Steve Nolan's Reviews > On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
by
by
Dangerous and bad.
I almost gave it two stars because the beginning seemed pretty interesting and enlightening - I didn't know anything about fire rates in wars from Vietnam all the way back to like, Roman archers, so that was new and interesting and cool. (Same on some of the psychological stuff, but a bit less solid ground there.) But then the whole second half of the book happened and the dude went off the rails.
Would tell you a million times that the reason Vietnam vets were so fucked up was due to not getting support at home - BABY KILLER! - while always ignoring the huge difference in training they got compared to previous soldiers. (Fire rates didn't climb from 20% to 95% by accident.) That was never a potential cause of PTSD, only mean people at home that didn't give them enough parades. But we've been incredibly superficially supportive of Iraq/Afghanistan vets in the ways Dave here wanted us to be for Vietnam vets, and our modern soldiers aren't faring any better.
My spidey senses started tingling when he mentioned our current age was the "most violent in history" because of how dubious that is. (Plenty of stats show this current age as being the LEAST violent in history.) Blaming violent videogames and Hollywood for creating a generation of killers is fucking crazy, just as his "Bulletproof Mind" shit that's training cops to fear for their lives in every situation.
The book is a bit more together than Dave's more recent shit, but you can see him going down the wingnut path here and it is naht good.
I almost gave it two stars because the beginning seemed pretty interesting and enlightening - I didn't know anything about fire rates in wars from Vietnam all the way back to like, Roman archers, so that was new and interesting and cool. (Same on some of the psychological stuff, but a bit less solid ground there.) But then the whole second half of the book happened and the dude went off the rails.
Would tell you a million times that the reason Vietnam vets were so fucked up was due to not getting support at home - BABY KILLER! - while always ignoring the huge difference in training they got compared to previous soldiers. (Fire rates didn't climb from 20% to 95% by accident.) That was never a potential cause of PTSD, only mean people at home that didn't give them enough parades. But we've been incredibly superficially supportive of Iraq/Afghanistan vets in the ways Dave here wanted us to be for Vietnam vets, and our modern soldiers aren't faring any better.
My spidey senses started tingling when he mentioned our current age was the "most violent in history" because of how dubious that is. (Plenty of stats show this current age as being the LEAST violent in history.) Blaming violent videogames and Hollywood for creating a generation of killers is fucking crazy, just as his "Bulletproof Mind" shit that's training cops to fear for their lives in every situation.
The book is a bit more together than Dave's more recent shit, but you can see him going down the wingnut path here and it is naht good.
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June 1, 2018
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June 1, 2018
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