrupt life. Synnöve Clason argues that the character of Courage has long been unfairly condemned with regard to her moral

96

M. Sjöberg

shortcomings but a traditional feminist interpretation has later reversed this perspective, emphasizing that she also illustrates “the man’s debt to moral doom of the woman”. Courage was not just “a traditional camp whore, but a product of the war-world that men created” (Clason 1992: 16). Why, then, is this offensive? The story begins with Courage as a 13-year-old girl with the name of Virgin Libuschka, dressed in men’s clothing in order to escape the looting and raping soldiers more easily. Grimmelshausen is taking note of actual events: it is known that there were women who dressed in men’s clothing and behaved as soldiers in the Thirty Years’ War (Dekker and van de Pol 1995; Lynn II 2012: 121–31). It is also known that looting and rape took place. So Grimmelshausen’s fictitious Courage figure is clearly based on facts. Like Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, Grimmelshausen’s choice of the name of his protagonist is ironic and, in fact, a renaming of her genitals: “Because he reached for my courage, to which no other man’s hands have come – because I wanted to rewrite the thing and not give it such a rough name” (von Grimmelshausen 1992: 42). The two narratives of ‘Courage’ are both similar and different. Both have the same aim of giving a voice to resistance against war, in accordance with their respective contemporary conditions (Battafarano and Eilert 2003: 12). Where Brecht’s drama unambiguously expressed horror, Grimmelshausen’s purpose was also to amuse. Contemporary conditions shaped the different ways in which the two authors could use prevailing gender norms in order to convey resistance against war. The result is two very different portraits of women. Brecht’s Mother Courage was exclusively a victim of war, albeit from time to time a vigorous profiteer of the same war also, while Grimmelshausen’s Courage has been perceived as strong and liberated (Battafarano and Eilert 2003). For the latter, the destructive war created an environment in which maintaining human values was pointless. Synnöve Clason articulates the philosophy that Grimmelshausen’s Courage made her own: “If virtue is being rewarded by death and theft is the law of war, you might make the stealing as a system if you want to survive” (Clason 1992: 9). Wars, therefore, forced people to develop characteristics and behaviours that in all other circumstances were seen as unacceptable. Additionally, both ‘Courage’ characters violated traditional gender norms. Brecht’s Mother Courage, far from being a compassionate, loving, and nurturing ideal of peace, a role traditionally attributed to women, was an instigator of war. Grimmelshausen’s Courage was more playful: she dressed as a man, rode on horseback like a man, fought and drank like a man, and appropriated large sums of money from many men as payment for sex. The moral chaos of the war ensured that the barriers of gender were broken down. No wonder Courage finally joined a band of gypsies accompanying the Swedish army at the end of the war. Towards the end of the story, Courage becomes remorseful and informs the world about her view of soldiers: Only then, but too late, one becomes aware of what kind they were, how grimy, dirty, lousy, scabby, unclean, smelly both to the breath and the body,

Transformation into manhood

97

how full of Frenchmen they were inwardly and externally full of pocks so that you are finally ashamed of yourself and regret yourself many times, though far too late. (von Grimmelshausen 1992: 160) According to Courage, the consequences of war for male soldiers were devastating. Grimmelshausen’s and Brecht’s ‘Courage’ have generated extensive research (Battafarano and Eilert 2003). Grimmelshausen’s anti-heroine as well as Grimmelshausen himself have also been discussed in historical research on wars (Lynn II 2008: 136–9). In this literature, the narratives produce a kind of female counter-image to the passivity that characterized the female victims in, for example, the depictions of Magdeburg. Both authors utilized the contrast between gender representations in fiction and prevailing gender norms in order to highlight the fact that women lack tasks in war, and also the fact that war is always atrocious. Wars destroy people and transform them into something inhuman. What could better clarify the inhuman nature of war than loathsome and partially transgender portrayals of women? There are some similar messages even in visual art. The monumental works of John R. Hale include several examples of how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century artists not only depicted military tactical changes, battlefields, and soldiers in battle, but also experiences in connection with war. An example of this is the depiction of the carts accompanying military forces, including all of the luggage contained therein; the women and children adjacent to the baggage constitute a seemingly obvious element (Hale 1990). For a twentieth-century observer, it is striking how rarely war paintings from the period of the Thirty Years’ War illustrate the horrors, looting, and other abuses that are confirmed by other sources. Not even the violent military practices which, at least for the wounded and deceased, had severe consequences are particularly noticeable. Jacques Callot’s famous series of etchings from the 1630s, Les Misères Malheurs et de la Guerre, are commonly cited exceptions. In Callot’s etchings, war was not the logically structured and rationally organized battle that is conveyed in many other works. Instead, war was chaos and violent assaults. However, Callot’s images were not intended to be depictions of war only; they had pronounced moral intentions too. One series of images shows on one side soldiers carrying out abuses in war and, on the other, the horrific punishments that awaited the perpetrators. Callot’s art was thus part of the war resistance of the 1630s, an example of propaganda against war, although it is often interpreted as simply views of war. With the exception of Callot’s images, there are very few old pictures that depict the violence of war and the suffering that war caused (Choné 1999). There are many explanations for the absence of violence and human suffering in military art in the seventeenth century. One is that the aim of the paintings was not to depict what had actually happened in wars, but to create decorative images or, like maps and schematic plans, illustrate military strategies and perhaps even visions. The result is that these paintings often depicted the wars in

98

M. Sjöberg

the minds of the commanders – the actual situation. In addition to their decorative purposes, the paintings were tributes to commanders. This was particularly true in battle paintings, often found in castles and manors (Harrington 1993: 11). Johan Philip Lemke and Johan Hammer were well-known Swedish battle painters during the seventeenth century. Hammer is mostly known for his paintings in the 1670s that were commissioned by Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie. A series of paintings in Läckö Castle was designed to pay tribute to his father, Jacob De la Gardie, a successful warrior. These depict battles during the Thirty Years’ War. Regardless of where the battles actually took place, the paintings were relatively similar. The events on the battlefield are generally depicted from a bird’seye view, in other words the commanders’. Sitting on white horses in the foreground, the commanders look out over the landscape of the battlefield where the troops fight out the battle in a beautiful and rational way. The landscape often consists of idyllic, gently rolling hills and the city, a significant manifestation of civilization, is only visible far away on the horizon. No violence and suffering is shown, and the people that are affected by the war seem to be far away. One painting, however, is a clear exception. Peter Gillgren, who has studied the Läckö paintings closely, argues that in the painting which portrays Leipzig in 1642, the style from illustrations in Theatrum Europeum, which Johan Hammer and other battle painters usually adopted and which suggested that a distinct battle-related foreground should be depicted, was not used as a model in this case (Gillgren 1992: 322). This aspect was thus left to the artist and his imagination to create. The result is that the foreground lacks a true battle-related focus, e.g. a commander supervising the troops. Instead, a tranquil camp life is the main subject. Without a shred of concern, people walk between the carriages and horses in the camp. On the left, the harmful effects of war can be seen and a visibly injured man, leaning on his walking sticks, is standing next to a woman with a child on her arm. To the right, Hammer depicts a group of people gathering on a small hill: a man is sitting on the grass and beside him is a woman with a child on her arm. She is talking quietly with a rider and in front of them a dog is running around with its nose on the ground. The overall impression of the scene is idyllic and peaceful, and war seems far away. Gillgren, however, points out how Hammer allows the painting to contain a breach of the idyllic harmony. Behind the rider is something disturbing to which the viewer’s attention is drawn: the skull of an animal. The viewer must therefore see and be reminded of his or her own mortality. This device, known as a memento mori, was a common symbolic expression in this era (Gillgren 1992). Hammer chose to place the baggage train in the foreground and centre but we do not know why or why he included women both as mothers and children. The central position of the women and children provides a mixed message. On the one hand, women and children were a part of the social organization within the military. On the other, their presence in the periphery of the battlefield and their obvious civilian life can be seen as an anomaly: they should not be taking part in wars. This is clearly illustrated in the painting, where the war has been placed deep in the background, barely present.

Transformation into manhood

99

In sum, both ‘Courage’ characters, like the women in the battle painting by Johan Hammer, complicate and add nuance to the stereotypical images of femininity and masculinity in wars that are found in the testimonies of Magdeburg. Fictional women in wars were mothers and prostitutes, they were in charge of catering and the canteen, and they also fought and rode like men. Women in battle paintings were, however, depicted in a pattern that fits very well into a traditional order of gender. The same observation is valid for men. Due to the nature of the literature chosen for this study, men are not as visible as women. In spite of this, however, men were not perpetrators of assaults and mass rape in these works of literary fiction; they were hardly even soldiers but, instead, victims of the devastating wars. Nevertheless, fiction cannot entirely modify the notion that war belonged to men and was a foundation of masculinity, while women and femininity were the lynchpin of civilian family life. In what ways do preserved military documents confirm this notion?

A gendered history of Swedish military campaigns Legal relations in the military were regulated in concise Articles of War during the sixteenth century. At the beginning of the seventeenth century this legislation was extended to become far reaching. The Articles of War 1621 contained regulations for both the organization and social order within the armed forces. The eighty-ninth paragraph states: No whores are permitted in the camp, but if someone wants to have his wife with him, he is allowed. If someone carries on immorally, and intends to continue doing so, then he must marry her properly. (Articles of War 1621) Unsurprisingly, prostitutes were banned from camps, but it was permissible for a soldier to have a wife with him; marriage and household organization in this context were therefore legislated and thus normalized. Why did this suddenly became a part of the formal regulations? Previous Articles of War contain no forerunner to this article and the general content of these rules was, on the whole, very limited. There are, however, comparisons with the same period and earlier in Germany and the Netherlands. Until the Thirty Years’ War, German regiments had officers (Hurenweibel) specifically responsible for non-combatant forces, including prostitutes (Burschel 1994: 137, 257). Prostitutes in the Netherlands were banned in camps from the 1570s but those who were married to soldiers, and women who were enlisted to wash and care for wounded soldiers were allowed to remain (Swart 2006: 88). As did that of other European armies, Swedish military legislation made a sharp distinction between prostitutes and soldiers’ wives (Hacker 1981; Wilson 2010: 128–31; Ailes 2012: 76–81). Marriage transformed the unmarried and immoral into the moral; illegitimate relationships became legitimate and immorality in camps turned instantly – by marriage – into morality. The Articles of War 1621 are clear that

100

M. Sjöberg

unmarried women were prostitutes by definition while married women were simply wives. Although the sources are scarce, there is some evidence that having wives in military encampments was not just a theoretical possibility, although there are differing views on the practice. On the one hand, soldiers’ wives were a costly burden to armies (van Creveld 1977; van Creveld 2011). On the other, they performed necessary tasks such as laundering, making and repairing clothing, gathering food and wood, and other chores essential for soldiers’ survival (Hacker 1981; Ailes 2012: 76–81; Lynn II 2012: 131). Neither of these interpretations, however, offers a clear insight into the gender norms of the ‘peacefulness and passivity’ of women in relation to active male violence. In order to identify such norms, other sources are required. Ein Söldnerleben im driessigjährigen Krieg: eine Quelle zur Sozialgeschichte, a diary from the Thirty Years’ War, was recently rediscovered by Jan Peters. The author, Peter Hagendorf, was a simple mercenary who served alternately in Swedish and Imperial armies. In addition to serving as a witness to the everyday life of a single soldier at war, the diary contains notes about beautiful cities, churches and other buildings, lovely gardens where the fruit grew abundantly, and how prices for food varied. It is a rich portrayal. Other notes in the diary confirm that women and girls were indeed considered spoils of war, but were not expected to endure the same kind of violence and other atrocities described in reports about Magdeburg. In addition to the pleasure a beautiful woman could bring a soldier, women were important from an economic point of view: captured women meant opportunities for income with soldiers demanding ransoms for their return (Peters 1993: 145–7). Hagendorf spent most of his time in campaigns as a married man and endured severe hardships. He had three wives, all of whom died from disease and his children were either stillborn or died very young. In the periods he was temporarily a widower he hired young boys who helped him with the housekeeping (Peters 1993: 147). Looting was a regular part of campaign life, providing income that would allow a soldier to support the assistants needed for help with carrying and guarding baggage. Assistants were generally young boys, although children sometimes found it difficult to defend their employer’s assets; plundering and stealing from each other was a part of daily life. Wives may have been better at keeping watch, although both may well have been needed. During the destruction of Magdeburg, for example, Peter Hagendorf was shot and was no longer useful as a soldier, but his wife managed to steal bedding, a jug of wine, a pair of silver belts, and clothing from the burning town. Hagendorf was satisfied with the loot and commented only briefly on the destruction of Magdeburg: “It made me hurt in my heart when the city burned so terribly because it is a beautiful town and also my fatherland” (Peters 1993: 25). Clearly, wives as well as soldiers participated in looting and destruction. Hagendorf further writes that when they returned to Colmar, they destroyed the entire harvest of the residents: “There, my wife was nearly shot as she and the boy also cut grain” (Peters 1993: 56). Churches, monasteries, and villages were

Transformation into manhood

101

exposed to the devastation of soldiers and their wives. Hagendorf and his wife constituted the core of a household which, in addition to looting, made its living by producing simple crafts. During a time of poverty and starvation in Fritzlar in 1640, Hagendorf even describes a temporary opulence: “For my part, I and my wife had enough bread. Even for sale because we made a mill of two grindstones, dug a bread oven and baked bread” (Peters 1993: 167). Hagendorf ’s diary provides a fascinating insight into the life of a soldier taking advantage of the military regulations that allowed wives to accompany their husbands on campaigns. His writings also reveal how he and his wife formed the hub of a household whose income came from several diversified activities, of which looting and robbery were two. The diary also reveals that both spouses participated in the type of destruction that can be counted as acts of war. Within the household, the traditional gender division of labour among peasants, in which men were responsible for the household and acted publicly, while women nurtured children, prepared food etc., appears to have been undefined; both spouses baked bread to sell and both seem to have been involved in making a mill and digging a bread oven (Fiebranz 2002: 138–9; Stadin 2004: 269–76). Clearly, wars were reframing duties and work towards what was possible and most efficient at the time. In that sense both women and men were liberated from the strict gender norms that were more easily maintained in peacetime. Although Hagendorf did not represent all soldiers in the various armies of the Thirty Years’ War, his life-writing stresses what would have been obvious to the soldiers, namely that the household and family (with women) was a necessity for survival in an otherwise masculine homosocial organization. The armies of the day were composed of both conscripts and volunteers. The continual shortage of manpower, however, and the tactics used by local communities in order to avoid conscription suggest that a soldier’s life was not attractive if choice was an option. Why women were part of campaigns and were found in camps is perhaps more difficult to explain, given that they had no formal role in military organizations. Some of them followed their husbands when they had no alternative while some, particularly among the poor, volunteered. For a poor woman, marriage to a soldier could result in improved opportunities for maintenance, safety, or a family life. Although households and homosociality in the Swedish army had originally been mutually dependent, with the introduction of the Articles of War from 1621, the relationship between these two principles became both legalized and normalized. The later Articles of War from 1683 maintained the provision of a soldier’s right to bring his wife on campaigns, repeating the previous conditions, i.e. that he married her ‘properly’ (Articles of War 1683: §89). Otherwise, the parties concerned were to be punished and “she and all the whores and indecent women should be ejected from the camp” (Articles of War 1683: §89). The slightly more detailed commentary on punishment and expulsion may indicate that the legal framework had not been fully adhered to and that such disobedience was irritating the military leaders. Records from the seventeenth century indicate that in campaigns soldiers and officers continued to have households

102

M. Sjöberg

which were seemingly integrated into the hierarchical male homosocial organization among the soldiers without problems (Sjöberg 2011). Adaptation and integration are thus keywords from a gender perspective on the organization of war at this time: women and children were involved because of the soldiers’ dependence on their families and households. A regulatory framework was adopted into prevailing social practice among the soldiers and was similar to conditions in other armies. Documents recording the activities of chaplains during the Great Northern War provide further insight into the issue of women and war. The chaplains, who were responsible for morality and ethics in campaigns, were required to verify that there were no legal and moral barriers to marriages. Chaplains were also obliged to adjudicate the morality of marriage requests from soldiers. The preserved documents show that some military leaders doubted the veracity of some soldiers’ marriages, demanding that the rules be enforced in order to maintain moral standards. Women in canteens were singled out as particularly immoral. Charles XII, the commander of the Swedish army, did not allow women from the lower social classes to accompany the army, although higher- ranking women were accepted. His ruling, however, seemed ineffectual since soldiers and officers continued to bring their households and families on campaigns. The phenomenon was nonetheless controversial. The household as an integrated element within a male homosocial war organization was no longer self-evident, but caused numerous reactions and conflicts. The controversial point was the necessity of soldiers’ families, households, and women (Sjöberg 2011). In the campaign against Russia in the 1740s, the Pomeranian War of 1757–1762 and the further campaigns against Russia in the 1780s and 1790s, the Articles of War of 1683 were still the legal framework, allowing soldiers’ wives to continue participating. However, it appears that the phenomenon was declining. A clear sign that other times and conditions had arrived appears in the new Articles of War from 1798 which abolished the provision pertaining to a soldier’s right to bring his wife on campaign. But if the late eighteenth century saw the phasing out of the household system co-existing with the male homosociality of military campaigns, it saw the beginning of another process: segregation. In this, the household system became increasingly separated from the homosocial organization of the military campaigns. One may argue that since Swedish campaigns ceased after 1814, there was subsequently no reason to have either soldiers or their families and households in campaigns. This gradually implemented segregation is, however, most clearly visible in the social conditions that were created at home. During the nineteenth century, emerging rules and regulations controlling livelihood and accommodation clearly gave priority to soldiers who were married and had families. A further prerequisite for various forms of compensation in the case of war required not only that the soldier be married, but that his wife and children remain at home, with the military providing accommodation at the regimental barracks. Families and households were no longer even considered as part of a campaign. Several countries made provision for securing the

Transformation into manhood

103

livelihood of soldiers’ families at home, but the conditions in Sweden were probably more generous than those in, for instance, Denmark and Britain (Sjöberg 2011). The process of segregation between men and women during campaigns that took place in many armies can be linked, in a number of different ways, to the modernization within the military and an emergence of the growing authority of the state. As part of this process, male soldiers in the military adopted some of the tasks that were previously carried out by soldiers’ wives. The comprehensive control of both soldiers and their wives by the military authorities furthered this development. In the long run, the process resulted in guidelines for a sharpening of the long-standing lack of discipline in the military (according to the authorities at least), in line with the greater discipline now imposed on society as whole. This process of biopolitics was notably linked to gender norms in society. By encouraging marriage and guaranteeing soldiers’ families’ livelihood at home, the authorities gained increased control of both the civil and military life of the soldiers – and their bodies (Foucault 1997: 243–4). This segregation was usually, however, a long-drawn-out process. Soldiers’ wives still participated in the Crimean War of 1853–1856. In addition, accompanying wives were also present in British colonial wars, although they are almost invisible in the historiography (Hacker 1981; Venning 2005). In sum, a gender perspective on the history of wars testifies above all to the fact that women were directly involved for at least 250 years in a number of European military organizations. Over time, the process is clearly reflected in the changing relationships between the household system and the homosocial structures of the military organization: adaptation and integration, reactions and conflicts and, finally, settlement and segregation. This process of changing conditions in the Swedish army took place between c.1620–1840. In other armies, the household system both predated this period and extended beyond it. It is clear that when the history of modernity is written on the basis of the proclamation of the French Revolution – one man, one rifle, one voice – and, furthermore, when this proclamation was the founding principle of the conscript army established by 1900, there is a risk of creating a distorted picture of gender and wars, as well as of the history of modernity itself. Wars, violence, and destruction remain masculine attributes while women and femininity are linked to peace, care, and healing. In the light of the above, it is obvious that such conceptions lack any historical basis; they are more fiction than fiction itself. The way in which these tropes clearly fulfilled political functions will be briefly discussed in relation to comparisons between current wars and wars of the seventeenth century.

Gender as politics of war When the Thirty Years’ War is used as an analytical framework to interpret the devastation and sexual violence in current wars the similarities between the past and the present become clear. The claim that military sexual violence has a

104

M. Sjöberg

strategic function now and in the past, offers an explanatory narrative with the weight of historical tradition. Herfried Münkler emphasizes these parallels, but also highlights differences between the Thirty Years’ War in the seventeenth century and wars taking place in the late twentieth century. He argues that the statebuilding processes within Europe and North America during the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are crucial to understanding this difference. While wars were mechanisms of early modern statebuilding in both continents, current wars tend to lead towards the disintegration of states (Münkler 2004: 19). His opinion fits well into the historiography in which scholars stress the importance of statebuilding as an unintended result of early modern wars (Tilly 1990; Foucault 1997; Glete 2002). The question is, however, can the statebuilding process explain the reduction of war-related sexual violence in Europe since the end of the Thirty Years’ War? The emphasis on the state can also be linked to Norbert Elias’ ideas of a general societal change, a civilizing process in which people gradually became more civilized towards each other, primarily because of pressure from above. Over time, coercion was internalized and behaviour was maintained through self-discipline (Elias 1991). Elias’ view provides a realistic narrative on the transformation of warriors – from brutal combatants to civilized nobles at courts – but is such a narrative enough to understand the brutality of the Thirty Years’ War? Male soldiers’ abuses of innocent women were planned and were part of the larger context of warfare, now and in the past. With the repetition of gender stereotypes, hope for change could be fostered; if tactics were altered or the wars ended then sexualized violence would also cease. The logic was that war resulted in brutality and transformed men and women into less-than-human. The statebuilding process, therefore, would promote development that encouraged disciplined and civilized behaviour. Looking at the reports from Magdeburg, however, it is difficult to find evidence that assaults were organized systematically. Instead, they seem to have occurred spontaneously in the chaos that followed the fighting. If this impression is correct, the question remains: why did war violence become spontaneously sexualized? The lack of discipline among the perpetrators and the absence of subsequent punishment indicate that war itself cannot be regarded as the only explanation for sexualized violence. The hierarchy between the sexes provides an explanatory context but, like war, cannot in itself explain the abuses. There is no decisive answer to the question of why violence associated with war became sexualized. However, its sexualization fulfilled particular political purposes. The reports from Magdeburg provided clear messages about enemy brutality that were useful in order to gather support for continued wars. Sexualized violence was supposed to vanish with the victories of the Swedish forces. An equally strong opposition to the war itself was presented in fiction. Traditional gender roles worked as facilitators through which these messages were formulated. Fiction adopted the same approach to behavioural shifts; positive results could occur only if the war ended. Consequently, the performance of sexualized

Transformation into manhood

105

violence fulfilled decisive political functions and, in precisely this respect, there is also a clear link to actual wars. In their study of war-related sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern start by considering the concept of rape as a specifically chosen and well-planned strategy. The perception of rape as strategic has shaped the general discourse in which men’s rape of women is a normalized part of warfare. Baaz and Stern offer a reminder about the political implications of this narrative. Accepting rape as a weapon of war not only gives an explanation as to why rape occurs, but also provides a promise of a possible change when the war is over. This formulation allows for the political objectives of the UN and other supranational bodies to be both identified and carried out. Baaz and Stern’s study, however, reveals conditions that contradict the general claims of war discourse: Indeed, our reading leads us to call for an acknowledgement of how violence in war, including sexual violence, is also related to micro-level dynamics and private dispute settlement, involving both armed and nonarmed actors. (Eriksson Baaz and Stern 2013: 110) Their description is an uncanny reminder of the general brutality of the Thirty Years’ War more than 400 years before. Both women and men participated in the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War and the boundaries between perpetrator and victim are significantly more difficult to discern than either the war rhetoric or contemporaneous fiction might lead us to believe. The difficulty in preventing human brutality in communities plagued by war – and the realization that it is difficult to do so – contributes to the maintenance of discursive conceptions of men as the exclusive perpetrators of violence and of women equally as the exclusive victims.

References Sources Articles of War 1621: Krigz Articlar som fordom then Stormechtigste Furste och Herre Herr Gustaff Adolph, den andre och store Sweriges, Göthes och Wendes Konung, Storfurste till Finland, Hertig uthi Estland och Carelen, herre utöfwer Ingermanland. Loffwerdigst i åminnelse hafwer låtit göra och författa. Anno M. DC. XXI, Tryckt i Stockholm aff Ignatio Neurer och finns hoos honom till köps. Articles of War 1683: Krigs Articlar som af den Stormägtgste konung och herre, herr Carl Den XI, Sweriges, Göthes och Wendes Konung Förnyade och Stadgade äro. På Stockholms slott den 2 Martii 1683, Stockholm 1790. Articles of War 1798: Kongl. Maj:ts Krigs Articlar för Dess Krigsmagt till Lands och Sjös, Gifne Stockholms Slott den 31 Martii 1798; jemte Tillägg ur Allmänna Lagen och utkomne Författningar intill början af år 1856. Lagsamling för Krigs-Domstolarne utgifven af J. Rhodin, Krigs-Hof-Rätts-Råd. (Stockholm: L.J. Brudins förlag, 1856).

106

M. Sjöberg

Gustav II Adolf (1861 [1621]). “Om krigsmäns pligter” [“On the duties of warriors”] in Styffe, C.G. (ed.), Konung Gustaf II Adolfs skrifter. (Stockholm: Norstedt), pp. 62–8. Nilsson, J. (1895). Bidrag till ärvdabalkens historia 1686–1736. II. Källskrifter. 2. Protokoll och betänkanden. (Uppsala: Uppsala universitets Årsskrift). Peters, Jan (ed.) (1993). Ein Söldnerleben om driessigjährigen Krieg: eine Quelle zur Sozialgeschichte. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag). Salvius, J. A. (1860). “Bref från J.A. Salvius till Riksens Råd” in Svenskt krigshistoriskt arkiv. Del II. (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner). von Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel (1670). Trutz Simplex: oder ausführliche und wunderseltzame Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetrügerin und Landsörtzerin Courasche. von Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel (1992[1670]). Courage. (Lund: Studentlitteratur).

Literature Ailes, Mary Elisabeth (2012). “Camp followers, sutlers and soldiers’ wives in early modern armies (c.1450–c.1650)” in Hacker, Barton C. and Vining, Margaret (eds), A companion to women’s military history. (Leiden, Boston, MA: Brill), pp. 61–81. Battafarano, Italo Michele and Eilert, Hildegard (2003). Courage. Die starke Frau der deutschen Literatur. Von Grimmelshausen erfunden, von Brecht und Grass variiert. (Bern: Verlag Peter Lang). Brecht, Bertolt (2003 [1939]). Mor Courage och hennes barn. Den kaukasiska kritcirkeln [“Mother Courage and her children. The Caucasian chalk circle”]. (Stockholm: Natur och kultur). Burschel, Peter (1994). Söldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. (Göttingen: Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck Instituts für Geschichte). Choné, Paulette (1999). “Die Kriegsdarstellungen Jacques Callots: Realität als Theorie” in von Kusenstjern, Benigna and Medick, Hans, Zwischen Alltag und Katastrophe. Der Dreissigjährige Krieg und der Nähe. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht Verlag), pp. 409–26. Clason, Synnöve (1992[1670]). “Inledning” [“Introduction”] in von Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel, Courage. (Lund: Studentlitteratur), pp. 7–17. Clason, Synnöve (2003 [1939]). “Inledning” [“Introduction”] in Brecht, Bertolt, Mor Courage och hennes barn. Den kaukasiska kritcirkeln [“Mother Courage and her children. The Caucasian chalk circle”]. (Stockholm: Natur och kultur), pp. III–VIII. Dekker, Rudolf and van de Pol, Lotte (1995). Kvinnor i manskläder. En avvikande tradition. Europa 1500–1800. (Stockholm: Symposium/Brutus Östlings förlag). Elias, Norbert (1991). Från Svärdet till Plikten. Samhällets förvandlingar. Del 2 av Norbert Elias civilisationsteori. (Stockholm: Norstedts förlag). Eriksson Baaz, Maria and Stern, Maria (2013). Sexual violence as a weapon of war? Perceptions, prescriptions, problems in the Congo and beyond. (London and New York: Zed Books). Fiebranz, Rosemarie (2002). Jord, linne eller träkol? Genusordning och hushållsstrategier, Bjuråker 1750–1850. PhD. diss. (Uppsala universitet). Foucault, Michel (1997). Society must be defended: lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976. (New York: St Martin’s Press). Gillgren, Peter (1992). “Magnus Gabriel De la Gardies bataljmålningar på Karlberg” in Holmquist, Bengt M. (ed.), Karlberg. Slott och skola. Byggnader och konst. (Stockholm: Krigsskolan Karlberg), pp. 299–328.

Transformation into manhood

107

Glete, Jan (2002). War and the state in early modern Europe. Spain, the Dutch republic and Sweden as fiscal–military states, 1500–1660. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Grubbe, Lars (1854). “Relation utur Verade i Ukermark den 14 mars 1631” in Svenskt Krigshistoriskt Arkiv. Del I. (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner), pp. 722–3. Hacker, Barton C. (1981). “Women and military institutions in early modern Europe: a reconnaissance”. Signs, 6(4): 643–71. Hagemann, Karen (1998). “Venus und Mars. Reflexionen zu einer Geschlectergeschichte von Militär und Krieg” in Hagemann, Karen and Pröve, Ralf (eds), Landsknechte, Soldatenfrauen und Nationalkrieger. Militär, Krieg und Geschlecterordnung im historischen Wandel. (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag), pp. 13–50. Hale, John Rigby (1990). Artists and warfare in the Renaissance. (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press). Harrington, Peter (1993). British artists and war. The face of battle in paintings and prints, 1700–1914. (London: Greenhill Books). Kaldor, Mary (1999). New and old wars. Organized violence in a global era. (Cambridge: Polity Press). Lindeborg, Lisbeth (2005). “Kriget har fått ett kvinnligt ansikte” [“War has been given a female face”]. Svenska Dagbladet, 8 March 2005, available at www.svd.se/kriget-harfatt-ett-kvinnligt-ansikte [last accessed 25 January 2016]. Lindegren, Jan (1999). “Frauenland und Soldatenleben. Perspektiven auf Schweden und den Dreissigjährigen Krieg” in von Krusenstjerna, Benigna and Medick, Hans (eds), Zwischen Alltag und Katastrophe. Der Dreissigjährige Krieg aus der Nähe. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht Verlag), pp. 135–58. Lynn II, John A. (2008). Women, armies and warfare in early modern Europe. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Lynn II, John A. (2012). “Essential women, necessary wives, and exemplary soldiers: the military reality and cultural representation of women’s military participation (1600–1815)” in Hacker, Barton C. and Vining, Margaret (eds), A companion to women’s military history. (Leiden, Boston, MA: Brill), pp. 93–136. Medick, Hans (1999). “Historisches Eregnis und zeitgenössische Erfahrung: Die Eroberung und Zerstörung Magdeburgs 1631” in von Krusenstjerna, Benigna and Medick, Hans (eds), Zwischen Alltag und Katastrophe. Der Dreissigjährige Krieg aus der Nähe. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht Verlag), pp. 377–408. Milger, Peter (1998). Gegen Land und Leute. Der Dreissigjährige Krieg. (München: Bertelsmann). Münkler, Herfried (2004). De nya krigen. (Göteborg: Bokförlaget Daidalos). Östberg, Kjell (1999). “Krig och fred i svensk kvinnorörelse” in Florin, Christina, Sommestad, Lena and Wikander, Ulla (eds), Kvinnor mot kvinnor. Om systerskapets svårigheter. (Stockholm: Norstedts förlag), pp. 16–44. Runeberg, Johan Ludvig (1986). Fänrik Ståls sägner. (Stockholm: Natur och kultur). Sjöberg, Maria (2008). Kvinnor i fält 1550–1850. (Hedemora/Möklinta: Gidlunds förlag). Sjöberg, Maria (2009). “Hur det civila blev kvinnligt – och det militära manligt” in Sjöberg, Maria (ed.), Sammanflätat. Civilt och militärt i det tidigmoderna Sverige. (Uppsala: Uppsala universitet), pp. 131–50. Sjöberg, Maria (2011). “Women in campaigns. Household and homosociality in the Swedish Army”. The History of the Family, 3(16): 204–16. Stadin, Kekke (2004). Stånd och genus i stormaktstidens Sverige. (Lund: Historiska Media).

108

M. Sjöberg

Sundevall, Fia (2011). Det sista manliga yrkesmonopolet: genus och militärt arbete i Sverige 1865–1989. (Göteborg: Makadam). Swart, Erik (2006). “From ‘landsknecht’ to ‘soldier’: the Low German foot soldiers of the Low Countries in the second half of the sixteenth century”. International Review of Social History, 51(10): 75–92. Tilly, Charles (1990). Coercion, capital, and European states, ad 990–1990. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). van Creveld, Martin (1977). Supplying war. Logistics from Wallenstein to Pattern. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). van Creveld, Martin (2002). Men, women and war. Do women belong in the front line? (London: Cassell). Venning, Annabel (2005). Following the drum. The lives of army wives and daughters. (London: Headline). Wilson, Peter H. (2010). Europe’s tragedy. A new history of the Thirty Years’ War. (London: Penguin Books).

7

Japanese warrior transformations Bushidō as the continuation of death by other means Dan Öberg

Introduction One of the most famous catchwords in the Japanese history of literature is the opening sentence of the collection of stories called Hagakure (written by Yamamoto Jōchō in 1716): “the way of the samurai is found in death” (Koike 1999: 9). This motto is often taken as the principal definition both of samurai identity during Tokugawa-period Japan (1603–1868) and as indicative of the way this identity has been politicalized, aestheticized, and militarized thereafter in modern Japan. Hagakure was written and disseminated in an era of transition, when the samurai Weltanschauung was rapidly changing from a symbolic world characterized by civil war (the Sengoku period 1467–1603) to one of peace, stability, and absolute feudal order. This chapter engages with the notion of ‘death’ in Japanese military culture in general, and Hagakure in particular, so as to map and trace the way it participates in creating authoritative symbolic claims on what it means to become a warrior during and after this time. The key argument herein is that ‘death’ enables a way of navigating and challenging modern Japan. This was particularly evident in Tokugawa Japan, in itself not a modern society, but one that is highly associated with key characteristics of modernity: homogenization, centralization, and bureaucratization. The interlinking between death and the warrior discourse, as portrayed in Hagakure, arises out of a challenge which transcends both the time of Tokugawa Japan and the identity of the warrior (or the soldier). This transcendent aspect gives the book a timeless aura that helps us better appreciate its importance today. Popular as it may be in order to understand the psyche of the samurai, as Olivier Ansart (2010: 57–8) argues, much contemporary writing on Hagakure relates to bushidō aficionados and the book has received little serious attention in the Japanese philosophical context. Hagakure has also been considered anachronistic and ‘outpaced’ by events in post-Second World War Japan (Claremont 2003: 160). So why choose it as an illustration of warrior transformations in a more general sense? The principal reason is that the book is considered a valuable historical source for understanding the sentiments of the warriors of the time (Ikegami 1995: 279–80) as well as how they are understood presently. Previous research engaging with Hagakure from this perspective has looked at

110

D. Öberg

the way it relates to religion (Bocking 1980: 8–11), to attitudes on bi-and homosexuality (Travers 1993: 134; Ikegami 1995: 288–93; Akazawa 2011: 525) and to the level of understandings of philosophical matters in Japan at the time. More specifically, Hagakure has also been read in relation to the notion of death, focusing on: shini gurui (“death frenzy”) (Furukawa 1993; 143–64; Koike 1999: 148–72; Ansart 2010); the way the “extreme cult of death” in Hagakure reflects an ethnomentality of the Tokugawa samurai (Ikegami 1995: 279–80); and on interrogating the links between the militarist appropriation of death in the 1930s and notions of aesthetics, duty, honour, and the willingness to die (Hurst 1990; Ohnuki-Tierney 2002; Griffin 2003, 67–8; Skya 2009: 329–30, fn. 18). But the book can also be thought of as a discursive event which enables us to better understand Japanese warrior transformations regardless of age. As Nicholas Michelsen argues, death is one defining characteristic of challenges against Western modernization in Japan. This is evident particularly in Yukio Mishima’s (nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature) writing, eventually leading up to the author’s famous suicide by disembowelment (Michelsen 2015: 15, 41–4). It might be a mistake to read death in Hagakure as providing a blueprint to samurai identity or as providing the truth of what it means to become a warrior. However, this chapter argues that engaging with Hagakure provides insights into how such becomings were viewed both at the time of writing and thereafter, as the book enables us to better understand what death does in terms of representing and enabling particular aspects of warrior subjectivity. The first part of the chapter briefly introduces the cultural, aesthetic, and religious context of death in Japan. It particularly focuses on the differences between Western warrior cultures and the samurai as well as the aesthetic notion of gyokusai: the idea that a warrior, or a soldier, is supposed to die “shattering like a jewel”.1 The second part discusses warrior subjectivities in relation to death. It draws upon poststructuralist theory in order to understand the fragmented and incomplete character of warrior subjectivity as well as the coconstitutive aspect between warriors becoming warriors and the symbolic order of which this is a part. The subsequent parts outline three key meanings of death in Hagakure: the notion of “death frenzy” and the way warrior subjectivities are related to the immediacy of the present; death as a means of nostalgia enabling a relationship with the past; and death as a challenge to the slow death of modernity in the future. This is followed by a conclusion that discusses in what way we might rethink Japanese warrior transformations through these three meanings of death. It suggests that death works both as an end and as a means in that it enables the medieval warrior and the post-Meiji (1868–) soldier to navigate towards and surpass the discursive limits of the past, the present, and the future.

The cultural context of death The relationship between death and Japanese culture is in itself a topic worthy of a book. The following section does not attempt to outline this relationship comprehensively. Rather, through secondary literature, it provides a brief discussion

Japanese warrior transformations

111

of key characteristics of death at the time, with relevance for better understanding Japanese warrior transformations. One key feature with regard to death is the way Japanese culture emphasizes self-sacrifice and favours one’s own death as a political and social weapon. This feature is often linked to the way open protests against (extremely) repressive feudal regimes were deemed impossible for those ruled by them. Death, thereby, became a form of self-expression and admonishment during a time in which self-expression was not accepted (De Vos 1986: 86). As is well known, this ‘pathos of death’ was evident in many of the Japanese classics (such as the Tale of Genji) and was militarized through propaganda prior to and during the Second World War. This, in turn, has resulted in the idea that the main cultural battlefield difference between Western soldiers and Japanese soldiers was that whereas the former were asked to express their identity though killing, the latter were asked to do so by dying (Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 38; 2006: 4). One famous example that illustrates the way death works as a breaker of boundaries and mode of communication took place during the Soviet offensive in August 1945 against the Japanese Kwangtung Army in Manchuria at the end of the Second World War: The young officers in Manchurai had determined to fight on indefinitely, even though the home islands had surrendered. A staff general was sent by plane as an envoy of the Emperor to order the troops to surrender. He could get nowhere with the officers, who were determined to fight on. He returned to his plane, which took off and circled the field, sending a radio message that this was the final directive to surrender. The plane then suddenly dived straight for the landing field, crashing and killing all on board. The troops then promptly surrendered. (De Vos 1986: 86) The general’s act becomes a way of communicating through death, a way that might be taken to be deeply irrational. However, the general’s act is a ‘death’ which is very much in line with the central tenets of Hagakure: it displays an intense and rash decision, no doubt marked by the nostalgia of suicide attacks, in order to challenge the context at hand. As we shall see in the final part of the chapter, this means that death has certain underlying principles that help to structure the meaning of warrior identity, something that the general’s act illustrates well. We can understand the role of death in Hagakure better if we consider the Japanese context at the time the book was written. Tokugawa Japan was born out of an era of civil wars that had lasted for over 130 years. This era was characterized by violence as well as by decentralization, local power struggles between dominant clans, and a lack of overarching authority. It is only natural that the Tokugawa era, which came about through a massive coup de force by one of the major clans, in many ways worked as a reaction to this era of chaos and strife. As S. N. Eisenstadt (1996: 184–7) argues, the Tokugawa regime was an absolutist feudal state characterized by a high degree of centralization, rigid control, and a monopoly on authority, all aimed at unifying the fragmented

112

D. Öberg

country. This gave rise to a new bureaucracy and a new judicial system that was often manned by an impoverished warrior class. While there are important similarities between European feudalism and the Tokugawa era, there are also a number of differences. Particularly salient in this respect is the matter of religion: neither Shinto nor Buddhism has a notion of life after death. Shinto shuns death as a taboo and Buddhism tends to lack a distinct place where the dead end up in their afterlife as it views life in terms of a cycle of death and rebirth on a path towards enlightenment (Varley 2000: 20–1; Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 37). During the two decades before the Tokugawa period much of the Buddhist influence had waned. In the centralized era that followed, the state had military control over the monasteries. This reduced the political and economic power of the Buddhist sects but gave them a new role as parts of state practices (Jansen 1995: 179). As Eiko Ikegami (1995: 187–90) correctly outlines, in Europe the context of feudalism is inseparable from Christianity and the role of the Church. In Tokugawa Japan there was no comprehensive theological power. The Buddhist temples did not affect norms and values in the same encompassing way as the Church did and they often lacked the impetus to interfere in politics. This means that there was no organized religious intervention impinging on samurai practices. The samurai might have been religious, superstitious, or affected by religious ideas. In particular, the link to the Rinzai-Zen sect with its emphasis on martial aspects, intuition, and speed is often emphasized in relation to warrior culture (cf. Victoria 2006). But if we are to understand the role of death in Japanese warrior culture it is important to grasp the way it differs from the European context. In Western Europe, it would be difficult to untangle the feudal notion of death from its religious connotations (of doxology, of glory, or of the role of the Church in general). This can be contrasted to the Japanese feudal context, where death stands at the crossroads of a more fragmented discursive encounter between ideas of honour, law, nobility culture, aesthetics, superstition, and religious notions. As many have noted, Japanese ‘warrior death’ lacked a transcendental principle that conditioned or structured it in terms of an afterlife. Rather, death consists of the possibility of expressing an identity in the fullest sense. During the medieval period, the samurai relation to death, as in the willingness both to kill and to die, functions as a norm which helps to create a warrior ethos. The notion of ‘honourable death’ was particularly important and related to vassalage and the sense of duty that the samurai were supposed to feel towards their masters. The strength between honour and death was reinforced because battle was often seen as an individual affair and the battlefield a place to seek personal honour. Actual battles were ritualistic in nature (starting with a ‘declaration of names’) where samurai fought other samurai (Ikegami 1995: 95–8). The samurai notion of war was, therefore, very different from the Clausewitzian notion which dominated Europe from the nineteenth century onwards, namely the idea that ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means’. Rather, “war was”, as the Japanese medieval proverb asserts, “the art of embellishing death” (Virilio 1989: 1). As Ikegami concludes:

Japanese warrior transformations

113

The entire existence of the samurai, his pride in feats of arms, his individuality and dignity, crystallized at this supreme moment, and the consummate manifestation of honor ended in the peculiar ritual of self-willed death. The fact that the samurai regarded the question of death as the central issue of his existence infused his culture with depth and complexity of meaning. (1995: 117) Arguably, underlying this “complexity of meaning” we find a number of fragmented discourses. It is, therefore, wrong to say (as does Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 117) that Hagakure merely describes vassalage and the will to follow the master in death. Rather, all the discourses that help the warrior to express an identity coalesce in the signifier ‘death’ which in turn provides both a means and an end to a process of self-expression. Aesthetics is as relevant as vassalage in order to understand death in Hagakure. For example, the notion of gyokusai (“to die beautifully like a shattered jewel”) illustrates well the way in which aesthetic notions function as normative ideas that structure what it means to become a warrior through death. The notion goes back to an ancient Chinese saying which claims that “it is better to die shattering like a jewel than to live like a roof-tile”, making surviving the battle a potentially shameful act in itself. It is almost self-evident that the Tokugawa government placed an enormous strain on the samurai class. Ikegami (1995: 220, 280) argues that any attempt to understand books such as Hagakure would need an appreciation of the paradoxical situation of the samurai, stuck between a stifling bureaucratic and judicial state system and the vassal’s need to practise moral autonomy. Drawing upon this argument we might say that the samurai warrior identity is constantly subject to the way the state codifies its identity, but at the same time is also constantly challenging the coding of the state discourse through the notion of honourable death. Arguably, as Ikegami claims, Hagakure needs to be read as a work that both reinforces and challenges the way samurai identity endures and transforms during the Tokugawa era. In addition, more importantly, as the following sections will address in more detail, the notion of ‘death’ is a key characteristic in challenging such transformations.

