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Dream War

Why does the the idea of war have such a powerful hold over the human imagination? What about war could possibly make it seem appealing?

There are two major answers to this question.

1. The Noble War:
   In the dawn of human history, war was conducted in a very different manner. In that context, war consisted of hand-to-hand combat between the young men of two different tribes. It was conducted according to strict rules of honor, never involved civilians, and ended after a minimum of deaths on both sides. The purpose of such wars was to keep the tribes from becoming indolent and lazy during times of plenty. By testing themselves against each other, the young men would develop themselves to peaks of strength, intelligence, courage, skill and virtue. Those who survived on the side of the victors would have their pick of wives from both their own tribe and the conquered tribe, and would thus establish hearty bloodlines to improve the fitness of the human race.
   
   It is debatable, of course, whether war actually was conducted in such a manner in any time or place, yet it is that model of warfare that plays out inside the head of every boy or young man who dreams of entering the armed services. It is such a deep and basic part of our common social legacy that even committed pacifists can feel the pull of the "noble war," which is also the portrait of war sold to those at home by their warfaring governments.
   
   In truth, of course, modern warfare bears almost no resemblance to this primal vision. In modern war, weapons of mass destruction kill civilians and soldiers alike, and at a distance, in a bloody and largely honorless spectacle of destruction. Yet that vision of war, as true and inescapeable as it may be, is never quite able to defeat the image of the noble war that lives on inside our collective subconscious.
   
   
2. The Dream War
   The other major source of positive thoughts about war is buried even deeper in our psyches. It exists at the level of primal symbols and archetypes utilized by myths, fairy tales and dream narratives.
   The best way to understand this is through the common dream of being chased by, or fighting against a horde of faceless monsters. Those dream-creatures are representations of pure evil, at least as we experience them. By destroying them, we gain a psychological victory for our ego over the chaotic and disturbing elements of our subconscious.
   
   The same basic effect is at work when we enjoy myths and legends that play out these same psychological archetypes. Such stories can be more fantastic, with the hero fighting off evil demons and monsters, or they can be more realistic, with the creatures replaced by human beings, who are nonetheless still representatives of pure evil.
   
   This last scenario becomes problematic, however, in that it encourages us to view our adversaries as evil and inhuman. Accordingly, we view whatever death and destruction we bring to our enemies as the same kind of uncomplicated triumph of good that it represents in our dreams and our myths. In reality, however, those that we kill are not abstract symbols, but real flesh-and-blood human beings with the same kinds of hope and dreams as we.
   
   When we let go of that realization, and tag some adversarial group as intrinsically monstrous --whether that be Nazis, terrorists, Arabs, blacks, whites, Ku Klux Klan members, or whatever --we are falling into the same nightmare world as inhabited by school shooters, who are unable to distinguish between their own classmates and the dark imaginings of their dreams.
   

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