The Book of the Month for April is: On Killing : The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

Description

From Publishers Weekly

Drawing on interviews, published personal accounts and academic studies, Grossman investigates the psychology of killing in combat. Stressing that human beings have a powerful, innate resistance to the taking of life, he examines the techniques developed by the military to overcome that aversion. His provocative study focuses in particular on the Vietnam war, revealing how the American soldier was "enabled to kill to a far greater degree than any other soldier in history." Grossman argues that the breakdown of American society, combined with the pervasive violence in the media and interactive video games, is conditioning our children to kill in a manner siimilar to the army's conditioning of soldiers: "We are reaching that stage of desensitization at which the infliction of pain and suffering has become a source of entertainment: vicarious pleasure rather than revulsion. We are learning to kill, and we are learning to like it." Grossman, a professor of military science at Arkansas State University, has written a study of relevance to a society of escalating violence.

From Library Journal

Grossman (psychology, West Point) presents three important hypotheses: 1) That humans possess the reluctance to kill their own kind; 2) that this reluctance can be systematically broken down by use of standard conditioning techniques; and 3) that the reaction of "normal" (e.g., non-psychopathic) soliders to having killed in close combat can be best understood as a series of "stages" similar to the ubiquitous Kubler-Ross stages of reaction to life-threatening disease. While some of the evidence to support his theories have been previously presented by military historians (most notably, John Keegan), this systematic examination of the individual soldier's behavior, like all good scientific theory making, leads to a series of useful explanations for a variety of phenomena, such as the high rate of post traumatic stress disorders among Vietnam veterans, why the rate of aggravated assault continues to climb, and why civilian populations that have endured heavy bombing in warfare do not have high incidents of mental illness. This important book deserves a wide readership. Essential for all libraries serving military personnel or veterans, including most public libraries.
Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, Wash.

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Has anyone read this? The book seems really interesting. However, the reviews I read seemed very mixed, and some were on the strong side of how the author made many assumptions and did not have a very good thesis... Sounds like a bad college english research paper. I'd like to check it out though, any of you guys have a follow up on it?

I read it, and I found it pretty intresting. The author states that it isn't a pure scientific study, and he is drawing conclusions based on the data that he could obtain.

His writing is clear, and the book flows logically from one topic to the next, and you should at the very least walk away with some new ideas about war, killing, and human behavior.

There was a previous post about this book and we decided to make it the book of the month:

http://thesealquest.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/638107391/m/908106632

I am really looking forward to reading this book. Please don't ask if I have killed anyone. This is not the appropriate place for that discussions.

This thread is about getting you prepared for the time when you have to face it. We are here to get you prepared mentally, physically, and emotionally.

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