Death and warrior subjectivity Hagakure emphasizes that to become a warrior one needs to learn how to school the mind regarding death. Its line of thought is written in an era when the samurai are reflecting upon the meaning of life and death. Representations of death (such as Hagakure) might thereof be interpreted as a way of constructing meaningful warrior subjectivities. As poststructuralist accounts of social science have emphasized, subjectivity must not be thought of as the socialization of a preexisting identity in a given cultural setting. Rather, subjectivity is a fragmented as well as an incomplete concept that questions the idea that ‘the warrior’ is a rational, conscious, autonomous individual. Moreover, the notion helps to see ‘the warrior’ as a partial and contested identity in the process of being

114

D. Öberg

embodied and enacted in discourse (Edkins et al. 1999: 1–7; McSorley 2013: 26–7). To state that Hagakure is a locus of the production of warrior subjectivity through the notion of death is therefore to simultaneously state that there is no prior notion of ‘the warrior’ that precedes the ways in which death is represented in discourse. As Jenny Edkins argues (1999: 6–8) the constitution of subjectivity is interlinked with the constitution of particular social or symbolic orders. This means that the constitution of subjectivity is a (more or less) open event in which something happens through various symbolic notions. Her text considers death in Hagakure as being one such important moment in the symbolic order. To inquire into the construction of warrior subjectivity in Japan, therefore, does not involve looking for a unitary actor (‘the samurai’) that stands separate from the logic of representation integral to the process of becoming a warrior. Rather, it indicates an attempt to map part of the symbolic universe in which bodies act out their identities. Discourses around war make certain enactments or embodiments of the warrior possible as these discussions exclude other such and Hagakure arguably provided authoritative conditions for how such enactments and embodiments occurred. In this way, Edkins’ text is reproducing various representations and deploying them in the Tokugawa period context to constitute samurai subjectivity, but it is also doing this in a more general sense as part of the subjectivity of Japanese warriorhood (cf. Campbell 1997: 164–7, 174). This should not be taken to mean that there is a simple causality between Hagakure and the behaviour of either the Tokugawa samurai or later embodiments or vulgarizations of bushidō. Rather, important notions in Hagakure work as a way of constructing the warrior as they help to code bodies through language and symbols. The following sections contain a mapping of ‘death’ in Hagakure. It might be a mistake to use ‘death’ in a unitary fashion and the question of ‘what kind of death’ in Hagakure assumes a number of things. It assumes that ‘death’ means the same in seventeenth-century Japan as in contemporary Japanese culture and that it is possible to provide an understanding of death which is demarcated. Even if we are convinced that it would be hermeneutically possible to determine the meaning of death in the context of Hagakure we would still be in the presence of many kinds of deaths in the book itself. When reading Hagakure we encounter death and killing as murder, penalty, death by suicide, and so forth. The point is not to reduce all of them to a unitary ‘death’ but to illustrate that the notion of death is in itself multifaceted and implies competing representations and logics which can be untangled in new ways. As the subsequent sections illustrate, death is important both as it gives meaning to samurai identity and as it helps to (re)constitute and question the symbolic order itself by creating a relationship between the warrior subject and the past, present, and future.

Death as immediacy As indicated in the introduction, the most famous link between warrior subjectivity and death is the opening of chapter 1 in Hagakure. It reads:

Japanese warrior transformations

115

The way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim. . . . To die without gaining one’s aim is a dog’s death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the way of the Samurai. (Yamamoto 1979: 23) This quote arguably sets the tone for the whole book. It presents the need to ‘choose death’ as an authoritative claim on what it means to become a warrior: a warrior is he who chooses death over life. This representation of death as embodied through intuition and immanence is enhanced throughout Hagakure, for example in that one should plunge “recklessly towards an irrational death” so as to wake up from the dream of life (Yamamoto 1979: 36). The term commonly used for dying in this manner is shini gurui, a term difficult to translate into both modern Japanese and English. It has been translated as “the frenzy to die at first opportunity, given the slightest motive, and regardless of the possible outcome” or simply as “death frenzy” (Ikegami 1995: 281; Ansart 2010: 62, fn. 42). Ansart argues that the will to die at first opportunity characterizes “death frenzy” and works as an underlying principle for how to become a warrior. In this interpretation, death becomes a willful act that needs to be pursued at all costs, as well as a means for the samurai to enact his identity as a warrior. The act of death enables an event in which the pure will of the subject lifts the being out of a shadowy illusion and into existence as a ‘real samurai’, if only briefly (Ansart 2010: 68–71, 75). Ansart’s interpretation blends well with the way “death frenzy” (rather than death per se) acquires meaning in Hagakure, for example in how the book emphasizes: the need for resolution and resolve in the face of inevitable death (Yamamoto 1979: 39–40, 171); the importance of immediacy in the kill (Yamamoto 1979: 66); the value of embracing death without delay (Yamamoto 1979: 80–1); and the need to die in battle with honour (Yamamoto 1979: 137, 142–3, 159). In all these readings the death of the samurai is immediate and without reflection. As the following example illustrates, the immediacy of death conditions the act of killing as well as the state of dying as a warrior because it illustrates what it means to be a warrior: In Edo, four or five hatamoto gathered together one night for a game of go. At one point one of them got up to go to the toilet, and while he was gone an argument broke out. One man was cut down, the lights were extinguished, and the place was in an uproar. When the man came running back, he yelled, “Everybody calm down! This is really over nothing at all. Put the lamps back on and let me handle this.” After the lamps had been relighted and everyone had calmed down, the man suddenly struck off the head of the other man involved in the argument. He then said, “My luck as a samurai

116

D. Öberg having run out, I was not present at the fight. If this were seen as cowardice, I would be ordered to commit seppuku. Even if that didn’t happen, I would have no excuse if it were said that I had fled to the toilet, and I would still have no recourse other than seppuku. I have done this thing because I thought I would die having cut down an adversary rather than die having shamed myself alone.” When the shogun heard of this matter, he praised the man. (Yamamoto 1979: 157)

The example illustrates the immanent, self-sufficient, and almost deliberately rash act of killing which helps the samurai to stand out from all other social existence. Ted Preston reads death in Hagakure mainly as a way of becoming an efficient or an honourable warrior and links it to the notion of immanence (Preston 2003: 47–9). As the example shows, the murder of a fellow samurai, as well as breaking the law, is put in opposition to the need for a warrior to act rashly so as to always intuitively favour death over life. The warrior is thereby one who becomes a warrior by transcending law and superficial social relations. Death in Hagakure rearranges life and deconstructs subjectivity because it is internalized as a code to make the samurai “virtually dead” (Yamamoto 1979: 148–9). This virtual state is best reached through daily meditations: Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead. There is a saying of the elders that goes, “Step from under the eaves and you’re a dead man. Leave the gate and the enemy is waiting.” This is not a matter of being careful. It is to consider oneself as dead beforehand. (Yamamoto 1979: 172) The first and most common meaning of ‘death’ in Hagakure is, therefore, the immediate, intuitive, and immanent characteristic of death as has been described by a number of authors. It is embodied through choice and meditation as it is transformed into resolve. The warrior is one who is always ready to choose his own and others’ death over life. The immanent and intuitive characteristic of death creates a relationship to the present moment. A warrior is the subject who looks for death ‘here and now’ – his and others’ – not one who reflects, plots, or uses tactics and strategy.

Japanese warrior transformations

117

Death as nostalgia The previous representation of death in Hagakure as immediate and related to the present is arguably the most familiar. However, the idea that warrior subjectivity is best represented as “death frenzy” – the willingness to fight to the death at every instance – has been contested by a number of authors. For example, Cameron Hurst argues that bushidō consists of a clash between two competing narratives in which the first is focused on ‘dying’ while the other is more related to Neo-Confucian values of how to live with moral authority (Hurst 1990: 521). Arguably, this clash occurred as part of a historical transformation from a period of civil war to one of relative peace and stability. As part of this transformation, warrior identity was codified into written form (through, among other texts, Hagakure) and disseminated to military households amidst a process of centralization and administration in which being a samurai implied being an aristocrat more focused on paperwork than on sword fighting (Tsutsui 2007: 122–3). A second way of interpreting ‘death’ in this context is as an expression of nostalgia and a lamenting of the past. If we take Hagakure as an example, this (like the many books on bushidō which came during this time, such as Miyato Musashi’s Gorin no Sho (“The Book of Five Rings”)) represented a memory of the past samurai rather than a reflection of their experience (Mínguez-López 2014: 31) or was at least a response to an era of peace which replaced one of war (Preston 2003: 41). Hagakure was written when almost no samurai had seen actual battles and thereby consisted of reinterpretations of samuraihood in relation to the “vassalic bureaucracy” of the Tokugawa samurai. This indicates two competing narratives – one of honour and one of bureaucratization – that enables us to contextualize the nostalgia for a lost world of death which Hagakure represented (Ikegami 1995: 282–5). In fact, as is well known, the symbolic world which related warrior subjectivity to death in Hagakure was largely anachronistic (or even outlawed) during the time when the book was written. For example, seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) and kirisute gomen (the authorization to cut down anyone of a lower class) were uncommon and the Tokugawa shogunate outlawed junshi (suicide to follow one’s lord in death) in 1661. As a consequence, many of the traditions relating the samurai to death thereby began to diminish. Similarly, kaishaku (the art of cutting of heads) – either as an executioner or as a second to those committing ritual suicide – was also becoming rarer as the Weltanschauung changed. Reflections on death in Hagakure are often directed towards the past as it laments how “customs are going to pieces” (Yamamoto 1979: 40). For example, the book comments on the need to continually practice kaishaku: Yamamoto Kichizaemon was ordered by his father Jin’emon to cut down a dog at the age of five, and at the age of fifteen he was made to execute a criminal. Everyone, by the time they were fourteen or fifteen, was ordered to do a beheading without fail. When Lord Katsushige was young, he was ordered by Lord Naoshige to practice killing with a sword. It is said that at

118

D. Öberg that time he was made to cut down more than ten men successively. A long time ago this practice was followed, especially in the upper classes, but today even the children of the lower classes perform no executions, and this is extreme negligence. To say that one can do without this sort of thing, or that there is no merit in killing a condemned man, or that it is a crime, or that it is defiling, is to make excuses. (Yamamoto 1979: 108)

Such nostalgic reflections on the past occur in relation to death in a number of other instances, for example: That there are few men who are able to cut well in beheadings is further proof that men’s courage has waned. And when one comes to speak of kaishaku, it has become an age of men who are prudent and clever at making excuses. . . . All of man’s work is a bloody business. That fact, today, is considered foolish, affairs are finished cleverly with words alone, and jobs that require effort are avoided. I would like young men to have some understanding of this. (Yamamoto 1979: 30, see also 31) The difference between the “nostalgia of death” and the “death frenzy” is how the former laments a time lost while still maintaining a connection to the present time through death. The latter, on the other hand, orientates the subject towards the ‘here and now’. The first enables a link to the past that gives logic to reenacting a world which has in many ways already disappeared; the second encodes and internalizes this world towards immediate experience. Nostalgia should therefore not be taken to mean a simple wish to return to the past era of civil wars. Although there is a constant invoking of the past as representing a superior spirit (see Yamamoto 1979: 74) the wish to die in battle is not merely a thing of the past but also a way of contextualizing the identity of the warrior (cf. Yamamoto 1979: 159). Death becomes a way of reifying the past and, thereby, reifying a particular warrior identity and its connection to an idealized past. If understood in this manner, the iteration of death in the classics is not there to explain the samurai spirit, but first rather to hide the fact that ‘real warriors’ had ceased to exist, strictly speaking and, second, to suggest the need to open up a pathway to the present through iterating the deaths of the past. If interpreted in this manner we might appreciate the way in which the moment of becoming a real warrior is kept open through an ideal of death.

Death as challenge The previous sections have outlined how death works as a gateway into warrior subjectivity through the present, (the “death frenzy”) and the past (the “nostalgia of death”). These two interpretations are the most common in the literature on Hagakure. However, they do not exhaust the notion of death in the book itself.

Japanese warrior transformations

119

This final section engages with a neglected aspect of death in the book, namely the way it occurs in relation to the societal changes associated with modernity, particularly money and commerce.2 Arguably, the relationship between the commercial economy and the samurai class during the Tokugawa period and beyond was complex. This was particularly so in the way commercial agriculture contributed to destabilizing the rural power base and undermining the rice-dependent economy of the samurai (Ikegami 1995: 175). To state that there was a complex relationship between the samurai and the monetary culture is to some extent simply to say that Japan was experiencing a transition from a feudal to an agricultural state in which money played a more important part. As we shall see, the representation of money in Hagakure partially reflects this. In Hagakure money is iterated as something unimportant that will be available when asked for by the samurai (Yamamoto 1979: 55, 165). This idea might not be overtly different from the way the aristocracy in medieval Europe regarded money. But, the curious aspect of the way Hagakure represents money is not so much how it is discussed as “a walking stick for the weak” or as representing the changing times (Yamamoto 1979: 40, 68, 132–3), but the fact that it is repeatedly related to the notion of death. Henceforth, to interpret the notion of money (and the predominately negative way it is represented) in the book entirely through the transition between a feudal economy and a agricultural one with the attendant increased commercial exchanges would obscure the fact that money is repeatedly represented in relation to death (see, for example, Yamamoto 1979: 125–6). Consider the discussion of Suzuki Rokubei: During the Genroku period there was a samurai of low rank from the Province of Ise by the name of Suzuki Rokubei. He was ill with a severe fever, and his consciousness became dim. At that time a certain male nurse was unexpectedly stricken with greed and was about to open up the inkbox and steal the money that was kept in it. Just then the sick man suddenly stirred, took the sword from the base of his pillow, and in a sudden attack cut the man down with one blow. With that, the sick man fell back and died. By this act, Rokubei seemed to be a man of principled disposition. (Yamamoto 1979: 116) This example might be read simply as an example of moral behaviour. But it can also be read as a sick samurai exerting his last energy, dying while killing a subject closely associated with money and greed in order to reach his ‘pure state’ as a warrior. In another more explicit example of the juxtaposition of death and money we may consider the idea that money is connected with attempts to calculate the future: Calculating people are contemptible. The reason for this is that calculation deals with loss and gain, and the loss and gain mind never stops. Death is considered loss and life is considered gain. Thus, death is something that

120

D. Öberg such a person does not care for, and he is contemptible. Furthermore, scholars and their like are men who with wit and speech hide their own true cowardice and greed. People often misjudge this. (Yamamoto 1979: 50)

A careful reading of the notion of money links it to ideas such as ‘calculation’ and ‘life’ in ways which make death not only opposed to life, or the life of the merchant, but also an opening towards a future life enabled through death.3 In Hagakure, money and death are repeatedly juxtaposed, for example in the tale of a samurai with a cash shortage who sent a letter to his lord saying that it would be regrettable to commit seppuku over a matter of money. In the story this was deemed reasonable and in response the balance was provided to the samurai (Yamamoto 1979: 93). Moreover, consider how (in the story of Nagayama Rokurozaemon), a ronin (“masterless samurai”) pleads for financial help from a samurai under the pretext that they are “both warriors”. The protagonist Rokurozaemon angrily responds to the ronin: “It is a discourtesy to mention that we are both warriors. If I were in your state of affairs, I’d cut my stomach open. Rather than being out of money for the road and exposing yourself to shame, cut your stomach open right where you are!” It is said that the beggar moved off (Yamamoto 1979: 130–1). This example can be read as a question (‘are we both warriors?’) and a response (‘no we are not, since you follow the road of money and not the road of death’) and as a consequence it is not the ronin who moves off but the beggar. How are we to understand the relationship between death and money and the way it is juxtaposed in Hagakure? Keeping in mind that death is the quintessential characteristic of warrior transitions creating a relationship to the present (the “death frenzy”) and to the past (the “nostalgia of death”) this relationship begs an explanation. One way of explaining this link would be in relation to Ikegami’s claim that the “cult of death” in Hagakure was a way of comparing samurai honour to the logic of bureaucratization (Ikegami 1995: 285). This would imply that the samurai chose honour over the logic of bureaucratization. One way of complementing and adding to this view would be to ask whether it could be that death in Hagakure can also be understood as a virtual challenge to modernity. If so, this challenge would go well beyond the identity of the seventeenth-century samurai and the cultural context of Tokugawa Japan. Rather, if considered as a way of restoring and maintaining the power of death over the monetary system the notion of death in Hagakure can be read as a part of larger societal challenges. Sociologist Jean Baudrillard argues in Symbolic Exchange and Death that: Labour power is instituted on death. A man must die to become labour power. He converts this death into a wage. . . . This death is not violent and physical, it is the indifferent consumption of life and death, the mutual neutralization of life and death in survival, or death deferred. Labour is slow death . . . [and] . . . is not opposed . . . to the ‘fulfilment of life’ . . . labour is

Japanese warrior transformations

121

opposed as slow death to a violent death. That is the symbolic reality. . . . The only alternative to labour is not free time, or non-labour, it is sacrifice. (Baudrillard 1993: 39) Tokugawa Japan was in no way a modern industrialized society. But the power of this interpretation of death as a challenge to the modern monetary world is that it was directed against commercialism, centralization, and bureaucratization that were becoming increasingly dominant in Japan too. If viewed in this manner, the stories of Suzuki Rokubei and Nagayama Rokurozaemon in Hagakure can be interpreted as instigating a challenge (through the warrior’s relation to death) to the contemporary reality of the Tokugawa Japan which they endured. This is a challenge that views death differently from the contemporary European context which tends to think of ‘violent death’ as something which should be opposed and struggled against (Mbembe 2003: 14). In contemporary Europe the historical subject acquired an identity through struggling with death. Hagakure enables the exact opposite as it challenges the “slow death” of life through a more beautiful death (cf. Baudrillard 1993: 39). In facing death the samurai are no different from other social classes as they all face death in their own way. But it is by not struggling against, but in fact by embracing violent death, that a historical subjectivity is enabled, which is also a subjectivity of warriorhood. Hagakure, therefore, is not merely producing the immediacy and nostalgia of death but it also provides a challenge through death that is directed against the seeds of modern capitalism – the circulation, alienation, and homogenization that occurs through commercial exchanges. The samurai subjectivity, thereby, works as a challenge against the power of an economy thriving on slow death and it opposes this slow death with its own violent death (cf. Baudrillard 1993: 43). Death, thereby, becomes a means of challenge and a “vision” that works as an “anti-economy” (Mbembe 2003: 15). This is why I cannot agree with Yasuko Claremont (2003: 160) when she argues that in the post-Second World War era events “outpaced” Hagakure making it a thing of the past, or with Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney who interprets Hagakure in a hermeneutical fashion – as a result of the disappointment the author felt for not being allowed to commit junshi. Rather, Hagakure can be read as a challenge to the “slow death” of labour through the “anti-economy” of death and as such it becomes a potential future vehicle for challenges. It thereby enables a warrior transition through death which stands in opposition to a modern way of life. The challenge of death to modernity was also evident in the suicide of Yukio Mishima (himself an avid reader of Hagakure) outside an army base in Tokyo in 1970 (Michelsen 2015: 41–4). Hagakure might in this sense be considered a deeply radical book as it helps to stage challenges against what would be the future Meiji and Showa Japan.

122

D. Öberg

Conclusion To summarize, this chapter has presented three interpretations of the notion of death in Hagakure in order to better understand the way Japanese warrior transformations were authorized and conditioned in Tokugawa Japan and beyond. The first interpretation of death illustrates the way in which warrior transformation takes place through the act of death or killing, or through meditating upon this act. It relates the subject to the ‘here and now’ of present experience and internalizes death as a virtual state. The second interpretation illustrates warrior transformation as part of an idealization of the death of the past which still maintains a real significance; it enables a nostalgia that emphasizes a number of symbolic responsibilities of the warrior (such as kaishaku) pertaining to death. The third interpretation illustrates warrior transformation by death as a challenge to modernity. This meaning draws upon an understanding of the relationship between death and money and illustrates how the subject embodies the ‘pure state’ of the warrior by challenging the slow death of modernity (‘the labourer’ or ‘the slave’) with a violent death. Taken together, these three meanings of death arguably work as an underlying principle that impinges on the way the warrior has been conceived as unique in a Japanese context. This also raises a number of questions. With the three logics of death as a backdrop we can discern death as a historical subjectivity that has an effect on Japanese warrior transformations. At first glance, this might not be a novel insight as the literature on military history in Japan is full of narratives of ‘fanatics’ characterized by the willingness to die for the emperor (Hoyt 2001: 1–2, 115; Roehrs and Renti 2004: 19; Skya 2009: 329–30, fn. 18). But the point here is that death is not merely the end point of fanaticism. Death works as a complex relation in which various processes of ideological contestation and struggle are enacted (cf. Edkins 1999: 128) mainly by constantly enabling the warrior subject to embody and challenge the past, the present, and the future. How might we conceive the challenge that death enables? In the light of the fact that Japanese modernization to a large degree stems both from the changes that started in Tokugawa Japan and from the transformations that took place during the later Meiji era it becomes interesting to think of this challenge as a way in which the warrior subject navigates time. Arguably, the understanding of death in Hagakure as immediacy and as nostalgia needs to be complemented with an understanding of death as a challenge to the times. This challenge is not so much a refusal to accept the era one lives in as it is an attempt to open up a space in which to act in the present discourse: a space in which the warrior endures in relation to and as a product of the times. Hagakure reads: It is said that what is called “the spirit of an age” is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world’s coming to an end. In the same way, a single year does not have just spring or summer. A single day, too, is the same. For this reason, although one

Japanese warrior transformations

123

would like to change today’s world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. (Yamamoto 1979: 74) Arguably, it is from the insight that every generation differs that we can grasp the significance of ‘death’ as a discursive event particularly during the Meiji and Showa periods. The focus on death in modern Japan does not merely come out of militaristic propaganda (as is often stated) but out of a more complex interplay between the ways the soldier constantly challenges and is challenged by a set of characteristics – bureaucratization, capitalism, centralization, and uniformity –that in many ways contradict what it means to be a warrior. Such characteristics are no less salient in the military organization than in the disciplinary rituals of civil society at large. As a final point one might therefore ask to what extent Japanese soldiers, so famous for focusing on ‘death’ over ‘life’4 are not only a result of the homogenization processes of the political and military machinery of the times, but also to some degree part of a counter-movement to such homogenization. Let us return to De Vos’ discussion (1986: 86) of a Japanese army general who persuaded his fellow troops to surrender in Manchuria in 1945 by committing suicide as he crashed his plane on to an airfield. How are we to understand the rash suicide of the general (and indeed the deaths of the whole crew in the plane)? Perhaps we might say that the act itself offers a possibility to subvert the context at hand as it overrides the duties of the soldier. The crashing plane opens up the possibility of an event that is not marked by blind obedience to a military code but rather by its subversion (much in the same way as Baudrillard saw in violent death a radical challenge to the slow death of modernity). The general’s act is in this sense characterized by a symbolic agility that challenges the soldiers to react against the very discourses in which they are so deeply enmeshed. For a short moment the event of death emancipates them and allows them to embody this challenge. In fact, this transformation goes well beyond the identity of the samurai or the soldier, as death has played a large role in a number of other social phenomena in Japan (such as left-wing terrorism, organized suicide attacks, and even death cults like Aum Shinri Kyo). Perhaps this is also part of the charm of Hagakure as it indicates that anyone might be needed as a possible future warrior. In fact, interpreted in this way, drawing from the past, it would mean that any era constantly has a need for a rash warrior who would challenge the present era and its virtual futures through death. This is a death that transcends the notions of fascism and nationalism often associated with military Japan. Consider for example (as outlined by Emily Ohnuki-Tierney 2006) the fact that many Japanese university volunteers for the suicide corps during the Second World War were left wing and highly critical of military Japan. Despite this they chose to carry out suicide missions for their country. Consider also how the Japanese Red Army brigades drew upon ‘death’ when introducing suicide terrorism in the

124

D. Öberg

Middle East for the first time (the Lod Airport massacre in 1972). In both cases, death was a weapon of the past, used to navigate the present and to challenge it, much like the way it is represented in Hagakure.

Notes 1 The term ‘Western’ is used in a very tentative fashion and should not be taken to indicate (as argued by, for example, John Keegan 1993) that there are separate Western and Eastern warrior identities, but merely that there are important differences in the historical context of warrior transformations in Western Europe and Japan. 2 This neglect might partially stem from the way the translator of the book, Scott Wilson, claims it has “nothing to say about profit” (Yamamoto 1979: 13). This is a strange claim since the book can definitely be read as ‘anti-profit’ and as providing a juxtaposition of death with the notion of money. 3 Consider Nicholas Michelsen who, by drawing upon Deleuze and Guattari, makes the argument that all political subjectivity is to some extent based on a model of death (2015: 66–70). Michelsen’s overall argument is extremely complex, but I look upon it as helping us to think about death in general and suicide in particular as being integral parts of radical political challenges. 4 As one example consider the song Umi Yukaba, the song of the navy, which was so popular during the 1930s that it was dubbed ‘the second national anthem’. The song has the word ‘death’ four times in the first three lines.

References Akawawa, Junko (2011). “The current situation and future challenges for research on sexuality in Japanese heterosexual couples”. Feminism & Psychology, 21(4): 522–8. Ansart, Olivier (2010). “Embracing death: pure will in Hagakure”. Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 18(1) 57–75. Baudrillard, Jean 1993([1976]). Symbolic exchange and death. (London: Sage). Bocking, Brian (1980). “Neo-Confucian spirituality and the samurai ethic”. Religion 10(1): 1–15. Campbell, David (1997). “Violent performances: identity, sovereignty, responsibility” in Lapid, Yosef and Kratochwil, Friedrich, The return of culture and identity in IR theory. (London: Lynne Rienner), pp. 163–80. Claremont, Yasuko (2003). “Ōe Kenzaburō: themes and techniques in mizukara waga namida wo nugi tamau hi (the day he himself shall wipe my tears away)”. Japanese Studies, 23(2): 157–66. De Vos, George (1986). “The relation of guilt toward parents to achievement and arranged marriage among the Japanese” in Lebra, Takie Sugiyama and Lebra, Wililam P., Japanese culture and behaviour: selected readings. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press), pp. 80–101. Edkins, Jenny (1999). Poststructuralism and international relations: bringing the political back in. (London: Lynne Rienner). Edkins, Jenny, Persram, Nalini and Pin-Fat, Vèronique (eds.) (1999). Sovereignty and subjectivity. (London: Lynne Rienner). Eisenstadt, S. N. (1996). Japanese civilization: a comparative view. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Furukawa, Tetsushi (1993). Hagakure no sekai. (Tokyo: Shibunkaku).

Japanese warrior transformations

125

Griffin, Roger (2003). “Shattering crystals: The role of ‘dream time’ in extreme rightwing political violence”. Terrorism and Political Violence, 15(1): 57–95. Hoyt, Edwin P. (2001). Japan’s war: the great Pacific conflict. (New York: Cooper Square Press). Hurst, Cameron G. (1990). “Death, honor, and loyalty: the bushido ideal”. Philosophy East & West, 40(4): 511–27. Ikegami, Eiko (1995). The taming of the samurai: honorific individualism and the making of modern Japan. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Press). Jansen, Marius B. (1995). Warrior rule in Japan. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Keegan, John (1993). A history of warfare. (London: Hutchinson). Koike, Yoshiaki (1999). Hagakure: bushi to houkou. (Tokyo: Kodansha). McSorley, Kevin (ed.) (2013). War and the body: militarization, practice and experience. (New York: Routledge). Mbembe, Achille (2003). “Necropolitics”. Public Culture, 15(1): 11–40. Mínguez-López, Xavier (2014). “Folktales and other references in Toriyama’s Dragon Ball”. Animation, 9(1): 27–46. Michelsen, Nicholas (2015). Politics and suicide: the philosophy of self-destruction. (London: Routledge). Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko (2002). Kamikaze, cherry blossoms, and nationalisms: the militarization of aesthetics in Japanese history. (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press). Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko (2006). Kamikaze diaries: reflections of Japanese student soldiers. (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press). Preston, Ted (2003). “The stoic samurai”. Asian Philosophy, 13(1): 39–52. Skya, Walter A. (2009). Japan’s holy war: the ideology of radical shintō ultranationalism. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). Travers, Andrew (1993). “An essay on self and camp”. Theory, Culture & Society, 10(1): 127–43. Tsutsui, William M. (2007). A companion to Japanese history. (London: Blackwell). Varley, Paul (2000). Japanese culture. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii). Victoria, Brian Daizen (2006). Zen at war. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers). Virilio, Paul (1989[1984]). War and cinema: the logistics of perception. (London: Verso). Yamamoto, Jōchō (1979[1716]). Hagakure: the book of the samurai. (Tokyo: Kodansha).

8

Mystical and modern transformations in the Liberian civil war Ilmari Käihkö

The soldier It may not have been outwardly obvious, but Thomas was a captain and a general.1 This became immediately clear, however, when I began to discuss things with him, because he only wanted to talk about his military career. Every time I visited his home, a small room in a larger house located in one of the many suburbs of the Liberian capital Monrovia, he always closed the door behind us and drew the curtains. Nailed to the door was a pink wall calendar dated 2012, written in French and featuring a picture of him squatting, holding an assault rifle. This memento of his involvement in the post-election violence in the neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire was a reminder of just one of the turns in his eventful past. He had enlisted in the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) during the military rule of the 1980s, and fought against rebels when the war began during the final days of 1989. He soon fled to Sierra Leone, and joined a government militia. Later, this militia crossed back to Liberia, and became a rebel movement. Alternating between fighting among rebels and resting in the AFL, he was arrested by the security forces of the newly elected president and former rebel Charles Taylor, and jailed for six months. After he was released he fled to Côte d’Ivoire, where in late 2002 he joined a governmentsupported Liberian militia, parts of which fought against Taylor after returning to Liberia the year after. Despite rising to the rank of general during this insurgency, he suffered the same fate as many of his comrades after the August 2003 peace agreement, and gained little despite the promises made by his superiors during the war. His one benefit was promotion to the rank of captain in the AFL, but this only happened after Thomas threatened his former commanding officer with violence. Thomas’ 18 years in the military provided him with a meagre pension of $20 per annum, which was woefully inadequate for living in Monrovia. Thomas never spoke much of what happened after his promotion, but it is likely that he maintained contact with the Ivorian government, or those who had fought for it. His capabilities were clearly known across the border, as he was immediately called to lead a unit of local pro-government militiamen after their patron’s (Ivorian president, Laurent Gbagbo) position was threatened by the presidential election results in late 2011. Although Thomas never really said as

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 127 much, I got a strong feeling at the end of my first visit to his home that he harboured hopes I was recruiting for the small insurgency ongoing at the time, which was taking the form of cross-border attacks to Côte d’Ivoire. Thomas was clearly a man one could rely on when organized violence needed to be employed. A military professional, he is the archetypal example of the fighter which in this chapter will be called a ‘soldier’.

The combatant Soldiers formed a minority of fighters during the Liberian civil wars, and people like Charles offer a more representative idea of what the majority of fighters were like. Unlike Thomas, whose ‘career’ spanned four decades, Charles had little experience of soldiering before he joined the same pro-government militia in Côte d’Ivoire in September 2002. Living with his family in a refugee camp situated between the Ivorian military (who stopped the refugees from fleeing) and the advancing rebels who were assumed to have genocidal intent, Charles explained that he mobilized because it was “better to die in battle than to sit and be collected”. What experience he gained was purely practical, as he never received any formal military training. He made up for the lack of this by relying on supernatural protection, which he both bought and received through his similarly protected battalion commander. Charles’ war lasted only a year, but it took him from languishing in the refugee camp across the border and back again to Liberia. After the peace agreement he decided to return to the refugee camp, from where he hoped to be resettled to the United States. Charles’ war ended uneventfully when he gave his weapon to someone else so that he was disarmed. In his mind this is also when he became a civilian again. Although brief, the war had not only brought him back home from exile, but allowed him to travel, and gain much more prestige than someone of his age would ever have been allowed during times of peace. When he laid down his gun he was 17 years old. Ten years later, he became one of my main informants. I spent weeks with him, usually sitting outside his room in Monrovia, listening to his stories of the war, a topic he clearly enjoyed talking about. We were often joined by other fighters whom he either knew from the war, or who just happened to live nearby. Suffering from ill health, lack of employment, and the social tension this created with his wife, Charles had few immediate prospects in life. He had briefly worked as a security guard, but had been laid off. Because half of his salary was spent on commuting, he did not seem to care much. While clearly not happy with the situation, he was supported by his mother, as well as his wife’s relatives, who occasionally sent them home-grown produce from their village. Much in Charles’ situation suggested that he was the epitome of a former fighter who could be expected to have little to lose, and to be ready to return to violence at any moment. There was at times even a clear longing in his voice when he recalled how he had returned to his family from the frontlines, and was treated like “the president of the United States” because of his flashy uniform,

128

I. Käihkö

new weapon, and loot in an otherwise impoverished refugee camp. Yet, despite Charles’ willingness to talk about the war, this was clearly a past life for him. While he claims that he was offered a low-level command position when there was an attempt to set up a Liberian security unit in Côte d’Ivoire some years after the war, he had been cautious about the prospect. The war had strengthened his view of the “monkey work, baboon enjoys” that insignificant people like himself suffered for the benefit of prominent people. His scepticism was warranted, as the plans across the border came to naught partly due to internal infighting among the Liberians, partly also because some Ivorians were uncomfortable with the prospect of delegating power to the Liberians. In 2009 Charles joined many others who sought employment in Iraq with Sabre International. Like the rest, he felt betrayed by the government’s decision to expel the company from Liberia.2 Yet, in 2011 he made no attempt to join any of his former comrades – or Thomas – in Côte d’Ivoire after the elections to defend his old patron, Gbagbo. In many ways, Charles is an archetypal untrained fighter, who in this chapter will be called a ‘combatant’.

Military transformation and conflicts of authority Because Thomas and Charles lived in neighbouring communities I often met them one after the other, spending the morning with Thomas and the rest of the day with Charles. They were only two of around 30 main informants that I worked with during the ten months of ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in Liberia between March 2012 and November 2013. In total I have interacted with a few hundred former combatants from virtually all the factions of the Liberian civil wars. What had struck me before, but now became obvious with Thomas and Charles, was that the relationship between the soldiers and the combatants was characterized by conflict. Both groups counted on two different ways of military transformation, which through perceptions of performance also became sources of authority, power and, most importantly, identity. It is these two ways of military transformation – the first building on military training and the other on supernatural protection – that this chapter investigates. Military transformation is the process of turning a civilian into a fighter. The purpose of this process is to produce a new military identity with corresponding norms, and with an expectation that these norms will be followed.3 In Western militaries this process has been well theorized by Goffman’s (1987) idea of total institutions – bureaucratic organizations honed to reorganize individuals who enter them. In the military context, training barracks can be likened to factories, and from this veiwpoint such barracks seek to remould civilian human material into soldiers. These kinds of bureaucratized total institutions did not, however, exist in Liberia. As a result, other ways of military transformation were required. Two emerged from the narratives of Liberian fighters and formed the basis of the group identities that competed for authority. As Aretxaga (1997: 18) has argued, “[a]ny positing of identity entails a claim to political space, just as any account of experience is a claim to existential

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 129 recognition and presence”. In the narratives of Thomas and the soldiers, combatants like Charles were portrayed as undisciplined and untrained, and their actions often framed negatively.4 Furthermore, their reliance on ‘protection’ or medicine – products of rituals that safeguarded them from harm and became the basis for their performance – was the antithesis of training, the core of all that gave prestige and unified the soldiers as a group. Then again, from the perspective of Charles and other combatants, the cherished training of Thomas and the soldiers was next to useless in an unconventional guerrilla war, which required new ideas and methods (and in which the soldiers had initially completely failed to perform during the early days of war). In addition to improvisation, they drew on a more powerful force than training – protection in the form of supernatural powers. For them, such protection became not only a necessary, but above all an effective tool that helped them to perform. In the competing ways of military transformation, soldiers were characterized by their military professionalism and combatants by their ability to improvise assisted by supernatural powers. Both ways sought authority through promising better performance on the battlefield, and thus claimed expertise – or what Weber called epistemic authority (Malešević 2010: 5) – in military affairs. This ‘performance’ was indeed a central yardstick of authority in Liberian military organizations. The term itself could be taken as simple military proficiency expressed in battle – killing and surviving. Yet the term can also have a more literal meaning, ‘executing in the proper manner’, essentially, performing the part of a fighter in the appropriate and expected way. While Richards, writing about Sierra Leone, likely goes too far in equating war with ritual, his view of war as dramaturgical is certainly correct. In his view (2005: 398) “[w]ar . . . was a matter of acting together to forge strength, and acting against others to cause demoralization and fear”. Building on this, I have elsewhere raised the question that even if the war in Liberia was ultimately fought for political reasons, it may not have been understood in the familiar Clausewitzian terms of aiming to make the enemy defenceless through the destruction of his armed forces (von Clausewitz 2008: 15). The fact that fighting in Liberia was mostly sporadic and typically inflicted few casualties on warring sides suggests that violence may not have been the main aspect of war for those who fought it in that country (Käihkö 2015a). As has been argued by Simpson (2013), war has a language: violence. Yet the narratives of fighters point to the possibility that actual use of violence was not the main way of communication between those who fought against each other, but rather the performances on the battlefield. Those who performed better and appeared brave and fearful won battles, whether anyone was killed or not. Similarly, those who performed well and protected their fighters would attract following. As expressed in the oft-heard saying “manpower makes [a] general”, followers were seduced by influence and access to resources within organizations. The two different ways of transforming civilians into fighters were perceived to affect performance disproportionally. Because the ways came to signify competing authority and claims to power within military organizations, conflict was

130

I. Käihkö

inevitable. This conflict also helps to explain why it was so difficult to formalize these organizations: much remained essentially negotiable and, as a result, control of force was difficult (Käihkö 2015b). The soldiers saw the benefit of establishing military hierarchies, but also viewed themselves as privileged due to their professionalism when it came to manning them. If the combatants had submitted themselves to the military norms of the soldiers, they would have recognized the soldiers’ claims to authority and effectively renounced their own. As many of the more ambitious combatants were ‘children’ of previous rebel movements who were now rising to their full potential, they resented the idea that they would need to submit to the soldiers, many of whom were not necessarily much older than them. Positions of authority were highly coveted, and came with both social and material benefits. Especially important were the rewards that were expected to follow after the war, such as permanent employment. It should, however, be made clear that the two categories are far too neat to have actually existed in as clear-cut a form as presented in this chapter. The groups should be seen as Weberian ideal types, simplification of a messier reality for analytical purposes. Unsurprisingly, there were always people who did not fit these well-ordered categories. For instance, some soldiers did acquire protection and, in turn, some combatants were trained during the war. This messier reality did not, however, necessarily change the way in which claims to authority were framed. A similar categorization has been previously used by Moran (1995), who divided Liberian fighters into three categories: soldiers, (the indigenous) warriors, and (the Rambo-inspired) commandos. According to her, it was the last group that seemed to be winning against the other two. With the benefit of hindsight, this chapter argues that in the end it was the soldiers and their professionalism that were victorious, as they dominated military hierarchies during the war. More importantly, they were able to use their training to create an identity that joined them together into a cohesive whole that continues to exist even today, close to 15 years after the war ended. Considering how conflict in Liberia has typically been depicted as essentially a bizarre and chaotic mix of modernity and savagery, this victory of professionalism might be surprising. One representative portrayal of war in Liberia – the style of which is comparable to many accounts of contemporary African warfare – claimed that teenage rebel soldiers . . . often wearing Donald Duck Halloween masks, shower caps, women’s wedding gowns, lipstick, and wigs . . . not only shot people to death on any whim that seized them, they stole everything of value before hacking women and children to death. Rape was commonplace, too . . . rebels, over 70 percent of whom were aged twelve to seventeen, drank the blood of their victims and ate parts of their bodies. (Edgerton 2002: 160–1) These kinds of depictions are not necessarily wrong, but their limited scope and lack of contextualization underlines the incomprehensibility of what they should

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 131 explain. In reality, warfare in Liberia was a much more complex matter, which should become clear just from the depiction of who fought the war in the first place. The fighters in Liberia were not savages beyond our understanding, but human beings faced with war, trying to make sense of the situation. Military transformation offers one pertinent example of how they sought to cope with the uncertainties and violence inherent in any war. Ultimately, their solutions were not that different from those of other people in similar situations around the world. This chapter proceeds by investigating the ways in which civilians were transformed into fighters. In the Liberian case these ways also became sources of authority. The main aspect in this process is the formation of identities. Seeing war as an ‘exact science’, soldiers saw training as the best way of transformation, and based their performance on their professionalism. Their claims to power can thus be investigated through the literature on military professionalism, which has, unfortunately, been scarce as far as Africa is concerned. Furthermore, some central assumptions with regard to this approach have come under increasing criticism. The attention subsequently turns to combatants. Lacking formal training, they needed to find a different way of transformation – and thus of gaining authority. They began to perceive war in the manner Hoffman (2011a: 243) calls “experimental science”, as requiring “response to the demands placed by the reality of violence”. They turned to supreme forces – the supernatural. The last part of the chapter discusses the end of the war and why the soldiers won, but why their war never finished.

