Do you think war dehumanizes its participants ?

Question

Thanks for your views .

Answer 1

I think that sometimes the severity of war can cause those fighting it to disregard the values that humans have developed. War puts civilisation on hold. So if you consider being human to mean being civilised then yes, it dehumanizes it's participants. If you think that humans are just animals and civilisation is just a product of our intelligence, then all war does is take us back to basics.

Either way, contrary to what some may believe, there is no such thing as a "civil" war.

Answer 2

Human nature cannot be something besides the way humans behave.

Humans make war, therefore war cannot be dehumanizing.

Answer 3

The aim of war is to bring about peace - one way or another.  The path of being human is to dehumanizes our human activities and evolve into some other animal.  Ain't these paradoxical?

Answer 4

You hear of rapes, tortures and atrocities happening in war all the time, so I'd say yes it *can* desensitise people.

Answer 5

Human spirit has amazing flexibility.  

I have many relatives in the Army,  Air Force and Indian Navy.  Some have actively participated in Indo-China & Indo-Pak wars.  But none are dehumanized souls.  It is a job for them which has to be done well,  for lives and honour of many depend on their abilities and sincerity.  When they come home on leave they are back to being loving sons,  husbands and fathers...with great heroic tales to tell.  They are far too disciplined to let their ferocity (during war) to colour their lives amongst civilians.

Answer 6

Well... it certainly makes them retarded

I mean... shooting people because they live in another country

Also they don't even know what death is and they do it to eachother...

Then again.. I don't care if they die because they choose to go into a battefield

Answer 7

Yes. As a combat soldier in Viet Nam, I have seen the beast, and he is us,  

Answer 8

I agree with Shade. War does desensitize those who participate in it, nevertheless you hear of many who return suffering from suicidal tendencies and depression. I think this is evidence that they are human after all and the extreme situation which they find themselves has a drug or alcohol like influence over them which they only recover from when they return.  

Answer 9

No matter what can ever happen to a man, he will always be human.  There is no way a man can be inhuman.  War hardens men into survivors, or breaks them.  Cannibals are human, murderers, rapists, they are all human.  They just do things many people frown upon.  Killing another man doesn't make you any less human.  It doesn't make you a savage beast.

Answer 10

Yes, i think maybe that war does dehumanize the people who are participating in it. The soldiers because they have to learn how to look the other way, and harden themselves to killing another human being, and the other people involved because they may be prisoners of the war and feel more like an animal or something less human because they are often treated this way...

Answer 11

Definitely no.

But an unjust war does.

Answer 12

Those that try to moralize a barbaric act like war are the ones who will most likely be defeated.  A certain instinct to live and have empathy for your fellow man is turned-off like a light switch in a front line solder's brain.  The enemy is de-humanized and thought of as sub-human.  this is not a normal human quality, but in 'total war,' it's either you or them.  There's no substitute.  You lose, you die.  You kill the enemy, you live.

Why do you think we have so much PTSDs among our vets? What makes me wonder is how some can cope with their dehumanizing participation in war. Guys like Col. Tibbets who dropped the A-bomb slept peacefully until the day he died, with no regrets.  While others are awakened every nite with nightmares.  Of course, some of it can be explained by the closeness of the enemy and death, but still there are vets who've been thru the worst and still don't have PSTDs.