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Men And War

When does a man go to war? When does a man vote for war? When does a man send the next generation to war?

Of course, it is women, as well as men, who must support a war in our culture. And there are men and women in the military. But I am speaking to men, and I am speaking to the idea of how a mature man, a man in the position to make such decisions, would react to a call for war.

Perhaps men are the least able to make an objective, wise decision about war. Perhaps men have too much warrior energy, unbalanced warrior energy, to make such a decision. Maybe, the need to protect becomes too prominent in a man's psyche. An overused strength will always become a weakness. Any unbalance in the psyche will always balance itself in unconscious, disastrous ways.

Maybe this excess of warrior energy that our society nurtures and enables, making competition a man's overwhelming passion and winning the one worthwhile goal, also renders most men unable to tap into other wisdoms and more balanced decisions where war is concerned. One wonders if the rationale to protect one's country has more to do with adolescent ego satisfaction than mature creation of authentic safety. Creating losers has great ego satisfaction, but does little to create a peaceful friendship or a peaceful world. Many say that World War II started because we made such abject losers of Germany after World War I. The adolescent ego level, the height of warrior energy, has great courage but little wisdom.

Maybe this potential unbalance of warrior energy is why in the history of the Cherokee nation, it was the elder women who had the power to veto any war decisions of the male warriors. The men were the fighters and the strategists. The women, not as subject to the dark warrior ego, took the responsibility of creating the balance to the warrior energy.

Warrior energy, to be healthy, must be subject to king energy. Without sufficient king energy, the warrior becomes a mercenary. He fights for what he can get. He fights for his ego needs, not for the good of his community. He fights for his own survival no matter the cost. It is the king energy that looks for the common good in a culture and the higher good in the personality. The hero's journey, the journey of initiation in indigenous cultures, sought out this king energy. The hero who never found this energy stayed a persevering, sincere, and even courageous adolescent. But he never became a man.

The hero who found king energy found the wisdom that his ego could serve. This wisdom showed him that his ego needs, his need to be on top and perfectly safe, were not the priority. The ego will do anything to survive, for it knows no other reality. The king, the higher self, will do what it takes to protect the higher values that make survival worthwhile.

I am afraid this country, because of the trauma of 9/11 and the subsequent fearful news of imminent terrorist attack, has regressed to a point of the dark warrior. Any unhealthy group, as any unhealthy country, will regress under enough stress to a basic survival level. 9/11, and the alerts that have followed, have provided that group stress. This is the first time in any living memory that this mainland, this country, has been attacked. This is the first time that organized, malevolent violence has struck so personally. That trauma has placed most people in this country on a personal and chronic Orange alert. The country as a whole is acting as a traumatized, terrified individual.

Studies of large group dynamics, especially those of Wilfred Bion and Irving Janis, have shown that traumatized groups will often do one or both of two things. The group will look for a common enemy. The group will look for a savior. Desperation at a basic level, survival anxiety, causes group members to see their only hope in group cohesion. The group mind then finds an enemy to keep the group together, preying on each individual's fear. The savior then becomes the hope of the group, his judgment the group's judgment. Whatever the savior says becomes the group think, the only way to safety, the only way for the group to cohere. Any individual who questions the group, or its leader, suddenly becomes the enemy. There is no perceived survival outside the group, the only strategy becomes group cohesion and loyalty, and destruction of the enemy. Survival becomes the highest value. The leader becomes the symbol of survival.

This group dynamic can spring up any time in any group, be it in community, corporation, country. It is unhealthy. It robs each person of individuality. It robs a group of higher values, as each individual suspends his own judgment out of fear. Fear, springing from survival anxiety, becomes the operant motivation. Fear then makes a group psychologically, if not physically, dangerous, even though individuals within the group may not agree with the fearful actions. It is at this point that perfect fear casts out all love.

Collective trauma can push a group or a country to this tailspin of group dynamic. This is when a group becomes a cult, when a culture becomes a cult, rationalizing its own truth in the midst of a world of nonbelievers. The savior is often as unconscious as the group. He is just as infected with fear as the rest. Uninitiated, he is an alpha adolescent, sincere, but not a mature leader.

I am afraid of what America will do in the midst of this trauma, in the midst of this regression. How far will America go in a perceived need to survive? How many traditional values will it betray? How many questioners will it turn on as the enemy? Americans are good people, but even good people, if traumatized, can descend to the level of the desperado. A terribly frightened America can regress to the level of the adolescent gang, also loyal to their colors, with no morality higher than the survival of the the gang.

Enough initiated men (see www.christoscenter.com/toward.html concerning male initiation) can turn around the group hysteria only because they are relatively immune to regressive survival anxieties. The initiated man has faced those fears of death and annihilation personally, long before an external trauma has taken place. He is not afraid of the change that crisis brings. The initiated man knows, through many ordeals, that death is always standing over his left shoulder, giving birth to his fears and his transformation. His elders have taught him, and, more importantly, have encouraged him to meet death and loss and crisis personally.

The mature man does not need group denial nor group protection. He does not need a gang to protect him. He does not get his safety or identity needs from the group. He may choose war, because he is a warrior, but he chooses war based on wisdom, not fear. He chooses war, based on his own self-esteem, not to gain self-esteem by showing loyalty to group think, by being one of the guys. He chooses war based on his own values, not on the values and judgment of the group leader. If he is a leader, he does not expect obedience. He works for consensus among other mature men.

A traumatized America is in no position, psychologically, to make a wise decision about war. America's leaders are looking for obedience, not consensus, both nationally and internationally. That is not a good sign. In this traumatized state there will never be enough safety. This chronic traumatic state will only foster hyervigilance and a proneness to violent reactivity. We will continue to need new enemies to keep the group cohesion that seems to quell survival anxiety, but only causes it to be heightened. Most Americans are on chronic Orange alert personally. The country no longer needs a real trauma to bring us to Red alert. Perceived trauma, instigated by frightened leaders, or enough hypervigilant and hyperanxious Americans, can bring most any mildly anti-American event to a terrifying level. This, in turn, will bring a new enemy and a renewed desperate reliance on the group leader.

Trauma starts turning any stranger into a terrorist. The world seen through the lens of trauma will never be safe enough no matter how high the defense budget. The only way to find wisdom is to heal the trauma. That makes it incumbent on every man to go inside first, before making outside decisions. As in indigenous initiations, he must look down and inside for answers, not up toward a leader. He must find the internal peace beyond his existential fear and the fear of the country. Trauma is healed by facing the fear of death and loss personally, not running to a group to quell those fears.

Every man has the first duty to find the king inside. He must never let another man be his king, his general, his moral president. He must not let his warrior make his decisions. Then a man's duty is to be an elder for the next generation, to help those young men face their fears in the context of an elder community that holds to higher values. It is sinful for older men to send younger men to war without preparing them psychologically and spiritually, from the inside out, to face death. It is sinful for older men to expect obedience instead of consensus.

An initiated man must help insure that we become a people ruled by higher values. He must insure that this country not become the baddest gang in the world neighborhood. He must insure that his son, if his son chooses war, is not seduced by the dark warrior, but moves honorably, not desperately.

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