Soldiers and military professionalism in Liberia Studies of African military professionalism have often rather concentrated on military ‘unprofessionalism’: due to domestic political factors, they simply do not fulfil Huntington’s main requirement for military professionalism – the separation of the military from the civilian (Howe 2001). These normative underpinnings of Huntington’s conception of civil–military relations have, however, been questioned (Honig 2015). For instance, it has been argued that Huntington exaggerated the separation of military professionals from society even in Western countries. In fact, some militaries seek to get closer to society, rather than to distance themselves from it (Strachan 2013: 85). As noted with the earlier discussion of the lack of total institutions, the military establishment in Liberia has always remained close to the country’s society. Neither was it ever the apolitical instrument as envisaged by the Huntingtonian norms. When what became the AFL was formed in 1908, it had to focus on the pacification of the Liberian interior as a way to keep the encroaching European neighbours at bay. This foretold that the Liberian military would become a bulwark against domestic, not international threats. In 1980 the military enacted a coup and took power from the previous one-party rulers. It is usual for all new rulers to dismantle or marginalize whatever security arrangements their predecessors have built and bring in their own people. The

132

I. Käihkö

separation of the military from civilian affairs thus becomes a problematic yardstick for military professionalism. The soldiers in Liberia still identify themselves as military professionals, distinguished by Huntington (1957: 8–10) as being characterized by expertise, responsibility, and corporateness. As a result, military professionalism in this chapter refers to the shared identity of these soldiers as a group of military professionals. Their identity was based on the way in which they had been transformed from civilians into soldiers – formal training. As argued by Huntington (1957: 8–9), “[t]he professional man is an expert with specialized knowledge and skill in a significant field of human endeavor. His expertise is acquired only by prolonged education and experience.” While the Liberian military education was probably not prolonged, the fact that the training was formal was hugely important in the Liberian context, where most lack any formal professional education. Military training received abroad – especially in the United States and Israel, but even in Libya and Guinea, for example – is still revered. This reflects the broader appreciation of social markers of modernity which is closely connected with high status and political and economic opportunities (Brown 1979: 174–5; Utas 2003: 106–7). While it is, of course, very difficult to evaluate the quality of the military training received by the soldiers, there is reason to suspect that it was limited. A congressional report from 1985 paints a dysfunctional image of the Liberian military that had emerged after the 1980 coup (Echrenreich 1985). The failure of the AFL to battle the rebels in the early stages of the civil war five years later further supports this idea. Training mainly figures in narratives of war through pairs of concepts such as ‘courtesy and discipline’ and, most importantly, ‘cover and concealment’. Soldiers and combatants had very different opinions when it came to the usefulness of such principles. For soldiers, training was decisive, and they believed in quality over quantity. In a small war a few brave soldiers could accomplish a lot. As one senior soldier noted, “if you are plenty you can’t fight with an idea . . . [and] without ideas you can’t do nothing”. For him and other soldiers, controlling untrained forces was a constant challenge, which was only made worse by the recurring problems with friendly fire.5 While military training has become the main way to transform civilians into fighters around the world, it is debatable what makes it so important. On the one hand, training provides actual preparation for soldiering through transferring necessary skills but, on the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, it socializes trainees so that these skills can be used in the first place. While it would likely be exaggerating to compare drill to a ritual (King 2006), training often includes events that cannot be considered as anything else. For instance, the example I am personally familiar with – the Finnish soldier’s oath – offers a pertinent example (see also Chapter 10 in this volume by Peter Haldén). Similar oaths reportedly existed in Liberia. In Finland, the soldier’s oath is taken at the end of the eight-week-long basic training at a public event, sworn before God, state authorities, and family members (it is possible to take the oath without swearing before God, but doing so robs the family of the chance of participating

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 133 in this ritual). The basic training thus serves as an initiation into soldiering, whereas the oath and the subsequent promotion from recruit to private (or their equivalents in other branches) mark the transition into the military world, if not one step closer to manhood.6 Rank aside, the most common way to refer to a conscript nevertheless continues to be ‘boy’. This serves as a constant reminder of the low status of the conscripts – especially since this is done irrespective of any age difference between the person who has the higher status and the addressee (the conscript) – but also of their liminal position. They are not yet real men, but neither are they children any longer. The conscripts thus become comparable with Aretxaga’s (1997: 138) portrayal of female prisoners taken by the Irish Republican Army: neither women nor men, but girls. While training imparts the tools of the trade, these kinds of rituals seek to form a sodality based on an identity – in this case one of subordinates. Interestingly, a similar masculine soldierly ideal, and patriarchal relationship too, exists in Liberia. Many soldiers who once held rank continue to call the fighters who fought under them ‘boys’ to this very day. Where the formal training of Liberian soldiers excelled was in the construction of this shared identity. While this has been called “a distinct or quasi-ethnic identity” in developing countries (Zirker et al. 2008), esprit de corps is certainly sought by military establishments worldwide. In Liberia, this project was overwhelmingly successful. The only soldiers I have met who did not take pride in their past as soldiers were the ones who joined during the tumultuous presidency of Charles Taylor, and never received any formal training. Even the ‘ida 90’7 – the last batch that joined in 1990 after the war had already started and whose training was rudimentary at best – continue to identify themselves as soldiers. What is difficult to explain is why more informal efforts to train fighters were not valued by the Liberian military organizations, as formal training during the war was limited. The most plausible explanation is that this was the result of a lack of resources, of both professionals that could do the training and manpower that could be trained. What remains puzzling, however, is that while training officers existed, they still managed to train only a few fighters. The vast majority of training was received on the frontlines, where those who could not adapt fast enough faced extinction. Another possibility is that there was a disinclination to be trained in the first place, or for trainers to disseminate their knowledge, which also served as their source of authority. While the Liberian soldiers’ piecemeal adoption of Western military practices could be interpreted as comparable to the problematic idea of Melanesian ‘cargo cults’, where scraps of Western culture were adopted for local use, the ‘othering’ and the implied hierarchy of cultures makes this analogy difficult (Jebens 2004: 1–4). Liberian military practices certainly need to be understood primarily in their own terms, and not as any primitive version of practices adopted in the West. Yet, much suggests that Liberian soldiers are a part of a broader international military culture. For instance, as in many other places, their discourse talks of duty and responsibility to the state. Similarly, their idea of soldiering stood in contrast to that of combatants. Unlike the latter, soldiers had a ready

134

I. Käihkö

idea about how soldiers should behave and appear. These ideas, as with all state militaries, concentrated on obvious signs of power, especially uniforms. While political leaders may have wanted to find a way to differentiate between friends and enemies (possibly in order to unite the former against the latter), this does not seem to have been a great concern for fighters. They relied on other kinds of identification, and partly had to do so because uniforms were expensive, and always in short supply. Neither do the tactical benefits of uniforms figure in narratives. More importantly, uniforms became a sign of power that soldiers especially appreciated (for a comparison from Côte d’Ivoire, where both Thomas and Charles were provided with uniforms, see Arnaut 2012), perhaps in order to differentiate themselves as a separate group from combatants. In existing visual evidence, virtually all ranking soldiers appear in uniform. Many combatants in turn viewed uniforms negatively. While some adopted T-shirts or bandanas of a certain colour identifying them as a fighter for a certain unit or operation, the extreme example comes from those in Liberian government militias, who were given uniforms. Few opted to wear them, as they associated the uniforms with an almost certain death sentence if captured by rebels. But even if they did not want to wear the uniforms themselves, many combatants continued to have a certain appreciation for them: their narratives about soldiers often include a mention of the latter’s transformation into “real US marines” – who remain the ideal and idealized military figures in Liberia – through the donning of uniforms and display of associated status equipment, such as radios. By wearing uniforms, they appeared exactly as soldiers should, and thus improved their performance.

Combatants and initiation into fighters Magical thinking in times of war is far from an African phenomenon. On her ethnography about the siege of Sarajevo, Maček (2009: 48–50) noted that “people coped with life conditions beyond their ability to control or even comprehend through magical thinking and small private magic routines”, as well as prayer. Similar accounts of seeking control abound among those who face uncertain contexts around the world. This seeking of control is especially relevant for those who fight wars. As a consequence, the ideal fighter to be as far as Liberian combatants were concerned was the truly exceptional, ‘not ordinary’. An example is someone so protected that he was not afraid to walk to his enemies and decapitate them with a cutlass. One commander promised that his protection would extend to his fighters so that everyone under him would remain unharmed – as long as they stayed clear from his left side because he would deflect enemy bullets there. These two examples are, of course, to an extent idealized, and few combatants did not possess doubts about the limits of protection. But then again, ten years after the war, many are still convinced that protection does work. Charles certainly held this view. After recounting how his commander joined a battle at a crucial moment when they risked being overrun by enemies, he turned serious and stated that “some people say medicine doesn’t exist. Medicine exists.”

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 135 Similarly, protection was the only plausible explanation another commander could offer for being the only survivor in a car hit by an enemy rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). The kinds of ideal fighters described above were often referred to as ‘traditional men’, thus underlining the informal and traditional as opposed to the formal, modern training of the soldiers. Against this background it is not very surprising that many of the more mundane solutions offered by the soldiers – such as aiming before firing or ‘cover and concealment’ – raised derision. With regard to the first, Charles laughed and said “we don’t have time for that!” Instead, combatants relied on massive firepower and shooting both small arms and RPGs from their hips. This kind of behaviour is incomprehensible if the aim of violence was to destroy the enemy, but makes perfect sense if the aim of violence was performative. As for the latter, he clearly took a stance against the soldiers and rejected their standard solution, saying “no cover and conceal. No, it’s not our way.” Other combatants saw this solution, cherished by soldiers, as outright cowardliness. Questioning soldiers and their authority was best done by asking whether they did a good job in protecting President Doe, who was captured and killed by rebels in 1990! In this incident, both the AFL and the regional peacekeeping force were perceived to have been completely unprepared for guerrilla fighting. In many accounts they were literally slaughtered in their foxholes after rebels infiltrated past them. Ivorian soldiers, who from Charles’ perspective had been saved by the Liberian militia, were thought of in a similar way. This was making a powerful point with regard to the limits of military professionalism, but such ridicule was always met with angry responses. From the perspective of Liberian combatants, extraordinary times required extraordinary responses. It is, therefore, anything but surprising that magical thinking became a central part of military transformation in West African conflicts. Nowhere else was this as apparent as with the Kamajor militias of Sierra Leone. Faced with predation from both the national army and the rebels, the militias that became collectively known as the Kamajor were mobilized to protect their own communities. Once mobilized, they were sponsored by their communities to undertake an initiation conducted by ritual specialists. Only after this transformation were they given military training. They became “craftsmen specialists . . . ‘professionals’ in the sense we might apply that term to a lawyer or doctor in private practice” (Archibald and Richards 2002: 355–6). Hoffman (2011a: 78–9) gives a more detailed account as to what the initiation consisted of: Throughout the movement initiates policed themselves and guarded their secrets by observing restrictions on their behavior, restrictions that would guarantee a purified state and thus a bulletproofed body. Some of these taboos were universal. . . . Others were particular to various initiators. . . . What was stressed in every instance . . . was expressed as baa woteh, roughly translated as “do not turn.” One implication was that the initiate should show no fear and should not run from combat. But more important was that he was not to turn on his companions or the civilian populace. In other

136

I. Käihkö words, the kamajors’ collective identity coalesced around an ethic of betrayal. . . . The kamajors became those whose first principle was to behave not as soldiers do.

Initiation was, at least initially, in opposition to the state. These kinds of mobilizations also increasingly became the determiner of adult masculinity, and began to be collectively referred to as a ‘society’. The exact process of initiation remained a society secret that set the initiates apart from others. As a result, a somewhat coherent military identity was formed (Hoffman 2011a: 77). Others have drawn more direct parallels between joining military organizations and initiation into secret societies (Shepler 2004: 22). Evidence from Liberia, however, suggests that the case was very different there. Joining Liberian military organizations – whether voluntarily or not – is typically presented not as a collective event, but as an individual one. While some fighters did recognize that belonging to a military organization was comparable to belonging to a (secret) society, the society in this sense was defined in more general terms, for instance being comprised of people who “eat together, do things together”. Implicit in this, however, is exclusiveness, which includes sharing of information. As in secret societies, some things should be kept from outsiders.8 It is likely that the idea of a society in Liberia denotes more the formation of a fighter identity that separated fighters from civilians than any direct comparison to the existing systems of secret societies.9 This argument is further reinforced by the fact that it is mainly the Poro society in Liberia that could be used as a template for such initiations. Poro initiations were seriously disturbed by the war and, even more importantly, several ethnic groups do not historically belong to this society. The Krahn ethnic group, for example, has different societies. The Muslim Mandingo in turn do not belong to any societies and during the war resorted to their faith for protection. Urbanization improved access to formal education, and the spread of both Christianity and Islam has also greatly affected secret society practices. Initiation has been particularly affected, and undergoing initiation cannot be considered nearly as universal as it once was (Shepler 2004: 20–1. See also Utas 2003: 93–5). Another difference from Sierra Leone was that in many Liberian cases protective rituals were enacted by non-specialists. Krahn combatants have described their protection as an individual affair often performed by a relative, typically a father, and this possibly further underlined differences between ethnic groups. The Krahn viewed collective protection, such as the type professed by the Kamajors in Sierra Leone, with suspicion, as protection could become a source of jealousy between fighters. There was a hint at a broader societal mistrust present in many everyday rituals when a policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ formed around protection due to the idea that nothing could protect against bullets shot from behind. As already noted, friendly fire remained a constant problem. It is interesting to note that protection was, as the term suggests, defensive. This connects the practice to the coping mechanism discussed by Maček, common in many wars around the world. Aside from protection that came

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 137 directly from God, there was a broadly agreed repertoire of magical protection available in Liberia: there was bulletproofing, which made the wearer immune to bullets (but not knives or cutlasses, nor necessarily heavy weapons, such as antiaircraft guns). In some cases such protection would not only deflect bullets, but keep weapons from firing altogether; ‘darkness’ was another kind of protection that made it impossible for enemies to see the wearer; cow tails were often connected to blessings, or to redirecting incoming RPG rounds away from the user; some items, such as rings, could give an advance warning of enemies; and spoiling someone’s medicine was equated to killing them spiritually, resulting in accusations of such non-physical assassination whenever someone died, a product of the many internal squabbles in military organizations. If one assumes protection to work, these kinds of rationalizations become entirely plausible ways to explain casualties. Another way to explain why combatants with protection were occasionally hit by bullets was violation of ritual taboos. In many cases, protection also included ‘laws’ that essentially regulated the behaviour of fighters towards civilians. If these taboos were broken, the protection would disappear. This was not only a way to address the legitimate use of violence and civil–military relations, but also served to form the identity of fighters as separate from civilians (for a parallel with Kamajors, see Hoffman 2011a: 230). This system was, however, not always very successful in limiting abuses against civilians. Unlike in Sierra Leone, where at least the collective Kamajor laws provided some shared understandings of the limits of violence, the fact that protection was typically a personal affair in Liberia also meant that the laws were not collective. Furthermore, many combatants noted that it was best to discard protection that had too many laws because it would be difficult to remember and follow all of them. Similarly, protection in the form of items, such as rings or cloth, could be forgotten or lost. It is possible that some opportunity for shopping around for protection was available. For instance, some preferred protection that was swallowed, and which did not come with laws. A few even noted that this kind of protection would be hereditary! Unlike soldiers, who had some ideas of what war and soldiering were about, many combatants initially had little idea as to how they should perform. Anybody with previous experience was listened to and respected; whether the experience was from the military or from previous rebel activities did not seem to matter much. This did, of course, give some advantage to soldiers because they were usually the ones with some experience. Other sources of inspiration were even sought from stories of combat (for comparison, see Bourke 1999: 1–24). As Richards (1996: 111) has argued, “young people in Sierra Leone use video features as a constructive resource for thinking out aspects of their own problem-beset lives”. Even in Liberia, action movies were seen as possessing educational value in war. While soldiers could focus on drawing tactical lessons from them, combatants used such movies as an important catalogue of imagery of war and soldiering that they could draw on.10 The importance of action movies is not only apparent in the war names adopted by fighters, but also unit names.

138

I. Käihkö

For instance, there were many fighters called Rambo, as well as units dubbed Delta Force. Some military operations during the war were also described through references to action movies. Ultimately, it was neither rituals nor examples gained from Western movies that could create a strong identity that united combatants. While they questioned soldiers’ claims to authority, their own alternative was not collective in the same sense as the Kamajors understood it. While both could make a claim to possess an identity separate from that of civilians, the combatants collectively possessed little they could use to counter the soldiers’ claims to authority. The combatants lacked widely shared norms, and thus never became as organized or cohesive a group as the soldiers – a group that some combatants had begun to increasingly identify with during the war. One reason why the combatants were increasingly drawn to the soldiers was the soldiers’ discourse, which framed their motivations as duty-bound to the state. Unlike the Kamajors, who initially defined themselves as opponents of the state, combatants’ motivations were not so different from those of soldiers. While both arguably sought inclusion in the state by replacing or joining those in power, the soldiers could at least motivate their ambitions in a more legitimate way. In the end, combatant identity remained firmly embedded in wartime, with carrying a gun remaining the main denominator of combatant status. When the war ended and combatants began to disarm and demobilize, their identity became increasingly irrelevant in the post-conflict scenario. While the combatant identity had always been based on an attempt to be something other than a soldier, many combatants now tried to come as close to the soldiers as possible.

The end of war Charles’ war ended uneventfully. He had to lay down his weapon to be able to cross the border to Côte d’Ivoire and rejoin his family. Having no vested interests or strong identity as a combatant, for him it was the gun that marked the difference between civilian and fighter. This undramatic transformation back to civilian underlines the understanding of violence in West Africa as labour, proposed by Hoffman (2011b). Comparison with labour, however, carries a warning of how mundane violence can be, and how easy it can be to return to it. In other words, war was a continuity of normality, rather than a break from it. In the case of Charles, this return to violence never happened. Not trusting the international community and afraid to have his photograph taken, he never went through the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programme. Instead, he returned to the same refugee camp from which he had joined the war the year before. Like countless other Liberians, he harboured what could be called the Liberian dream: a chance to travel across the ocean to the United States. He got rid of all the material evidence that connected him to the war, applied for refugee status, and waited patiently as the process took its course. His dream was ultimately denied, and he returned to Liberia. While his civilian life turned out to be marked by poverty and health problems, he never fought again.

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 139 For Thomas the war never ended. The first thing he did after the end of the war was to threaten the life of his old commanding officer, who had little choice but to promote him. Demobilizing as an old soldier, he got a substantially better deal than most fighters, receiving both more immediate cash but also a small monthly pension. While this pension may have not been the only thing that has kept the soldier identity relevant, as a constant material reminder it has certainly played a role. Even elsewhere in West Africa, privileges played an important role on the longevity of veteran identities (Mann 2006). Former soldiers and their widows have also organized themselves in order to pressure the government into giving them the benefits they claim it still owes them. Furthermore, despite abuses committed during the war, the military remains a prided national institution in Liberia. Even the soldiers of the notorious ida 90, some of whom have been called ‘death squads’ by their comrades, received official recognition from the Liberian state when they demobilized: “mobilized because of the civil war, having faithfully served his/her Country”. They were, however, not eligible for a pension like the old soldiers who had enlisted earlier. No combatants received similar official recognition from the government.11 It is significant how many still cling to the soldier identity (and their demobilization cards that serve as concrete proof of this identity), even though many finished soldiering during the 1990s and were finally demobilized in 2005. Quite a few still refer to themselves by their military rank. For instance, one of my informants wrote me a short account of his war, and finished the narrative with his name. Even though there was ample space to add his title, he had struck the first attempt out, just to write it anew with his military rank in capital letters before. Another veteran had not only written his rank and name over the door to his room and stitched a service medallion to his raincoat, but also harboured dreams of re-enlisting despite the fact that it was legally impossible for him to do so due to both demobilization and old age. However futile these dreams may be, they are still encouraged by a promise in their demobilization cards: “DO NOT LOSE THIS CARD!! YOU WILL NEED IT TO PARTICIPATE IN FUTURE PROGRAMS SPONSORED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF LIBERIA.”12 At first, the idea of old and wounded men re-enlisting may seem strange. They could hardly keep up with the young new recruits, and whatever military skills they once possessed must have faded. At the same time, the AFL was historically a way of being included in the state patrimony, especially for those who lacked any education to make it to the civil service. Many still remember the time after the military coup of 1980 with pleasure, as the lot of soldiers improved considerably then. While their contemporaries have at times complained about conditions in the AFL, other descriptions of the benefits and the opportunities for full-time study at university during the period of service certainly feed into the positive perceptions. While a return is highly coveted, the chances of re-enlisting in the military are slim for most demobilized soldiers. In the end most turn to the civilian market for employment. But for combatants the situation is trickier. How can

140

I. Käihkö

they capitalize on years of guerrilla warfare when seeking employment? For most who participate in the informal economy the question is unnecessary. But for those who face the increasing need to attach their CVs to job applications the question becomes problematic. As noted, formal education is much respected in Liberia. As a result, many combatants seek to frame their years of war as professional experience in the field of security. For instance, one supporter of Charles Taylor wrote in his CV that he was a captain in the “Ministry of National Defense, Armed Forces of Liberia” between 1990 and 2005. While he was only integrated into the AFL after Taylor became president in 1997, received minimal training at best, and was promoted to captain later on, he always sought to portray himself as an expert in the field of security. In addition, like many other fighters, he had invested money after the war to study criminal justice with hopes of career advancement.13 The ones who lacked any formal ties to the AFL needed more imagination, but many ultimately ended up framing their experiences in a similar manner within a broader framework of ‘security’. Unsurprisingly, they see the security sector as their natural theatre of work, with the state security agencies offering the most stable employment. Despite attempts to keep those who fought in the wars out, many have made their way in. Ultimately, professionalization has won even in peacetime. But why is this? Unlike the combatant identity (in most cases), the more particular soldier identity remained relevant in the post-conflict scenario due to pensions and respect from society at large. Furthermore, it could refer to training and a certain skillset, which at least in theory could be applied to all security-related work. The vaguer combatant identity became increasingly irrelevant – even more so because most of the fighters who did benefit from inclusion into state structures after the war came from the hierarchy dominated by soldiers. After the initial DDR process there were few benefits of being a combatant. Like Charles, many combatants become disillusioned after receiving little if anything from the promises made by politicians during the war. As a result, ‘combatant’ soon became a synonym for ‘fighter’. While it was occasionally employed instrumentally in front of elites, donors, and researchers, in peacetime this identity was more often a stigma than an honour. As in Sierra Leone (Christensen 2013: 49–50), many who clung to the combatant identity did so not as the first, but as the last resort. While combatants could try to reframe their past as experience in the field of security, this too became problematic. Not only did they lack any formal training, but attempts to refer to their wartime experience made the combatants vulnerable to the stigma, as it raised questions about their wartime past. Many soldiers in Liberia continue to remind themselves that ‘old soldiers never die’. This proud saying raises a troubling lesson. While conventional wisdom sees that professionalization helps to win on the frontlines, the vast majority of those without training returned to their communities after the war. The most visible example of remaining discontent is not the combatants, but the soldiers: they feel that the clauses of the peace treaty that related to reconstituting the AFL were not followed, and that as a consequence they have been ‘made useless’. As Kaufmann (2013) portrays, a Liberian soldier’s self-image is that of

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 141 a victim. This raised the prospect of them ending up as the German soldiers did after the Second World War, having “lost their incomes, careers and selfidentities” (Lockenour 2001: 4). Disgruntled and still a cohesive group, it is arguably the soldiers who form a more plausible threat to peace, rather than the undefined mass of former fighters.14 This is a lesson that has implications far beyond Liberia, especially when training and professionalization are often lauded as cures for the perceived ills of African military forces (for one recent example, see Feldman and Arrous 2013): training does not necessarily only come with skills useful on battlefields, but also with an identity that does not automatically fade away. The old soldiers are certainly not dead in Liberia, but still waiting for what they consider to be rightfully theirs.

Notes 1 To protect their identities, the names of the informants referred to in this chapter have been changed. 2 On this recruitment, see Wikileaks 2009. After Liberia, the company moved to neighbouring Sierra Leone (Christensen 2013: 166). 3 See Turner’s discussion on rites of passages (Turner 1991: 94–5). 4 Former soldiers in Sierra Leone expressed very similar views of combatants in Sierra Leone during the recruitment process of Sabre International (Christensen 2013: 172–3). 5 Hoffman notes that friendly fire caused more casualties among the Kamajors in neighbouring Sierra Leone than enemy action (Hoffman 2004: 109, fn. 16.) 6 Until 2000 the oath referred to “manliness”. Women have been allowed to seek voluntary service since 1995. The law gives them 45 days to “regret” their decision and leave the training without legal consequences. Tellingly, this time ends just before the oath is taken. 7 The term ‘ida’ is used to refer to brothers and classmates. In the military context ida refers to those who joined in a specific year. Similar terms exist in other countries. 8 The term ‘society’ often comes with a negative connotation in Liberian English, for instance when used in relation to: political conspirators; a lack of justice when both an accused and a judge belong to the same ‘secret’ society; or homosexuals. Christensen notes that in Sierra Leone those participating in illicit military missions refer to society membership when declining to discuss mission details (Christensen 2013: 147, 150). 9 Whether the similarity of some practices was due to coincidence or careful planning remains open, yet to some extent unimportant. Drawing from the same cultural repertoire of meaningful social action, similarities are only to be expected. For instance, in some ways the Finnish military oath is comparable to the religious confirmation rite. 10 It should be pointed out, however, that such imagery affects armed forces around the world. A good example is how berets have increasingly spread from special forces to regular troops, despite their impracticality in most situations (which helps to explain why the United States army regulars have got rid of them). A similar use of imagery of war has just become more pronounced in Liberia. 11 Such recognition was hugely important, and was even brought up in late 2012 when high-ranking former fighters expected to be mobilized against those launching crossborder attacks from Liberia to Côte d’Ivoire. These discussions framed mobilization as a reward for liberating Liberia from the rule of Charles Taylor (Käihkö 2012). For comparison, fighters in Sierra Leone perceived the recruitment by Sabre International to be officially sanctioned, and it was thus considered to be “a symbolic recognition by the Sierra Leone government of their wartime sacrifices and their suffering in the

142

I. Käihkö

aftermath” (Christensen 2013: 163). It was hoped that this official recognition would bring an end to experiences of exclusion and being at a standstill in life without hopes of moving forward which were partly perceived to be the fault of the Liberian government. Some former combatants argued that the government had caused the crossborder attacks, as it had denied those who fought the war an opportunity to obtain employment in Iraq. 12 The author is grateful to Thomas Neah for the exact wording, and has named Thomas the soldier after him. 13 I never received an explanation why his AFL card carried someone else’s name (and possibly picture – the card was so worn out that it was difficult to tell). If the card was not his to begin with this would only underline how important it was to formalize war experience. 14 It is probably not a coincidence that some of Christensen’s main informants participating in regional mercenary operations were former soldiers (Christensen 2013: 151–4).

References Archibald, Steven and Richards, Paul (2002). “Converts to human rights? Popular debate about war and justice in rural central Sierra Leone”. Africa, 72(3): 339–67. Aretxaga, Begoña (1997). Shattering silence: women, nationalism and political subjectivity in Northern Ireland. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Arnaut, Karel (2012). “Corps habillés, Nouchis and subaltern bigmanity in Côte d’Ivoire” in Utas, M. (ed.), African conflicts and informal power: big men and networks. (London: Zed Books), pp. 78–100. Bourke, J. (1999). An intimate history of killing: face-to-face killing in twentieth-century warfare. (New York: Basic Books). Brown, David (1979). Domination and personal legitimacy in a district of Eastern Liberia. PhD diss. (University of Manchester). Christensen, Maya (2013). Shadow soldiering – mobilisation, militarisation and the politics of global security in Sierra Leone. PhD diss. (University of Copenhagen). Echrenreich, Frederick (1985). “National security” in Nelson, Harold (ed.), Liberia – a country study. (Washington, DC: American University), pp. 247–88. Edgerton, Robert (2002). Africa’s armies: from honor to infamy: a history from 1791 to the present. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), pp. 160–1. Feldman, Robert and Arrous, Michel (2013). “Confronting Africa’s sobels”. Parameters, 43(4): 67–75. Goffman, Erving (1987) Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. (London: Penguin). Hoffman, Danny (2004). The Kamajors of Sierra Leone. PhD diss. (Duke University). Hoffman, Danny (2011a). The war machines: young men and violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). Hoffman, Daniel (2011b). “Violence, just in time: war and work in contemporary West Africa”. Cultural Anthropology, 26(1): 34–57. Honig, Jan Willem (2015). “Military, war and politics” in Elsevier International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences. (Amsterdam: Elsevier), pp. 112–15. Howe, Herbert (2001). Ambiguous order : military forces in African states. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). Huntington, Samuel (1957). The soldier and the state – the theory and politics of civil– military relations. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press).

Transformations in the Liberian Civil War 143 Jebens, Holger (2004). “Introduction” in Jebens, H. (ed.), Cargo, cult, and culture critique. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu), pp. 1–13. Käihkö, Ilmari (2012). “Even my grandmother would go fighting”. 19 September, Mats Utas blog entry, available at: http://matsutas.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/even-mygrandmother-would-go-fighting-guest-post-by-ilmari-kaihko/ [last accessed 20 January 2016]. Käihkö, Ilmari (2015a). “ ‘Taylor must go’ – the strategy of the Liberians united for reconciliation and democracy”. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 26(2): 248–70. Käihkö, Ilmari (2015b). “ ‘No die, no rest?’ Coercive discipline in Liberian military organisations”. Africa Spectrum, 50(2): 3–29. Kaufmann, Andrea (2013). Social imaginaries from intricate spaces in urban Liberia. PhD diss. (University of Basel). King, Anthony (2006). “The word of command: communication and cohesion in the military”. Armed Forces & Society, 32(4): 493–512. Lockenour, Jay (2001). Soldiers as citizens: former Wehrmacht officers in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1955. (Lincoln, NE and London: University of Nebraska Press). Maček, Ivana (2009). Sarajevo under siege: anthropology in wartime. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press). Malešević, S. (2010). The sociology of war and violence. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Mann, Gregory (2006). Native sons: West African veterans and France in the twentieth century. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). Moran, Mary (1995). “Warriors or soldiers?: masculinity and ritual transvestisism in the Liberian civil war” in Sutton, Catherine (ed.), Feminism, nationalism and militarism. (Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association), pp. 73–88. Richards, Paul (1996). Fighting for the rain forest: war, youth and resources in Sierra Leone. (London: International African Institute). Richards, Paul (2005). “War as smoke and mirrors: Sierra Leone 1991–2, 1994–5, 1995–6”. Anthropological Quarterly, 78(2): 377–402. Shepler, Susan (2004). “The social and cultural context of child soldiering in Sierra Leone”. Paper presented at a workshop on techniques of violence in civil war at the Centre for the Study of Civil War, International Peace Research Institute, in Oslo, Norway, 20 August 2004. Simpson, Emile (2013). War from the ground up: twenty-first century combat as politics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Strachan, Hew (2013). The direction of war: contemporary strategy in historical perspective. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Turner, Victor (1991). The ritual process: structure and anti-structure. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Utas, Mats (2003). Sweet battlefields: youth and the Liberian civil war. PhD diss. (Uppsala universitet). von Clausewitz, Carl (2008). On war. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Wikileaks (2009). Recruiters for guard force in Iraq cause stir in Liberia, 09MONROVIA170_a 4 March 2009, available at: www.wikileaks.org/plusd/ cables/09MONROVIA170_a.html [last accessed 20 January 2016]. Zirker, Daniel, Danopoulos, Constantine and Simpson, Alan (2008). “The military as a distinct ethnic or quasi-ethnic identity in developing countries”. Armed Forces & Society, 34(2): 314–37.

9

Transformation into nature Swedish Army Ranger rites of passage Jan Angstrom1

Introduction As the line of civilian-clothed, 20-year-old Swedes doggedly walked over the exercise field, their knees almost buckling under the weight of the brand new heavy equipment on their backs, they were about to learn all about being an army ranger. It was June 1988 and during the first few days of their conscription they were taught how to dress, what to wear, how to walk, talk, and eat. In a striking resemblance to the Hollywood imagery of native American tribes, they learned to paint their faces before combat, they learned their war cries, they learned to strap (not feathers) but branches of pine, fir, and birch on to their helmets, and they were taught to kill. Unknowingly, for the better part of all this, they were engaged in an age-old ritual to become something they yet were not: soldiers. The ritual was given rational meaning by the drill instructors: “Paint your face, it protects you from the mosquitoes and saves you from being detected by enemy snipers.” “Attach branches to your helmets, they will break your silhouettes for camouflage.” “Practise your war cries and learn your comrades’ war cries so that you can detect cries about injuries.” Regardless of the rationalist motives, another way of understanding these first few days would be simply as a rite of passage. This ritual, passed on as a military or unit tradition, consciously or non-consciously by the drill instructors serves one purpose: a transition from civilian life and values to army ranger life and its values. In making this transition, the inexperienced soldiers also learn what war is supposed to look like. This chapter deals with such rites of passage and tests the impact of professionalization of the military on the contents of the rituals. How one becomes a warrior – moving from a normalized, peaceful existence to embodying a warrior ethos – is a result of the experiences of the military organization. The existence of passage rituals is widely recognized. World-renowned military historian Martin van Creveld (2009), for example, advances a functionalist explanation of soldiering rituals. He suggests that, for individuals, it is necessary to consciously cross a cultural boundary to become a soldier. Without the boundary, the individual will struggle with which mental frames to approach both reality as well as life as a soldier. Not having clear boundaries, for example, would blur the line between murdering another human being and entering into combat and killing as

Transformation into nature 145 part of your duty as a soldier. This, in turn, implies that post-traumatic stress disorders would wreak havoc among the soldiers. Trying to conduct your behaviour as a soldier with double normative standards of one’s identity as well as what is desired behaviour would be too much of a strain on the individual. In this functionalist interpretation the rites are needed to increase performance levels – the effectiveness – of soldiers as well as to protect their psychological well-being. Echoing van Creveld, Michael Ignatieff (1998) also suggests that rites are necessary to create and establish what is considered honour in war and thus to create righteousness in killing. In this way, the development of ethical systems of soldiering and a warrior ethos are inextricably linked. Warrior’s honor implied an idea of war as a moral theater in which one displayed one’s manly virtues in public. To fight with honor was to fight without fear, without hesitation, and, by implication, without duplicity. The codes acknowledged the moral paradox of combat: that those who fight each other bravely will be bound together in mutual respect; and that if they perish at each other’s hand, they will be brothers in death. Warrior’s honor was both a code of belonging and an ethic of responsibility. Wherever the art of war was practiced, warriors distinguished between combatants and noncombatants, legitimate and illegitimate targets, moral and immoral weaponry, civilized and barbarous usage in the treatment of prisoners and of the wounded. Such codes may have been honored as often in the breach as in the observance, but without them war is not war – it is no more than slaughter. (Ignatieff 1998: 117) The functionalist explanation, however, can only explain the existence of rites of passage. It cannot explain the great variation among these rites. Consider, for example, that assuming non-human traits is not universally recognized and practised as a ritual to prepare for combat. In fact, precisely the opposite – maintaining civilian ethos – is common too. This variation is even reproduced in Hollywood movies. On the one hand, in the 2014 blockbuster Fury, the young tanker Norman Ellison (played by Logan Lerman), is nicknamed ‘machine’ by his fellow crew members on the eve of the final battle when the United States tank crew is heavily outnumbered,. Considering that a single tank crew alone was due to fight an entire SS battalion, providing the youngest member with non-human traits made sense. On the other hand, in the 1989 drama Casualties of War, Private Max Eriksson tries to protect a young Vietnamese girl from being abused by his fellow squad members. Ultimately, Eriksson (played by Michael J. Fox) fails, but he stands up for typical civilian virtues by testifying against his own comrades during the ensuing court martial. It is the variation between humane and non-human in military rites that is the central puzzle in this chapter. How can this variation be explained? In contrast to functionalist theory, I advance an explanation that draws upon the identity of the military organization, in particular combat expectations, as

146

J. Angstrom

well as the overall degree of professionalism of the armed forces. In short, I will demonstrate that the way in which transition processes are ritualized is an effect mainly due to the degree of combat preparedness (which I term the unit culture variable), but which only partly stems from the degree of professionalism of the unit. By investigating how these military organizations understand themselves, it is possible to identify what rituals they use and, therefore, what military ideals they promote. The comparison will focus on four processes: (1) first week of basic training (transition from civilian to soldier); (2) preparations for combat (transition from soldier to warrior); (3) after action (transition from warrior to soldier); and (4) discharge (transition from soldier to civilian). We can expect that rituals of soldiering should be visible in these four stages. The chapter proceeds as follows. First, I will outline the theory and causal story of how culture, unit composition, and soldiering rituals are connected. Second, I will discuss research design issues before beginning the main part of the chapter that consists of the analysis of the soldiering rituals of Swedish Army Rangers.

Theorizing rituals in the military There are two contrasting theories which suggest that rituals are important in the transition from civilian to military life. One stresses primarily the tactical needs of soldiering, the other the strategic needs of the use of force. In this section, I will outline the logic behind why rituals are needed: boundaries are crossed leading to new roles, new rules, and new expectations of individuals. The two theories merely suggest why there are rituals, however. They cannot explain any variation in these rituals or how they are understood. Instead, I will outline an explanation drawing upon unit culture and degree of professionalism of the military unit that influences the contents of the rituals. First, there is what we can call a micro-theory of ritualizing boundaries. This stresses the individual psychological needs for rituals in the crossing of boundaries between civilian and soldier. It is very much a functionalist theory, emphasizing how the individual can be psychologically shielded from future post-traumatic stress illnesses and how the military organization can create individuals that are prepared to do what many consider the ultimate act of violence: killing a fellow human being. One part of the argument thus stresses how the individual needs to go through a ritual to pass from one state to another where a new set of rules, expectations, and roles applies. In order for a person to avoid suffering adverse psychological effects, the ritual helps the individual to recognize the boundary between the two different states, thereby alleviating the stress of constantly having to worry about the boundary and about what set of rules is currently being employed. In this way, the individual as a soldier is allowed and expected to behave in a certain way, while the same individual – before the ritual – is allowed and expected to behave in a completely different manner. The other part of the argument stresses how the military organization benefits from the rituals. Here, it is primarily about creating difficult rituals to weed out the least

Transformation into nature 147 committed and able in order to create units capable of terrifying the enemy into submission. For tactical purposes, therefore, it makes sense to have rituals that promote a particularly violent – and indeed beastlike – identity. Here, we can see that both of the micro-logics converge into one. Rituals promoting soldiers shape-shifting into terrifying non-human entities – be they beasts, ghosts, or machines – contribute to creating tactical advantages, while at the same time work as the most efficient psychological safety outlet. If I do nasty things in war, it is because I am no longer human. I am a beast. And being a beast allows me to fight fiercely and commit violent acts that I would not normally do. Second, there is a macro-theory on the rituals of crossing boundaries. Instead of emphasizing tactical needs, this theory stresses the strategic level. Again, there are two versions of the argument: one stressing the individual and the other the needs of the military organization. For the individual, rituals are not needed for changing into a beast, but the rituals are supposed to reassure the individual that he or she can remain human even in war. This is, of course, a completely different idea of how one achieves victory in war: not by terrifying the enemy into submission, but by attempting to alleviate enemy surrender. The intended signal in formal terms is that by giving valuable indications – looking after casualties and not giving in to disproportional violence – one communicates to the enemy that even when he surrenders, he will be treated well. Protecting the individual from being forced to undertake terrible tasks of course also implies that there is no need for the individual to become non-human. Appearing to take on non-human traits and conducting atrocities or slaughter, therefore, is strategically flawed. It prevents enemy desertion, it destroys the narrative of good vs evil (as in we vs them), and it erects a boundary between the home population and one’s armed forces. Maintaining an essentially civilian ethos among the soldiers, therefore, prevents them from conducting potentially tactically advantageous, but strategically flawed operations. Accordingly, modern military organizations seem to have a choice between tactical or strategic pay-offs when deciding what rituals to conduct in the creation of soldiers: either they want the soldiers to assume non-human traits or they want them to promote civilian, humane standards. These two arguments compete insofar as they both try to explain the existence of soldiering rituals. However, neither one of the theories can explain variations between the two main categories of rituals or explain variations within non-human traits. In order to do so, I suggest an explanation drawing in equal parts on the unit culture of the military organization as well as the degree of professionalism. Following Ruffa (forthcoming), I define unit culture as “a core set of beliefs, attitudes, and values that, through a process of socialization, become deeply embedded within an army and guide the way it manages its internal and external life, interprets its tactical and operational objectives and learns and adapts”. Unit culture is, therefore, important as it both projects an image of expected combat situations and influences the unit’s choice of what is regarded as honourable and righteous. In short, combat expectations constitute the ideal of future war. Unit culture matters for soldiering rituals since military organizations are usually

148

J. Angstrom

understood to be a very particular form of organization. In contrast to other bureaucracies, militaries are supposedly faced with a task involving the use of force in perhaps the most extreme of environments known to mankind – war (Huntington 1957; Nielsen and Snider 2009). Faced with meeting another actor that tries to kill you, armies tend to think that cohesion, discipline, and unity of command are important core values for the organization in order to overcome mortal threat. This is also why rituals matter. The rituals promote these core values. The flip side of this argument is that depending on which unit we are analysing, the demands of cohesion, discipline, and unity of command will differ. A logistical unit and an armoured tank battalion will have vastly different tasks in war and the culture of the unit will, therefore, differ. In turn, this means that the unit will develop different rituals in order to promote a very specific military task and correspond to a particular unit culture. Combat expectations can, therefore, be either high or low. This simple division, however, does not provide the whole picture. In particular, even among units that share high combat expectations, there is great variety in what kind of combat that the units prepare for. Both an army ranger unit and an armoured infantry unit expect and train for combat, but whereas the former prepares for low-intensity, irregular warfare involving squads, the latter prepares for large-scale armoured assaults involving brigade-size units. The second dimension in the explanation draws upon the composition of the unit, in particular, the degree of professionalism of the military organization. Military professionalism is defined through clear demarcation in relation to other professions, it: possesses and develops unique knowledge; has different tasks in comparison to other professions; has professional discretion; and it has a developed professional code of conduct (Huntington 1957; Moskos, et al. 2000; Snider and Matthews 2005). Professionalism is important for rituals since these are central to: promoting a code of conduct; making a clear demarcation in relation to other professions; reifying that the organization’s tasks differ from others; and for providing an idea of a self, which in turn is a prerequisite of agency. The main analytical division in degree of professionalism in this chapter is between military organizations built upon conscription and those with all-volunteer, professional soldiers. The two-variable model is outlined below. We can expect variation in rituals from two perspectives. If combat expectations matter for what rituals are invented, we should expect that combat-intensive units would develop different rituals from those with a lower degree of combat preparedness. In addition, we should expect units that would normally engage in irregular, small-scale combat actions to have rituals that are distinct from those of units preparing for and idealizing large-scale warfare. Similarly, if the degree of professionalism matters we should expect different rituals from conscript units in comparison with allvolunteer forces. First, professional units with large-scale combat expectations should develop rituals promoting non-human traits and, especially, machine-like qualities since professionalism is closely associated with modernity, scale, control, calculation,

Transformation into nature 149 and rationalism. Second, large-scale combat units consisting of conscripts should develop rituals promoting non-human traits, but in this case, beastlike qualities since conscript soldiers to a greater extent need to be released (or rather unleashed) from their normal day-to-day lives upon mobilization. All units expecting to participate in combat can be assumed to form rituals promoting nonhuman traits. However, and this would perhaps only apply to auxiliaries, one would want as much of moderation, discipline, and human qualities. Units with high combat expectations need to develop less of a connection to their human self in order to maintain high cohesion and uphold discipline in face of the uncertainties and dangers of war. Third, for professional units expecting small-scale combat, there is still a need to develop rituals promoting non-human traits, but these will differ from the rituals developed for large-scale units. Here, we can expect rituals promoting expertise, i.e. bureaucratic, rationalist procedures with a clear division of labour. Cohesion is still important, but intimately linked to expert knowledge. Finally, conscript units expecting small-scale combat need to develop rituals about appropriating the forces of nature. Again, in conscript systems you would want something latent that can quickly transform in case of mobilization. But, whereas units expecting large-scale warfare would idealize mythical beasts that shift shapes from humans into fierce beasts that fight openly but wildly, units expecting small-scale warfare would idealize staying hidden and appearing natural, yet uncompromising, and able to wreak havoc. In conscript systems, moreover, we would expect rituals promoting adult masculinity. The reason, in short, is that since the conscript system is based upon mobilization in case of war, you would want to create a transition ritual that creates an identity which lasts not only while someone is in uniform, but one that prepares them to come back in case of mobilization. An animal in a cage can only be let out occasionally and a machine can be too easily switched off. If rituals are created, however, to fuse being an adult male and being a soldier, there is hardly room for disobeying orders to mobilize. In summary, the standard theories that explain the existence of rituals in the military struggle to explain variations in the contents of the rituals. As a remedy, I have developed a theory relying partly upon military unit culture and partly on the degree of professionalism of the unit in question. From this simple twovariable model, I have developed four expectations of what the rituals should promote. It should also be recognized that soldiering rituals may differ depending on whether they are geared to ease the transition from civilian to soldier, from soldier to warrior and back again, or not. For example, in a conscript system, we should not expect return-to-civilian rituals at all. The whole point, at least in theory, of a conscript system is for virtually the entire male population to be ready for mobilization and soldiering again. Meanwhile, in professional military organizations we would expect the ‘off switch’ to be smartly used in order that military identities, roles, and expectations should not leak into society at large. In the next section, I will elaborate on research design issues and identify a few key operating areas where the literature on rituals meets the literature on military organizations.

