Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Worlds of Design: Gun vs. Sword
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7802690" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>SLA Marshall's work is highly controversial in part because no evidence exists that the raw data his book was supposedly based on actually exists. He has records of interviewing soldiers for example, but no records of asking questions that could be used to back his claims regarding the reluctance of soldiers to fire their weapon in anger, much less the answers to those questions. Much of the research purporting to show this instinctive aversion has similar problems, and the whole idea seems to fly in the face of the historical record which is filled with massacres of many sorts. So the question then becomes is there an aversion to killing that may or may not be cultural, or is there a cultural aversion to believing that we are the sort of species that enjoys or at least has little instinctive aversion to committing homicide.</p><p></p><p>For my part, I think Marshall and the like completely misinterpret the data. Humans don't have a particular aversion to homicide, but they do have a deep and instinctive aversion to facing violence directed against them. What Marshall interprets as a fear of killing is in fact a fear of being exposed to death. Soldiers fail to effectively engage the enemy because they fear being engaged in response. This theory - unlike Marshall's - fits the larger data with respect to human warfare. IMO, in its natural state, human warfare consists of three phases which are observable not only in all human warfare, but in warfare engaged in by our close relatives the chimps and the bonobos.</p><p></p><p>Those phases are the meeting phase, where the two sides take stock of each other and make relatively ineffectual threats toward each other at long range. In all stone age warfare this tends to consist of chanting, singing, yelling threats, and tossing spears at each other at beyond their effective range. The purpose of the meeting phase is primarily to work the combatants up into an emotional state where they can overcome their fear. The second phase is the charge, where one or both sides partially overcome their fear and then attack more closely. In this phase, only a small percentage of combatants on both sides have truly overcome their fear. Most are still terrified into relative inaction, but out of fear of appearing shameful to the comrades that they can see attacking, advance ineffectually toward the enemy. Finally, the third phase of battle is the slaughter where most of the killing actually takes place. The slaughter occurs when one side or the other loses its nerve, and attempts to disengage from the battle. This exhilarates the side which hasn't lost its nerve and at the same time reduces the ability of the now losing side to resist. With most of the danger now removed from the equation, the side that perceives it is winning now joins the attack altogether and the participants freed from their fear, now experience a surge of pleasure at killing their hated enemy, relishing in the slaughter in ways that will seem very bizarre and uncomfortable - especially to people who've been told that humans have an instinctive reluctance to kill.</p><p></p><p>Professional training from antiquity to the present day is all about overcoming and manipulating the behavior of your fighting force so that it can both skip that meeting phase and go straight to the charge and thereby attempt to demoralize a less disciplined force, and otherwise manipulate the opposing force with advanced tactics like feigned retreats that cause opponents to lose their discipline.</p><p></p><p>Artillery enters into this only in the sense that unlike a hand thrown spear which has limited range and can be seen coming and dodged, artillery in the meeting phase really is extremely effective and lethal. The US military for example attempts to manipulate the simian battlespace by pinning a less disciplined opponent mentally into the meeting phase, and then having done so bringing overwhelming force against the static positions of the enemy.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7802690, member: 4937"] SLA Marshall's work is highly controversial in part because no evidence exists that the raw data his book was supposedly based on actually exists. He has records of interviewing soldiers for example, but no records of asking questions that could be used to back his claims regarding the reluctance of soldiers to fire their weapon in anger, much less the answers to those questions. Much of the research purporting to show this instinctive aversion has similar problems, and the whole idea seems to fly in the face of the historical record which is filled with massacres of many sorts. So the question then becomes is there an aversion to killing that may or may not be cultural, or is there a cultural aversion to believing that we are the sort of species that enjoys or at least has little instinctive aversion to committing homicide. For my part, I think Marshall and the like completely misinterpret the data. Humans don't have a particular aversion to homicide, but they do have a deep and instinctive aversion to facing violence directed against them. What Marshall interprets as a fear of killing is in fact a fear of being exposed to death. Soldiers fail to effectively engage the enemy because they fear being engaged in response. This theory - unlike Marshall's - fits the larger data with respect to human warfare. IMO, in its natural state, human warfare consists of three phases which are observable not only in all human warfare, but in warfare engaged in by our close relatives the chimps and the bonobos. Those phases are the meeting phase, where the two sides take stock of each other and make relatively ineffectual threats toward each other at long range. In all stone age warfare this tends to consist of chanting, singing, yelling threats, and tossing spears at each other at beyond their effective range. The purpose of the meeting phase is primarily to work the combatants up into an emotional state where they can overcome their fear. The second phase is the charge, where one or both sides partially overcome their fear and then attack more closely. In this phase, only a small percentage of combatants on both sides have truly overcome their fear. Most are still terrified into relative inaction, but out of fear of appearing shameful to the comrades that they can see attacking, advance ineffectually toward the enemy. Finally, the third phase of battle is the slaughter where most of the killing actually takes place. The slaughter occurs when one side or the other loses its nerve, and attempts to disengage from the battle. This exhilarates the side which hasn't lost its nerve and at the same time reduces the ability of the now losing side to resist. With most of the danger now removed from the equation, the side that perceives it is winning now joins the attack altogether and the participants freed from their fear, now experience a surge of pleasure at killing their hated enemy, relishing in the slaughter in ways that will seem very bizarre and uncomfortable - especially to people who've been told that humans have an instinctive reluctance to kill. Professional training from antiquity to the present day is all about overcoming and manipulating the behavior of your fighting force so that it can both skip that meeting phase and go straight to the charge and thereby attempt to demoralize a less disciplined force, and otherwise manipulate the opposing force with advanced tactics like feigned retreats that cause opponents to lose their discipline. Artillery enters into this only in the sense that unlike a hand thrown spear which has limited range and can be seen coming and dodged, artillery in the meeting phase really is extremely effective and lethal. The US military for example attempts to manipulate the simian battlespace by pinning a less disciplined opponent mentally into the meeting phase, and then having done so bringing overwhelming force against the static positions of the enemy. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Worlds of Design: Gun vs. Sword
Top