150

J. Angstrom Combat expectations

Professional

Conscripts

Large-scale

Small-scale

Machines

Experts

Beasts

Force of nature

Figure 9.1 Theory of warrior rituals.

Analysing rituals I will test the expectations through an overall basic design of structured, focused comparative case studies (e.g. George and Bennett 2004). I will study Swedish Army Rangers during the periods 1970–1990 and 2009–2014 respectively. The case selection is based on variation when it comes to both conscription and an all-volunteer force. The Swedish army is a particularly interesting case since it recently (in 2009) decided to transform its organization from a conscript system to a professional force. Moreover, the army rangers is particularly interesting as a unit since it has gone through a series of different organizational changes over the last century, making it – at least in theory – necessary to invent rituals. Ranger units are also surrounded by myths suggesting that there should be an abundance of rituals present. What would be ideal too, is to investigate one period of ranger training in both a low external threat context (now) and a high external threat context (the Cold War). The reasoning for this is that a unit culture of high combat readiness could be confused with a high-threat environment, suggesting that the major difference between rituals in the potential periods to be studied would not be related to unit culture. However, this competing explanation can be discarded if rituals preparing an individual either for soldier or for warrior are essentially the same in the two cases.

Transformation into nature 151 If a researcher wishes to observe rituals then participatory observation is the ideal method of gathering data. There are obvious problems, however, with this method of assembling data since time travel is not an option, even though 1970s science fiction would have us believe otherwise. Fortunately, there is still excellent and comparable data to be found because the Swedish army produces recruitment films for all its regiments at regular intervals. The army rangers are no exception. By watching closely such films that describe soldiering in ranger units, it is possible to observe rituals. Indeed, this material is excellent for the purpose since the army actively tries to direct and show these rituals. The films are themselves part of becoming a ranger. Potentially, however, there is some bias. In particular, it is by no means certain that the recruitment films capture all rituals. For example, surrendering can be understood to be highly ritualistic (Afflerbach and Strachan 2012), but it is hard to think of an official army film depicting an image of army rangers surrendering. Moreover, the Swedish army has had its fair share of, for example, homophobia – which could certainly be understood to be part of rituals creating a specific version of masculinity – but, again, you would hardly expect to see this in one of the recruitment films. Finally, there is also a difference in filming technique between the films. I have chosen to deal with this as a matter of differences in editing style, directing, and camera technology. On the face of it, the rangers in 2013 as compared to the rangers of the Cold War appear to be James Bond-like throughout when it comes to speed, rock climbing, parachuting, downhill skiing, and firefighting. However, I have not considered this as pointing to differences in rituals, but rather as an effect of filming techniques and editing. It was not, for example, possible to have a camera filming in HD at the time of the making of Hästjägarplutonen in 1966. In the analysis, I will focus on four different phases of soldiering where one would expect rituals to play a major part. First, moving from civilian to soldier is expected to be surrounded by rituals since it very much involves becoming a different self; the military unit also has incentives to ritualize this process. Very much in line with its etymological origins (the medieval French soudier), I define a ‘soldier’ as an individual who serves in the army for pay. It is the financial transaction involved that makes someone a soldier and just receiving pay to be in the army does not necessarily mean that a person is involved in combat. Indeed, for most of the time, soldiers prepare for combat or support combat in many ways, rather than being involved in it. The financial transaction also makes the relation between soldier and state (or whomever the principal agent is) contractual by nature, where a set of expectations on behaviour is created and codified into a profession (Coker 2007: 7). Second, moving from soldier to warrior ought to be surrounded by rituals. Again, the military unit has incentives to ritualize this process in order to flip the ‘on switch’ before combat. Here again, the etymological origin (again medieval French werreier) i.e. “warrior”, helps to define the role. In contrast to Coker (2007) cf. Krieg (2014), who defines a warrior as an idealized Achilles that emerges, finds his vocation, and thrives in the context of intense fear, uncertainty, and sacrifice (that would scare the rest of us considerably), I simply define

152

J. Angstrom

Table 9.1 Analytical scheme of stages of warrior rituals Separation

Transition

Recognition

Basic training (civilian–soldier) Combat preparation (soldier–warrior) Post-action (warrior–soldier) Discharge (soldier–civilian)

a ‘warrior’ as an individual who engages in combat. This more inclusive interpretation implies that more or less all soldiers can be expected to be trained to make the transition. Third, moving from warrior to soldier should be equally surrounded by rituals since it ought to be equally important to flip the off switch and return the individual to ordered soldiering again. Finally, in connection with the individual being discharged from the unit, there should be rituals, not the least to make it clear to the individual that certain core values of the military stay in the military and some things ought not to enter the civilian realm. In each of these four stages, the rituals will be analysed according to an analytical tool (see above) developed by van Gennep (1960), Turner (1969), and Krebs (2012). A transition ritual, in short, consists of three phases: 1) separation from the old self; 2) transition rites into the new self; and 3) social recognition of the new self. In phase 1 separation, rites include, for example, cleansing or stripping naked to remove evidence of the old self. The separation can even include moving past physical barriers to enter the new self. Moving on, the transition phase can include providing new clothes and gear, again physically moving to a different setting. In the final phase, social recognition, the individual’s new self is recognized socially and the transformation is complete. As Turner (1969) explains: Liminal entities, such as neophytes in initiation or puberty rites, may be represented as possessing nothing. They may be disguised as monsters, wear only a strip of clothing, or even go naked, to demonstrate that as liminal beings they have no status, property, insignia, secular clothing indicating rank or role, position in a kinship system – in short, nothing that may distinguish them from their fellow neophytes or initiands. Their behaviour is normally passive or humble; they must obey their instructors implicitly, and accept arbitrary punishment without complaint. It is as though they are being reduced or ground down to a uniform condition to be fashioned anew and endowed with additional powers to enable them to cope with their new station in life. Among themselves, neophytes tend to develop an intense comradeship and egalitarianism. Secular distinctions of rank and status disappear or are homogenized. (Turner 1969: 95)

Transformation into nature 153

Ranger rituals, St Hubertus, and the eco-ethical warrior Rituals and the military are no strangers. On the contrary, one only has to think of phrases such as ‘baptism of fire’ (the first experience of combat) to realize how closely interwoven they are. In this analytical section, I will compare the rituals of civil–military passage as they are portrayed in four stages: (1) the first week of basic training (civilian–soldier transition); (2) preparations for combat (soldier– warrior transition); (3) after-action procedures (warrior–soldier transition); and (4) discharge (soldier–civilian transition). The basic analytical tool for understanding these four stages as rituals is that they each have to include three distinct phases: a separation from the former shape; a transition into the new shape; and a social recognition of entering into the new shape. If these three sub-phases are not passed, it is difficult to ontologically call these transitions for rituals. The Swedish Army Rangers can be traced back nearly 400 years in Swedish regimental history. The unit started out as Jämtland’s horse ranger corps and until the late nineteenth century was stationed at Frösön outside of Östersund in northern Sweden. In 1900, the regiment was renamed the Norrland Dragoons and moved further north to Umeå. It was stationed in Umeå until 1980 before it moved to its current location in Arvidsjaur, further north still, and was renamed again to be the Fourth Cavalry Regiment. Throughout its history it has belonged to the cavalry and it was not until 1970 that it lost its last horse-mounted units. Annually, on 20 September, the rangers celebrate the memory of the Battle of Nowodwor in 1655 during King Charles X’s Polish war in which the regiment distinguished itself. In 2004, it lost its status as an independent regiment, instead forming the Army Ranger Battalion, organized within the Norrbotten Regiment. As we shall see, a series of rites that still exist today stems from the rangers’ cavalry background. Civilian to soldier transformation For the rangers, civilian to soldier transformation is fairly consistent in both of the periods studied (1970–1990 and 2009–2014), although adult masculinity is stressed slightly less in the latter period. In particular, during conscription the understanding of basic training has changed from a rite of passage into male adulthood to a rite of passage into soldier life. The whole idea of conscription as understood in the 1980s Swedish context was a rite of passage into male adulthood. Hence, in a very literal sense, conscription was a rite of passage. In the eyes of society, the male youths became men, not after their sexual debuts, when they finished high school, when they earned their first salary, or when they voted for the first time, but because of their time in the armed forces. In this, we can observe one crucial part of the ritual: it was in its very essence a male ritual with a highly gendered language stressing a heterosexual, masculine ideal. This is indeed visible in the older recruitment films that stress masculine virtues of strength, courage, and stamina. In the early 2010s, Swedish ranger units do not display the same focus on basic training as a rite of passage into adulthood for

154

J. Angstrom

males. Instead, the focus is on military efficiency. This is an interesting departure, where one set of rituals has been replaced by another, seemingly as a result of professionalization. Common for both periods, however, is the very basic and fundamental phase of separation from the civilian self by walking into the fenced garrison. This happens to the conscripts and the professional units alike. One can, of course, object to this and claim that this is not related to rituals in any sense whatsoever, but rather to the fact that Swedish law requires military installations to have strong security measures in place, one of which is a high fence. It really does not matter, however, if it the physical boundary is there for other reasons. It still serves as the first step in the ritual of leaving the civilian self and becoming a soldier. The next step, again, is very physical and involves each individual picking up his gear and uniforms and marching with the heavy load to his barracks. Inside the building, the uniform is put on and the transition rites are thus completed. As soon as the members of the unit are dressed in their new uniforms, a drill instructor takes over and the recruits are forced to recognize their new soldier-selfs. The aspiring soldiers are given numbers and names and their first military identity: privates. Attributing a number and a rank to the new soldiers is, of course, a symbol of the social recognition that they are now soldiers. They are not rangers yet, but soldiers at least. And that is the first step in the shape-shifting process towards becoming a warrior-ranger. Soldier to warrior transformation The soldier to warrior transformation is remarkably similar regardless of whether the unit is composed of conscripts or professional soldiers. The films show throughout that the soldiers drive, ski, or walk to the forest or the mountains. Again, this is a clear-cut case of using a physical boundary, the garrison fences, to start this stage in building the ranger. The recruit physically leaves the garrison and, once out in the wilderness, he has left his soldier identity behind and begins the rituals of becoming a ranger. Note that the films do not clearly separate the two identities of warrior and ranger. Every time combat is shown in the films, the start of the sequence begins with a march out of the garrison and a narrator talking about how the ranger fights: silently, during the night, and only after passing some very tough physical tests. Once the soldiers emerge out of the snow or out of the depths of the forest for combat, they wear camouflage, face paint, or white winter parkas. This is clearly a mark of the transition rites. They are becoming their warrior selves through the donning of appropriate clothing and masking techniques. A soldier interviewed in one of the films even suggests that: “in the field, I do not exist. It is only we that do” (emphasis added). This is clearly a sign of one of the core values in relation to wartime demands on rangers; if they are supposed to operate far behind enemy lines, they need to be able to cooperate and put the unit first. The ritual that stands out in terms of social recognition of this transformation process in both periods is reinforcing military hierarchy through a highly

Transformation into nature 155 standardized form of someone ordering others to do something. The ritual is identical in all the cases. Soldiers are expected to position themselves in the appointed order next to one another, the order follows a certain standardized scheme, and the order contains similar things, that is: the mission; how to go about achieving it; what the higher commander wants the unit to do; where other friendly units are located; under what circumstances fire should be opened; where medevac (medical evacuation) is located; and what to do once the aim has been accomplished. What is striking, however, is that the films do not show any rituals suggesting that the transition between soldier and warrior is one akin to men becoming machines or men becoming beasts. It is not machines, but rather independent-thinking individuals that are created; it is certainly not fierce beasts hiding in the forests. Instead, it is a surprisingly ecological or environmental ideal of being one with nature in very tough terrain. Being invisible, operating behind enemy lines, certainly suggests a masculine ideal of penetrating enemy lines and protecting the rest of the army. This has not changed between conscripts in the Cold War and modern-day professionals, but it is clear from the recruitment films that this is not the main message. It is equally clear that the logic of these rites is related to the identity of the ranger units. While the rangers was still a cavalry regiment, it celebrated the feast day of St Hubertus on 3 November. St Hubertus is the patron saint of hunters. In Swedish, of course, the word ‘hunter’ and the military word ‘ranger’ are one and the same: jägare. St Hubertus is well known because after a revelation from God he laid the foundations of the modern-day ethics of hunting animals. St Hubertus wrote that the strongest specimen in a herd of deer should not be killed since that animal was needed to procreate the species. Instead, he said that the old or weak animal should be shot. These are more or less the same guidelines that the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) still issues. What further spells out the logic is that in Swedish, the English word ‘ranger’ means skogsvaktare, translated sensibly as “a government member of staff who tends to the forest” and which literally means “the one that guards the forest”. We can also see these ethics depicted in the activities of rangers in the recruitment films. During conscription, when horses were still used, the basic rule was to tend to the animals’ needs before your own. Even now that the horses are long gone, the toast to the horse is still the most ritualized of the toasts at regimental dinners. Rangers interviewed in the 2013 film talk about living in harmony with nature and becoming “one with nature”. It is clearly not machines that are the ideal presence in unit culture; instead, the rituals very much conform to the theoretical expectations of appropriating the forces of nature. The appropriation of the forces of nature has clear transition traits. It is easy, for example, to understand the acquisition of camouflage uniforms as an attempt to seize nature’s qualities. Appropriating the qualities and fearsome powers of the forces of nature carries huge appeal. For the Swedish rangers, it implies not a sheltered, embracing forest, but unforgiving, harsh terrain – freezing, frightening, and uncivilized. We should also consider the huge military advantages of

156

J. Angstrom

having nature’s qualities as compared to those of a mere beast. Temperatures of below 40 degrees can effectively paralyse entire armoured divisions, while even mythological beasts would struggle against such strong natural powers. By appropriating the qualities of night and nature, individuals amass wilderness, darkness, and fear to their own advantage. We can also clearly identify three modern rituals that are related to definite transition stages. The aspiring ranger is put through three difficult tests, which combined complete the transition to becoming a ranger, rather than a warrior. The first one involves a long march in mountainous terrain during which the would-be ranger’s physique faces a demanding test. After the march and still out in the wilderness, the rangers are presented with one of their most significant attributes: the Green Beret. The beret was introduced in the early 1970s when, arguably, the regiment was still searching for an identity after the horses had disappeared only a few years earlier. Technically speaking, at the time, the Green Beret belonged to the dress uniform, but locally in the regiment it began to be used with the field uniform as a symbol of courage, stamina, and fearlessness. Recruits were consciously aware from very early on that they had to earn their berets (Henricson 1994: 485–6; Skiöld 2010: 72). The second major ritual involves putting the ranger through another series of difficult tests, this time not only physical ones but skill tests too, such as shooting, orienteering, and some ambush fire drills involving a whole platoon. These are repeated during a week-long march to test the rangers’ stamina, but this time in a winter environment. After this, the rangers are awarded a ribbon marked jägare. The ribbon is supposed to be worn on the field uniform and is a replica of the United States ranger symbol, but with a Swedish translation. As it happened, one of the regimental commanders, later General Mertil Melin, had been trained at the United States ranger school in the late 1970s. Partly as a tribute, partly to display another symbol that could forge an identity, Swedish rangers started to wear and hand out ribbons to those who passed the winter march. Adding symbols to the field uniform, however, was not allowed unless army headquarters in Stockholm approved this. To address the potential embarrassment of the breach in dress code, officers at the regiment allegedly sent a letter to the army headquarters in Stockholm saying that they were going to use the ranger ribbon for the field uniform unless Stockholm had any objections. This was a calculated measure, since it was common knowledge at the time that headquarters never objected to anything or hardly ever replied to letters from regiments in the far north (Magnusson 2010: 74). The third major ranger symbol is the survival skills badge. Again, this is yet another recently invented ritual and it was not started in a formalized and organized manner until 1990. The test itself is relatively straightforward. The rangers leave the garrison (as always) and are thereafter stripped of weapons and heavy equipment, only retaining their survival kits. They are expected to survive in the wild in groups while trying to escape being taken prisoner by a B force that are usually equipped with night-vision equipment and sometimes have dogs. The exercise is orchestrated in such a way that it is virtually impossible not to be

Transformation into nature 157 taken prisoner. Physically exhausted and hungry, the rangers are exposed to interrogation techniques and they are supposed to give only their name, number, and rank to the interrogator. They are expected to attempt to escape imprisonment at all times. Those that pass the survival skills test are presented with the survival skills badge, thereby completing their training as rangers. Again, during the survival skills test the environmental ethic comes to the fore; the rangers are expected to feed off what nature offers and co-exist with it (Hellström 2010: 75). Warrior to soldier transformation On shedding the warrior identity and becoming a soldier again, the films make it clear that the soldier more or less goes through the same process albeit in reverse. After the ranger has been a warrior – undertaking demanding exercises stretching his mental and physical capacities – along with his unit he returns to the garrison, thereby going through a physical boundary inside of which he is a soldier. This is a clear representation of separation from the warrior self. Similarly, by cleaning himself up, removing war paint, and handing back weapons to be locked up securely, the ranger clearly becomes less of a warrior – disarmed, but still wearing uniform (hence remaining a soldier). This series of rituals, again, is concluded with an after-action report by one of the drill instructors, thus clearly recognizing that the rangers have left the warrior status. However, due to the special circumstances of ranger identity dissolving the boundary between ranger and warrior, there is an inherent ambiguity in the reversal process. Since the soldier is provided with the new identity of ranger in the field, but is actually allowed to wear the symbols of a ranger within the garrison, there is no clear flip of an ‘off switch’ with regard to him ceasing to be a ranger. This is clear both for conscripts and for the all-volunteer force. It rather seems that once the rituals of becoming a ranger have been passed, the ranger identity is fixed. This suggests that the very peculiar and specific ranger identity that mixes ecological ethics and warrior traits is allowed to be brought back to soldier life inside the garrison. The line between warrior–soldier seems to dissolve once ranger identity has been attributed. Soldier to civilian transformation Until conscription as a large-scale macro-ritual to turn irresponsible male youths into responsible adult men ended, ranger rituals of being discharged were not seen on the educational films. When they do appear later on, the narrator of the films certainly mentions that certain qualities developed by rangers during their training are generic and also valuable for a civilian career. During the time of conscription, civilian life was not mentioned at all. Instead, footage showing the regimental day made a particular point of focusing on older generations of rangers. The message the films wanted to impart at this time was ‘once a ranger, always a ranger’ and the logic of showing this footage fits very well with the interpretation that the rites of soldier–civilian transformation during the time of

158

J. Angstrom

conscription were not created. Then, there was no clear demarcation between soldier and civilian and the switch to change an individual from soldier back to civilian could not be flipped to ‘off ’. It could only be flipped to ‘standby’ mode. The young rangers were not discharged. They just happened to be given a longer leave and were expected to return to ranger life if mobilization occurred. In the meantime, they were supposed to perform their masculine duty of being prepared to protect the country if need be. For the all-volunteer force, newer films even mention life as a ranger veteran, signifying that there is no such thing as being retired from the unit and not being a ranger any more. The near absence of references to a stage after being a ranger also suggests that ranger identity is seeping into a person’s civilian self. As discussed above, part of being a ranger is behaving like a masculine adult and this trait is clearly not switched off. Moreover, during conscription in particular, it is clear that the more warrior-like traits of ranger identity were not supposed to be turned off either. Being on standby throughout the period of enlistment (until age 47) seems to be the preferred choice for rangers. This means that the blurred lines of the different forms of ranger identity spill over to, and are brought into civilian society. Importantly, this implies that civilian society is militarized, rather than war becoming civilized and it also implies that individual rangers are left in limbo regarding their identities. It is quite clear that they are no longer soldiers after being discharged, but is equally clear that they do not return to their old civilian selves either. Instead, they persist in being rangers and bring the virtues of rangers into civil society. As such they also ultimately perform the final stage of transition into a ranger (appropriating the forces of nature) through showing that between storms (wartime), there is calm (peacetime). It follows from this process that not only has the warrior appropriated the forces of nature, but nature itself has been domesticated. The wilderness has become domesticated since it can suddenly be controlled and ordered to become wild and uncompromising through mobilization. Hence, at the same time that nature becomes part of the ranger, the ranger becomes part of nature and they share the same characteristics. This, of course, shows remarkable similarities with the Japanese samurai relationship to death (as analysed by Öberg in Chapter 7 of this volume) and the Viking berserkers (as analysed by Andreas Nordberg and Frederik Wallenstein in Chapter 4 of this volume). The merging of identities, and virtues transgressing borders are not necessarily uncommon. As Michael Ignatieff recognizes, battlefield medics wearing the universally recognized symbol of the International Red Cross Committee as protection are a curious blend of civil and military spheres and one that can be understood as an attempt to civilize warfare. To tend wounded soldiers in order of medical priority rather than military utility is one example of civil norms entering the military domain (Ignatieff 1998: 112), but in the case of the Swedish Army Rangers, it seems that military virtues are brought into society. In theoretical terms, the comparative cases of ranger soldiering in Sweden have demonstrated a weakness in trying to separate civilian from soldier and soldier from warrior. In the case of rangers, these different shapes appear to be

Transformation into nature 159 different layers rather than mutually exclusive and clearly demarcated identities. A ranger, if we are to trust ranger rituals, is both soldier, warrior, and civilian at the same time. When it comes to the theorized different ideals to be promoted through the ranger rites of passage, we can conclude that the ranger ecological– ethical ethos fits the model insofar as rangers attempt to appropriate the forces of nature, but we cannot yet witness an effect of professionalization. Observing the rituals makes it clear that there are certainly warlike qualities to the ranger as would be expected. These rituals, again as expected, clearly do not advance an ideal of the soldier as being either a machine or a beast. Similarly, there are no clear rituals visible in the films seemingly promoting an image of the ranger as ‘an administrator or expert of violence’ as the professionalization hypothesis would imply.

Conclusions Military behaviour and military organizations are brimming with rites, but why is there variation in soldiering rituals? And can soldiering rituals tell us something about military culture? These questions have been addressed in this chapter. In this short concluding section, I will briefly summarize the results of the analysis of Swedish Army Rangers’ rites and then continue by elaborating on uncertainties about the data gathering and the theoretical conclusions of the study. First, army ranger transition rituals are consistent overall when comparing the conscript army of the 1970s and 1980s with the all-volunteer force of the 2010s. The main physical barrier that forms a key part of separating the old self from the new self is the gate to the garrison. It is almost painfully obvious in the films that the garrison gate is used to clearly demarcate the civilian from the soldier as well as separate the soldier from the warrior. The gate as a physical boundary, however, is also potentially confusing. Since it is the boundary between all three identities of soldier–warrior transitions, it is the context and direction of passing the gate that provides a meaning to the act of leaving the old self and entering into the new one. The transition phase also shares a number of similarities. In particular, it seems to be predominantly centred on showering as well as on cleaning items of uniform and equipment. Cleansing as an act, of course, is well established as an important transitional element in other social and religious rites too. It is through stripping down naked without the symbols of the old self that it is possible to be reborn as the new self. Where the models do not see eye to eye is in relation to social recognition. Here, the conscript-based ranger units do not exhibit any clear rituals at all. On the contrary, long and deliberate film footage of older generations of rangers suggest that the films’ producers want to tell us that once you become a ranger, you will stay a ranger, regardless of age. Hence, there is no ‘off switch’, only a ‘standby’ mode. This is partly to be expected since conscription was based upon the idea of mobilization. The rites are intentional. Central to assuming new identities is social recognition: being a soldier, civilian, or warrior means simply adhering to specific separate domains of moral

160

J. Angstrom

Table 9.2 Swedish Army Ranger rituals

Basic training (civilian–soldier)

Separation

Transition

Recognition

Garrison gate

Dressed in uniform Provided with a rank and a function

Combat preparation Garrison gate (soldier–warrior)

Ranger rituals

Receiving formalized orders is a ranger symbol

Post-action (warrior–soldier)

Garrison gate

Cleaning

Post-action report, but still ranger symbols

Discharge (soldier–civilian)

Leaving the garrison

Civilian clothes

No recognition during conscription, only in post-ranger life

spaces in which you follow the rites pertaining to each domain and thus become socially recognized. You are a soldier not only because of your tasks or the nature of these tasks, but also because you adhere to the rites of soldiering. Second, it should be pointed out that the films used as source material are not ideal from a number of perspectives. It is, for example, very difficult to assess the context. One cannot, in short, know what is going on where the camera lens is not directed. The fact that the movies are edited and directed need not be a problem, however, since it is reasonable to assume that the army wants to project a certain image of ranger life and values. The important transition rites and traditions should, therefore, definitely be included in the films. Yet another potential problem is that not even in the markedly slower-paced films of the 1960s and 1970s can we assume that we can follow every moment of the rituals. There may, in short, be things that we miss when the films are the only sources of these rituals. One significant example is that the movies only briefly pass over certain key rituals, the Green Beret ceremony, for example, and we really do not know what is said here. Third, when it comes to theory, it is quite clear that the simple two-variable model that has been developed cannot fully accommodate the variety and degree of innovation necessary with regard to developing new ranger rituals. After disbanding the last horse-mounted units in 1970, the rangers witnessed a series of new rituals in the decade following. While new rituals were invented in a conscious attempt to forge a new unit culture, it is also obvious that the ‘new religion’ had assimilated several traits and key rituals of the old. For example, even if the horse was no longer around, it was now stressed that the ranger should be one with nature. Moreover, the name ‘Dragoons’ and belonging to the cavalry remained. How unit culture and rituals of transition are related, therefore, seems an inherently more complex issue than whether or not the unit consists of conscripts or professionals. The analysis bore out, however, that combat expectations were central to the rites. Through an analysis of a regular Western contemporary army unit, we can also potentially discard the notion that rituals of war are pre-civilizatory,

Transformation into nature 161 premodern phenomena. A cursory glance at some of the main symbols of hightechnology modern warfare such as tanks, jet fighters, and submarines suggests that attempting to appropriate the qualities of beasts, the forces of nature, or even mythological creatures is still strong. For example: in Germany the main battle tank is given the name Leopard (a predator); French and British strike fighters are called Mirage and Tornado respectively (forces of nature with huge destructive powers); the Swedish navy calls its powerful icebreakers Thor, Ymer, and Odin (after the most powerful Norse gods) while its air force names its fighters after the dragon and griffin (mythological beasts); and in the United States there is the Seawolf class of attack submarines and also fighter jets with the names Tomcat, Eagle, Hornet, Falcon, and Raptor (all predators). Here, we can observe another trait according to which even our machines of war are supposed to appropriate the qualities of nature.

Note 1 The author would like to acknowledge Lieutenant Colonel Mikael Nordmark and Major Rikard Skiöld of the Swedish Army Ranger battalion for their most generous help in identifying and finding the recruitment and information films that have been used in the analysis.

References Afflerbach, Holger and Strachan, Hew (eds) (2012). How fighting ends: a history of surrender. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Coker, Christopher (2007). The warrior ethos: military culture and the war on terror. (London: Routledge). George, Alexander and Bennett, Andrew (2004). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Hellström, Johan (2010). “Överlevnadsmärket” in Guldbrand, Wilhelm (ed.), Norrlands dragonregemente: Jägarregementets 25 år i Arvidsjaur. (Arvidsjaur: Kamratföreningen Blå dragoner), pp. 75–6. Henricson, Kurt (1994). “Traditioner och traditionsföremål” in Arvid Cronenberg (ed.), Umeås blå dragoner. (Umeå: Umeås dragonregemente), pp. 479–89. Huntington, Samuel (1957). The soldier and the state: the theory and politics of civil– military relations. (Harvard, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Ignatieff, Michael (1998). The warrior’s honor: ethnic war and the modern conscience. (London: Chatto & Windus). Krebs, Daniel (2012). “Ritual performance: surrender during the American War of Independence” in Holger Afflerbach and Strachan, Hew (eds), How fighting ends: a history of surrender. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 169–78. Krieg, Andreas (2014). “Beyond the Trinitarian institutionalization of the warrior”. Defence Studies, 14(1): 56–75. Magnusson, Dan (2010). “Jägarbågen” in Guldbrand, Wilhelm (ed.), Norrlands dragonregemente: Jägarregementets 25 år i Arvidsjaur. (Arvidsjaur: Kamratföreningen Blå dragoner), pp. 74–5. Moskos, Charles, Williams, John Allen, and Segal, David R. (eds) (2000). The postmodern military: armed forces after the Cold War. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

162

J. Angstrom

Nielsen, Suzanne and Snider, Don (eds) (2009). American civil–military relations: the soldier and the state in a new era. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press). Ruffa, Chiara (forthcoming). Imagining war and keeping peace: military cultures in peace operations. (Philadelphia, PA: Penn University Press). Skiöld, Rikard (2010). “Basker på!” in Norrlands dragonregemente: Jägarregementets 25 år i Arvidsjaur. (Arvidsjaur: Kamratföreningen Blå dragoner), pp. 72–4. Snider, Don M. and Matthews, Lloyd (2005). The future of the army profession, 2nd edn. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill). Turner, Victor (1969). The ritual process. structure and anti-structure (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). van Creveld, Martin (2009). The culture of war. (San Francisco, CA: Presidio Books). van Gennep, Arnold (1960). The rites of passage. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Recruitment and information films from the Swedish Army Ranger Battalion (year of production) Sommarmarschen (1935) Beredskap (1939) 300-års Jubileum (1955) Korta Händelser (1952–1956) Att Rida Rätt (?) Den Fyrbenta Stridskamraten (?) Hästjägarplutonen (1966) Kavalleri i Norr (1967) Avsked i Umeå (1979) Invigning i Arvidsjaur (1980) Startläge K4 (1984) I Akkanålkes Skugga (1989) Jägarförband i Armén (1991) Internationella Jägarplutonen (2011) Bergspluton (2012) Jägartjänst på Arméns Jägarbataljon (2013)

10 From total to minimal transformation German oaths of loyalty 1871–2014 Peter Haldén

Introduction Earlier chapters explored ways of becoming a warrior in archaic and early modern societies. In this chapter I ask what it means to become a warrior in a modern society. I analyse how three successive German societies, the Empire (1871–1918), the Nazi state (1933–1945), and the Federal Republic of Germany (1949–), conceptualized the distinction between the spheres of peace and war and, accordingly, how the ways in which an individual was transformed into a warrior differed. The chapter focuses on Imperial Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). All modern societies separate social life into different spheres: law, politics, economy, private, public etc. Modern societies differ, however, in how these distinctions are made and how the boundaries are drawn and bridged. Having outlined their respective constructions of the peace/ war distinction, I analyse how both societies used the conscience of the individual through the ritual of oaths of loyalty to transform him into a warrior. The social sciences usually focus on connections between groups and institutions. Such an approach does not reach into the space that the psyches of individual human beings occupy in a social formation or consider how they are expected to work with other social systems. Sociology, however, should also emphasize and illustrate individuals’ connections to the social figuration at large (Elias 2012; Luhmann 2013: 163). Oaths are important in this respect since they are conventions that connect the conscience – often conceptualized as the moral core of an individual – to other individuals, groups, and social entities. Imperial Germany conceptualized peace and war as two principally closed systems that operated according to their own sets of codes. Consequently, individual transformations between the two were ‘hard’. In contrast, the FRG conceptualizes peace and war as principally open systems in a complex and sophisticated way. War, defined both as a habitus and as a temporal period, is nested in the functional systems of peace and normal politics. This means that codes from the peace system should also be applicable within the system of war, i.e. in the organizational system of the military and in wartime. While the war system is open to influence and codes from the peace system, the peace system is – at least in the normative and prescriptive vision – closed to codes from the

164

P. Haldén

war system. Consequently, individual transformations are ‘soft’. This is evident if we look at the construction of the mind of the serviceman. Conceptualized as a psychic system, it is supposed to retain the codes and norms of the peace system, even when mobilized. It is thus both open to the peace system and closed to the war system. Central to the management concept of the Bundeswehr, innere Führung, is the idea that servicemen should follow their own conscience, and be able to disobey orders that contravene the codes of the sphere of peace – codified as the Constitution of the Republic.

Modern societies One template, many variants For the purposes of this chapter I will consider modernity as an epoch starting roughly in the period 1750–1850, during which society and politics are characterized by certain main themes: the idea that the future can be changed; society is malleable; individuals can change themselves and be changed through social engineering; and modern societies distinguish between functional spheres such as law, politics, economy, private and public, as being particular areas of human activity with different modes of observation and codifications (Luhmann 1997: 613–18; Koselleck 2004; Buzan and Albert 2010: 318). Within this broad template I argue that modern societies can be distinguished from one another whether functional systems are constructed as principally closed or open vis-àvis each other. Closed systems All societies depend on distinctions between different spheres of activities. Distinctions are guides that allow the codification of occurrences into intersubjectively meaningful events and actions which in turn have categories of allowed, prescribed, and prohibited. Distinctions such as inside/outside, profane/sacred, peace/war, private/public, however, are not just analytical tools but normative projects (Haldén 2013). One way of understanding these spheres is to see them as principally closed to each other. The division between ordinary and ritual time, or in Turner’s words, “structure” and “anti-structure” is a premodern conception of the world as divided into closed systems that can only be bridged at certain times or with certain techniques. Luhmann’s Modern Systems Theory (MST) is one of the most powerful theoretical descriptions of modern societies. According to Luhmann “society” consists of a number of functional subsystems such as law, politics, religion, art, economics, or love that exist in each other’s environment. Each system codifies actions according to its own organizational logic and is principally closed against other systems in its environment. For example, the economic system makes its codifications in terms of profit/loss but the legal system codes events in terms of legal/illegal. Actions in one subsystem cannot directly impact on another subsystem, law, for example, but must be

From total to minimal transformation 165 translated into the terms of the other system (Luhmann 1995; 1997). MST can be seen as an ideal-type description of a modern society of a particular kind, not of all modern societies. However, some elements of Luhmann’s theory have universal applicability: first, societies divide social life into separate spheres or systems; and second the idea that codification is fundamental to communication and action is very important. Without codification of events, intersubjectivity and social action are not possible (Luhmann 1995). Codification enables first the identification of events and second allows societies to create different systems, spheres, or ‘worlds’ with different sets of codifications enabling the same society and indeed the same actors to perform different sets of actions. Although all societies make distinctions between different spheres of activities, each with different sets of codifications, not all of them construct these spheres as closed systems. This means that codifications can ‘travel’ between different spheres and that different spheres can share some codifications. In order to understand how this works, we will turn to open systems. Open systems A different prescriptive view as to how a society should be organized would be to regard its subsystems as principally ‘open’. This means that codifications from one system, organization, or sphere can operate in one or more other systems or organizations. If we consider functional subsystems in this light we may argue that law, economics, and politics may be separate spheres but they are coconstitutive and depend upon each other, partly for their legitimacy and raison d’être and partly for input from other systems in order to conduct their operations – hence peace/war, public/private, profane/sacred etc. are co-constitutive spheres (Turner 1969). A central part of the perspective of open systems is the conception that systems can be nested in each other. Nesting means that organizations share one or more institutions. Institutions in this sense can be cognitive, normative, or regulative (Buzan and Little 2000; Scott 2003;). It also implies a hierarchical relation between higher-order and lower-order systems in which codifications originating in the former (and under their control) govern operations in the latter. Boundaries are not natural but have to be continuously created and upheld (Luhmann 2013). Such activities can be summarized as boundarydrawing activities. Due to the interdependence of systems, however, actors also engage in boundary-spanning activities. From any organization’s viewpoint a major concern is how to make people shift into new roles (e.g. from private person to bureaucrat) and how to make sure that they remain in the new position and stay true to its codifications for a particular length of time. From the viewpoint of the social formation as a whole and for some organizations, such as a military one, it is also a priority to make sure that people can switch back to the old system.

166

P. Haldén

The oath as a bridge between psychic systems and social systems The oath is a powerful social convention with religious, not to say magical trappings that seems to be one of the few practices that have featured in societies from the archaic to the modern era. One of the earliest examples is the military service oath from the Hittite civilization, c. sixteenth–thirteenth century bc (Oettinger 1976). The oath is a performative act that creates something – a new social and spiritual condition – by being performed. It is in that respect similar to the “speech acts” described by Austin and Urmson. Other examples include the utterance “I do” in a marriage ceremony that creates a new relation and status (Austin and Urmson 1962). As we shall see, oaths involve more than merely language. Performances of this kind are often seen as characteristic of premodern societies but, as we shall see, oaths were very potent in modern Germany as well. Oaths of loyalty have been a standard instrument in creating individual warriors and groups of warriors since at least antiquity (Agamben and Kotsko 2011). Because of the transformative power of oaths, both for individuals and groups, oath-bound communities (coniurationes) were the most feared mode of opposition in the Middle Ages (Althoff 2004). Paolo Prodi emphasizes that since the sixteenth century, control over the individual subject’s conscience has been a powerful tool of governmentality. By assuming that all subjects held a private belief in God, making them swear oaths to the state that also bound them to the Lord served as an instrument of control (Twellmann 2010). From the Renaissance onwards we see that the state takes control over the ritual of oath-swearing, which in the Middle Ages was much more widespread and diffuse. An indication of how shifts in the relation of power were mirrored in the form of the oath can be found in the fact that medieval oaths of fealty were reciprocal, i.e. the vassal swore an oath to fulfil his obligations and the lord in turn answered with his own; oaths of allegiance from the early modern era onwards became onesided, i.e. only the subject or the soldier swore and bound himself, not the sovereign or the officer. An oath is similar to a contract where one or more parties agree to and establish a catalogue of different rights and obligations vis-à-vis each other. Oaths, however, differ from contracts in many respects. One of them is that they always involve a third party. This party is almost invariably a deity or spiritual entity. The deity or deities serve as witnesses but also, and more importantly, as binding powers to parties that join in the covenant. It is through the invocation of a deity that the oath is equipped with the powers of sanction. This led Immanuel Kant to question the validity of the oath (Kant 1996). An oath-breaker does not only transgress against the other party but also against the third party and it is this second transgression that results in divine punishment, in this life or the next, and which legitimates human violence against the oath-breaker in the name of society and of the deity. Where the secular contract gains its force by being incorporated into the legal system, the oath has an additional strength by being incorporated into a system of religious beliefs and, moreover, by explicitly connecting the conscience and thus moral worth of the individual to a system of

From total to minimal transformation 167 religious beliefs and sanctions. It gains its strength by binding the individual in a form of “conditional self-cursing”, meaning that if the oath is broken, damnation awaits (Smith 2008: 67). If we take this transcendental aspect seriously, it means that an oath taken by someone who believes in an omnipotent and omniscient deity will be stronger than an oath sworn by an atheist. First, the believer will not be able to hide from a vengeful deity in the same way as he or she can dodge the law. Second, if an afterlife is part of the structure of beliefs, not even death can save the oath-breaker from the wronged deity. There are, however, important differences between oaths and contracts. Durkheim made an important point about contracts when he remarked that any contract worthy of its name should be one that both parties enter freely into (Åkerstrøm Andersen 2012: 209). An oath is different in two ways: first, by swearing upon a transcendental being (e.g. a deity) or value (e.g. one’s honour) one places one’s soul or honour as a pledge and, thus, one risks an additional loss; and second, an oath is rarely made with the same degree of freedom with which a contract is signed. The fact that the person taking the oath places, explicitly or implicitly, his most valuable transcendental possession as a pledge underscores this point. Given the extreme nature of war and thus of military relations, the need to reinforce compliance with the transcendental pledge is not surprising. Under normal circumstances a party to a contract is not expected to have great difficulties fulfilling the contract. However, since war involves so many extreme situations (e.g. killing and exposure to risk) it is to be expected that it is difficult for a warrior to fulfil his obligations because of the existential fear that is involved. Hence, the transcendental reinforcement that an oath contains has, for a long time, been seen as necessary. Oaths, however, are more than merely verbal formulae. They are also collective and ritualized actions. Oaths are taken in groups that consist of either coswearers or witnesses or both. Military oaths are taken collectively which strengthens the bonds of loyalty not only between enlisted men and officers but also between the enlisted men themselves. Oaths can be taken either in a large group, or in smaller groups that take turns while the rest of the unit acts as witnesses. Given the power of small-group cohesion for military effectiveness, the latter form of oath-taking is likely to be highly efficient (Malešević 2010). Oaths serve the purpose of transforming an individual as well as a group into a new state. In this respect they could be compared to rites of passage, which move an individual from one stage to another in the life cycle or initiate him/her into a secret society. It is important to stress, however, that while the oath itself is not a ritual it may be a part of a ritual through which a person undergoes a social and spiritual transformation. While not necessarily conforming to the strict ritual schemas described by Arnold van Gennep or Victor Turner as a sequence of separation, liminal state, and reintegration, military oaths do take place in a wider context (van Gennep 1909; Turner 1969). Servicemen enter the parade ground, open field, or public square as a group and exit as a group. Catherine Bell describes two ways in which political rites define power: first they depict a group as “a coherent and ordered community based on shared values and goals; second

168

P. Haldén

they demonstrate the legitimacy of these values and goals by establishing their iconicity with the perceived values and orders of the cosmos” (Bell 1997: 129). It is worth noting that this display is both for the in-group of oath-takers and for any out-group of witnesses who act both as subjects bestowing their approval and as objects to be awed by the display of congruence with societal values. Finally, the collective dimension of oath-taking emphasizes the Durkheimian point that the moral conscience of the individual, which is placed as a hostage for the conditionality of the oath, is not just individual but intimately connected to group morality. It is important to emphasize the context in which military oaths of allegiance – as sociological phenomena – occur. As stressed at the beginning of this volume, war is a cluster of exceptional events and activities. The essence of war is killing other human beings and the very real risk of getting killed. Killing somebody is not only a normatively prohibited task in the sphere of peace but also the most extreme existential predicament of a human life. As such, it doesn’t come naturally to anybody, but is something that humans need to be conditioned, compelled, and coerced to do. A number of studies have shown that most soldiers do not go into battle or, equally importantly, remain on the battlefield for the sake of abstract ideals such as loyalty to one’s fatherland or some sort of ideology. Instead, the most strongly motivating factor is loyalty to one’s peers in the immediate group of fighters (Malešević, 2010: 223ff.). In this light, the function of the oath lies as much in the collective swearing as in its wording. Swearing an oath in front of a group, as a group, or both, is a ritualized way of forming a cohesive group whose members will be loyal and ready to sacrifice and kill for each other.

Different modernities, Germanies, and warriors Imperial Germany: closed systems, hard transformations Nineteenth-century European culture was characterized by strong boundary definitions between different spheres in many respects other than the distinction between peace and war. A prime example is the rigid distinction and separation between the public and the private as different spheres of human activity and subjectivity (Haldén 2013). It was during this era that Max Weber formulated his idea(l)s about the impersonal bureaucracy and bureaucrat. Put another way, he considered that a person ought to leave his private self behind when he entered the office (Weber 1968). European culture was also adept at distinguishing between separate moral spheres. One example is the widespread hypocrisy surrounding sexual morality and the distinction between ‘pure’ women (mothers, wives) and ‘impure’ women (prostitutes of various types). Although prostitution exists in the twenty-first century, its character of a mass phenomenon in the nineteenth is well testified in both sociological research and in cultural products (e.g. Zweig 1970). The German Empire (1871–1918) was a social formation that tried to construct the spheres of peace and war as closed systems, both with respect to

From total to minimal transformation 169 politics and the military and, in turn, as two functional subsystems of the formation and with respect to the distinction between peacetime and wartime. During the empire’s 47 years of existence the distance between the two systems grew (or, to put it differently, the boundary hardened). During the First World War, tendencies towards a new relation in which politics became nested in war (thus retaining some of its autonomy) or even becoming a subsystem of war could even be discerned. These were developments that, although not identical to those of the subsequent Nazi state, in many ways foreshadowed it. Conceptions of peace and war The dominant conception of peace and war in Imperial Germany was based on the works of Carl von Clausewitz. He had emphasized the connection between politics and war, arguing that military endeavours can never exist in isolation from politics, and claiming that while war has its own grammar, it has no logic of its own (Palmgren 2014). Clausewitz maintained that the two main kinds of war have different connections to politics: while the end of total war is to be able to dictate the terms of peace, limited war aims at gaining an advantage in forthcoming negotiations (Angstrom and Widén 2015). The works of Clausewitz, however, were subsequently reinterpreted and the spheres of war and peace reconstructed. Central to the ideas of Clausewitz was the construction of war as annihilation (Vernichtung). Wilhelm von Scherff argued in 1883 that politics had nothing to do in or with war. In the same year, Golmar von der Goltz claimed that in Clausewitz’ day war had been intertwined with politics but now war had become a decisive confrontation between enemies that sought each other’s absolute destruction (Hull 2005; Palmgren 2014). This construction became axiomatic among German commanders. The separation between politics and war was evident throughout the First World War. This is war without politics; through the equation of war with Vernichtungssieg, we can say that war emerges out of politics as a completely autonomous and isolated system. Politics and war The political system of the German Empire was Janus-faced. On the one hand, the Emperor and his government, as well as the governments of the constituent lands of the Empire, commanded considerable power. The German Empire was a kind of federation in which several lands, such as Bavaria, Prussia, and Würtemberg, were joined in a single state. On the other hand, it was a parliamentary system both on the Imperial level and with regard to the individual lands. Suffrage was graded according to income (at least in Prussia) but it was universal for adult males. Furthermore, it had one of the strongest party systems in Europe and America, boasting a high membership (Stolleis 1992; Clark 2007). It is hardly surprising, then, that there were considerable tensions between the two systems. Of particular importance is that Germany had the strongest Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Europe. The SPD was largely outside of and opposed

170

P. Haldén

to the army and the Imperial Court. However, several boundary-drawing acts closed off the army from the political system. First, the army and the navy were under the control of the Kaiser, not the parliament, both in peacetime and in wartime (Deutsches Reich 1871; Althoff 2004; Hull 2005: 3ff.). According to the Imperial constitution all German troops were obliged to unconditionally follow the commands of the Emperor (Deutsches Reich 1871: §64; Lange 2002: 57–86). The Emperor appointed higher officers and had the right to declare war and peace (Deutsches Reich 1871: §11). The General Staff was placed immediately below the Kaiser, making it independent from civilian political scrutiny, criticism, or advice (Hull 2005: 12). Servicemen had to receive permission from their superior officer to take up an office in the civil service or to serve in the Church or political parishes or in any other public organization (Deutsches Reich 1874: §47). For the duration of their service, the right of servicemen to participate in elections was suspended. Similarly, participation in political associations and assemblies was forbidden (Deutsches Reich 1874: §49). Another form of boundary-drawing took place in 1888 when Kaiser Wilhelm II brought his military aides into his headquarters, an act which shielded them from the political scrutiny of parliament. Furthermore, he granted a reward of a guaranteed audience with the Emperor to a number of the highest-ranking army and naval officers (Palmgren 2014). In effect, this move in combination with the ban on participation in party politics created a situation with two political systems: the first was centred on the Emperor, the Imperial Court and the army and the second on parliament and the ministers (Hull 2005). Although all militaries to some extent or other display a tendency towards insularity, the Imperial German Army was extreme in its intentional and unintentional closing of ranks. Although the army was underfunded, it nevertheless declined to turn to the Reichstag for additional funding since this would have meant having to open up to civilian scrutiny. From the 1880s onwards, the Minister of War was intentionally kept in the dark about army planning and organization, which meant that even when he was asked questions in the Reichstag he was rarely able to answer them in a meaningful way. Finally, the military establishment itself consisted of numerous organizations that each resembled a closed system, each one organizing its codifications and operations in a self-referential way without the possibility of feedback from other systems (Hull 2005: 107ff.). The social system and the war system The armed forces contained many patrimonial and paternalistic elements. These included the combination of very low pay and free or subsidized housing for enlisted men and officers alike (albeit at very different standards of living). This tied the servicemen to the army in ways similar to serfs or indentured labour. Furthermore, servicemen needed the permission of their superior officers to marry. Failure to secure permission before marrying resulted in imprisonment (Festungshaft) for three months (Deutsches Reich 1872: §150; Deutsches Reich

From total to minimal transformation 171 1874: §40). Interestingly, the military law did not make marriage null and void. Hence the military had judicial power over the soldier but not over the civil alliance that he contracted, thus reinforcing the existence of and distinctions between two legal systems. Permission from a superior officer was also necessary in order to carry out a trade or craft. This not only applied to servicemen but also to other people of the household living in accommodation supplied by the armed forces (Deutsches Reich 1874: §45). A further form of separation was physical. In the nineteenth century, servicemen lived in barracks or in specially provided housing. Now, during manoeuvres and wars, only the military community took to the field whereas in earlier times ‘civilians’, including the families of the soldiers, had accompanied the army. In the nineteenth century, the army became more clearly demarcated, even isolated (Mann 1993). In Isabel V. Hull’s (2005: 101) words “wherever the military existed, civil society stopped”. Although the war system was closed off from the peace system, the reverse was not the case. Military codes seeped into and eventually permeated Wilhelmine society, at least its bourgeois and noble strata. Several organizations, such as the German Gymnasien, were characterized by military mores and served as preparatory institutions not only for university but also for military service (Clemente 1992). In addition, what had originally been a warrior ethos became the standard for civilian respectability: the ability and obligation to fight for one’s honour in a duel. Another example is that social life at university revolved around student fraternities, the Burschenschaften, where ritualized duels were central to the period of initiation. The purpose of the duel was partly to prove one’s courage and martial values and partly to give the participants facial scars that were the visible signs of belonging to a warrior society and, by extension, to a good and respectable society (Elias 1996). Becoming a warrior In Imperial Germany oaths were taken very seriously. Becoming a soldier required that an oath was taken. Indeed we can picture it as a portal through which an individual passed into a new existence. At the time of unification in 1871 there were a great number of oaths of loyalty in the different armed forces. Eventually, as a result of the attempts to create a more homogenous German Empire (Reich), the armed forces settled on seven standardized ones. Servicemen swore different oaths depending on the contingent they served in and this could be from Prussia, Baden, Bavaria, Braunschweig, Saxony, Würtemberg, or Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The wording may have been different but the intention was similar: transforming an individual by taking control over his conscience. The conscience, understood as the central moral faculties of a human being, was bound both to God and to the royal leaders of the armies of the empire. All oaths began and ended with references to the Lord, thus creating a bounded space that sealed the bond between the person swearing the oath (whose name was in the oath, making it specific and intensely personal) and the monarch of Prussia,

172

P. Haldén

Bavaria, Saxony, etc. The individual’s hope of salvation for his soul was tied to the monarch. The oath for soldiers in the Prussian contingent read: I (N.N.) swear by God the all-knowing and all-powerful a corporeal oath that I will serve his Majesty (the name of the King) my most gracious (in the sense of giving grace) Lord in all events, at land and at sea, in peacetime or wartime, and in all places loyally and honestly, promote his highness’ benefit and best interests, shield him from all harm and disadvantage, closely obey all articles of war that have been read to me as well as the instructions and orders given to me and comport myself as suitable and befitting to an upstanding and undaunted soldier who loves duty and honour (from 1911 for both Protestants and Catholics): So help me God through Jesus Christ and his holy Gospel. (Lange 2002: 70, Haldén’s translation) We should carefully note the wording of the oath. It is highly detailed in order to cover many cases and clauses, as in a contract. There are many components in the oath, starting with the reference to the person swearing the oath (‘I’), followed by God, the King, all articles of war, instructions, orders, as well as an informal and unspecified code of conduct befitting an upstanding and undaunted, honour- and duty-loving soldier. The extensive catalogue might seem to bind the person taking the oath in a more comprehensive manner but it could also be argued that it also gives him more leeway to balance demands one against the other. Although we cannot assume that they are of the same weight, the multiplicity of pledges could, theoretically, provide some scope for interpretation when in doubt as to the correct course of action in the field. In addition, the general wording of the oath, such as in the “benefit and best interests” of His Majesty could, once again, theoretically be seen as providing space for rival interpretations. If we consider other contracts, we see that in cases where contracts contain many clauses then the obligations of the individual as well as the limits of the contract become clearer. We could say that in a hierarchical relation with a more detailed contract the mandate of the superior becomes more restricted. Concerning the Prussian oath the key verb is ‘to serve’, something that would change in later years. The provision to obey the King in peacetime as well as wartime is of particular interest since it bound the individual as a person, not as a temporary limited functionary. We cannot know the exact effects of the oath on each individual but it stands clear that in this cultural context it was taken quite seriously, as witnessed by the extensive debates on the exact wording. It was also deemed important enough to be abolished after the introduction of the Republic in 1918. In sum, the oath connected the individual’s mind (conceptualized as a psychic system) to the war system.

From total to minimal transformation 173 Nazi Germany: dissolving the boundary between peace and war Nazi Germany largely dissolved the boundary between peace and war. By definition, totalitarian states dissolve boundaries and categories internal to any society that preceded the regime (Arendt 2004). Social categories and forms of differentiation as well as functional subsystems are inimical to totalitarianism since they limit the exercise of power of the regime. Indeed, on a conceptual level any compartmentalization threatens the ‘total’ and hence undifferentiated character of the regime. In addition, specific traits of the Nazi regime moved Germany outside the category of social formations that this chapter studies. The regime had an ambiguous relation to military organization, reflecting the breakdown of an ordinary distinction between the spheres of peace and war. Social life and organization were strongly militarized, compromising the distinction between civil and military, non-warrior and warrior. Society was not militarized, however, in the sense of being subject to or integrated with military authorities or organizations, understood as distinct formations or systems of meaning and codification. Instead, the Nazi Party (NSDAP) created new organizations and codifications of a pseudo-military kind, a form of simulacrum and replacement of the ordinary armed forces (Arendt 2004: 487). Totalitarian movements borrow traits from military dictatorships, but they are essentially different. The latter are hierarchical, law-governed formations but this type of organization is a threat to totalitarian regimes (Arendt 2004: 478, 485). Finally, totalitarian states engage in uninterrupted war against their own populations. Mass killings, imprisonment, plunder, and terror are central to their raison d’être and dynamics (Snyder 2011). This ethos dissolves the distinction between peace and war, both temporally (the war is eternal) and spatially (war takes place on the inside as well as on the outside of the polity) (Arendt 2004: 413). Even the categories of combatants vs victims are dissolved in totalitarian regimes because of the recurrent purges ensuring that yesterday’s executioners will be tomorrow’s victims. The Nazi regime instrumentalized religion in many ways and the new oath of loyalty exemplified this practice. From 1934 onwards, the Reichswehr (later Wehrmacht) swore the following oath: I swear by God this holy oath, that I owe unconditional obedience (Gehorsam) to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, the supreme commander of the Wehrmacht, and that as a brave soldier I am at all times (jederzeit) ready to risk my life for this oath. (Lange 2002: 118, Haldén’s translation) In clear contrast to the aforementioned Prussian oath is the brevity of the new oath. It contains only four elements: I, God, the Führer, and an elusive reference to bravery. The earlier oath stressed service and outlined a number of specific conditions but the Nazi oath only states “unconditional obedience”. If the Imperial oath had been a contract, then the Nazi oath was a blank cheque for any future initiatives of the Führer. An interesting detail is that although the oath

174

P. Haldén

begins with a reference to the Lord it does not close with it. Instead, the central aspect towards the end is the word jederzeit (at all times) abolishing any distinctions between peacetime and wartime and being open towards an indefinite future. In addition, the words “unconditional obedience” were stronger than the phrase “serve . . . honestly and loyally”. The end of the oath was not bounded by God but led to the potential death of the individual. The oath taken by the SS was even more explicit and more clearly directed towards the death of the swearer: I swear to thee, Adolf Hitler, as Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich loyalty and bravery. We promise you and your appointed commanders obedience (Gehorsam) unto death. So help us God. (Lange 2002: 138, Haldén’s translation) Curiously, it ended with a reference to God; this, however, serves more as an affirmation of the direction towards death than anything else. It is also noteworthy that an SS soldier did not swear upon God, but only called upon him for assistance. The importance of the oath taken by the Wehrmacht is well-attested by the fact that even though aversion towards the Nazi leadership grew during the war, soldiers considered themselves bound by their oath. Long after the war, Count Stauffenberg and the other participants in the plot to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944 were considered controversial figures because they were oathbreakers. The potency of archaic rituals in the middle of the twentieth century, the effects of which transcend somewhat similar magical thinking, cast serious doubts over any theories of secularization or, as Weber says, “disenchantment”, doubts that need to be taken very seriously in any sociological enterprise. The Federal Republic of Germany 1949–present: nested systems and soft transformations After 1945 German society had to be rebuilt. Recreating a boundary between the sphere of peace and the sphere of war was necessary in order to recreate a civilian society operating according to its own codifications. The Cold War prompted German rearmament. Germany’s former adversaries, now partners, viewed this with suspicion. A necessary but insufficient precondition was NATO integration. However, integration was not sufficient. Instead, a new army had to be created organizationally and socially: the Bundeswehr. For the new German republic it was paramount to ensure the legitimacy of the armed forces and that they remained bound by the democratic constitution. Legitimation was crucial for domestic and international support. The new republic’s elements were a break with the Imperial and Nazi past, creating a boundary between peace and war and involving civilian control of the armed forces, an army that would not be prone to commit atrocities. Throughout its history the reorganization of the German armed forces as well as the emphasis on integration into society and the loosening of

From total to minimal transformation 175 military codifications have been very controversial. In addition, research has demonstrated that all the precepts of innere Führung have not always been implemented or internalized (Groß 2008: 7–25). What follows is not so much a comprehensive history but an analysis of the construction of a normative division of systems. Political–legal system Unlike in Imperial Germany, the sphere of war is more closely tied to the political system of the FRG. The Constitution contains several restrictions on the armed forces and their use. They must only be used for national defence, a provision that has been expanded since Germany participated in the intervention in Kosovo in 1999. For example, parliament has to agree to international missions (Deutscher Bundestag 2005). Actions intended to disrupt international peace, however, in particular wars of aggression, are unconstitutional (Deutscher Bundestag 1949). The armed forces are under the control of parliament and covered by the Federal budget (Deutscher Bundestag 1949: 87a). German penal law is applicable to servicemen on an international mission (Federal Republic of Germany 1957: §1a). Unlike the separation of politics and war that became dominant in the Imperial era, the official conceptualization of war according to the FRG emphasizes the interaction between politics and war, “the capability to act on security matters requires a successful interchange between politics, society, and the military. The mission and tasks of the Bundeswehr must therefore be integrated in a comprehensive political concept” (Federal Ministry of Defence 2006: 60). Innere Führung The response to these problems was the doctrine that would become known as innere Führung, roughly translatable as “internal leadership”. Innere (internal) has a double meaning in this doctrine. On the one hand it refers to procedures of personnel management, command, and control internal to the Bundeswehr. On the other, it refers to (psychic) procedures that are internal to the individual soldier: processes that will guide his observations, codifications, and actions. Jürgen Groß claims that the doctrine of innere Führung entails the complete dissolution of the distinction between “the traditional opposition between the military and its socio-political environment (Umfeld)” (Gross 2008: 7). I would argue that this is a misunderstanding. Innere Führung and the new position of the Bundeswehr in its systemic milieu represent an attempt to resurrect the boundary between peace and war systems that crumbled during the Second World War. However, boundaries do not have to mean closed systems. Rather, we are looking at the creation of two closely coupled systems of which one – the war system – is principally open vis-à-vis the peace system. This means that civilian institutions should control the military ones and that codes from the peace system should operate both on an institutional level and on the level of

176

P. Haldén

individual human beings in the war system. Indeed, the war system is nested in the peace system. A very important concern of the architects of the new systemic milieu that is the FRG is to maintain the boundaries between peace and war in order to insulate the peace system from any backlash and also the infiltration of codes from the war system. The purpose of the innere Führung is to: (1) legitimate service in the armed forces; (2) to maintain and promote the embedding of the Bundeswehr in the state and society; (3) to motivate the troops; and (4) to mould the internal order of the armed forces in accordance with the legal sphere (Rechtsordnung) (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008: 8) From these four precepts follows a very clear conception of the armed forces as a principally open system, nested in other systems (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008: 9). As defined by the Joint Service Regulation (Zentrale Dienstvorschrift (ZDv)), the innere Führung encompasses the “geistige und sittliche Grundlage der Streitkräfte” (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008: 4). The English language version renders this as the “intellectual and moral foundation of the armed forces”. However, the German words Geist and Sitte have other, more metaphysical connotations than the English terms chosen for the authoritative translation. Geist means “mind”, “spirit”, or “intellect”. In this sense the term has transcendental uses such as Der Heilige Geist (the Holy Spirit). So, in this sense, innere Führung and its precepts are the nature and spiritual essence of the Bundeswehr. The ZDv states that “The values and norms of the constitution are realised by servicemen that ‘follow and embody’ the precepts of the Innere Führung” (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008: 8). Hence, if we read the structure outlined in the Constitution and the ZDv literally then it looks something like this: the Constitution is the fundament of German order, and the innere Führung is the spiritual essence of the armed forces (Streitkräfte) and its living performance realizes the values of the Constitution in the army. Conscience as a system The authority of commanders to issue orders and the duty of soldiers to obey them is circumscribed in several ways. The ZDv emphasizes that obedience and fulfilment of duties are to be directed by conscience (gewissensgeleiteten Gehorsam) (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008: 8). As soldiers, servicemen of the Bundeswehr are bound by a chain of duties of obedience: First, they are bound to serve the FRG. Second, they must obey their officers. Third – and crucially – the duties to obey superior officers are circumscribed and made conditional upon the conscience of the individual soldier. Thus, the level of military command is conditioned from above by the civilian constitution and from below (or within) by the psychic and moral system of the individual. According to the Joint Service Regulation: “Ignoring an order that violates human dignity, that was not given for service-related purposes (Section 11(1) SG), or the observance of which would be unacceptable is not disobedience” (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008). Furthermore, it states that a soldier must not follow orders that would entail committing a crime.

From total to minimal transformation 177 While the embedding of jurisdiction pertaining to the armed forces within the civilian legal and political systems is a pronounced and central part of innere Führung, we must also note the strong emphasis on the conscience of soldiers: something that is cultivated as a separate sphere/system of moral values and that is to be insulated from the risk of a purely military or inhumanitarian system of codifications but constantly in communication with the values of the Constitution – e.g. the Holy Scripture of the FRG. We noted above that controlling conscience has been a form of governmentality and state control since the sixteenth century and that it was used extensively in the Imperial and Nazi armies. The FRG also exercises a form of governmentality over the conscience of its soldiers, but in a more complex way. The Joint Service Regulation emphasizes the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of conscience: “Freedom of conscience . . . guarantees that the state does not have the right to force an individual to commit acts that violate ethical standards of good and evil” (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008: annex 2/1). The German original contains a small but significant difference: “Die Gewissensfreiheit . . . garantiert, dass der Staat grundsätzlich niemanden zwingen darf, die gegen eigene ethische Maßstäbe von Gut und Böse verstoßen” (my italics). This version explicitly states that it is the individual’s ethical standards that are relevant (one’s own (eigene)). The Joint Service Regulation also contains what must be considered a prescriptive catalogue of the virtues of the soldiers of the Bundeswehr. They should be “brave, loyal and conscientious, comradely and considerate, disciplined, competent and willing to learn, truthful to themselves and to others, fair, tolerant and open to other cultures and able to distinguish right from wrong conduct” (Federal Ministry of Defence 2008: 10). Official documents state that the conscience of the servicemen must be kept intact and connected to the sphere of the peace/political system, which is embodied by the Constitution (Reeb and Többicke 1991). This is not the whole truth, however, since the conscience of the individual is not left to its own devices. Instead, it is to be moulded and cultivated in a specific direction, namely conformity with the values of the Constitution. The cultivation of conscience takes place first through schooling and second through education according to the principles and practices of innere Führung. In this respect we find a remarkable structural parallel to the conceptualization of conscience in Roman Catholic thought: conscience is not an autonomous internal judge but rather a skill that needs to be cultivated, trained, and exercised. Although an individual is supposed to be left in peace to follow his/her own conscience this conscience must nevertheless be moulded into harmony with Catholic doctrine. In this way conscience becomes the willing internalization of doctrine (Langston 2001). Transformations into warriors The architects of the Bundeswehr originally wanted to forego an oath of loyalty as far as the new army was concerned. However, the strength of this old convention asserted itself and in 1956 an oath of duty (Diensteid) was instituted:

178

P. Haldén I swear to loyally serve the Federal Republic of Germany and bravely to defend the right and the freedom of the German people, so help me God. (Lange 2002: 219, Haldén’s translation)

The modern version follows the trend of shorter and shorter oaths of allegiance with a decreasing number of elements and clauses. Interestingly, and perhaps provokingly, the person that swears this oath gives the state a potentially more open mandate than the soldiers who swore the old Prussian oath gave to their monarch. Naturally, there are many elements outside the oath that bind decisionmakers in the FRG in ways that their Imperial predecessors were not bound. However, if we restrict our analysis to the oath itself and take it seriously, it could be argued that it leaves less room for interpretation, negotiation, and manoeuvre than the one from the Imperial era. The objects of the oath here are the polity, not its leaders, and the right and freedom of its inhabitants. The latter is a slightly veiled reference to the FRG’s constitution: the oath-giver’s conscience is anchored here. The last reference “so help me God” is voluntary and may be omitted. Either we could interpret this as recognition that personal belief in God is no longer deemed important or as the opposite: personal belief is important but the state’s right to bind people’s conscience has been curtailed. The FRG’s constitution provides provisions for the individual’s freedom of conscience, thus insulating the psychic systems of the inhabitants even from the political system. It is conceivable that not only the atheist would want to omit the reference to God, but also believers who did not wish to be bound. The importance of the oath in German culture even after 1945 is demonstrated by the fact that until 1969, perjury (Meineid) – the act of breaking your oath to be truthful in a court of law – meant that you lost several of your citizen’s rights (bürgerliche Ehrenrechte), even the right to vote. Thus, until the abolition of this law oath-breakers were expelled from the political community. This provision tied acts done in the name of one’s individual conscience to the political system, thus conscience was clearly not closed against its environment. After 1969, however, violations of one’s own conscience were deemed personal issues. In other words, the conscience of an individual finally became sealed off against attempts to exercise control and governmentality. It seems that Paolo Prodi’s idea that political oaths have declined in modernity is indeed correct but it took place slightly later and more slowly than he imagined (Agamben and Kotsko 2011).

Conclusions In this chapter, I have discussed different modes of making the distinction between spheres of peace and spheres of war – and the different kinds of warrior transformations associated with them. Other chapters in this book illustrate even more examples. The German war system had very different structural couplings with other systems in its environment in the Imperial period than in the democratic period. In the Imperial period we saw that the connection to the social

From total to minimal transformation 179 system (society) was ambiguous: On the one hand, the organizational system of the military was closed off against other social formations. On the other hand, codifications from the military seeped into other social systems, e.g. the valourization of the military, obedience, and discipline. The military’s position vis-à-vis the political system was that both were closed systems: The armed forces were not under direct civilian control but insulated from its influence. In the democratic period, after 1949–1955, the war system was simultaneously more closed and more nested with other systems in its environment. Post-war German society was far more pacifist and civilianized than its Imperial counterpart, which made the difference between the peace and war systems greater. In relation to the social system the military/war system was more closed. This might have made the transition over the boundary greater in democratic than in Imperial Germany. However, the doctrine of innere Führung serves (or is intended to serve) as a boundary-spanning mechanism. One of its precepts is to preserve the integrity of the psychic system of the individual recruits. Thus, the Bundeswehr might be further away from society as a whole but it is also more consciously nested in it. This chapter has dealt with the oath as a social practice. It is a very old, even ancient practice, but despite its antiquity we also see it in medieval, early modern, and modern societies. Hence the oath can be seen as a rare bridge between the archaic and the modern. An oath is not a ritual in itself but it often takes place within a ritual or ritualized setting. The core of the oath is that one or more deities act both as witnesses and as guardians of a relation that involves mutual or one-sided obligations. The central aspect and most distinguishing feature is that the person taking the oath offers his or her soul, explicitly or implicitly, as a hostage that will be claimed if the obligations are not fulfilled. Oaths have been used as powerful tools to rule and bind subjects since at least the Hittite empire (c. sixteenth–thirteenth century bc). By assuming command over not just a subject’s body or worldly existence but also his/her future otherworldy existence and inner life, manifested in his/her conscience, the person or institution to whom the oath is sworn exercises considerable power, but also outsources some of the effort of ensuring compliance since the person swearing the oath is assumed to exercise considerable self-monitoring and self-discipline as his/her conscience is activated. In terms of systems theory, the psychic system of the individual becomes nested in and subject to an organizational system. However, oaths are not only tools of zero-sum, distributional power but also a means of creating collective power (Haldén 2014). As Hannah Arendt emphasizes, power is not only about coercing other people, but also about acting in concert. Because of their cohesion, oath-sworn groups attain more power collectively. Oaths have been important for military organizations because the actions that are required of human beings in wartime are so difficult to carry out. Furthermore, there is such great internal pressure to leave the sphere of war as a distinct sphere of human subjectivity and action that human beings have to be bound to their gods, their consciences, and to their immediate primary groups in order to prevent them from slipping away into their peacetime selves: beings that find killing and dying very difficult.

180

P. Haldén

The diachronic investigation of the development of oaths of allegiance in the German armies demonstrated that, as the period progressed, oaths became shorter and contained fewer elements; they were understood as entities or sets of rules that the individual had to obey or serve. Interestingly, the oath of the Prussian contingent in the Imperial army contained a large number of elements, which at first sight might seem to have bound the individual more closely. On careful examination, the more detailed oath also limited the demands of the military organization system upon the individual, partly by being more specific, partly by allowing – theoretically – an individual to balance different demands against each other. By contrast, the much shorter oaths of the Nazi regime as well as the democratic period contain fewer elements and are more open in their demands on the individual. It is well known how the oath of allegiance of the Nazi period acted as a blank cheque for the Nazi regime. By contrast, the military organizational system of the Federal Republic is much more circumscribed by a pluralistic institutional context than its predecessor which would seem to reduce the risk of a German government attempting to use its extensive oath of allegiance (and succeed in doing so) to limit the rights and liberties of its soldiers. In the case of the FRG, we saw a great emphasis on the integrity of the conscience of the individual serviceman as a means of restricting the freedom of the military organizational system. However, the emphasis on maintaining the integrity of the conscience must also be seen in the light of the fact that the management doctrine of innere Führung stresses the continued moral education of German servicemen: in other words, the directed cultivation and moulding of individuals towards certain values. Thus, even in a democratic setting, the conscience of individuals remains an important object of the efforts of the state to exercise governance.

References Agamben, Giorgio and Kotsko, Adam (2011). The sacrament of language: an archaeology of the oath. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Åkerstrøm Andersen, Niels (2012). “To promise a promise. When contractors desire a life-long partnership” in Åkerstrøm Andersen, Niels and Sand, Inger-Johanne (eds), Hybrid forms of governance: self-suspension of power. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 204–31. Althoff, Gerd (2004). Family, friends and followers: political and social bonds in medieval Europe. (New York: Cambridge University Press). Angstrom, Jan and Widén, Jerker (2015). Contemporary military theory: the dynamics of war. (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge). Arendt, Hannah (2004). The origins of totalitarianism. (New York: Shocken Books). Austin, John Langshaw and Urmson J. O. (1962). How to do things with words. The William James Lectures. (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Bell, Catherine M. (1997). Ritual: perspectives and dimensions. (New York: Oxford University Press). Buzan, Barry and Little, Richard, (2000). International systems in world history : remaking the study of international relations. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

From total to minimal transformation 181 Buzan, Barry and Mathias, Albert (2010). “Differentiation: A sociological approach to international relations theory”. European Journal of International Relations, 16(3): 315–37. Clark, Christopher M. (2007). Iron kingdom: the rise and downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947. (Penguin: London). Clemente, Steven E. (1992). For king and Kaiser!: the making of the Prussian army officer, 1860–1914. (New York: Greenwood). Deutscher Bundestag (1949). Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, available at www.bundestag.de/grundgesetz [last accessed 15 November 2015]. Deutscher Bundestag (2005). Gesetz über die parlamentarische Beteiligung bei der Entscheidung über den Einsatz bewaffneter Streitkräfte im Ausland. 18.03.2005 (BGBl. I S 775), available at www.gesetze-im-internet.de/parlbg/ [last accessed 15 November 2015]. Deutsches Reich (1871). “Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches”. Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt, 16: 63–85, available at https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Verfassung_des_ Deutschen_Reiches_(1871) [last accessed 18 November 2014]. Deutsches Reich (1872). “Militär-Strafgesetz Buch für Das Deutsche Reich”. Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt, 18: 174–204, available at https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/MilitärStrafgesetzbuch_für_das_Deutsche_Reich [last accessed 15 November 2015]. Deutsches Reich (1874). “Reichs-Militärgesetz” Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt, 15: 45–64, 2 May 1874, available at http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Reichs-Militärgesetz [last accessed 18 November 2014]. Elias, Norbert (1996). The Germans: power struggles and the development of habitus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (Oxford: Polity Press). Elias, Norbert (2012). What is sociology? (Dublin: University College Dublin Press). Federal Ministry of Defence (2006). White Paper on German security policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr, available at www.cfr.org/germany/white-paper-germansecurity-policy-future-bundeswehr-2006/p11877 [last accessed 15 November 2015]. Federal Ministry of Defence (2008) Zentrale Dientsvorschrift (ZDv) Innere Führung. Selbstverständnis und Führungskultur, available at www.kommando.streitkraeftebasis.de/ portal/a/kdoskb/!ut/p/c4/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP3I5EyrpHK94uyk-Oy UfL3y1MySlOKS4hK9qsy8tNJUvZT88ryc_MQU_YJsR0UAIaAfPw!!/ [last accessed 15 November 2015]. Federal Republic of Germany (1957). Wehrstrafgesetz (WStG), available at www. gesetze-im-internet.de/wstrg/BJNR002980957.html [last accessed 15 November 2015]. Groß, Jürgen (2008). “Einführung” in Bald, Detlef, Fröhling, Hans-Günter, Groß, Jürgen and von Rosen, Claus Freiherr (eds), Zurückgestutzt, sinnentleert, unverstanden: die innere Führung des Bundeswehr. (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag), pp. 7–25. Haldén, Peter (2013). “Fundamental but not eternal: the public–private distinction, from normative projects to cognitive grid in Western political thought”. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 24(2): 211–23. Haldén, Peter (2014). “Reconceptualizing state formation as collective power: representation in electoral monarchies”. Journal of Political Power, 7(1): 127–47. Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute destruction: military culture and the practices of war in Imperial Germany. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Kant, Immanuel (1996). The metaphysics of morals. (New York: Cambridge University Press). Koselleck, Reinhardt (2004). “Historia magistra vitae. The dissolution of the topos into the perspective of a modernized historical process” in Koselleck, Reinhardt, Futures past. On the semantics of historical time. (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 26–43.

182

P. Haldén

Lange, Sven (2002). Der Fahneneid. Die Geschichte der Schwurverplichtung im deutschen Militär. (Bremen: Edition Temmen). Langston, Douglas C. (2001). Conscience and other virtues. From Bonaventure to Macintyre. (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press). Luhmann, Niklas (1995). Social systems. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Luhmann, Niklas (1997). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Luhmann, Niklas (2013). Introduction to systems theory. (Cambridge: Polity Press). Malešević, Siniša (2010). The sociology of war and violence. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Mann, Michael (1993). The sources of social power. Vol. 2: the rise of classes and nation-states, 1760–1914. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Oettinger, Norbert (1976). Die militärischen Eide der Hethiter. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Palmgren, Anders (2014). “On interpretation. Clausewitz in German strategic thought from Sedan towards Verdun”. Paper prepared for the British International Studies Association annual conference 2011 held in Manchester on 28 April 2011. Revised 28 January 2014. Reeb, Hans-Joachim and Többicke, Peter (1991). Innere Führung von A–Z. Lexikon für militärische Führer. (Regensburg: Walhalla). Scott, W. Richard (2003). Organizations: rational, natural and open systems. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall). Snyder, Timothy (2011). Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. (Vintage: London). Smith, David Raymond (2008). Hand this man over to Satan: curse, exclusion, and salvation in 1 Corinthians 5. (London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd). Stolleis, Michael (1992). Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland. Band 2, Staatsrechtslehre und Verwaltungswissenschaft: 1800–1914. (München: Beck). Turner, Victor (1969). The ritual process. Structure and anti-structure. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Twellmann, Marcus (2010). “Ueber die Eide”. Zucht und Kritik in Preussen der Aufklärung. (Konstanz: Konstanz University Press). van Gennep, Arnold (1909). The rites of pasage. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). Weber, Max (1968). Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology. Vol. 1. (New York: Bedminster Press). Zweig, Stefan (1970). Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers. (Frankfurt: Fischer).

11 The warrior on the edge of tomorrow Christopher Coker

Introduction Warriors come in all shapes these days. Cyber warriors are only just coming into their own; cubicle warriors (drone pilots) have been part of the landscape for some time, dealing out death thousands of miles away from air-conditioned cabins but suffering rates of post-traumatic stress equal to those of the other services. But the human space of war is shrinking. In the words of one writer we may come to see tactical warfare as the business of machines; direct human participation in battle may become rare (Adams 2002: 9). Close-order combat, writes one military historian, is no longer the lingua franca of battle (Stephenson 2013: 7). The poet Shelley wrote of warriors “hugging danger” but, these days, distance and even dissociation are features of conflict for many soldiers, although special forces and the infantry still deal in physical immediacy. Warriors will still be with us in 20 years’ time but they won’t look very familiar. It is their future which is the subject of this chapter. I begin with an outstanding work of science fiction for a good reason: to quote Italo Calvino, sci-fi “offers knowledge of the unknowable on the point of being known”.

Scenes from a history as yet unwritten The year is 1997 and Earth is at war with a faraway alien race called the Taurans. The ‘best and brightest’ have been drafted into the United Nations Exploratory Force (UNEF ). One of them is William Mandela, a physics student with an IQ of 150. His training is gruelling and potentially fatal, thanks to accidents in hostile environments and the use of live weapons in training. The soldiers are then despatched through wormhole-like phenomena called ‘collapses’ or ‘black holes’ that allow warships to cover thousands of light years in a split second. As a result of time dilation, they discover a two-year tour of duty has put them several decades distant from people back on Earth. Like another bestseller, Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1960), the novel, so the author wrote in a recent foreword to the book, is mainly about war, about soldiers, and about the reasons we think we still need them. Like many others Americans, Haldeman was drafted to fight in Vietnam and The Forever

184

C. Coker

War is a clear attempt to come to terms with that experience, even if it is set light years away, literally and figuratively. Subtract the letter ‘h’ and Mandela is a near anagram of the author’s own name. And Mandela can’t escape the problem for many Vietnam veterans returning home – a country that no longer recognizes their service. The point about science fiction, writes Adam Roberts, one of the most celebrated writers in the genre, is that metaphor is at its heart; it seeks to represent our world without reproducing it. And the metaphors invoked by the Vietnam War are many. In Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978) war is represented as a game of Russian roulette. In Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), it is represented as a bad trip, at the risk of reducing it to a counter-cultural indulgence. In Haldeman’s case, science fiction allows him to articulate one of the oldest tropes of war literature from the time of the Odyssey: a soldier who finds that he has been profoundly transformed in the theatre of war (see Haldeman 1999, introduction by Roberts). Just because a veteran presents himself in person does not mean that the hero has come home. Mandela’s experience refutes the old anthropological saw that nothing human can be alien to humankind. By the end of the book humankind has become entirely alien to him. The best of the sci-fi writers, such as Isaac Asimov and Stanislaw Lem, try to take the measure of the times in which they live. And in The Forever War Haldeman did precisely that: he tapped into the trends he found most interesting. One was the arrival of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF ) in 1972 that made the citizen–militia model of military service anachronistic. Women were also being recruited for the first time, due to the fact that there weren’t enough male volunteers. Culturally, feminism and gay rights were coming to the fore. Science was changing the contours of the human body. The first face-lifts were seen in the 1970s. In the realm of technology, the silicon chip was becoming ubiquitous, as were bar codes, floppy disks, and liquid crystal displays. The first test tube baby was born. All these trends appear in the novel. But Haldeman also tapped into a trend that ran out of steam. The year 1972 saw the last manned spacecraft to the moon. It was not the great game changer everyone thought at the time; it was not the steam engine or the microprocessor. And Haldeman ignored several other trends entirely, such as the launch of the environmental movement: politics were beginning to go ‘green’. The trends that he did identify, however, are well worth discussing. In Haldeman’s future the military recruits both men and women with IQs of over 150. And they screen recruits for attributes they wish to develop or repress. Psych-evaluations go back to the 1920s, but in Haldeman’s world they are foolproof. Tate was chemistry. He could crank out a perfect score on the Rhine Extra Sensory Perception Test every time. Bohrs was a polyglot, able to speak 21 languages fluently, idiomatically. Petrov’s talent was that he had tested out to have not one molecule of xenophobia in his psyche. (Haldeman 1999)

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 185 But in The Forever War the intelligence is also collective; soldiers are wired in. They have been implanted with pseudo-memories, vivid pictures of an enemy, who at this stage no-one has actually seen, carrying out atrocities against distant colonists. Tapping into our more primal urges, favouring the in-group over the out, they cultivate human aggression in two senses of the word: they bring it out and enhance it at the same time. Haldeman suggests that the scientists don’t have to tap down very far. If the moral forces of war, as Clausewitz called them, especially courage and hatred, still remain part of war, the hatred is now primed technologically through implanted memories. The aim, of course, is not to bypass rationality altogether, but to get the soldiers to think sub-rationally, to make them, in effect, robotic. Back in the 20th century they had established to everybody’s satisfaction that “I was just following orders” was an inadequate excuse for inhuman conduct . . . but what can you do when the orders come from deep down in the puppet master of the unconscious? (Haldeman 1999) At one point, Mandela reflects on what the military has made him. The Elite Conscription Act has taken a peace-loving, vacuum cleaner-wielding specialistcum-physics teacher, and reprogrammed him into a killing machine. In the novel, the process is called “motivational conditioning”. In this cybernetic world man and machine have finally fused. Mandela learns everything he needs to know, not in a classroom but through what he calls feedback kinesthesis (a form of cybernetics). “I felt the weapon in my hand and watched my performance with it. And did it over and over until I did it right.” He is part of an interactive training system that wires him in with everyone else. For the Google gurus Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen the future is connectivity. It will make organizations and people more efficient and more innovative (Schmidt and Cohen 2013). Both of these are big assumptions. Efficiency does not always translate into effectiveness (it may not make war any more useful or more decisive as an instrument of policy). And if we become more innovative we will not necessarily be more imaginative or intelligent. But that is the direction in which we are certainly heading. Many works on future war look to a time (not that far off ) when soldiers will be wired into a cybernetic system that can monitor not only their heart rates and brain patterns but even their emotions and, by association, their thoughts. All this is consistent with the belief of many neurologists that there is nothing more to life than behaviour which can be moderated externally. In other words, there is nothing behind a solder other than behavioural impulses and urges; there is no moral hinterland, or social context worth investigating. It is a view that fits perfectly with our increasingly materialist view of humanity. “Could a machine think,” asks the philosopher John Searle. “The answer is obviously, yes. We are precisely such machines” (Midgley 2010: 23). Let us take another trend. In Haldeman’s world it is the silicon- rather than carbon-based machines that make the tough calls on the basis of mathematical

186

C. Coker

calculations of success and failure. A computer will throw away a battle in order to win a campaign if it comes up with the right calculations. Computers even calculate the odds of survival: a 62 per cent chance of success if an attack goes ahead, with only a 30 per cent chance of surviving a mission. Computers were only just beginning to make their mark in 1974 – they had been around of course since the 1940s and been used by the military and business a decade later, but they had largely made little impression on the public. It was the government departments and often publicly funded corporations and research labs that allowed for the breakthrough which created our digital world. Only institutions such as the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), Bell Labs, and IBM had the staying power to lay the foundation stones of the revolution that we now take for granted. Even Bill Gates benefited from using Harvard’s military-supplied computer to create his BASIC software (Isaacson 2014). Where Haldeman erred was where so many trend analysts do – they frequently take trends to their illogical conclusion. Take gay rights and feminism. At first, in Haldeman’s book, men and woman make up equal numbers in the war of the future. Sex is not only allowed but encouraged; men and woman are even allotted sleeping rosters. Later, active homosexuality is encouraged by the state in a desperate effort to reduce overpopulation on Earth. Heterosexuality is even seen as an emotional deficit in the armed forces as men once again outnumber women. “Only emotionally stable people are drafted into (the military). I know this is hard for you to accept, but heterosexuality is considered an ‘emotional dysfunction relatively easy to cure’ ” (Haldeman 1999). Haldeman has come to regret what many took at the time (and some still do) to be his homophobia; he confesses he was expressing his prejudices, not exploring them. But, prejudice too has a place in science fiction – it often throws into stark relief the sexual pre-occupations of the day. In short, we must use trend analysis with caution. Trends, as Watson and Freeman remind us, are retrospective, not futuristic (Watson and Freeman 2012: 3). They are unfolding events or dispositions that we trace back to the point of initiation. They tell us nothing about the direction, or velocity of future events. They also encourage us to take our eye off counter-trends or outliers, or wild cards that always catch us out. And even counter-trends do not help much. The world is not binary. It is not one thing or another. Past and future live side by side. Ultimately, of course, Haldeman was writing a work of science fiction. Aliens attack human outposts in distant parts of the galaxy and have to be fought off. But it is interesting that drones do most of the reconnaissance and later most of the targeting. And it is the drones (now autonomous) who ultimately end the war by finally making contact with the enemy. Operating on a quite different level of consciousness, they discover that they are not the aggressive species humanity had imagined. The war, in short, has been a tragic mistake from the very beginning, a typical (and very human) example of cognitive dissonance. It was Stanislaw Lem who admitted that “nothing ages as fast as the future”. Nevertheless, sometimes it is only a matter of waiting for it to catch up. Haldeman’s novel received a renewed lease of life after 9/11; The Forever War

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 187 seemed to anticipate the Global War on Terror. Like the Taurans, the terrorists were only vaguely understood, and were more often the subject of cartoon representations than detailed analysis. In Haldeman’s novel, the world economy is geared to the war; if the war ended the world would collapse. At times it seemed that the United States, too, was geared to fighting a permanent struggle against terrorism that required a war economy: it has already spent between $5–6 trillion. Even as a trope, the Taurans as an insect species found an echo in the drone operations in the skies of Afghanistan. ‘Bug splat’ is the military slang among drone pilots for a successful strike which literally ‘vaporizes’ a terrorist target. Why dwell so long on one book? Because I think Haldeman’s novel does what the best of sci-fi should do; it uncovers possibilities that have yet to be realized and it shows us tomorrow’s Western warriors close up. Mandela is one of the best. Some of the possibilities open to future warriors are unlikely to develop very far or fast; others may vanish like the vapour trail of a drone. A few will flourish. In awakening us to the possibilities of the present, sci-fi permits us to experience the future long before we reach it. And in The Forever War Haldeman really did strike lucky. His laser weapons (a stock trope of sci-fi since the death rays of Wells’ 1898 book, War of the Worlds) are now reconfigured as solid-state laser weapons. The United States navy deployed its very first in the Persian Gulf in early 2014. Even his vision of soldiers ‘re-engineered’ after being wounded may be about to be realized. A wave of technologies aimed at reengineering the human body are making their way towards the clinic – from 3-D printed bones and cartilage to genetically reprogrammed immune cells and synthetic liver tissue. In 2016 artificial blood made from human stem cells will be tested for the first time, opening the way for the manufacture of blood on an industrial scale.1 And then there are his powered armour and fighting suits. In 1961 – two years before the fictional Iron Man appeared in the Marvel comic – the Pentagon invited proposals for a ‘servo-soldier’ (i.e. a human tank equipped with power steering and power brakes). One was invented a few years later by a Cornell University engineer. The problem from the first was technical. Computers were too slow to do the processing required to make a suit respond to a wearer’s command and the energy supply was not easily portable. In addition, electromechanical muscles that would power the exoskeleton were found to be just too weak. But everything has changed. A Japanese company called Cyberdyme has developed HAL-5, which instead of relying on a human operator’s muscle contractions to move the limbs, incorporates sensors that can pick up messages sent from the operator’s brain. Theoretically, at least, an exoskeleton based on the HAL-5 concept would enable a user to do whatever he or she wanted without moving a muscle. And even liquid body armour made from magneto-heliological (MR) fluid is on the horizon. The fluid transforms from a liquid to a solid in just a matter of milliseconds when a magnetic field or electrical current is applied to it. The current causes the iron particles to lock into a uniform polarity and stick on top of each other, creating an impenetrable shield. Once the charge, or magnetic

188

C. Coker

field, is removed, the particles unlock and the substance goes back to a fluid state. The United States military expects to have such armour available within 15 years.2 Haldeman’s novel is popular with today’s soldiers, many of whom have begun to glimpse the way in which war is changing; they can see through a portal to the other side even if they are unable to enter it. For the most striking aspect of The Forever War is that it shows us how war continues to evolve. We don’t tend to use the word ‘evolution’ very much these days. Even biologists prefer to use synonyms like ‘accelerated’, ‘changed’, ‘become’, ‘developed’, and ‘overcome’. And we use the same words to describe how the character of war continually changes: we talk about it ‘accelerating’ scientific advances or ‘changing’ society in new and unexpected ways, and historians prefer to describe how societies ‘overcome’ problems and ‘come up’ with new solutions. The point about evolution is that adapted diversification offers a range of possibilities to be explored. In the case of war it involves reciprocal evolutionary changes or coevolution. Selective social pressures force societies to adapt. Much of the ongoing evolution of our species shows how societies that successfully exploit others usually avoid being exploited themselves. To claim that war ‘evolves’ is not to suggest it does so to any purpose, which is why today’s teleologically averse scientists dislike using the word. But I am suggesting that, like everything else, war has to make itself fit for purpose, or it would not survive as a social practice. And it is continuing to evolve in dimensions hitherto unknown, such as cyberspace, the virtual, or the physical, or what we once called the ‘real’. In his novel Haldeman merely posited warfare with an alien race, but until such time as we encounter a species as intelligent or possibly more intelligent than ourselves, we will continue to prey upon each other.

The digital future Ultimately, Haldeman’s novel works because it taps into the main historical change that will influence the future of war. We know that we are living in new times and indeed that we have crossed a watershed as significant as the Industrial Revolution itself. Today, scholars and pundits claim that we are experiencing the rise of an information society (Castells 1996), a third Industrial Revolution (Rifkin 2011), or perhaps the Second Machine Age (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014). Our future – insofar as it is ‘knowable’ – is digital and that includes the warrior’s future too. Let me quote a lengthy footnote towards the end of the three volume work The Information Age by Manuel Castells (2001: 372): In discussions in my seminars in recent years a recurrent question comes up so often that I think it would be useful to take it to the reader. It is the question of newness. What is new about all this? Why is this a new world? I do believe that there is a new world emerging in this end of the millennium. . . . Chips in computers are new; ubiquitous, mobile telecommunications are

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 189 new. . . . Electronically integrated, global financial markets working in real time are new; . . . The majority of the urban labour force in knowledge and information processing in advanced economies is new. . . . And the emergence of a network society based on a space of flows, and on timeless time, is historically new. He then adds, perhaps surprisingly: “Yet this is not the point I want to make. My main statement is that it does not really matter if you believe that this world, or any of its features, is new or not. My analysis stands by itself. This is our world, the world of the Information Age” (Eriksen 2001: 31). And it marks a major rupture with the past while allowing us to take one step into the future. We are already experiencing what physicists call a ‘phase transition’ (a term first used to describe a change of state in a physical system such as the transformation of a liquid into gas). The concept has since been applied to social transformations such as the change from a hunter-gatherer stage of existence to an agricultural one. One interesting aspect of a phase transition is that it describes a shift to a state seemingly unrelated to the previous one (with the knowledge of water only as a liquid, who could predict it could turn to gas via the application of heat?) Who could have predicted 30 years ago the present we take for granted? Some of us shower in the morning listening to music on waterproof headsets; others communicate on Twitter, or spend their time meeting new friends on Facebook, and de-friending them even faster; yet others text their friends, or spend the whole day emailing them. Our iPhones and MacBook Airs are almost extensions of our bodies and certainly the places where some of us prefer to display our souls. All of us – in the post-industrial world at least – live an online as well as an offline life and, for many, the former is more life-affirming. We also all have a digital identity. It is logged into the databases, both open source and closed. We live in a world of social media sharing, GPS tracking, and cell phone tower triangulation; we live in a world of wireless sensor monitoring, face recognition detecting and browser cookie targeting. We think that through data tracking human happiness can be quantified. We talk of data-driven selfdiscovery. There are no longer any fixed states; the very act of observation – reproducing or tweeting or amplifying some piece of experience – changes the story. “The trajectory of information, the velocity of this knowledge on the network changes the very nature of what is remembered, who remembers it and for how long it remains part of our shared archive” (Brockman 2012: 377). And in a more subtle (and less acknowledged) way the Internet is beginning to change the architecture of human experience that is of vital importance to the warrior, for whom it is above all an existential experience. In the softwaremediated world, writes Jaron Lanier, the worth of all of us is up for grabs. The day that nano-robots perform heart surgery, surgery will become an information service. Human surgeons may still practise their craft, for technology will still rely on data that comes from people, but it is not certain – certainly not yet – that they will be valued as they are now (Lanier 2013: 11). To get this into

190

C. Coker

perspective we should remind ourselves how industrialization also changed the world. Workers became ‘hands’; life became ‘energy’. Productivity became important via the assembly line. One man who grasped this early on was Thomas Carlyle in an essay entitled “The Mechanical Age”. “Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand”, he wrote despairingly. Today we would replace the word ‘mechanical’ with ‘cybernetic’. Until comparatively late in the modern era, and like Matthew Arnold did, we were able to dismiss our inventions such as the printing press as mere externals, or ‘machinery’. Today we know that inventions like the typewriter, the word processor, and even Twitter, change not only the way we think but increasingly what we are encouraged to think. Take the search engines on which we rely to frame our knowledge of the world. They used to alert us to what was important; they now alert us to what is true. If we Google ‘war’ for instance, it will direct us to what it thinks is most relevant or most representative. Of course this is not a value entrepreneur. Search engines are dumb; they do not direct us to what they believe to be the most useful or valuable knowledge. But they do direct us to what are the most visited sites and most valued information sources. In other words, meaning is no longer only in our minds; it is also in the minds of the tools that deliver us information. Meanwhile, we expect not only to be interacting with machines even more than we do already but we are also aware that tomorrow’s machines will be conversing even more with each other. Machine-to-machine communication is already far greater than we suppose. At the present time 61.5 per cent of all web traffic is actually non-human in origin. Another 31 per cent of the traffic is ‘bots’ (web robots), created by search engines exploring the web, and yet another 5 per cent comes from ‘data scrapers’ that travel the internet for information to analyse and store.3 And, meanwhile, the number of continuously Internet-connected devices that communicate with one another (you can buy an Internet-connected light bulb that turns on when your car signals you are home) doubles every five years. Ubiquitous computing will eventually provide a single unbroken interface – a future in which every machine will communicate with every other, and every machine will communicate with us. The point is that we ourselves are becoming habituated to becoming one of the things connected to and through the Internet. And of course with the increase in artificial intelligence, machines in communication with each other may one day make decisions without reference to us at all. Most studies on the future of war focus on technology, of course, but most tend to pass over the fact (if it is ever acknowledged) that the essence of technology, as Heidegger told us (in one of his less gnomic remarks) is not actually technological. Its essence is how it encourages us to perceive the world and our own place in it. It has been a long journey from the discovery of fire to the invention of the drone and we assume the journey will continue. In the course of that journey we have changed, as has war. What will we think about war in 25 years’ time? Will it still be the stuff of heroic stories, or will it have been downsized in the imagination? Will machines eventually divest us of our responsibility, and uproot us from the centre of things?

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 191

Cultural evolution and performance enhancing “I don’t see any end point in evolution. . . . The whole point of evolution is that there is no single end point, there are trajectories in evolution, but they are more like explosions outward, rather than a climb up a ladder or race along a line.”4 Trajectories take us on to dangerous ground, but trends are real enough and one that we can certainly perceive across the whole stretch of history is ever greater complexity. Not that natural selection necessarily favours complex species. A large number of life forms (microbes, for example) have remained the same for millions of years, and some species, such as the tapeworm, have evolved to a greater simplicity, losing important structures such as organs along the way. Indeed, if survival is the only criterion, amoeba is perhaps the best example of a superior species. It has remained virtually unchanged since the very beginning and, since it reproduces by division, its first members are in a sense still there in person today. The supreme survivalists are termites, ants, and sharks that have been around for 300 million years. And none of these have gone on to evolve in a way that would threaten their own existence. Chimpanzees do not have the atomic bomb, or the murderous impulses that owe everything to such specifically human instincts like revenge, especially our ‘quarrels’ for a ‘trifle’, such as honour. Watching an army about to invade Poland, Hamlet is amazed that it should “find quarrel in a straw/where honour’s at the stake”. What distinguishes us from every other hominid species, including the Neanderthals, is that unlike us they failed to be competitive enough; we were the only hominid species to succumb to what the Greeks called pleonexia “wanting more”, the disease of progress. Chimpanzees remain in an evolutionary rut because they have chosen the easy life and have been unable to formulate complex thoughts. And they are less interesting because of it. The reason why we are at the top of the food chain is not because we are survival specialists, but because for us survival is not enough. Cultural evolution illustrates, perhaps more than anything else, the awakening of human faculties (Midgley 2002: 145). We strive to make more of ourselves. We are persistent, cooperative, pugnacious, and acquisitive, not just intelligent. We are more curious about the world and ourselves, and our place in it. This has been a theme of philosophy since the time of Aristotle. In The Ethics the great Dutch thinker de Spinoza (2000) introduced his doctrine of conatus (the Latin word for striving) which is built around the idea that all individual things have an innate inclination to survive by enhancing themselves, and that humans exhibit this tendency more than any other species because of the need to survive into an unknowable and threatening future. It is the knowledge that there is a future that leads to a proactive pursuit of power and the great if often unexpressed fear of finding ourselves unequal to the occasion when we arrive. So, we have spent the span of human history becoming stronger, physically and mentally. We have gone from muscle power to chemical power, and now digital. We have used tools and then technology to extend our range, and the scope of our ambition. Achilles, who would fight for hours on end, would not

192

C. Coker

have survived a minute on the Somme. Our cyber warriors and drone pilots would not have survived half a minute in the presence of Achilles, but they are immeasurably more powerful. It has been estimated that a single jet bomber in ad 2000 had half a million times the killing capacity of a Roman legionary (Morris 2011: 634). Contrast a Roman warrior with one of today’s special force members and see the difference. And the next breakthrough in physical enhancement is already under discussion. In Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein imagines a suit that is all-purpose and takes its orders from the muscles of a soldier. The military wants a suit designed to enhance a soldier’s physical performance. Integrated heaters and coolers will regulate the temperature inside the suit. Embedded sensors will be able to monitor the operator’s core body temperature, heart rate, and hydration levels. “Many of the individual technologies currently under development show real promise to reduce injury and fatigue and improve endurance,” claims Lt. Col. Joseph Hitt, DARPA’s Warrior Web Programme Manager. “Now we are aiming to combine them . . . into a single system that nearly every soldier could wear, and will provide decisive benefits under real-world conditions.” If such a suit could be designed it would leave the mind free to handle the weapons and interact with the environment. As a character remarks in one of Robert Heinlein’s novels “the point of all the arrangements is the same. . . . To leave you free to follow your trade, slaughter.” Heinlein’s exoskeletons are already on the horizon.5 The inspiration: the Iron Man franchise. The initiative: a request from the United States Special Ops Command. The item in question is called the TALOS suit and among the companies involved in the project is Legacy Effects, the Hollywood company that used 3-D printing techniques to build the Iron Man costume. And the purpose? Risk reduction. The United States Special Ops Command does not want to lose another Navy SEAL or Green Beret in combat.6 Muscle power, however, is not the only human faculty to have been enhanced over time. Another is vision. For much of history we relied on what biology had given us: eyesight. We were able to enhance this by insight (inductive reasoning) and foresight (deductive reasoning). Telescopes introduced into warfare in the early seventeenth century not only enabled commanders to see the enemy’s movements more accurately, they also enabled them to second-guess its intentions. Over time our visual perception has ceased to be entirely organic or genebased. We have developed ground glass, hydrated silicon, and fibre optics which allow us to see into space via radar and satellite resolution. We have missile tracking systems, retinal ID scanning technology, and face recognition packages. Timothy Taylor sums it all up: an insect-catching bird may have natural visual acuity 100 times finer than our own, but we can track, catch, tag, trap, and kill birds at will. And we can do this, of course, with human beings (after all, it is what the Department of Homeland Security in the United States does with terrorists) (Taylor 2010: 186). Visit Fort Benning, Georgia, and you will find a programme called Land Warrior. Flip a screen over your eyes and you will see the entire battlefield with

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 193 GPS sensors locating the position of everything and everyone, and with data providing information even about the weather and the tactics that have already been worked out. This will soon be supplemented by Internet contact lenses through which soldiers will be able to download information on everything, a useful prop if you are on patrol in an urban area (Kaku 2011: 25). One advantage of Internet contact lenses is that they use so little power, only a few millionths of a watt. Another is that the ion optic nerve is a direct extension of the human brain, and both transmit information at a rate exceeding that of a high-speed Internet connection. In other words, an Internet contact lens may offer the most efficient and rapid access to the brain that is available to us. And by inserting pattern recognition software we will be able to recognize pre-programmed faces with 90 per cent accuracy. A soldier on patrol in a hostile environment will be able to access all the details of the people he stops and questions – their recent places of residence, their previous convictions. And, of course, the information will be relayed automatically both ways. If he is wearing Internet glasses, what he is watching can be broadcast to the central command. Effectively, commanders will be on patrol with him, sharing the same experiences, seeing the world through his eyes. In addition to all of this there is also ‘augmented reality’. Tomorrow’s soldiers will be able to enter a building and, using specially designed goggles, see through the wall into the next room or through the floor into a basement below them. They will be able to access directly all the information they need: maps, enemy locations, and the direction of enemy fire. The alternative to goggles will be cameras worn around the neck that can beam on to flat surfaces. SixthSense is already one of the gestural interface devices leading the way. It is named after the fact that we use five natural senses to gather information about our world, but the most useful information of all: data, knowledge accumulated collectively over time, is not accessible with our natural senses. In future it will be. We will be able to bring intangible data into the tangible world using hand gestures to read a map, and to zoom in and out. That is the future staring us in the face, and of course in a battle space filled with drones, robots, and remotely piloted vehicles the only soldiers on foot out in the field will be warriors by definition. What we do not have, as yet, is any great insight into the enemy’s thinking, or for that matter our own soldiers’, but we are working on this too.

Data-­flows In a blog in 2012 the scientist Stephen Wolfram, the creator of Mathematica software, suggested that the next revolution would be in ‘personal analytics’. He demonstrated this idea by charting his own life, collating a vast set of data including every email he had sent since 1989 as well as his phone records over the same period. In this way he was able to chart which years were the busiest, and at which time of the day he had sent the most emails. His company has released a relevant app on Facebook, so that people can chart their personal data to see how their contacts interweave and form a network. We are, Wolfram

194

C. Coker

suggests, the sum of our information trails. Our lives have become data sets to be probed, charted and, once collated, analysed for efficiency and saving.7 The idea that we are ‘flows’ of information is the central theme of surveillance studies. It accords with the belief that we are no longer solid objects but are dissolving from flesh and blood into packets of information, creatures of bits and bytes. David Lyon talks of “surveillance assemblages” which capture biometric flows emanating from our bodies now fragmented into bits of data. We are becoming ‘data subjects’. Back in the late 1990s the network theorist Manuel Castells showed that data-flows from individuals were basic to emerging models of organization. They allow institutions such as the military to sort through data and identify patterns of behaviour. Clustering data in new ways allows for more accurate predictive analytics or forecasting, and behavioural profiling. The ‘band of brothers’ has become a data-flow that can be monitored 24 hours a day and as a result managed more successfully There are many in the military who now believe that an army is no longer just an organization, but a living field of information to be ‘harvested’ or ‘mined’. It is worth remembering, nonetheless, that this too has a backstory – we have been networking war from the very beginning. We have been trying to tap into the collective unconscious of the group long before Freud and others identified a collective unconscious. Militaries have always put an emphasis on what is called primary group cohesion. More recently, in an attempt to deal with the biological reality of the fight or flight model, they have tried to programme soldiers in order to train them in discipline and standard operational procedures. It is called reactive learning (downloading habitual ways of thinking). In reactive learning our actions are actually re-enacted habits (what we would later call ‘drills’). We try to improve on what we have always done. But the limitation is just that: it is reactive. And it is not the best way to adapt to a changing environment. Tried and trusted methods, after all, often let us down. Indeed, they tend to reinforce old-world views just at the point when the world is changing. In future we may also be able to augment performance in the field by addressing the chief challenge of war: stress. Indeed, one day we may be able to inoculate soldiers against fear. Emotions, remember, have at least three components: cognitive, physiological, and behavioural. Military training is intended to take out the surprise. A simulation on a computer (and these days most missions are simulated beforehand) is a cognitive preparation for battle. But it has some disturbing side effects – one of them is disorientation when the physical world fails to match up to the reality of the virtual. One of the striking features of the brief Allied bombing of Baghdad in 1998 was the number of pilots who complained they had experienced fear, despite having simulated the mission many times.8 A few years earlier in the streets of Mogadishu a military unit sent to capture a renegade Somali warlord encountered the same challenge – it is the theme of Ridley Scott’s film, Black Hawk Down. When interviewed later, the survivors confessed they thought they had been ‘betrayed’ – they had not simulated for what they encountered. Assailed by thousands of Somalis, many of them high on drugs, they felt let down. “This cannot be real”, was a frequent complaint,

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 195 capturing very well the problem with rehearsing the future before an operation is launched: it can render reality itself ‘unreal’ (Bowden 1995: 345–6). The solution paradoxically may lie with the virtual world. Dark Con (2006) is a VR system that replicates a wartime reconnaissance mission and which has a whole gamut of sensory cues. It is based on our discovery that emotional stimulation triggers long-term memory formation. And a soldier is more likely to master his/her fear when the real test comes if he/she has already experienced it. Way back in 1904 it was found that anxiety could be lessened if training was embodied – experienced at first hand rather than learned in a classroom. At present, the problem with simulation is that you have to unlearn what you have learned before. It is referred to as ‘negative transfer.’ And that was the problem faced by those American soldiers on a dark and stressful night in downtown Mogadishu. In Dark Con the players can hear the sounds of battle and smell the stench of burning rubber. In 20 years’ time a soldier will be able to inhabit an immersive reality system. Can we go further? In The Future of the Mind Michu Kaku reminds us that we are already trying to fit particular thoughts – visualizing the letter ‘A’ for example – with particular patterns and neuron firing detected by a sensor, in the hope of compiling an inventory of correlated thoughts and patterns (Kaku 2014). The intention is wholly laudable; it is intended to help people who have lost the use of their limbs to move prosthetic ones, just by thinking. But if a sensor can deliver our thoughts to a screen so that it can be conveyed to another person, then it should be possible to dispense with that screen altogether and beam the thoughts of one person into the mind of another. And given that DARPA is interested in such research, we can imagine a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) telepathy helmet (a helmet capable of functioning under battle conditions). Here’s how it may work in the coming decades. Inside the helmet, there would be electro-magnetic coils to produce a weak magnetic field, and radio pulses that probed the brain. The raw MRI signals would then be sent to a pocket-size computer placed in your belt. The information would then be radioed to a server located far from the battlefield. The final processing of the data would be done in a super-computer in a distant city. Then the message would be radioed back to your troops on the battlefield. The troops would hear the message either in a microphone or through electrodes placed in the auditory cortex of their brains.9 Kaku’s inspiration for this scenario, he tells us, is an episode of Star Trek. Science fiction really does seem to exert a pull on our thoughts about the future.

Man/machine interface When Jim Jones’ novel The Thin Red Line was first published, Norman Mailer praised it for deliberately not creating a character, but instead showing the psychology of a group of men – a network we would say today. Both men knew

196

C. Coker

what they were writing about: Mailer served as a filing clerk in the Pacific, never seeing the battle he craved for; Jim Jones served as a corporal in a rifle company during the later stages of the pivotal Guadalcanal Island campaign. Jones was interested in soldiers who were moulded into members of a unit and came through whatever conflict they were engaged in. In a sense, he wrote (in a later work), every soldier must make a compact with himself or with fate, and understand that he is lost – only then can he function as he ought to function under fire. “He knows and accepts beforehand that he is dead although he may still be walking around for a while.” Every soldier must lose his personality by submerging himself into a group and accepting the anonymity of death. And in one of his novels the archetypal soldier is First Sergeant Welsh who claims that he has never experienced combat numbness, because “life has already made him numb like that years ago”, and possibly because “combat itself had never gotten quite tough enough to freeze up his particular brand of personality”. All this may be taken from the realm of fiction, but the historical record bears it out. Glen Gray, whose book Warriors (1954) is still the Urtext on what makes some soldiers warriors, claimed that soldiers under stress function like cells in a military organism. Doing what was expected became automatic. “It’s astonishing how much of the business of warfare can be carried out by men who act as automatons, behaving almost as mechanically as the machines they operate” (Holmes 2004: 39). In his own book What is it Like to go to War? Karl Marlantes, a much decorated Vietnam veteran, writes about getting used to extremes of violence in combat. It is just another level up from everyday training. “The circuitry is all in place; having been wired long years before, all that’s happening is an increase in voltage” (Marlantes 2012: 73). The future of war probably lies in taking this even further by integrating man and machine in ways that have not been possible until now. The military may not be aiming to create ‘combat numbness’ – a numb soldier would be useless anyway in an information-driven battle space – but it may still be able to change soldiers’ circuitry. We are the metaphors we employ, and always have been. Employing a different machine metaphor, that of a clockwork mechanism, Descartes saw the human body as a machine with nerves, muscles, and blood similar to the wheels and counterweights of a clock. A century later, a French marshal expressed the belief that soldiers could be “transformed into a machine that can take on life only through the voice of their officers” (Harari 2008: 115). And we are still using similar metaphors three centuries later. It is just that the metaphors have changed. We now think of ourselves in terms of computing; we tend to see ourselves as machines. Ray Kurtzweil suggests we are patterns of behaviour: we are our ‘circuits’. The body and brain consist merely of a specific set of particles that changes at a bewildering speed. Most of our cells are renewed in weeks. Even our neurons which persist as distinct cells for a relatively long time witness change: their constituent molecules change every month. The half-life of a microtubule (a protein filament that provides the structure of a neuron) lasts about ten minutes. Actin filaments in dendrites are replicated every 40 seconds.

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 197 “We are a pattern of matter and energy that persists over time.” As Wittgenstein once remarked, the fact that we can see things in that way tells us nothing about the world, the fact that we do tells us everything. The difference, of course, between the future and the past is that we will be going beyond metaphors. Ubiquitous computing will soon become central to everything we do. The destiny of the computer is to become invisible, to disappear into the fabric of our lives. Sensors intelligent enough to run our lives for us will become invisible. They will disappear into the fabric of everyday life being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Electronic tabs in books will allow us to find them on the shelves. Free spaces in parking lots will communicate their presence. The smart world will be tailored to our specific needs, habits, and preferences. We already have a toehold in that future. We have haptic technologies (vibrating phones that tell us someone is on the other line). In future, sensors in uniforms will pulse information – a pinch on the right calf could indicate an incoming helicopter (a more secure form of communicating information behind enemy lines). Mood hacking, too, has a bright future. There is already a push within psychiatry to get biosensors to evaluate basic emotions such as anxiety, although it is proving more difficult to get them to measure emotional states such as confusion or attention deficiency. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists have recorded more than one billion expressions from thousands of people and fed them into a computer algorithm that gradually grew adept at interpreting a given expression on a person’s face. As Andy Clark (2009) writes, “we are locked in a complex dance of co-evolutionary change and learning, each influencing and being influenced by the other”. In time we will come to trust the inputs of these agents as much as those of our conscious mind; both are already shaping the self. Software entities will look less like parts of a problem-solving environment than parts of our ‘evolving psychology’.

Of cyborgs and men “Speed has a mass of its own”, claimed General Tommy Franks in his memoirs (Franks and McConnell 2005). So it has. As Paul Virilio has been arguing for some time, speed is the key to military operations. And war has speeded up so much that it is escaping human control. Decision-making algorithms are already superseding us. Humans are being removed progressively from decision loops; they are losing their ‘operational utility’. In future, information will be transmitted via optic networks at near the speed of light and the same speed will apply to the workings of electronic circuits in computers and the cables that connect them. This is speed beyond our comprehension, and certainly beyond our conscious ability to handle. A Princeton University study recently found that the fastest decision time we can manage when we judge the motives or character of another person is 100 milliseconds, or one-tenth of a second. It appears we are hard-wired to make such judgements as a survival mechanism (Canales 2009). Our ability to make quick judgements of the trustworthiness of

198

C. Coker

a person may well be a reflection of activity in the part of the brain responsible for feelings of fear. This is the conscious speed, the rhythms at which we lead our life. Machine decision-making is of a different order entirely. It is what Virilio speaks of as “subjective time” and what the sociologist Manuel Castells theorizes as “timeless time”, a sort of “non-time”. As Robert Hassan points out: “real time [is] the final goal of machine/human interaction, [it is] the very end of the temporal continuum that would stretch from ‘no time’ to the speed of light”. To be able to achieve true real-time response would involve the ultimate surrender of human agency to digital technology where latencies have finally been eliminated and time lags no longer occur (Hassan 2007: 51). A classic attempt to achieve this was an experiment that was started in 1986, only to be abandoned a few years later. The Pilot Associate Expert System was originally designed to relieve a pilot of the ‘lower-level functions’ that he had to conduct in the cockpit. DARPA launched the project with the initial intention of producing a state-of-the-art computer display system, but its long-term ambition was to design a computer that could ‘read’ a pilot’s brainwaves, follow his eye movements, and even measure his sweating palms to gauge his mental status. The ultimate ambition was to insert microchips into a pilot’s brain that would enable him/her to communicate with a machine through his/her nervous system. None of this was thought to be science fiction at the time; it was at one with a then popular ‘time-sharing’ theory of cockpit cognition which promised the “augmentation of the human intellect” via a symbiotic relationship between the pilot and the machine he was flying. In effect, a pilot with a chip in his brain would become a cyborg, a term first coined by Manfred Clynes. In an article in The New Scientist (2013) Lambros Malafouris cites the example of a blind man’s white cane. As long ago as 1907 in his book Creative Evolution, Henri Bergson held that human intelligence was originally a facility through which to create artificial objects. Tool making and tool use started us off on the journey we entered upon hundreds of thousands of years ago and during that journey we have adopted more and more prostheses. That is why a stick used by an ape to retrieve insects from a hole is different from a blind man’s cane, which is used for sight. Unlike our close cousin, the chimpanzee, we are governed by an Aristotelian logic: for us ‘seeing’ is intimately associated with the desire to know. As Malafouris writes, with the aid of a stick the blind man turns touch into sight, but the stick has its own interesting function. The brain treats it as a part of the man’s body. This is not simply a matter of expanding ‘peripersonal’ space (the space surrounding a body). Nor is it simply a matter of substituting vision for touch. The stick becomes an interface of a peculiar transformative sort: what might be called, he adds, a brain–artifact interface, or to use a more agreeable term, a cognitive prosthesis. The philosopher Robin Zebrowski writes that our brains actually allot a neural space to those tools we take up consistently (the tip of the cane actually does become a part of the person’s body, to a degree never before realized). Each of us is bound bodily to the tools that we use in a deeply neurological way.10

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 199 Even so, I can’t help feeling that in the case of war the cyborg condition may be an evolutionary dead end. Much more significant, I suspect, will be the introduction of robots on to the battlefield that may be able to process information faster than we can and calculate the odds faster still. They will probably enhance our performance – both physical and cerebral – in new and possibly disturbing ways. But robotics is the theme of another discussion.

Conclusion “Everybody is human only in some degree. Some more than others.” “Some very little?” “That’s the way it seems. Very little. Faulty. Scanty. Dangerous.” “I thought everybody was born human.” “It’s not a natural gift at all. Only the capacity is natural.” (Bellow 1977: 304) In the end, science can explain a lot, but can it answer the question why a suicide bomber chooses to blow himself and others to smithereens? War still differs so significantly from culture to culture that science cannot help us to access another person’s consciousness. Neither social psychology nor cognitive science, nor for that matter neuroscience, can explain why some of us derive an existential thrill from war. You would have to be shaped by the same emotional experiences yourself, or inhabit the same body. And even if you could access those emotions, you would not be able to judge the value of the experience, or even the act: questions of value are outside the neurologist’s remit. The suicide bomber is a great challenge to us for this reason. Mark Pagel (2012: 25) writes that we have “a cognitive immune system” that saves us from adopting very bad ideas. Just as our bodily immune system attacks foreign invaders, by analogy our minds have mechanisms for generating a variety of thoughts, each of which tests the usefulness of an idea. We tell ourselves that suicide bombing cannot have a long-term future because it is ‘a bad idea’. But clearly it is lifedefining for many. As Bellow’s Mr Sammler remarks, humanity in the end is a cultural construction – some of us have more than others, or so we like to think. Perhaps, the real tragedy is that we are in danger of dividing into two species – the ISIS warriors who are nearer to Achilles than our own warriors who, in turn, may be in danger of becoming ‘post-human’. It is becoming a term almost as popular these days as postmodern; indeed, it may soon supersede it. To be precise, however: the point is that when Achilles and Hector met in battle they were able to recognize their own humanity in each other; they engaged in long dialogues with each other before doing battle. Could we continue to think of war as an intersubjective experience were our own warriors to be confined to a cybernetic bubble or, for that matter, were we ever to subcontract war to robots? As Bryan Appleyard argues11, our faith in machines and machine consciousness, far from exulting humanity, threatens to diminish it. Eventually, we may become so stupid that even dumb computers will seem more intelligent than us.

200

C. Coker

Notes 1 The Times, 14 April, 2014. 2 See “How the future force warrior will work”, available at http:science.howstuff works.com/ffw2 [last accessed 3 February 2016]. 3 Plant, Robert (2014). “Life is about to get a lot smarter”. The World Today, 70(5): 23–4. 4 See “What technology wants. What Kevin Kelly says. An interview with Kevin Kelly”, 19 January 2011, available at www.plusmagazine.com./what-technologywants-what-Kevin-Kelly-says-it [last accesssed 3 February 2016]. 5 See headline in The Times, 12 July 2014 “Hollywood recruited to build USA super soldiers”. 6 See the Telegraph 9 July 2014, available at www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film/ news/10955747/Iron-Man.suit.for.US [last accessed 3 February 2016]. 7 Hollis, Leo (2013). “The human network”. New Statesman, 142(5166): 42, 7 December 2013. 8 The Times, 20 December, 1998. 9 Quoted in Radick, Gregory (2014). “Consciously Digital”. Times Literary Supplement, 20 June 2014, p. 26. 10 Malafouris, Lambros (2013). “Mind into matter: where we end and the world begins”. New Scientist, 219(2933): 28–9, 7 September 2013. 11 Appleyard, Bryan (2014). “Geek god”. The Spectator, 5 July 2014, p. 18.

References Adams, Thomas (2002). “Future warfare and the decline of human decision-making”. Parameters, 31(4): 57–71. Bellow, Saul (1977). Mr Slammer’s planet. (London: Penguin). Bowden, Mark (1995). Black hawk down. (London: Bantam). Brockman, John (2012). This will make you smarter: new scientific concepts to improve your thinking. (London: Harper). Brynjolfsson, Erik and McAfee, Andrew (2014). The second machine age. (New York: Norton and Norton). Canales, Jimena (2009). A tenth of a second: a history. (Chicago: Chicago University Press). Castells, Manuel (1996). The rise of the network society. (Oxford: Blackwell). Castells, Manuel (2001). The end of millennium. (Oxford: Blackwell). Clark, Andy (2009). “Cyborgs unplugged” in Schneider, Susan (ed.), Science fiction and philosophy. (Oxford, Blackwell), p. 182. de Spinoza, Benedictus (2000[1677]). Ethics, trans. Parkinson, G. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Eriksen, Thomas (2001). The tyranny of the moment: fast and slow time in the information age. (London: Pluto). Franks, Tommy and McConnell, Malcolm (2005). American soldier. (New York: ReganBooks). Haldeman, Joe (1999). The forever war. (London: Millennium). Harari, Yuval (2008). The ultimate experience. (London: Palgrave). Hassan, Robert (2007). “Network time” in Hassan, Robert and Purser, Richard (eds), 24/7: time, temporality in the network society. (Stanford: Stanford Business Books), p. 51. Holmes, Richard (2004). Acts of war; the behaviour of men in battle. (London: Cassell). Isaacson, Walter (2014). The innovators. (New York: Simon and Schuster).

The warrior on the edge of tomorrow 201 Kaku, Michio (2011). The physics of the future. (London: Penguin). Kaku, Michio (2014). The future of the mind. (London: Allen Lane). Lanier, Jaron (2013). Who owns the future? (New York: Simon and Schuster). Marlantes, Karl (2012). What is it like to go to war? (London: Corvus). Midgley, Mary (2002). Beast and man, the roots of human nature. (London: Routledge). Midgley, Mary (2010). The solitary self. (London: Acumen). Morris, Ian (2011). Why the West rules for now. (London: Profile). Pagel, Mark (2012). Wired for culture: the natural history of human cooperation. (London: Allen Lane). Rifkin, Jeremy (2011). The third industrial revolution. (London: Palgrave Macmillan). Schmidt, Eric and Cohen, Jared (2013). The new digital age. (London: John Murray). Stephenson, Michael (2013). The last full measure: how soldiers die in battle. (London: Duckworth). Taylor, Timothy (2010). The artificial ape: how technology has changed the course of human evolution. (London, Palgrave). Watson, Richard and Freeman, Oliver (2012). Future vision: scenarios for the world in 2040. (London: Scribe).

12 The haunted road Failed transformations and the return from war or, a historical sociology of war veterans Gorm Harste Introduction There are an overwhelming number of histories of wars and warriors. However, there is hardly any general social theory about war, even less a sociology or sociological history of war veterans. This is most surprising, since one can easily argue that the history of war veterans formed the foundation, if not the core of the tragedy of the years 1914 to 2014. (Jensen 1998). Even more to the point, but from another perspective, one of the leading social scientists Gösta EspingAndersen (1990), established the widespread narrative about the three worlds of the welfare state, putting forward the view that welfare in Europe developed according to different ideologies with regard to social provisions: corporatist conservatism, liberalist universalism and social democratic universalism. The more or less mixed realism of these idealized types has little to do with the social realities that developed in the aftermath of both world wars. Theda Skocpol (1995) described the extreme impact of the American Civil War on federal budgets. The burden of the civil war, certainly, was tremendous for a country with about 35 million inhabitants and which found itself with 500,000 war dead and almost two million veterans. Today, the narratives of United States servicemen are often told as if they are the one and only yardstick for interpretations of war veterans and their traumatization. Veterans’ history and traumatization history is much older, however. Furthermore, what happened after the two world wars, especially in Eastern Europe, was on quite another scale than what happened after the American Civil War. The First World War in Western Europe was experienced as a catastrophe far beyond what we historically and conceptually may call a crisis (Koselleck 1959). A crisis is still some event that can be observed from the outside and remains a meaningful ‘lifeworld’. But in large parts of Eastern Europe the experience was apocalyptic. The traumatization, individually and collectively, was so severe that Eastern Europe was going through a complete identity crisis and could be said to be suffering from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder. Its society was broken in a way comparable to the German Empire after the Thirty Years’ War. For the Soviet Union, the casualties were far bigger than the Stalin regime could admit to itself, to the population, and to the West. They were higher that the figures

A historical sociology of war veterans 203 admitted by Khrushchev in 1956 (20 million) and Gorbachev in 1990 (26.5 million). A better estimate would be 43–45 million casualties in the Soviet Union, including 17 million civilians (Sokolov 2009). Further back in history, apocalyptic scenarios have had their storylines (Smith 2005). Traumatization due to war, killings, captivity, and famines has resulted in powerful narratives. The real experience is one thing, however; quite another is how the remembered and reconstructed trauma constitutes social reality. The symbolic retelling of traumas, which sometimes keeps them alive for generations, is central for an interpretation of their power to endure. Max Weber wrote (1980), of “Sinnzusammenhänge” (almost impossible to translate, but taken here to refer to “the webs of meaning”) and we may here, with Urs Stäheli (2000), consider “Sinnzusammenbrüche” (“the breakdown of meaning”) in the wake of wars that traumatize collectivities. The chapter proceeds with history in chronological order; however, some diversions will be necessary for the sake of the argumentation. The methodological and conceptual framework will be built on two things. First, I will introduce a theme of ‘war veterans’ as “essentially contested concepts”, which I will conceptualize with a theory of systems differentiations. Second, I will assume a phenomenological internal perspective of war veterans. The systems codes used to communicate information about veterans, in terms of their rights, for example, collide with the internally experienced perceptions of human rights. After some historical interpolations, I will focus on developments over the last two centuries and in particular on the differences in the treatment of veterans after the First World War and their corresponding different experiences.

The ‘veteran’: an “essentially contested concept” I will now introduce my methodological perception of the historical sociology of war veterans. Surprisingly, it is difficult to find a single clear conceptualization of ‘the war veteran’. To observe the war veteran is to observe what William Connolly (1983) calls an “essentially contested concept”. Connolly’s point is Table 12.1 The simplified categories of individualization and collective processes Individualization process

Collective processes

War history, veteran history

Unspoken felt and incorporated traumas; split (in)dividuals; broken meaning; broken lives; broken families

Collective traumatizations, suffering; collective guilt; collective fixations (about enemies, lost social integration); lost futures/ re-established futures

Military organization and tactical development

Periods of fragmentation and deconcentration

Periods of uniform corporate spirit

Social history

Individual biographies, resymbolized memories

Collective narratives

204

G. Harste

that we may describe a range of concepts about which political disagreements and conflicts about their definition are bound to occur, but this range is both cognitively contested and normatively interconnected in a logically intentional way. To describe a war as ‘just’ and ‘legal’ is not simply to reduce it to an objectively clear and defined matter of fact occurrence, since it is always questionable if it ‘ought’ to be the case, or even if these categorizations should be used in descriptions. Are the detainees at Guantanamo Bay ‘prisoners of war’, and are the ‘war veterans’ or ‘criminals’ ‘human beings’ without ‘human rights’? Any social categorization is conceptually linked to a constructed form that includes entire networks of concepts, developed historically and subject to social change. In French, the word vétéran came into use during the 1530s in the aftermath of the Italian Wars and was soon used to express the ruthlessness of warriors when they were not paid any more and began to plunder and steal from civilians (de la Noue 1967; Lynn 2008). At the same time, the expression anciens combattants also began to be used to describe those who were useful due to their knowledge of war, canons, siege practice etc. However, the concept of veteran rediscovered a Roman origin since it referred to clothing (the French être vêtu). Roman soldiers wore uniforms and since the late fifteenth century some of the core troops in France had begun to wear them too. We cannot, however, limit the concept to uniformed soldiers, since most soldiers did not wear uniforms before the early eighteenth century; if the concept was thus restricted we would not be able to include the experienced troops of the Middle Ages. We have, therefore, to enter a sociologically enlarged conceptual history. The social history of veterans depends upon the model societies constitute in order to offer some kind of validity to the concept in social communication. By social communication, I refer to more than language. The Austrian language philosopher and war veteran Ludwig Wittgenstein concluded his groundbreaking first book with the famous phrase “Worüber man nicht sprechen können, darüber muss man schweigen” (“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence”). Or, as another war veteran Niklas Luhmann conceptualized such a form of communication: “communication is also incommunication”. In other words, a veteran who keeps silent also communicates. “Intimacy includes incommunication and therefore also the experience of incommunication” (Luhmann 1984: 310; 1989b). Here, Luhmann refers to Wittgenstein, Theodor Adorno (1966), and Jean-François Lyotard (1983), who expressed the latency of traumatizing experiences, in particular with regard to the Holocaust. The essential experience in the concept of the “essentially contested concept” of veteran includes the non-conceptualization and non-identity of unidentifiable experiences. Of course, this sort of experience at the brink of language expression, known from ‘feelings’, ‘thoughts’, ‘images’, ‘dreams’, and ‘flashbacks’, is well known from normal interaction in our lifeworld experiences – (Schütz 1974; Habermas 1981; Luhmann 1986a). Yet Luhmann’s and Lyotard’s point is that this lifeworld is non-identifiable. The subject of it, the so-called individual person, may not be ‘individed’ as ‘in-dividual’ but a ‘-dividual’ when thoughts, feelings, the body, will, actions, and speech do not present and re-present themselves as a

A historical sociology of war veterans 205 united whole. Hence, with Luhmann we may say that society is made by communication, but not by human beings. Society communicates things about human beings, about their personhood and their thoughts and feelings, but constitutively, it is rather improbable that human thoughts and feelings are intersubjectively linked together in any form of transfer. They may be present to each other at a moment in time, but they differ and, without doubt, if thoughts were interlocked between two human beings they would become rather psychotic; the reader of the present text would suddenly think in German or Danish, hear voices, and see strange images. Communication is only possible because it does not transfer thoughts between human beings. Yet, of course, communication can create new images, but to see a war movie is not to be a part of the war – and even less so if the observer is severely traumatized. This philosophy of the social constituents is, of course, not only a statement that might be correct; but is also typical for existentialist reactions to an overly stressing society (Sartre 1943; Kierkegaard 1967). From his experience ‘in the trenches’ in 1944 Luhmann states something like “society is in war with itself, and here I am, creeping around in my rat hole, outside society”. Others from that generation of great sociological thinkers, Michel Foucault, for example, are close to the same experience: society talks about a person, but that person keeps himself outside, at distance. Of course, such experiences and descriptions of individuals can only be allowed for in post-Enlightenment modern society after Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s conceptualization of the ‘citizen soldier’. Rousseau began to describe the modern citizen (citoyen) as someone who was included in society with his civilian and political rights at the exact same time as he was actually excluded as a human being (l’homme), because he was a subject (sujet) expected to be ready to serve his country and submit itself as a conscripted and drafted soldier (Harste 2010). The inclusion/exclusion construction is built into modern society. Accordingly, the ‘in-dividual’ of the Renaissance is not a person as an individual any more, but is a divided person, a ‘-dividual’. These methodological philosophical statements open up our subject for two further investigations. One concerns the individualization of soldiers since early modernity, and especially during the 100 years between 1914–2014. It poses the question whether individual soldiers have become more sensible and less resilient. It also raises the question if it is actually the dynamics of society that have changed and made the situation worse for veterans. Contemporary society emphasizes individual evolution and innovation and the advancement of, outstanding persons who become successful and are thus forced to be accountable, to an extent that is well out of reach for war-ravaged veterans. The second investigation looks at whether veterans are squeezed between social, organizational, and functional systems. Do we see the kind of “falling down” effect that Niklas Luhmann discusses in his studies about inclusion and exclusion? According to Luhmann’s grand social theory, modern society has developed into several functional systems, more or less structurally coupled together, but principally closed, and with communicatively coded forms that differentiate between codes of law, economy, religion, politics, research, health,

206

G. Harste

care, art, love, education, war, sport, and garbage. Each of these functional systems has an organizational system that operates in a specialized way and programmes its communication according to its self-referential and self-organizing internal complexities. This might seem well ordered, but there are two risky problems in modern society (Luhmann 1986b; 1991; 1993). On the one hand the individual human being has to – as did Josef K. in Kafka’s The Process – run from one office to another. He or she has to be ‘fit for fight’ (if not, once again, for a combat situation!) in order to handle all these different functional codes and their organizations that do not allow for communication between the systems. The disabled individual has to fight a battle – once again (Adler et al. 2011). Each system communicates using its own self-referential codes and a disabled person who is unable to master himself is incapable of mastering the hybrid interconnections and structural couplings necessary to establish the required contacts in any coordinated and synchronic form (Holmstedt 2009). It is no wonder that the concept ‘patient’ refers to ‘patience’ – a temporal concept.

The rationale for a historical sociology of veterans Since our expectations are based on experiences, semantics, and decisions of the past it is important to go back in history in order to see what we can expect (Becker et al. 2014: 16–26). The conceptualizations about war veterans are not only semantically coded by past history but by the experiences of traumas developed in war that are also inherited from one generation to the next. In his two books, Achilles in Vietnam (2003) and Odysseus in America (2002), veteran psychiatrist Jonathan Shay took the traumatization story back through the recorded history of warriors to the Old Testament and to Homer and the battles about Troy and Odysseus’ difficult return to Attica. In the books of the Old Testament we find expressions such as “destroying one’s own clothes” and “throwing dust and sand on one’s head”, albeit perhaps also in order to create an unusual, almost theatrical image. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are filled with descriptions of warriors, also of veterans who are often shocked and speechless. As Johan Tralau’s analyses of the stories of Heracles in Chapter 2 illustrated, the experiences of war trauma and the immense difficulties of transforming back from a wartime to a peacetime experience were well known to the Ancient Greeks. They did not frame these in psychological or scientific terms, but in terms of myths and symbolic language that allowed them to convey horror and suffering with startling accuracy Thus, the painstaking problem of this chapter is describing the history of war veterans on the one hand as an interplay between individual traumas and collective traumatization linked to war and, on the other hand through a history of individualization and collectivization that is in between the simplified categorizations shown in Table 12.1. Yet military organizations have also changed over time: sometimes fragmentation, sometimes order and unity have dominated the tactics of warfare. These historical changes in relations between soldiers and civil society have transformed the experiences of soldiers.

A historical sociology of war veterans 207

The individualization process The narrative of the individual is more complex that most basic textbooks of social science tell us. The individualization process and the civilization process do not float in free interconnections (Elias 1976; 1981; Luhmann 1989a). Yet, the philosophical story just told is no surprise to philosophically well-informed great social theory, nor is it to traumatically experienced persons. Most soldiers who have combat experience are somewhat traumatized and some have deeply disconnected life stories that resemble what modern art describes as the experience of absurd life in an absurd world. As veteran Jake Clark (2014) describes it, each traumatized veteran has experienced an extremely metaphysical story, and he is alone with it. Veterans acutely face Albert Camus’ identification of a central predicament in the human condition: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” Thereby, he rephrases Shakespeare in Hamlet, but also in Johann Grimmelshausen’s important masterpiece Simplicius Simplicissimus from 1667 that from his own experience reflected the Thirty Years’ War and its war-traumatized veterans: Oh God! How the human life is filled with so much toil and revulsion. Just as one misfortune ceased, we are stuck in another. I am not surprised that the heathen philosopher Timon of Athens erected many gallows where people could there hang themselves and hence end their miserable lives through one short and terrible act. (von Grimmelshausen 1967: 59)1 Grimmelshausen’s account is probably the most important description of warriors and veterans’ traumatization among the classics in the history of warfare. It is about living in the present moment, always shackled, never calm, always wandering and wondering, questioning, and feeling disturbed. Another famous testimony from the Thirty Years’ War is Thomas Hobbes’ description of the state of nature: In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Hobbes 1968, part I, ch. XIII: 186.) In these times life expectancy was often about death expectancy. In fact, we can venture to read Grimmelshausen and Hobbes as describing the experiences from the trenches of the First World War, the Eastern Front in the Second World War, and probably the experiences of North Vietnamese soldiers in the Vietnam War

208

G. Harste

too. Perhaps they could also be taken as describing even more recent experiences from Central Africa and in the ISIS wars. Before Rousseau’s soldier citizen, in Grimmelshausen’s and Shakespeare’s times, there were no easy narratives about divided individuals, since individuals were, as the Renaissance concept of ‘individual’ tells us, not divided, but united under the large religious umbrella of God, and hence people were parts in a differentiated holy whole. This unitary body was broken by the printing press revolution (Eisenstein 1983). Accordingly, an attempt was made to search for and manifest a rediscovered body, a new and at best very bloody body that could demonstrate the structure of the lost corporate spirit. One famous consequence was the witch hunt that accelerated during the French Wars of Religion from 1561 to 1659. Another even less acceptable and certainly less justified consequence of the search for legitimacy was the proliferation of bloody battles. There was a cry for blood and flesh; the point was not only that soldiers and nobles were shocked by the new bloody fire of guns and cannons, but that they should be shocked: The new age orientated itself towards bodies – blood, flesh, venereal diseases, dissections, bodily exercises, discipline, naked bodies in the sculptures and paintings of Michelangelo and Rubens, bodies adorned in fashion and bodies, and even bodies in gastronomy – all experienced an unprecedented revival. Descartes finally formulated his dualist philosophy of soul and body only to legitimize that bodies could be sacrificed in order to securitize the salvation of souls (Corbin et al. 2011). Hence, veterans had to search elsewhere for salvation and redemption of their broken bodies and souls. Certainly, many people were lost on the altar of war – millions. Later, if religion couldn’t heal the wounds, then nationalism and other functionally equivalent grand narratives could explain the sacrifice of meaning, health, and even soul. In fact, this narrative of absurd disconnectedness is eventually an emancipatory story since it does not claim that individuals should attempt to identify with social systems. On the contrary, social systems may be politically legitimized if they tolerate individuals’ disconnectedness and non-identification. In this sense, the ‘roleidentity of human beings’ is a non-concept and impossible to handle for humans living at the brink of society – as most Europeans did during and after the two world wars. Yet, if we turn towards a sociological redescription of the war veteran in the historical development of modern society, we see two very different things. First, to live a long life until a natural death has become the norm for most Westerners today. In times past, as witnessed by Hobbes’ description, a sudden death was much more common. Even in 1914, when lower-class Britons were conscripted in huge numbers, Hobbes’ statement was not far off the mark for many. (Moore 2009; Jensen 2014). Unemployed working-class people more or less saw it – naively – as a relief to be sent to the trenches. As far as psychology and sociology are concerned, whether our postmodern young men would have had any chance to survive mentally under the conditions of the First World War remains an enigma. The fact is that social psychology had to develop and transform in order to understand what at first was described as ‘shell shock’ or

A historical sociology of war veterans 209 Granatenzittern (Krippendorf 1981; Diehl 1993; Rousseau 1999: 19; Crocq and Crocq 2000; Riedesser and Verderber 2004). Second, society and societal experiences have changed (Bell 1973; Sennett 1999; Harste 2000). For most people until the 1960s life and work were about routines. At best some good education could place the young man at a recognized level in a society that was not only bound by the need to conform, but probably also made him conformist and in this sense embedded in the norms of society well beyond what later generations could and would accept and understand. This was much more the case, again, in Eastern Europe, where traumatization and hence the need for conformist homogeneity and stability was so much stronger. Stalinism and communism were not the only factors contributing to normalized conformity, but also the fact that first and second generations had suffered individual and collective traumatizations. West Germany (until 1968–1977) and Japan (probably until about 1990) were also cases in which people’s industrially conformist lifestyles were the result of traumatizing experiences of suffering, guilt, shame, and broken lives. However, this human ‘assembly line’ and bureaucratized routine life was not adequate for modern culture, or for industry and government. It was a relief, but also fatal for those many millions who lived a life rooted in past unique, individual, but disturbing experiences. The cultural gap between those existentially wanting to break out, be inventive, and move forward, and those who conformed to standards, was enormous and grew until the explosions in the West at the end of the 1960s and in Eastern Europe in 1989. Accordingly, to put it in a nutshell, soldiers from the United States left industrialist society for dreadful, senseless experiences in Vietnam, only to return shortly afterwards to a post-industrial society that had embraced consumerism in a big way. In addition, this new and different society was overwhelmed by the Woodstock festival, the hippie and student rebellion, and the cultural feeling that “the times they are a-changin’ ” (Bob Dylan), and other transformations too (Schulzinger 2006). Since the 1970s, according to an overwhelming number of investigations, postmodern young (and older) persons are still rather forced into a form of flexibility. They are only recognized in the more educated and safer part of the labour market if they can create their own self-governed management and become different to what they were and are. This is the same form of transformation to be observed in the organizations in which they search for employment: these organizations also have to reorganize in order to become different to what they already are. Individuals as well as organizations are led into a form of ‘ontological insecurity’ of eternal or permanently revolutionary transformations and, all the time, they have to smile and joke, be social and sympathetic. Already, Adorno, writing in Hollywood of all places in the early 1950s (1951: §48), saw this tragic paradox. The youth even become managers and authors of their own tragedy. Here, the problem is that it seems to be utterly impossible for combat-torn veterans to return to society and simply integrate normally again; they cannot adapt. The post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) story of missed socialization,

210

G. Harste

misrecognition, stigma, depression, alcoholism, divorce, drugs, homelessness, and eventually suicide, is all too well known and anti-depressive medicine can only give immediate relief that needs to be followed by longer-term therapy with the aim of transforming lives permanently for the better. Yet, after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, several countries of the coalition forces reported suicide rates among ex-servicemen to be far higher than the numbers of casualties on the battlefields. In 2013, more than 8,000 veterans in the United States committed suicide, and 28,000 attempted to do so, many of them veterans from the Vietnam War; among the soldiers from the United States who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan 800,000 consider suicide (Timmermann-Levenas 2010). ‘Only’ 10 per cent actually may commit suicide, but several other forms of ruining one’s life, such as alcoholism, drug use, and disability after deliberately engineering a car accident, are very common too. Suicide letters can sometimes describe the desperation and pain that is buried in the dissociated distance between communication, thought, sentiments, and body, as one written by United States veteran Somers in July 2013 shows: My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day a screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body. It is nothing short of torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give. Simple things that everyone else takes for granted are nearly impossible for me. I cannot laugh or cry. I can barely leave the house. I derive no pleasure from any activity. Everything simply comes down to passing time until I can sleep again. Now, to sleep forever seems to be the most merciful thing. (Somers 2013) This is not a new phenomenon. During 1927–1928 about 8,000 British exservicemen committed suicide. The suicide death toll in so-called ‘peacetime’ is indeed significant compared to the casualties armies have in ‘wartime’. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have still not ended, nor, for large numbers of veterans has the Vietnam War or the Korean War. The aftermath of the First and Second World Wars still affects second- and third-generation relatives. The French veteran psychiatrist Marc-Antoine Crocq and his colleagues interviewed 525 Alsatian veterans who, while serving in the armed forces for Germany, had survived Soviet prisoner of war camps; 82 per cent still suffered from nightmares 40 years after the event (Crocq et al. 1993: 253–61). Most of these veterans come from the lower classes, their parents have a low standard of education and poor salaries and they are often divorced, the women are vulnerable, alcoholism and drugs are common, children are beaten, and violence is widespread, as is unemployment. In Europe the social situation of servicemen is somewhat better. In the Middle East, records display extreme

A historical sociology of war veterans 211 problems with PTSD and second generation traumatization. Such figures and the problems they hide are truly staggering and often neglected. Often, this neglect or double exclusion (Luhmann 1995; Bauman 2004), is dismissed in favour of a narrative that tells us about a great and formative life in the army. For several reasons this is, in fact, completely misleading. First, as a thesis for survival and rehabilitation it is failing. The survivors of wars, famines, and the camps rather observe the world as absurd, and their own lives too. There is no coherence in them, life has disintegrated and is even meaningless as anything close to a cohesive story; rather, the past, the future, and the present do not fit, life has to be lived right now in a bid for survival today, in the moment, and which involves being able to find or afford food, something to drink, and adequate clothing (Sajers 1967; Ruge 1972; Levi 1996). Of people who live through the most severe wars, the ones with grand narratives die; existentialists might survive, if they are lucky. Second, the individualized story about great heroes has its origin in the High Medieval strategy of mounted knights celebrated for their courage and fighting for the honour of family and God (Mäkinen and Pihlajamäki 2004). This old European narrative is as alive as it is hopelessly outdated. Third, it is misleading, because all soldiers always, ever since the Greek hoplites, fight for their buddies and for the corporate spirit that offers them a form of rebirth, a secondary socialization into a primary group of servicemen who fight for the lives of each other – and for absolutely nothing else (Brænder 2015). If they do not fight for the corporate spirit they become isolated from the group and are excluded, which is often the easiest way to the grave. Nationalist narratives surface and offer vague substitutes, which only extremely rarely will suffice. One of the best examples of a justified war concerned French soldiers in the First World War but, even here, the meaninglessness of the war and meaning of a justified defence were completely replaced by the experience of group cohesion and solidarity. In his celebrated examination of letters from the trenches, Frédéric Rousseau (1999: 135) also describes the dilemma for Alsatian soldiers fighting for Germany since they too fought for their group, but on the German side; for the French, however, they were the enemy. Before young, naïve soldiers experience an actual battle they might have joined up to follow principles or simply – as did, for instance, most Danish soldiers in the Afghanistan War (Brænder 2009) – to kill, but once they touch upon battle, they fight for their groups. Often, this cohesion narrative is abused almost as if it offers a form of legitimacy or justification for the wars. It was abused by the Nazi narratives and especially also in the failed justificatory narratives of the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars. We have, therefore, a very long history of corporate spirit embedded into a great fusion of religious narratives. At the same time we have a track record of deconcentrated military forces but, respectively, concentrated group cohesion (Lind et al. 1989).

212

G. Harste

Traumas – post-traumatic stress disorder In the trenches of the First World War the problem was not only what doctors (like my grandfather who served close to Verdun) variously called Nervenzittern, Nervenzusammenbruch, neurasthenia (United States), or shell shock, all of which seem today to come under the broad heading of brain damage. The extreme challenges faced were also combined with lethargy and perceived meaninglessness. Any normal person submitted to days of shelling more or less buried in cellars of earth and mud, sometimes with rotting corpses nearby, would react by mentally fighting against it or physically running away; yet, most often, the soldiers had to sit and wait, and wait and wait, often only to see a number of their comrades killed, sometimes blown into pieces. This de facto paralyzation leads to PTSD and is known from what happens to sailors who serve on submarines, or soldiers imprisoned in compounds. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) formulated in the United States during the interwar period there was no category for post-war psychic traumas. It was only after the Vietnam War that the manual established a diagnosis based on (Schulzinger 2006): • •

•

• • • • • • • • •

First, some unexpected event or series of events occurs that is a direct threat to life or the lives of one’s close family or friends, including experiences of persons killed in the immediate vicinity (Shay 2003: 166–7). The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced (for instance in children’s play, in dreams, or in sudden occurrences that bear analogies such as smells, places, sounds, loud noises, and explosions (fireworks for example), any of which can cause the sufferer to relive the experience). This leads to a corresponding avoidance of such recalls and results in behavioural patterns such as sleeping with doors opened or closed, with or without light, wanting to be in a crowd or alone or needing to be in a closed room as opposed to an open space. Following on from the above there is an inability to recall or remember the trauma. The sufferer experiences an uncontrolled, diminished interest in certain themes or activities and also sudden incapacities and concentration problems. The sufferer experiences extreme alienation from others. The sufferer has restricted feelings – no love for others. The sufferer feels that he/she has no sense of a future (career, marriage, children) and displays impatience. The sufferer displays hypervigilance and exaggerated responses. The sufferer experiences increased arousal, alarm, and panics easily. He/she displays irritability, bad temper, and anger. The sufferer finds it difficult to fall asleep, wakes up often, and suffers from nightmares. The sufferer cries suddenly for no apparent reason.

A historical sociology of war veterans 213 Actual physical brain damage is somewhat different: it often includes a chronic headache, concentration problems, forgetting words, or not being able to articulate thoughts. Interviews with veterans from the Second World War reveal that many soldiers became embedded in PTSD (Crocq and Crocq 2000; Lindorff 2002; Lopez and Lasha 2011).

Conflicting systems: veterans from the First World War The First World War is particularly interesting for a myriad of reasons. One of them is that we can detect the impact of different treatments. Recalling the problem of “essentially contested concepts” of war veterans, we might operate with five categories of concepts that have been used to observe veterans, their needs, and their activities: They have been observed and characterized as people who are: entitled to certain things; disabled; victims; heroes; or stigmatized in some way. A B C

D E

The entitled: social rights, claims for pensions, access to health services, psychological help, education, jobs, a home, marriage, loving children, help from friends and family. The disabled: recognition of special physical needs, physical rehabilitation, medical treatment (including electroshock), adult education, centres for the disabled, recovery, help from family, samaritan services. The victims: recognition through solidarity as a group, empathizing with them, having patience with them, listening to them, pitying them, no stigmatization, finding room for them, showing them love, support, loyalty, understanding, respect. The heroes: political recognition, political rights, honour, prestige, listened to, qualifications, positions, access to social security and other civic benefits, breadwinner. The stigmatized: ashamed, dishonoured, losers, lazy, useless father, leisure tourist.

A hundred years of empirical findings from 1914 to 2014 support the thesis of contested and dissenting concepts and codes (Cohen 2002; 2003; AudoinRouzeau and Prochasson 2008). Before continuing the analysis, it should be said that systems theory is about observing, using codes and categories. The problem of contest and dissent is about the basic codes used. If communication about veterans is the overall problem, the more specified form of the problem is the asymmetries of the binary codes used to observe the problem as a problem. If the veteran as a victim is on the negative side of the binary distinction, and if entitled rights are observed on the positive side, heroism can be used to split the two sides and govern which is negative and which is positive. A subsequent problem concerns how to govern heroism. This was typical for the German veteran movements after the First

214

G. Harste

World War (Diehl 1993; Cohen 2002; 2003). But, the distinctions can also be observed by applying rights as did the bureaucratic welfare authorities of the Weimar Republic, and I have used their programmes to indicate legal entitlements (A) applied to the treatment of physically disabled veterans (B). The authorities’ approach was extremely professional as they used law to observe the rights; the victim was observed purely as a physically disabled person entitled to programmes established by the government agencies while the psychic selfobservation of the veteran was completely excluded. The first two ranges (A and B) of semantic variations are used as a medium that could absorb distinctions operated by organizational programmes which were all about functional systems. However, the veteran could also see himself as a victim who, as a hero, had rights to entitlements and programmes. Hence, we can observe how legal rights and programmes were completely inadequate for replacing the loss of meaning, and that the narrative of heroes was complete nonsense compared to the psychic trauma. Even if the veteran himself, as a self-referential psychic system, did not recognize this existential exclusion from the communication form of society, this decoupling of psychic and social systems would lead to severe paradoxes and dissatisfied frustrations. Of course, such narratives about war veterans may look different in different cultures and continents. A dominant but not always articulated narrative has been the European experiences 1914–2014, whereas narratives in the United States seem to have taken their lead from the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, traumatic experiences continue throughout life and sometimes have an effect even on second and third generations (Welzer 2007).

The hard example: the aftermath of the First World War Who were the veterans and what should be done with them? From country to country, dissent and conflicts about the differences between concepts, distinctions, forms, and path dependencies were obvious (Dandeker et al. 2006). Pain is a reality in first-order observations and a socially constructed reality in secondorder observations (Osborn and Smith 2006). The welfare state construction after the First World War is particularly revealing for comparative analysis since Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, the United States, Russia, and the remains of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires had quite similar problems (Sørensen 2006). Between 1919 and 1933, the observation form (D) gained still more political strength while (C) and (E) remained as the excluded forms. In Germany, an immense number of voluntary associations established care centres at the end of the war, but they were soon demolished because of fear of uncontrollable and unprofessional aid. In spite of enormous resources, there is no doubt that Germany, which was used to top-down welfare programmes, did not fulfil the need for structural coupling of meaning in the in-between social and traumatized psychic systems. To put it in Luhmann’s terms: it could not compensate for the fact that it compensated (Luhmann 1981a: 16). Because of the sheer size of the

A historical sociology of war veterans 215 problems and the corresponding welfare programmes aimed at combating them, the political overload on the Weimar Republic was extreme and, at the same time, the financial burden of repayments and war debt and the ensuing inflation destroyed the possible couplings. Those who complained about psychic problems were excommunicated as Rentenhysteriker (“pension hysterics”) (Riedesser and Verderber 2004: 75–99). In a population of 63 million the figures for Germany during and after the First World War were as follows: 13,200,000 German soldiers were conscripted, 2,300,000 died and somewhere between 2,800,000–4,200,000 were wounded; 1,537,000 were permanently disabled (Whalen 1984; Cohen 2002: 193); 553,000 widows and 1,192,000 children without surviving fathers were left. With regard to Italy, 4,500,000 soldiers participated out of a population of 36 million. Figures for Great Britain were as follows: 5,500,000 British soldiers took part out of a population of 43 million; 1,676,000 were wounded; and 755,000 were permanently disabled. Altogether, Europe had eight million physically disabled veterans. In Great Britain, the amount of money allocated to veterans was much smaller, 6 per cent of public spending compared to 25 per cent in Germany, but care was provided on a very local basis. Of course, this was completely inadequate and often led to disaster and misery. The disabled and traumatized veterans simply had to get on with it as best they could and be grateful for what was available (Cohen 2002: 141–3). The courage, cheerfulness, and the will to live a happy life should actually be exposed as the ‘flip side’ of a willingness to die. As one completely paralysed veteran once said to journalists: “A press representative discovered in Richmond on Thursday the perfect story of the havoc of war and of the courage that turns the living hell of existence with a shattered body into something pleasant to smile upon” (cited in Cohen 2002: 141). A fact probably also relevant was that British servicemen were volunteers initially and not conscripted until 1916 (Gregory 2008; Moore 2009: 27–70). Of course, physically disabled veterans are often mentally injured too. Both states lead to stigmatization. In France, eight million out of a population of 39 million participated. France had 1,375,800 casualties and 1,200,000 million disabled veterans. French women arranged for help to be directed towards the veterans (Cabanes 2008). Provision was almost at the same level as in Germany, but it functioned much better since the French veterans were also clearly recognized as heroes and victors of the war. They were also at first gladly deceived with the economically unsustainable promise that German repayments would soon ensure they had all the assistance they needed. The recognition was uniform but locally organized. Schoolchildren, pressed into service as assistants to adult male teachers, who were often disabled veterans, bore the brunt of the work. This resulted eventually in the top-down discipline in French schools accompanied by traditional methods of learning still seen today, a part of which is that drill and military exercises are literally used as a medium of education. In Germany, and in other places too, e.g. in the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS) in France during the Algerian War, the political problem was that

216

G. Harste

the soldiers who had been at the front (die Frontschweine (“front pigs”)), believed so much in their common corporate spirit that they wanted to incorporate their frontline experiences into the formation of a meaningful political order in times of peace (Diehl 1993: 26). A strong hypothesis is that the politics of the welfare state emerged after the world wars as, according to Foucault in an echo of Carl Schmitt, “the continuation of war in the medium of politics” (Foucault 1975: 150; 1997: 41). This is true in the sense described by Susan Pedersen, “It was the war that imposed order on diversity and that privileged a privileged logic of welfare on each state” (Pedersen 1990; 1993: 80). ‘Charity’ apparently leads to a sense of shame and guilt. The distinction between ‘guilt’ and ‘deserved honourable entitlements’ has a long path and form dependency. This goes back to the crusades and the legal revolution in the twelfth century and is semantically situated in deep layers of noble honour, inclusion, and exclusion (Luhmann 1980; 1981b; Mäkinen and Pihlajamäki 2004). In that sense, the German professional social workers were right not to leave rehabilitation to social charity volunteers. In her Protecting Mothers and Soldiers, Theda Skocpol describes how in 1891 a social commissioner for pensions to American Civil War veterans was already expressing the notion that “an old soldier can receive a pension as a recognition of honourable service with a feeling of pride, while he could turn his back with shame upon an offer of charity” (Skocpol 1995: 150). Hence, in 1893, 966,012 veterans and widows got veterans’ pensions from the United States government and 41.5 per cent of government income was used for that purpose. In fact about half the expenditure relating to wars the United States has been involved in has been to veterans and their families (Rockoff 2012). Wars are expensive and need strong welfare states with high taxes to cover their social costs. Equivalent to this fact, we find a single and indeed very famous and even dominating example of some kind of cohesive politics of solidarity: the GI Bill relating to the 11 million United States veterans coming home after the Second World War (Juul 2009). But this story is somewhat more complex and not only because it was a hard fight to get it through Congress. Far more than any other soldiers, American soldiers most often served in logistics. Battles fought by United States soldiers have been recounted and filmed, not only for the sake of national pride but also in relation to the political idea of creating unity in this huge country that successfully entered the First World War in order to, among other reasons, overcome the divisions that had split it since the civil war of the 1860s (Porter 1994: 258–75; Skocpol 1995; Juul 2009). The reason for looking forward was also to avoid the risk that unemployed and dissatisfied soldiers would turn to communist movements. After all, the Soviet Union carried by far the major burden during the Second World War and could rightfully be celebrated as the honourable victor of the war. The country’s dominance would make its system of government attractive. Another lesson was that dissatisfaction and unemployment in Germany and Italy led to Nazism and Fascism respectively after the First World War. Thus, the many complex undertakings laid out in the GI Bill were as much a risk-avoiding politics of solidarity borne out of fear as a

A historical sociology of war veterans 217 simple cohesive moral policy (Juul 2009). The GI Bill gave Americans post-war opportunities which it was unlikely that most of the other countries that had participated in the war could offer since they had suffered and been drained by wartime activities in a way completely different to the United States. Compared with how Soviet and Eastern European soldiers and citizens suffered in the two world wars and in Third World wars, it is probably completely exaggerated to focus so much on United States soldiers and their relatives as social research has done since the Second World War and the Vietnam War (Krippendorf 1981). The history of Russian war veterans goes back to the almshouses of the Church in the mid seventeenth century and came to the fore with the ‘soldiers question’ of Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century when he introduced laws with the aim of offering them, their children, wives, and widows some guarantees. Yet, many veterans still starved and in the 1730s there were still only four almshouses (in St Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, and Novgorod). Basically, the solution was obvious, and similar to what happened in part in the United States after the civil war: free settlement in the vast unpopulated countryside of Russia offered opportunities, as did a salary (soldus) hundreds of years ago to soldiers in the Roman Empire, who were enticed away from their home country by the promise of good money. However, for disabled veterans resettlement was often not a possibility. One account under Catherine the Great mentioned 9,349 disabled soldiers housed in overcrowded conditions (Kimerling 1995). They had obviously not been able to take up any resettlement opportunities for whatever reason. Elise Kimerling’s comment on her story of Russian veterans is that it is crucial to understanding the larger problem of social categorization. For it had broad consequences that extended beyond the boundaries of the military domain. It is a universal truism that armies, regardless of time and place, create welfare problems in civilian society. Equally problematic is the need to integrate soldiers and their families into the larger social framework. (Kimerling 1995: 222) In response to this a suspicion should arise: namely, the fact that the Russian Revolution began not only amidst the First World War but in the aftermath, during the Russian Civil War, under an umbrella of repression and ‘military dictatorship’, which as a general rule governed all the aggressive states of the First World War, Russia particularly, Germany too, and even the United States to a certain extent (Porter 1994). In 1945, out of the 43 million conscripted, the Soviet Union had about 15 million soldiers remaining and of these about 11 million were wounded or disabled (Bellamy 2007: 6–15; Sokolov 2009). Collective traumatization had now ceased (Lopez and Lasha 2011), but rudeness and brutish cynicism now became normal behaviour, towards the second generation too – those born to parents who had lived through the war – and towards the countries that were occupying the defeated powers. Yet, the more recent in-depth

218

G. Harste

analyses of Sokolov (2009) indicate far higher losses. Many were civilians; however, the distinctions between military personnel and civilians, and between those actually killed in action, or during bombardments, by crimes against humanity, starvation, suicide, and so on, are extremely blurred. Such experiences led, probably in Eastern Europe more so than in Germany and in Japan and perhaps in China too, as far as I can see, to an extraordinary striving towards conformity and normalization and the shunning of deviance and experiments for a generation or two to come. At the same time, the paradox of the destructiveness of the war was accompanied by technological and organizational innovation, especially among the losers, Germany, Japan, and (Northern) Italy. The heroization narrative is paradoxically constituted in the light of all these experiences. Soldiers’ stories about their activities might be completely justified, and therefore heroized; however, sometimes veterans succeed in painting a striking picture of their overwhelming war experiences followed by a return to ordinary modern life and society as absurd, that is as a profound disintegration of psychic systems and social systems in favour of a communitarian narrative of integration. On the other hand, the veteran often becomes aware of such absurdities. Modern society is constituted by penetrating discontinuities (Adorno 1951; 1966; Foucault 1976; Luhmann 1993). A phenomenology of veterans has to admit this split, as did the phenomenological tradition, whereas the Alfred Schütz and Peter Berger tradition has tried to reintegrate life in spite of estrangement. Whenever alienation and absurdity is completely unavoidable the message can reconstitute the meaning of breathing, drinking water, being together – like the homecomer. But paradise is lost, forever (Luhmann 1989c).

Pessimist conclusions – a broken future “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”, said the First World War warrior and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, already mentioned. After the world wars, if not before, modern society and its decision-makers should have learned to shoulder their responsibilities. Politics should have learned that “war is no game” as Clausewitz put it. The dark side of war is darker than black and it is silent. In more recent years, the Iraq war was embarked upon as if war was a walk in the park, could plan its battles, be victorious, and create heroes and celebrators of democracy. Already in 2001, serious observers knew that this would not be the case; the future would become darker than black. And so it did. The young, naïve soldiers who enlisted learned that the complexities of war could not be governed. Most of those who started off with their feet on the ground soon started to become disturbed human beings, not only physically but also psychologically and morally. As the situation worsens in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, from Niger and Nigeria, to Yemen, to the battles ISIS are involved in, and to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the people in these huge areas become extremely disappointed and anomic and find themselves on the excluded side of society. They turn into the outfall from modern society’s selfoverevaluation and of the overstretching of McWorld’s ambitions. And this does

A historical sociology of war veterans 219 not only apply to the citizens of these countries, but it applies to the warriors and veterans who have been involved in these conflicts too, as it does to their relatives (Galawsko et al. 2004). Western veterans who have been part of the destruction of the social and political order in the Middle East disintegrate as they hear about the consequences of their actions, that is if they are not completely naïve and infused with rhetoric’s propaganda. This problem will increase.

Note 1 The editor’s translation. The original reads: “Ach Gott! Wie ist das menschliche Leben so voll Mühe und Widerwärtigkeit, kaum hat ein Unglück aufgehört, so stecken wir schon in an anderen, mich verwundert nicht, dass der heidnische Philosophus Timon zu Athen viel Galgen aufrichtete, darin sich die Menschen selber aufknüpfen, und also Ihrem elenden Leben durch ein kurze Grausamkeit ein Ende Machen sollten.”

References Adler, Amy, Britt, Thomas W., Castro, Carl Andrew, McGurk, Dennis and Bliese, Paul D. (2011). “Effect of transition home from combat on risk-taking and health-related behaviors”. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 24: 381–9. Adorno, Theodor (1951). Minima Moralia. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Adorno, Theodor (1966). Negative Dialektik. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane and Prochasson, Christophe (eds) (2008). Sortir de la Grande Guerre: le monde et après 1918. (Paris: Tallandier). Bauman, Zygmunt (2004). Wasted lives. Modernity and its outcasts. (Oxford: Blackwell). Becker, Eve-Marie, Dochhorn, Jan, and Holt, Else (eds). (2014). Trauma and traumatization in individual and collective dimensions. Insights from biblical studies and beyond. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Bell, Daniel (1973). The post-industrial society. (London: Verso). Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute war. Soviet Russia in the Second World War. (London: MacMillan Pan Books). Brænder, Morten (2009). Justifying the ultimate sacrifice. Civil and military religion in frontline blogs. (Aarhus: Politica). Brænder, Morten (2015). “Adrenaline junkies: why soldiers return from war wanting more”. Armed Forces and Society, 42(1): 3–25. Cabanes, Bruno (2008). “Les vivants et les morts” in Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane and Prochasson, Christophe (eds), Sortir de la Grande Guerre: le monde et après 1918. (Paris: Tallandier), pp. 27–46. Clark, Jake (2014). “The war comes home – suicide, veterans and PTSD”. For the Save a Warrior programme, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbXQUCIRnCY [last accessed 26 November 2015]. Cohen, Deborah (2002). The war comes home: disabled veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914–1939. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). Cohen, Deborah (2003). “Civil society in the aftermath of the Great War. The care of disabled veterans in Germany and Great Britain” in Trentmann, Frank (ed.), Paradoxes of civil society: new perspectives on modern German and British history. (London: Berghahn Books), pp. 352–68. Connolly, William (1983[1975]). “Essentially contested concepts” in The terms of political discourse. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 9–44.

220

G. Harste

Corbin, Alain, Courtine, Jean-Jacques and Vigarello, Georges (eds) (2011). Histoire du corps I–III. (Paris: Seuil). Crocq, Marc-Antoine and Crocq, Louis (2000). “From shell shock and war neurosis to post-traumatic stress disorder: a history of psychotraumatology”. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 2(2): 47–55. Crocq, Marc-Antoine, Macher, Jean-Paul, Barros-Beck, Jorge, Rosenberg, Stewart J., and Duval, Fabrice (1993). “Post-traumatic stress disorder in World War II prisoners of war from Alsace-Lorraine who survived captivity in the USSR” in Wilson, J.P. and Raphael, Beverley (eds), International handbook of traumatic stress syndromes. (New York: Springer), pp. 253–61. Dandeker, Christopher, Wessely, Simon, Iversen, Amy and Ross, John (2006). “What’s in a name? Defining and caring for ‘veterans’. The United Kingdom in international perspective”. Armed Forces & Society, 32(2): 161–77. de la Noue, François (1967[1587]). Discours politiques et militaires. (Genève: Droz). Diehl, James (1993). Thanks of the Fatherland: German veterans after the Second World War. (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina University Press). Eisenstein, Elizabeth (1983). The printing revolution in Early Modern Europe. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Elias, Norbert (1976[1939]). Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation. Band 1–2. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Elias, Norbert (1981[1933]). Die höfische Gesellschaft. (Berlin: Luchterhand). Esping-Andersen, Gösta (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press). Foucault, Michel (1975). Surveillir et punir. (Paris: Gallimard). Foucault, Michel (1976). Le volonté du savoir. (Paris: Gallimard). Foucault, Michel (1997). Il faut défendre la société. (Paris: Gallimard). Galawsko, Judith Lyons (2004). “Psychological sequelae of combat violence: a review of the impact of PTSD on the veteran’s family and possible interventions”. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 9: 477–501. Gregory, Adrian (2008). “Adieu à tout cela: Comment les anglais sortirent de la guerre” in Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane and Prochasson, Christophe (eds), Sortier de la Grande Guerre: le monde et après 1918. (Paris: Tallandier), pp. 47–68. Habermas, Jürgen (1981). Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Band 2. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Harste, Gorm (2000). “Post-industrialism, cultural criticism, and risk society” in Andersen, Heine and Kaspersen, Lars Bo (eds), Classical and modern social theory. (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 393–411. Harste, Gorm (2010). “The will to exclusion” in Ardal, Gry and Bock, Jacob (eds), Spheres of exemption, figures of exclusion. (Aarhus: NSU Press/Aarhus University Press), pp. 193–228. Hobbes, Thomas (1998 [1651]). Leviathan. (Harmondsworth: Penguin). Holmstedt, Kirsten (2009). The girls come marching home. Stories of women warriors returning from the war in Iraq. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books). Jensen, Henrik (1998). Ofrets århundrede. (Copenhagen: Gyldendal). Jensen, Henrik (2014). Krigen 1914–1918. (Copenhagen: Kristeligt Dagblads Forlag). Juul, Peter (2009). “The history of veterans’ affairs” in Korb, Lawrence, Juul, Peter and Bergmann, Max (eds), Serving America’s veterans. (Westport, CT: Praeger), pp. 15–49. Kierkegaard, Søren (1967[1843]). Begrebet angest. (Copenhagen: Gyldendal).

A historical sociology of war veterans 221 Kimerling, Elise (1995). “Social misfit: veterans’ and soldiers’ families in servile Russia”. The Journal of Military History, 59(2): 215–34. Koselleck, Reinhart (1959). Kritik und Krise. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Krippendorf, Ekkehart (1981). “The victims – a research failure”. Journal of Peace Research, 18: 97–101. Levi, Primo (1996[1958]). If this is a man. (London: Vintage). Lind, William, Nightengale, Keith, Schmitt, John, Sutton, Joseph, and Wilson, Gary (1989). “The changing face of war: into the fourth generation”. Marine Corps Gazette, 22–26 October 1989, available at www.dni.net/fcs/4th_gen_war_gazette.htm [last accessed 8 February 2016]. Lindorff, Margaret (2002). “After the war is over . . . – PTSD symptoms in World War II veterans”. The Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, 2, available at www.massey.ac.nz/~trauma/ [last accessed 5 February 2016]. Lopez, Jean and Otkhmezuri, Lasha (2011). Grandeur et misère de l’Armée Rouge. Témoignages inédits 1941–1945. (Paris: Seuil). Luhmann, Niklas (1980). “Interaktion in den Oberschichten” in Luhmann, Niklas, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik 1. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp), pp. 72–161. Luhmann, Niklas (1981a). Politische Theorie der Wohlfahrtstaat. (München: Olzog). Luhmann, Niklas (1981b) “Subjektive Rechte” in Luhmann, Niklas, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Band 2. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp), pp. 45–104. Luhmann, Niklas (1984). Soziale Systeme. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Luhmann, Niklas (1986a). “Die Lebenswelt nach Rücksprache mit Phänomenologen” in Preyer, Gerhard, Peter, Georg and Ulfig, Alexander (eds), Protosoziologie im Kontext. (Frankfurt: Humanities Online), pp. 268–89. Luhmann, Niklas (1986b). Ökologische Kommunikation. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Luhmann, Niklas with Fuchs, Peter (1989a). “Individuum, Individualität, Individualismus” in Luhmann, Niklas, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Band 3. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp), pp. 149–258. Luhmann, Niklas (1989b). Reden und Schweigen. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Luhmann, Niklas (1989c). Paradise lost. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Luhmann, Niklas (1991). Soziologie des Risikos. (Berlin: de Gruyter). Luhmann, Niklas (1993). Beobachtungen der Moderne. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag). Luhmann, Niklas (1995). “Inklusion und Exklusion” in Luhmann, Niklas, Soziologische Aufklärung. Band 6. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag), pp. 237–64. Lynn, John (2008). Women, armies, and warfare in Early Modern Europe. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Lyotard, Jean-François (1983). Le différend. (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit). Mäkinen, Virpi and Pihlajamäki, Heikki (2004). “The individualization of crime in medieval canon law”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 65(4): 525–42. Moore, Darren (2009). The soldier. A history of courage, sacrifice and brotherhood. (London: Icon Books). Osborn, Mike and Smith, Jonathan (2006). “Living with a body separate from the self. The experience of the body in chronic benign low back pain: an interpretative phenomenological analysis”. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Science, 20: 216–22. Pedersen, Susan (1990). “Gender, welfare and citizenship in Britain during the Great War”. American Historical Review, 95(4): 983–1006. Pedersen, Susan (1993). Family, dependence and the origin of the welfare state, 1914–1945. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

222

G. Harste

Porter, Bruce (1994). War and the rise of the state. (New York: The Free Press). Riedesser, Peter and Verderber, Axel (2004). ‘Maschinengewehre hinter der Front’. Zur Geschichte der deutschen Militärpsychiatrie. (Frankfurt: Mabuse-Verlag). Rockoff, Hugh (2012). America’s economic way of war. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Rousseau, Fredéric (1999). La guerre censurée. Une histoire de combattants européens. (Paris: Seuil, 1999). Ruge, Ludwig (1972). Aus meinem Leben: 1. Weltkrieg 1914–1918. (Risskov: Manuskript). Sajers, Guy (1967). The forgotten soldier. (Washington, DC: Potomac Books). Sartre, Jean-Paul (1943). L’être et le néant. (Paris: Gallimard). Schulzinger, Robert (2006). A time for peace. The legacy of the Vietnam War. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Schütz, Alfred (1974[1932]). Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Sennett, Richard (1999). The corrosion of character. The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. (New York: Norton). Shay, Jonathan (2003[1994]). Achilles in Vietnam. Combat trauma and the undoing of character. (New York: Simon and Schuster). Skocpol, Theda (1995). Protecting mothers and soldiers. The political origins of social policy in the United States. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Smith, Philip (2005). Why war? The cultural logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez. (Chicago: Chicago University Press). Sokolov, Boris (2009). “How to calculate human losses during the Second World War”. Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 22(3): 437–58. Somers, Daniel (2013). “ ‘I am sorry that it has come to this’: a soldier’s last Words”. 10 June, Gawker blog entry, available at http://gawker.com/i-am-sorry-that-it-has-cometo-this-a-soldiers-last-534538357 [last accessed 26 August 2013]. Sørensen, Niels Arne (2006). Den store krig. (København: Gads Forlag). Stäheli, Urs (2000). Sinnzusammenbrüche. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Timmermann-Levenas, Andreas (2010). Die Reden – Wir Sterben. Wie unsere Soldaten zu Opfern der deutschen Politik werden. (Frankfurt: Campus). von Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel (1967[1667]). Simplicius Simplicissimus. (München: Winkler). Weber, Max (1980[1922]). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. (Tübingen: Mohr). Welzer, Harald (2007). Der Krieg der Erinnerung. (Frankfurt: Fischer). Whalen, Robert (1984). Bitter wounds: German victims of the Great War, 1914–1939. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

13 Conclusions The transformations of the future Peter Haldén

The existential nature of war and war studies War is an existential experience, inherently laden with meaning. In order to make the transition from a sphere of peace to a sphere of war intersubjectively meaningful symbols and rituals have always been employed. They have been used in an instrumental way and in an existential way. The instrumental way relates to a functional need for a society, a group, a band, or a state to create efficient warriors to defend hearth and home, to plunder and to achieve glory, and to acquire all other goods, tangible and intangible, that the society and its members value and that can be gained by the raising of arms. Since this resonates with the themes of instrumental action that are so prized as hallmarks of rationality (and being rational is a state considered by modern society to be a badge of honour) it is something that we can readily understand and accept. It is also a way of acting that chimes well with large parts of the modern scholarly literature on the creation of military force (Brooks and Stanley 2007). The instrumental, rational aspect of creating groups of warriors who understand themselves as such, who see the world and the possibilities of action that are open to them through the framework, or lenses, of what their society has coded as warriorhood, and creating too, individuals who regard themselves in this way, also fits well with the dominant premise of strategic theory: a rational, instrumental enterprise in which means and ways are fitted to ends (Gray 2010). According to this viewpoint, the rituals and symbols become exotic but yet somehow familiar procedures to fashion the means that can be used for the ends sought after by strategic thought: to become a soldier, sailor, or pilot. This book, however, does not merely wish to add another dimension to an already existing framework but aims to go beyond it. The means to this end has been to highlight the existential dimension of and reasons for the rituals, symbols, and mythologies of warrior transformations. Because war is one of the most existentially potent experiences of the human condition, human beings need rituals, symbols, and mythologies to make sense of it in the frameworks of their own lives or, to use Heidegger’s phrase, their own Dasein (existence) (Taylor 2007). Much like other key experiences such as birth, marriage, and death, war and the preparation for war have their rites of

224

P. Haldén

passage that transform and prime a person for the next stage in his or her experience, for the new, the unknown, and the frightening. The experience of war is at once deeply personal and collective; people go to war as part of a group. When I say ‘group’ it is to emphasize the concentric circles of belonging to which warriors find themselves in: the squad, the warband, the platoon, the company, the battalion, the regiment, the army. Collective rites of passage join the individual to these concentric groups. We have seen how oaths were, and still are taken with the comrades of one’s immediate fighting units – the people that all military sociology tells us matter the most for fighting morale and motivation. However, every oath-taker or participant in a military rite of passage knows that other servicemen of his company, regiment, army, and service branch are also passing through the portal provided by the ritual. As Angstrom shows, the awareness that other servicemen have passed through these and similar rituals before them creates a yet stronger bond between the individual and the collective, between the present and the past. The element of transcending the present and connecting members of the collective across time or, we might say, through sacred time, is well known from religious practices. Rituals such as baptism, first communion, marriage, and burial connect the individual to a historic community of co-religionists both preceding and succeeding him/her. The joining of the individual with those who have gone before (forebears or ancestors in spirit) is of tremendous value in creating meaning and group cohesion. Similarly, the implicit knowledge that others will follow him/ her connects the individual to the future – in particular to future lives that are like his/hers and thus made meaningful in the same way. Joining an individual, living in the present, to individuals in the past and the future – though the rite of passage – eases the terror of loneliness, the fear of dying, in particular of dying a meaningless death. Nordberg’s and Wallerstein’s contribution in Chapter 4 illustrates how deeply rooted this fear is in warrior cultures.

Future studies of transformations of the future Any research project that attempts to open up a new perspective on an old field of study will end up with more suggestions than a single volume can cover. In the following I would like to outline a few topics and areas that could benefit from the perspective proposed by this book. Spontaneous warrior rituals Many of the rituals, symbols, and mythology that this book has dealt with have all been orchestrated, one might say, in a top-down fashion. Another form of ritual and use of symbols is spontaneous, non-regulated, and non-directed. Such unofficial use resembles ‘popular’ religious traditions rather than the canonical and codified customs and dogmas of official ‘high’ religion. Examples include local practices of low-caste Hinduism, festivals in remote villages, and everyday worship of patron saints in both Catholicism and Islam – the latter often containing

Conclusions 225 elements from pagan times. However, popular religious practices are never completely isolated from those of ‘high’ religion but draw on similar themes. Dan Öberg’s chapter on bushidō highlights a number of cases where people acted spontaneously rather than according to fixed procedures. What these individuals did, however, was to enact patterns of behaviour – ‘scripts’ in a very wide sense of the word – that were related to a written system of beliefs not just about acting in a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way but in ways that were meaningful rather than meaningless. The spontaneous, bottom-up creating of military rituals, and the use of symbols and mythology, is certainly a very valuable topic for future research. There is an abundance of anecdotal evidence and stories that, if systematized and theorized, could offer us greater understanding of the everyday practices of making the transition to warriorhood and making the warrior’s existence meaningful. We have pictorial and anecdotal evidence of members of the United States 101st Airborne regiment sporting Mohawk haircuts and even painting their faces in the fashion of Native Americans during the First World War. Similarly, some Swedish armoured units serving under UN command in Bosnia reportedly carved Viking runes on their tanks for protection. The tension between top-down and bottom-up creation of warrior roles – e.g. the goal of transformative processes – is strongly evident when it comes to two groups that have recently entered the military professions: women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. Newcomers to old roles This book has mostly dealt with men as warriors. If it had been a volume about contemporary issues, this would not have been enough. However, our emphasis on men is in part due to the long historical perspective of the book: for millennia, warriorhood and masculinity have gone hand in hand, both roles reinforcing each other and often presupposing each other (Malešević 2010). Future research as well as the armed forces of the future will have to be much more attuned to the issue of transforming women into warriors. Here, I can only sketch some suggestions for further research that would use the perspectives and approaches advocated in this edited volume. As suggested above, one way to approach the issue of ‘newcomers’ would be to focus on the tension between, on the one hand, the creation of symbols, rituals and myths ‘from above’ and, on the other, the creation of the same ‘from below’. To be precise, I believe it would be fruitful to analyse, on the one hand, how different armed forces ascribe warrior roles to women and LGBT persons and, on the other hand, how women and LGBT persons create warrior identities of their own. From the perspective of the respective groups, the former could be described as a process of exogenously engineered transformation and the latter as an endogenously evolved transformation. There is by now a wealth of evidence on how the different service branches of the armed forces have attempted to fit women into their activities. In some

226

P. Haldén

cases, it has seemed quite easy for these old organizations to employ women in relatively new roles. One example has been the use of female ‘cultural support teams’ that can interact with the female population of Afghanistan. Since traditional Afghan cultural mores code the interaction of non-related men and women, female soldiers have been employed in order to build legitimacy among the population as well as to conduct raids and search missions where men could not go (Lemmon 2015). Employing women in combat roles, particularly in the army, has been cognitively and normatively much more difficult. In part, these difficulties could be ascribed to the lack of culturally created warrior roles. Given the absence of old and established roles of female and/or LGBT warriors it would be of supreme importance to study not only how women and LGBT persons who are actively serving in the armed forces construct their own roles, rituals, symbols, and myths but also the construction of the ‘female warrior’ outside of the armed forces. Studies of the cultural construction of female warrior roles are highly likely to yield important insights into the perceptions and identities of both men and women. I believe that popular culture such as TV series, movies, computer games, roleplaying games, and fantasy/science fiction literature will be particularly important in shaping the views and selfdescriptions of today’s and tomorrow’s recruits and leaders both female and male, both ‘straight’ and LGBT. Laura Mulvey’s concept of the ‘male gaze’ highlights the way in which standardized desires of a male heterosexual audience are embedded in the portrayal of women in cinema in order to create pleasure for the former (Mulvey 1992). A quick perusal of the images of female warriors in best-selling games such as World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons, and Final Fantasy generally confirms Mulvey’s theory when it comes to the design of female warrior roles in popular culture. Given the wealth of sexualized imagery of scantily clad women with an often virtually impossible anatomy in impossible armour, designed more to reveal than to protect and which is more likely to form cultural templates than the far older, stricter imagery of Joan of Arc, for example, the forming of ideas and practices that exclude and discriminate against women in the armed forces should come as no surprise. For this very reason it would be of the greatest interest to see studies of the ways in which girls and women who engage in computer games, roleplaying games, and who enjoy science fiction shape their own warrior roles, symbols, and myths that rebel against the imposed ‘male gaze’. These activities ought to be seen for what they are, the altering of cultural templates with archaic roots in order to create new symbolic and mythological role (models) for a warrior identity beyond the heterosexual male. Terrorism In the twenty-first century, terrorist organizations have become a major item on the global security agenda. Although it has blighted Europe and the Middle East since the 1970s and 1980s, with the attacks on the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001 terrorism became a top priority for Western governments

Conclusions 227 (Bobbitt 2008). Furthermore, terrorist organizations were no longer only a matter for the police and the security services but also for the armed forces of the world. Terrorism, particularly the Islamist/Jihadist variety, is of course not only a chief concern for American and European governments but also for Russia and all the countries of the Middle East too. An important scholarly and practical question is how to understand terrorists. What makes people join extreme organizations that undertake extreme actions: in the terms used by this book – why do people undergo the transformation into a terrorist warrior? There are several types of explanation available in the literature: one group is inspired by Ted Gurr’s (1970) greed/grievance model as a cause of violent conflict; another group centres on psychological explanations, wanting to identify the kinds of personality traits that attract people to terrorist organizations. A common trait of all schools of interpretation is that terrorism is an alien activity and membership needs to be explained, either rationally or culturally. As Hafez (2006) notes “collective action, high-risk activism, or extreme violence . . . disrupts normal living and brings tremendous hardship to participants”. According to this argument, the inability to live a normal life is one of the costs of being a terrorist and, consequently, a terrorist organization must find material or ideational – even spiritual – rewards to compensate for this loss. For those who treasure a normal life, why anyone would want to lead a life of secrecy, subterfuge, and suffer the extreme risks of brutal incarceration, torture, and death becomes puzzling. However, we may turn the question around and inquire whether the extreme aspect of the terrorist’s life may in fact be the very thing that attracts people to these organizations. This book has emphasized the existential dimensions of war and of the transformation into a warrior’s life. I suggest that we may gain substantial heuristic mileage by understanding terrorism not only through a rational or a cultural/constructivist lens but through an existential one. The desire to break away from a normal life is well known in the biographies of many people who have joined fighting forces. The most familiar examples in our culture come from volunteers in the First World War: Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war. We had set out in a rain of flowers, in a drunken atmosphere of blood and roses. Surely the war had to supply us with what we wanted; the great, the overwhelming, the hallowed experience. We thought of it as manly, an action, a merry duelling party of flowered, blood-bedewed meadows. “No finer death in all the world than . . .” Anything to participate, not to have stayed at home! (Jünger 2004: 5) We have to take seriously the idea that becoming a warrior offers a way out of what Durkheim called anomie and a mundane life of soul-crushing routine. Citing this as a reason for seeking excitement, however, is too superficial; what we are seeing is rather a quest for existential meaning to one’s existence.

228

P. Haldén

Evidence from research on the social background of terrorists demonstrates a prevalence of middle- to upper-class backgrounds. Hence, material gains are not a major incentive (Duyvesteyn 2004). Instead, Albert Camus’ statement that suicide is the only true question in philosophy, as well as our provocative reformulation that killing may also be one of philosophy’s true questions, seem to offer new insights into the motivations of terrorists, whether religious or not. Existentialist philosophers such as Albert Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre, and metaphysically orientated war writers such as Ernst Jünger offer new heuristic mileage to us since they suggest that human beings’ quests for meaning to their existence through extreme actions are not limited to religious believers but also extend to atheists. Religiously motivated warriors A marked feature of the post-Cold War era has been not the realization of Nietzsche’s prophesy of the “death of God” but the demise of the secularization thesis – in brief the idea that as modernity progressed, religion would become steadily less important. We have seen the failure of Arab secular nationalism and its replacement by first political Islam and then by Jihadi Islamism or Salafism as a dominant ideology in the conflicts raging across the greater Middle East and beyond through the medium of terrorist attacks. A starting point of this book has been that the experience of war is indeed an existential one (cf. King 2013: 16ff.). Since this has been the point, we believe that a strict line between fighting men and women who see their experience and roles in purely mundane terms and those who see it in purely existential terms is difficult to make. Instead of distinct categories we have to reason in terms of family resemblances. However, any ideal type of a ‘religious warrior’ would be a person whose motivation for fighting lies in the explicit tenants of an established system of transcendental beliefs, whether they are laid down in scripture or not. Furthermore, his shift into a warrior role (i.e. his transformation) is seen explicitly as part of a initiation into a religious or spiritual role in the strict sense of the word. The berserkers described by Nordberg and Wallenstein in Chapter 4 of this book fall into this category. However, it is crucial to carefully historicize the presumptive category of the ‘religiously motivated warrior’. If we go back in history, the classic example of religious warriors in European history is the Knights Templar. They were a monastic order, like the Franciscans or Cistercians, but were at the same time a military order. Their identity and organization were those of monks but their activities, in order to promote the work of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, did not consist of prayer, song, and scripture study but the armed protection of pilgrims and of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem – in other words activities that we today would regard as military. However, they acted in a historical and cultural context that was not primarily secular; indeed the concept ‘secular’ would lack meaning in the Middle Ages. Furthermore, they were one of the main actors in the Crusades, the series of military campaigns launched with the explicit aim of liberating the

Conclusions 229 Holy Land, indeed on the orders of the Pope himself. A great deal has been written about the Crusades, particularly with the aim of identifying the different motives of the crusaders. It is well known that not only piety, but lust for adventure, gold, and land were important drivers behind these ventures. However, it would be a mistake to regard these motivations as distinct variables since they all took place within a general context where faith was unquestioned (the Middle Ages) and within a specifically religious mission (the Crusades). All crusaders, to a greater or lesser extent, were interested in the salvation of their souls, promised by the Pope to all who participated. Thus, in that period, there could be no clear-cut separation between a religiously motivated warrior and a profanely motivated one simply because there was no distinct sphere that could be called ‘religion’ in the modern sense of the word. All warriors and all people were what we call ‘religious’. It is only in the eighteenth or even as late as the nineteenth century that we can observe an emergence of ‘religion’ as a distinct sphere of human activity; a functional system alongside other functional systems such as law, politics, economy, love etc. Only in the modern era has it become possible to code operations without involving the codes of the Church. Hence, it is only in the modern era that the distinctly religious warrior becomes possible. The distinct characteristic must then be the explicit connection to a system of beliefs and the perception of one’s role as belonging to a sphere of human activity that is identified by its opposition to secular beliefs. In other words, the modern religious warrior is an explicitly non- or anti-secular warrior. The research agenda proposed by this book focuses on the creation of individual warriors. In this light a central concern is understanding the role of religion in facilitating recruitment to fighting organizations. At the time of writing in November 2015, ISIS or Daesh, has had considerable success in recruiting fighters to its struggle in the Middle East as well as terrorist operatives for actions abroad. While considerable research energies have been invested in understanding the role of religion in the recruitment of soldiers, there is an important gap to fill: understanding the role that religious values and authorities can play in promoting defection from other traditional organized armed groups. Clearly, religious symbols, narratives, values, roles, and authorities can provide individuals with a framework that makes membership in a military organization the stuff that provides meaning to their lives. However, a pressing but hard concern for research and political strategies is how alternative narratives building on closely related themes and ideas could promote defection. There are currently (2015) very real concerns of radicalization among minority populations in many European countries.1 In this light, an even more efficient and desirable task would, of course, be to further our understanding of how religious ideas, authorities, symbols etc. could be used to prevent recruitment into such alternative organized armed groups. In the terminology of this book, then, how can religion prevent individuals from wanting to make the transition from a peacetime to a wartime existence? This book has highlighted two transformations that individuals undergo in connection with war: from peacetime to wartime and then back to a peacetime

230

P. Haldén

existence. A number of studies have looked at whether a religious faith makes the transition from a wartime to a peacetime existence easier (Fontana and Rosenheck 2004; Gerber 2011; Tran et al. 2012). Fontana and Rosenheck note that the trauma of PTSD may weaken the religious faith of individuals and thus deprive them of a meaning to life. Tran et al.’s more recent findings show a connection between higher levels of religious motivation and lower levels of PTSD and depression. However interesting, these studies have several limitations. First, they are tests conducted on veterans already suffering from PTSD and not on veterans who did not seek (or did not receive) care or counselling. Second, they are quantitative studies of large-n samples that do not go into the specificity of beliefs or indeed distinguish between different religions or creeds. Since the aforementioned studies suggest that there are significant links between religious motivation and PTSD syndromes further research is certainly called for. Of particular importance would be studies that engage with hermeneutic investigations of how veterans interpret their beliefs and the nature of God that go beyond fixed questionnaires. In order to understand what meaning faith gives to individuals and their experiences in wartime, other ethnographic methodologies that uncover the subjective meaning would be crucial. Furthermore, future research must be much more specific both with regard to religion and the memory and interpretation of wartime action – e.g. precisely what religious beliefs, experiences, and tenants come into play in relation to precisely what actions, e.g. killing, seeing one’s comrades die, helping comrades, or being unable to do so, etc. Naturally, given today’s multicultural and multireligious societies, research that distinguishes between different religions and their potential effects would be invaluable. This, as well as the other suggestions in this chapter, will have to be the subject of future articles and books.

Note 1 See The Economist. “Jihad at the heart of Europe” in Briefing: the war with Islamic State, 21–27 November 2015, pp. 23–4.

References Bobbitt, Philip (2008). Terror and consent: the wars for the twenty-first century. (London: Allen Lane). Brooks, Risa and Stanley, Elizabeth A. (ed.) (2007). Creating military power: the sources of military effectiveness. (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press). Duyvesteyn, Isabelle (2004). “How new is the new terrorism?”. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 27(5): 439–54. Fontana, Alan and Rosenheck, Robert (2004). “Trauma, change in strength of religious faith, and mental health service use among veterans treated for PTSD”. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 192(9): 579–84. Gerber, Monica (2011). “The unique contributions of positive and religious coping to posttraumatic growth and PTSD”. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 3(4): 298–307.

Conclusions 231 Gray, Colin S. (2010). The strategy bridge: theory for practice. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Gurr, Ted Robert (1970). Why men rebel. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Hafez, Mohammed M. (2006). “Rationality, culture, and structure in the making of suicide bombers: a preliminary theoretical synthesis and illustrative case study”. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 29(2): 165–85. Jünger, Ernst (2004[1920]). The storm of steel. (London: Penguin). King, Anthony (2013). The combat soldier: infantry tactics and cohesion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Lemmon, Gale Tzemach (2015). “The army’s all-women special ops teams show how we’ll win tomorrow’s wars”, available at www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/ wp/2015/05/19/the-armys-all-women-special-ops-teams-show-us-how-well-win-tomorrows-wars/ [last accessed 21 October 2015]. Malešević, Siniša (2010). The sociology of war and violence. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press). Mulvey, Laura (1992). “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” in Merck, Mandy (ed.), The sexual subject: a screen reader in sexuality. (London: Routledge), pp. 22–34. Taylor, Charles (2007). A secular age. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Tran, Christy T., Kuhn, Erik, Walser, Robert D., and Drescher, Kent D. (2012). “The relationship between religiosity, PTSD, and depressive symptoms in veterans in PTSD residential treatment”. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 40(4): 313–22.

Index

Page numbers in italics denote tables, those in bold denote figures. Achilles in Vietnam (2003) 206 action movies 137–8; depiction of military operations during the war 138 Adolphus, Gustavus 82, 90–1, 93 Adorno, Theodor 204, 209, 218 adult masculinity 136, 149, 153 aesthetics 43, 82, 110, 112–13 Afghanistan War 210–11 African military professionalism 131 Algerian War 215 All-Volunteer Force (AVF) 150, 157–9, 184 American Civil War 202; veterans of 216 amok, Malaysian concept of 50 Ansart, Olivier 109, 115 “anti-economy” of death 121 Antigone (Sophocles) 27–8 Apocalypse Now (1979) 184 Arab secular nationalism 228 Archives of Swedish Military History 91 ‘arctic hysteria’ 56 Arendt, Hannah 179 Aristotle 27, 32, 191 Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) 126, 135, 140 Arnold, Matthew 190 Articles of War (1621) 99, 101 Articles of War (1683) 101–2 Articles of War (1798) 102 augmented reality 193 Aum Shinri Kyo death cult 123 Aun the Old, story of 58 Autrand, Françoise 71 Baaz, Maria Eriksson 105 Baltic werewolves 38–40 Barbiche, Barnard 71–2

battlefield difference, Western versus Japanese soldiers 111 Baudrillard, Jean 120, 123 Bell, Catherine 167 Bell Labs 186 Beowulf (Anglo-Saxon poem) 12, 43–4 Berger, Peter 218 Bergson, Henri 198 berserkers, in Old Norse society 49; ageing of 58–61; as an “unwelcome suitor” 50; battle fury of 56–7; cultural–historical framework of 51–3; dehumanization in war 57; fly agaric mushroom (amanita muscaria) 56; initiation of young warriors as 53–5; life of 62; living as robbers or mercenaries 51; mental state of 57; predatory nature of 55; psychological advantage by means of causing terror 57; psychological warfare 58; religious practices 57; rituals for initiation as 53–5; shape-shifting and ecstatic battle rage 55–8; use of animal masks 57 biopolitics 103 Black Hawk Down (movie) 194 Blaney, Benjamin 50–1, 53, 55 blood sacrifice, Greek institution of 36 Bluche, François 71 Bodin, Jean 66, 72; book on witches 80; Methôde de l’Histoire (1951) 74; re-constitution of the monarchy 72; reconstruction of the officer and the commissionaire 72–7; Six Books of the Republic (1576) 72; sociology of law and organization 66; sovereignty, definition of 75; theory of state and politics 74

Index 233 ‘bots’ (web robots) 190 boundary-drawing activities 165 Bourdieu, Pierre 71 brain–artifact interface 198 Brecht, Bertolt 94–7 Buddhism 112 Bundeswehr, concept of 15, 164, 174–7, 179 bureaucracy: idea of 75; Weber’s model of 67 Burkert, Walter 20, 36; hunting hypothesis 37 Burschenschaften 171 Caillois, Roger 28 Calvin, Jean 73, 80 Calvinist transformation of discipline 69 camouflage 144; animal skin 24–6; camouflage uniforms 155; mud camouflage 26–7; war paint 28 Camus, Albert 2, 207, 228 Carlyle, Thomas 190 Castells, Manuel 188, 194, 198 Casualties of War (1989) 145 Catherine the Great 217 Charles VII (French king) 69 Christianity 112, 136 Christianization of Europe 45 Churchill, Winston 83 Cimino, Michael 184 citizen soldier 205 citizen–militia model, of military service 184 citizens, sufferings of 217 Civil War: American 202, 216; Russian 217 civilian organization 8 civilian to soldier transformation 153–4 civilians, transformation into fighters 129 civil–military relations 5–6, 137, 153; Huntington’s concept of 131 Claremont, Yasuko 121 Clark, Andy 197 Clark, Jake 207 Clason, Synnöve 95–6 cognitive immune system 199 Coker, Christopher 28 Cold War 150–1, 155, 174, 228 combatants 127–8; and initiation into fighters 134–8 compagnies d’ordonnance 66, 69 conatus, doctrine of 191 conflict resolution 67 Coppola, Ford 184

corporatist conservatism, ideology of 202 corpus spiritus, idea of 67, 71, 82 Creative Evolution (1907) 198 Crépin, André 44 Crimean War (1853–1856) 103 crimes against humanity 218 Crocq, Marc-Antoine 210 cubicle warriors (drone pilots) 183, 192 cultural evolution: awakening of human faculties 191; and performance enhancing 191–3; pleonexia (disease of progress) 191 Culture of War, The (2008) 6 cyber warriors 183, 192 Cyberdyme 187 cybernetic system 185 cyberspace 188 cyborgs 15, 197–9 cynicism: diabolic 80; rudeness and brutish 217; social forms of 71, 79 da Vinci, Leonardo 67 Daesh (ISIS) 199, 229 dar-al-harb (the world of war) 9 dar-al-Islam (the world of Islam) 9 Dark Con (2006) 195 data scrapers 190 data-flows 193–5 de la Noue, François 77–82; forms of army 79 de Lucinge, Réné 78 de Tocqueville, Alexis 70 death: as challenge 118–21; cultural context of 110–13; European notion of 112; gyokusai, notion of 113; honourable 112; as immediacy 114–16; interpretation of 117; Japanese notion of 109–10, 112; junshi 117; mode of communication 111; as nostalgia 117–18; pathos of 111; representations of 113; samurai relation to 112; selfwilled 113; seppuku 116–17, 120; shini gurui (death frenzy) 110, 115, 117; significance of 123; and warrior subjectivity 113–14 death frenzy 110, 115, 117–18, 120 “death of God,” Nietzsche’s prophesy of 228 death squads 139 decision-making: algorithms 197; machine 198 Deer Hunter, The (1978) 184 defence academies 66

234

Index

Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) 186; magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) telepathy helmet 195; state-of-the-art computer display system 198; Warrior Web Programme 192 Dell’Arte della Guerra (1991) 71 Descimon, Robert 70 Diaconus, Leo 55 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 212 digital technology: digital identity 189; and future of war 188–90 disciplinary revolution 69 Dorwart, August 76 Duby, Georges 69 Edkins, Jenny 114 Eisenstadt, S. N. 111 Electra (1462) 28 Eliade, Mircea 26 Elias, Norbert 69, 70, 104 Enlightenment 71, 76, 83, 112, 205 Esping-Andersen, Gösta 202 esprit de corps, semantics of 70–1, 78, 82, 133 estates, idea of 70 European feudalism 112 European monarchies 72 “experimental science” 14, 131 Eyrbyggja saga 56 fascism, notion of 123, 216 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) 163; conscience as a system 176–7; Constitution, values of 177; innere Führung 175–6; intervention in Kosovo 175; Joint Service Regulation 176; military and its socio-political environment 175; nested systems and soft transformations 174–8; oath of loyalty 177; political–legal system 175; transformations into warriors 177–8; see also German Empire (1871–1918) feedback kinesthesis 185 female prisoners, portrayal of 133 female warriors 226 Flori, Jean 69 fly agaric mushroom (amanita muscaria) 56–7 Forever War, The (1974) 184–8 Foucault, Michel 2, 68, 205, 216 Franks, Tommy 197 Frauenfelder, David 24

Frederick the Great 71 French military organization 66 French monarchy 70, 84 French Revolution 76, 83, 103 French Wars of Religion (1561–1659) 66, 77, 80, 82, 208 Friulian benandanti 38 Fury (2014) 145 Gates, Bill 186 Gelasius I, Pope 40 gender: as politics of war 103–5; in Swedish military campaigns 99–103; in war fiction 94–9 genocide 89, 127 geregeltes Ungestüm 45 German Empire (1871–1918) 168, 202; political system of 169; see also Federal Republic of Germany (FRG); Imperial Germany; Nazi Germany Germanic warrior, myth of 38–9, 55 GI Bill 216–17 Gillgren, Peter 98 Ginzburg, Carlo 36–7, 39–40, 42 Global War on Terror 187 Google 185, 190 Gorski, Philip 69 Gray, Glen 196 Great Northern War 102 Grubbe, Lars 91 Guantanamo Bay ‘prisoners of war’ 204 guerrilla fighting 135, 140 Gurr, Ted 227 gyokusai, notion of 110, 113 Hagakure (1716) 109–10; on behaviour of Tokugawa samurai 114; cult of death in 120; on death and warrior subjectivity 113–14; on death as challenge 118–21; on death as nostalgia 117–18; reflections on death in 117–18; role of death in 111; tenets of 111 Hagendorf, Peter 100–1 Haldeman, Joe 183–8 Hale, John R. 97 Hamatsa ceremony, of the Kwakiutl 50 Hammer, Johan 98–9 Hanson, Victor 71, 83 Hästjägarplutonen (1966) 151 Heinlein, Robert 183, 192 Heracles the Lion, story of 24–6, 30 Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus see History of the Nordic Peoples (1555) History of the Nordic Peoples (1555) 39–40

Index 235 Hitler, Adolf 173–4 Hittite civilization 166, 179 Hobbes, Thomas 77, 207–8 Holy Land 229 honourable death, notion of 112–13 Hull, Isabel V. 171 human death, on battlefield 3 human intelligence 198 hunter–animal complex, connection with war and warriors 21 hunter-gatherers, prehistoric 36, 45, 189 hunting animals, ethics of 155 hunting hypothesis 37 Huntington, Samuel 4–5, 66, 131–2 IBM 186 Ibn Fadlan 60–1 identity: distinct or quasi-ethnic 133; military 136, 154; samurai 109–10, 123; veteran 139 Ignatieff, Michael 145, 158 Ikegami, Eiko 112–13, 120 Imperial Germany 163; becoming a warrior 171–2; closed systems and hard transformations 168–72; Imperial Court 170; Imperial German Army 170; oaths of loyalty 171; peace and war, concept of 169; politics and war 169–70; servicemen, right of 170; Social Democratic Party (SPD) 169; social system and the war system 170–1 inborn psychological dispositions, notion of 36 ‘individual,’ Renaissance concept of 208 Industrial Revolution 188 Information Age, The (2001) 188–9 innere Führung (“inner leadership”), doctrine of 1, 175–6, 179; principles and practices of 177 International Red Cross Committee 158 Internet 189–90, 193 Iraq wars 211, 218 Irish Republican Army 133 Iron Age 58 Italian Wars (1492–1525) 80, 204 iusta causa, issue of 4 Ivo of Chartres 4 Jakobson, Roman 36 Janowitz, Morris 4–5, 66 Japanese: Kwangtung Army 111; Red Army 123; war with Soviet Union 111; warrior culture, role of death in 112; warriorhood 114

Jihadi Islamism 228 Jones, Jim 195–6 Jouanna, Arlette 70 junshi 117, 121 Kafka’s The Process 206 kaishaku (art of cutting of heads) 117–18, 121 Kaldor, Mary 89 Kant, Immanuel 166 Keegan, John 83 killings: private 4; public 4 Kimerling, Elise 217 Kingdom of Heaven 228 kinship system 10, 152 kirisute gomen 117 Knights Templar 228 Kniphausen, General 91 Korean War 210; suicide rates among ex-servicemen 210 Koselleck, Reinhart 8 Krahn ethnic group 136 Kurtzweil, Ray 196 Lagkommissionen (the Commission of Law) 90–1 language, of the loser 27–8 Law of 1734 90 leadership of soldiers 68 Lem, Stanislaw 186 Lemke, Johan Philip 98 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons 225–6 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 36 liberalist universalism, ideology of 202 Liberian civil war, transformations in: combatants 127–8; conflicts of authority and 128–31; coup of 1980 132; disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programme 138, 140; end of war 138–41; initiation of combatants into fighters 134–8; military education 132; military professionalism 131–4; portrayal of war 130; postconflict scenario 138; soldiers 126–7; Western military practices 133 liquid body armour 187 Livonian werewolf Thiess 38 Lorenz, Konrad 36 loyalty, oaths of 166 Luhmann, Niklas 68, 70, 204, 205 Lupercalia (Roman festival of fertility and purification) 40; abolishment of 40; celebration of 41; cult of Pan 41; origins

236

Index

Lupercalia continued of 41; Ovid’s Fasti 41; Plutarch’s Romulus 41; ritual drama of 42; Romulus and 40–3; young twins’ competition for fame 42 Lyon, David 194 Lyotard, Jean-François 204 Machiavelli, Niccolò 71, 73, 78–9 Machine Age, Second 188 machine decision-making 198 machine-to-machine communication 190 Magdeburg city, destruction of (1631) 91–2 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) telepathy helmet 195 magneto-heliological (MR) fluid 187 Magnus, Olaus 12, 38–40; and the Baltic werewolves 38–40 Malafouris, Lambros 198 male gaze, concept of 226 man/machine interface 195–7 Männerbünd (wolf warrior) 54 Männerbünd hypothesis 45 Marcellinus, Ammianus 54 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 197 Mathematica software 193 meditation, on inevitable death 116 Melanesian ‘cargo cults,’ idea of 133 Melin, Mertil 156 Meyer, John 4 Michelsen, Nicholas 110 Middle Ages 39, 67, 166, 204, 228–9 Middle East 124, 210, 218–19, 226–9 Milger, Peter 92 military campaigns: gendered history of 99–103; segregation between men and women during 103 military dictatorship 173, 217 military hierarchy 130, 154 military identity 128, 136, 149, 154 military order of officers, emergence of 66 military organizations 2, 8, 73, 123, 145, 159, 180; codes of 72; construction of 71; degree of professionalism of 147–8; European 103; French 66; military sociology 4; organizational revolution 71; process of socialization 147; and secret societies 136; unit culture of 147 military professionalism 66, 147–8; African 131; code of conduct 148; debate on 70–2; definition of 148; disciplinary revolution 69; French 66; Huntington’s requirement for 131;

modernization of 83; of ordinary soldiers and officers 68; organizational models of 67; Renaissance revolution in 67–9; separation from civilian affairs 131–2; separation of forms of power 73; separation of powers 82–4; soldiers and 131–4 military proficiency 129 military revolution, of society and politics 70 military service, citizen–militia model of 184 military sociology 4, 66, 71, 224 military strategy, sexual violence as 89 military training 127, 194; quality of 132; for transforming civilians into fighters 132 military transformation 128–31; in West African conflicts 135 modern societies: closed systems 164–5; oath 166–8; one template, many variants 164; open systems 165; religious beliefs and sanctions 167 modern state, formation of 70 Modern Systems Theory (MST) 164 modern warfare, high-technology 89, 161 money, notion of 119–20 mood hacking 197 Moskos, Charles C. 4–5 Mother Courage (drama) 94–6 motivational conditioning 185 Mousnier, Roland 70, 72 Mulvey, Laura 226 Münkler, Herfried 89, 92–3, 104 Musashi, Miyato 117 Muslim Mandingo 136 nano-robots 189 nationalism, notion of 123 Nationalism Project 89 Nazi Germany: boundary between peace and war 173–4; military dictatorships 173; Nazi Party (NSDAP) 173; oath of allegiance 180; social life and organization 173 Neolithic Europe 45 Neubrandenburg, attack on (1631) 91 New Scientist, The (2013) 198 Nordic berserkers 1 nostalgia of death 117–18, 120–1 oaths of loyalty 166, 177; of allegiance 168, 180; in Imperial Germany 171; in military service 166; oath-breakers 167,

Index 237 178; psychic systems and social systems 166–8 Odin, cult of 53, 58, 60 Ödmann, Samuel 56 Odysseus in America (2002) 206 optic networks 197 Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS), France 215 organizational revolution 71 Orthodox Byzantine Church 72 Ovid’s Fasti 41 Pagel, Mark 199 pain, idea of 27 pays d’élections 70 pays d’états 70 peace: state of 7; and war 7–10 peacekeeping force 135 Pentagon 187 permanency, concept of 72, 75 perpetual warriors 80 personal analytics 193 Peter the Great (Russian Czar) 217 Peters, Jan 100 Philoctetes (Sophocles) 27–8 Pilot Associate Expert System 198 Plato 21 pleonexia (disease of progress) 191 Plutarch’s Romulus 41 politics of war, gender as 103–5 Pomeranian War (1757–1762) 102 Poro society, in Liberia 136 portrait of the warrior: becoming the predator 26–7; dressing up, in body of the predator 24–6; from drums to snake sounds 31–2; as hunter 32; language of the loser 27–8; and losing language 28–30; as man, monster, and animal 19–22; mythical creature, indeterminacy of 20; oak trees, monsters, and other speakers 30–1; Sophocles’ Trachiniae 22–4 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 28, 145, 202, 209, 211, 212–13, 230; rituals in the military and 146 potestas absoluta, idea of 75 Predator (movie) 19, 22–4; Arnold in mud 26–7; back to talk and laughter 31–2; from drums to snake sounds 31–2; extraterrestrial hunter 26; monster in 26; mud camouflage 26–7; ‘musical’ theme 31–2; mythical account of cosmological proportions 26; shadowing the predator 32; war paint 28

Preston, Ted 116 “primal horde” 36 Princeton University 197 printing press revolution 69, 208 prisoners of war: Guantanamo Bay 204; Soviet camps 210 Procopius (c.500–60) 60–1 Prodi, Paolo 166, 178 Professional Soldier, The (1960) 66 professionalization of military officers 66; de la Noue, François 77–82 prostitutes 99–100, 168 Protecting Mothers and Soldiers (1891) 216 psychological disorders, combat-related 28 psychological warfare 58 rape: concept of 105; mass rape 89; warrelated 89, 105 Reinhardt, Karl 22 religiously motivated warriors 16, 228–30 Renaissance revolution 66, 84; and disruption in the early Renaissance 69–70; in military professionalization 67–9 Rentenhysteriker (pension hysterics) 215 Ritterakademien 78 ritual killing 61 ritual societies 8, 10 ritual taboos 137 rituals in the military 144, 224–5; analysis of 150–2; for becoming a berserk 53–4; civilian to soldier transformation 153–4; of crossing boundaries 147; and posttraumatic stress illnesses 146; for promoting adult masculinity 149, 153; psychological needs for 146; ritual killing 61; social recognition of 152; soldier to civilian transformation 157–9; soldier to warrior transformation 154–7; stages of 152, 153; theory of 146–50; for ultimate act of violence 146; variations in the contents of 149; warrior to soldier transformation 157 Roberts, Adam 184 robotics 185, 199 rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) 135, 137 Roman Empire 217; military 68, 72; soldiers 204 Roten (werewolves’ organization) 39 Rousseau, Frédéric 211 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 205 Rowan, Brian 4 Runeberg, Johan Ludvig 94

238

Index

Russian: Civil War 217; Revolution 217; war veterans, history of 217 Rwandan genocide 89 Salafism 228 Salvius, Johan Adler 92–3 samurai see Tokugawa samurai Sarajevo, siege of 134 Scandinavian warriors 55 Schmitt, Carl 216 Schütz, Alfred 218 Schwarzenegger, Arnold 11, 19–20, 22–4, 26, 28–32 science fiction 24, 151, 183–4, 186, 195, 198, 226 Scott, Ridley 194 search engines 190 secret societies 9, 14, 136, 167 Segal, Charles 23, 28, 31 self-control 23, 28 self-willed death, ritual of 113 seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) 116–17, 120 sexual morality 168 sexual violence, in wars: female mutilation 89; mass rape 89; as military strategy 89; reduction of 104; in Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) 89–94 sexualized violence 88, 93, 104 ‘shape-shifting’ warriors 1 Shay, Jonathan: Achilles in Vietnam (2003) 206; Odysseus in America (2002) 206; on recorded history of warriors 206 shini gurui (death frenzy) 110, 115, 117 Shinto religion 112 Sierra Leone 129, 136; Kamajor militias of 135–6 Six Books of the Republic (1576) 72 SixthSense 193 Skocpol, Theda 202, 216 “slow death” of life 121 Smith, Jonathan Z. 37 Snorri’s Heimskringla 21 social categorization, problem of 204, 217 social communication 204–5 social constituents, philosophy of 205 social democratic universalism, ideology of 202 social markers, of modernity 132 social science 11, 36, 113, 163, 207 Soldier and the State, The (1957) 66 soldiering, idea of 14, 127, 132–3, 137, 139, 144–7, 149, 151–2, 158–9 soldiers: to civilian transformation 157–9;

and military professionalism 131–4; self-image 140–1; sufferings of 217; to warrior transformation 154–7 solid-state laser weapons 187 Sophocles: Philoctetes 27; Trachiniae 22–4, 30 soul and body, philosophy of 208 sovereign monarchy 76 Soviet Union 202–3, 217; offensive against Japanese army (1945) 111 Spanish tercio 82 St Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572) 80 Starship Troopers (1960) 183, 192 state funeral, to a deceased person 4 Stern, Maria 105 Sturluson, Snorri 58 suicide attacks 111, 123 suicide bomber 199 supernatural powers 129 supernatural theft, notion of 37 surveillance assemblages 194 Svenskt Krigshistoriskt Arkiv see Archives of Swedish Military History Swedish Army Rangers: camouflage uniforms 155; combat readiness 150; dress code 156; Fourth Cavalry Regiment 153; Green Beret ceremony 156, 160; history of 153; homophobia 151; jägare ribbon 156; military rituals 150–1, 160; military virtues 158; Norrland Dragoons 153; ranger training 150; St Hubertus and the eco-ethical warrior 153–9; survival skills badge 156–7; transition rituals 153–9 Swedish Environmental Protection Agency 155 Swedish military campaigns, gendered history of 99–103 Sweet, Henry 44 Tacitus, Cornelius 51 Tale of Genji 111 Taylor, Charles 3, 10, 126, 133, 140 terrorism: issue of 226–8; left-wing 123; suicide 123 Thin Red Line, The (Jim Jones) 195 Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) 79, 84, 88, 99, 103–4, 202; brutality of 105; femininity and masculinity in 89–94; gender in war fiction 94–9; Münkler’s view of 93; Swedish campaigns during 89; war-traumatized veterans of 207–8 Thornhill, Chris 68 Tokugawa samurai: ethnomentality of 110;

Index 239 identity of 109–10, 123; notion of war 112; relation to death 112; religious intervention 112; Rinzai-Zen sect 112; vassalic bureaucracy of 117; virtually dead 116; warrior culture 112 tool making and tool use 198 Trachiniae (Sophocles) 22–4, 30, 32; Heracles the Lion, story of 24–6; oak trees, monsters, and other speakers 30–1; talking phenomena 30 Tralau, Johan 206 traumas, war-related: brain damage 213; Nervenzittern 212; Nervenzusammenbruch 212; neurasthenia 212; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 212–13; post-war psychic traumas 212; shell shock 212 treachery, notion of 37 Turner, Victor 9–10, 152, 164, 167 ubiquitous computing 15, 190, 197 úlfheðnar, in Old Norse society 49; cultural–historical framework of 51–3; initiation of young warriors as 53–5; predatory nature of 55 uniformed soldiers, concept of 204 United Nations Exploratory Force (UNEF) 183 van Creveld, Martin 6, 28, 144–5 Vernant, Jean-Pierre 20 Vernichtungssieg 169 Vidal-Naquet, Pierre 21 Vietnam War 184, 207, 209, 217; post-war psychic traumas 212; suicide rates among ex-servicemen 210 virtual reality (VR) 195 von Bruiningk, Hermann 38 von Clausewitz, Carl 66, 71, 129, 169 von Falkenberg, Dietrich 91 war: in defence of one’s country 4; difference with peace 7–10; digital future of 188–90; economic costs of 80; ethical, symbolic, and social problems of 6; hunter–animal complex 21; issue of iusta causa in 4; of religion 67; risks of 8; samurai notion of 112; sexual violence in 89; similarities with religion 3; state of 7 war and soldiering, imagery of 137 war and war studies, nature of 223–4 war fiction, gender in 94–9 War of the Worlds (1898) 187

war paint 28, 97, 157 war veterans: of Afghanistan War 211; of American Civil War 216; care centres for 214; characteristics of 213; collective processes, categories of 203; conflicting systems 213–14; essentially contested concept 203–6, 213; “falling down” effect 205; GI Bill 216–17; historical sociology of 206; history of 202, 204; as human beings without human rights 204; individualization process 203, 207–11; pain 214; pessimist approach towards future 218–19; phenomenology of 218; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 202, 212–13; rehabilitation of 216–17; Russian war veterans 217; social, organizational, and functional systems 205; social reality 203; social situation of 210; socially constructed reality 214; suicide rates among 210; of Thirty Years’ War 207–8; traumatic experiences 202–3; of Vietnam War 207; welfare programmes 214–15; of World War 207, 213–18 warlords and warbands, cultural–historical framework of 51–3 warrior: ageing warriors ritually killed 58–9; becoming a 1, 171–2; cubicle warriors (drone pilots) 183, 192; cyber 183, 192; as hunter 32; hunter–animal complex 21; Nordic berserkers 1; Odinworshipping 60–1; portrait of see portrait of the warrior; religiously motivated 228–30; role of 1; ‘shapeshifting’ 1; social recognition of 154; to soldier transformation 157 warrior aristocracy 51 warrior graves 61 warrior rituals see rituals in the military warrior subjectivity 118; construction of 14, 110, 113–14; death and 113–14; death frenzy 117; production of 114 warrior transformations, Japanese 110–11 Warriors (1954) 196 Weber, Max 2–3, 5, 66, 70, 83, 168, 203; model of bureaucracy 67 Wehrmacht 15, 83, 173, 174 Weltanschauung 10, 109, 117 Weltanschauungen 10 werewolf: Anglo-Saxon mirror for princes 43–5; notion of 36; Olaus Magnus and the Baltic 38–40; return of 36–8; Romulus and the Luperci 40–3; Roten (werewolves’ organization) 39

240

Index

Western Catholic Church 72 Western modernization in Japan 110 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 170 Wiltheim, Gaspard 92–3 witches, concept of 36, 38 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 197, 204, 218 Wolfram, Stephen 193 women in cinema, portrayal of 226 women’s participation, in Swedish campaigns 88 Woodstock festival 209 World Trade Centre, attacks on (2001) 226

World War: casualties during 215; first 202, 207–8; Germany during and after 215; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 212–13; second 111, 207; soldiers and citizens, sufferings of 217; third 217; war veterans of 207, 213–18 Ynglinga saga 49, 58–9 Yukio, Mishima 110, 121 Zebrowski, Robin 198 Zulu warriors 50