Until very recently, war cemeteries were unmistakably "gendered," because they contained the remains only of men. That was due not to some statistical aberration or even to masculinity, toxic or otherwise, but to conscription laws.
On Memorial Day, the rhetoric of war memorials and tombstones (let alone sermons, political speeches and even ads in newspapers for respectable stores) was--and still is--about sacrifice. Dead soldiers are said to have "laid down their lives" or "sacrificed themselves" on the nation's "altar" and thus followed the example of Jesus himself. Never mentioned, however, is the fact that it was their nation that sacrificed its sons--and implicitly their own parents. This fact should be self-evident, but it's not. The nation "forgets" it both in public and even in private. Just to make sure, journalists and politicians emphasize how eagerly, or at least willingly, these young men joined up, ignoring the fact that "willing conscript" is an oxymoron. The fact is that altruism alone--never mind youthful enthusiasm for a cause, for adventure or merely for three meals a day--is not enough to sustain a modern army except in sporadic and very limited military engagements.
This cultural amnesia takes a new form in our time. Armies are now allowed to recruit women for military service, including combat in some countries. But not, so far, allowed to conscript women. How, then, can we explain the tendency to erase gender when it comes to military rhetoric about current wars and even past wars? Women served bravely and effectively in World War II, for instance, but not in combat. They didn't volunteer for it and no one expected--or even allowed--them to do so. (The Soviet Union, where women flew bombers, was an exception that few people would want to emulate.)
I say all this not out of cynicism, because some conscripts really do believe sincerely in their nation's cause but out of realism. Personal religious or moral beliefs notwithstanding, massive armies could not be sustained without "universal" (male only) conscription. And that would be impossible without a combination of bribery (the promise of status or privilege for the survivors or glory for the dead) and intimidation (jail for evasion or execution for desertion).
Actually, conscription takes more than bribery and intimidation by the state. It takes a massive cultural effort to convince boys and young men that going to war is a destiny imposed by nature itself (which would actually obviate the need for intervention by the state). Today, the central argument for conscription relies on a tendentious form of evolutionary psychology (although you could argue that all forms of that are tendentious). It isn't "nature," however, that compels men to kill or be killed. No archaeological evidence suggests that our early Paleolithic ancestors had wars at all, partly because they had no settlements to defend or extend. In fact, no evidence indicates that those early communities had gendered "roles." (Childbirth is governed by sex, not gender.) All people--male and female, young and old--did whatever they could to defend their small communities from predators either animal or human. That changed during the Neolithic period with the rise of horticulture, agriculture and pastoralism, then cities, occupational specialties, hierarchies and gender systems. Even then, however, wars were seldom more than brief raids or skirmishes. That's because the combatants were mainly serfs--the people who produced food and without whom no community could survive. Katherine Young and I wrote about all of this in the third volume (Transcending Misandry) of our series on misandry. My point here is that testosterone, which frequently varies in level not only from one individual to another but also from one duration to another, is not enough to maintain "battle readiness" for months or years on end. Culture must reinforce nature, in short, with high status for what we now call "team players" and low status--shame or worse--for non-conformist others.
This is where I get into trouble with other conservatives--including men who have learned from infancy, often painfully, to make heavy emotional investments in conforming to traditional masculine archetypes. Many of the latter want to restore the recent past in toto. And I don't care, because I don't see conservatism as an end in itself. Not everything in the past (or in the present) is worth perpetuating. Slavery isn't. Neither is gendered conscription. Any gender system that turns men per se into weapons (or women per se into incubators) is flawed enough to be questioned seriously.
As a veteran of the US Army (Vietnam era, stationed in Korea), I am sometimes asked why I volunteered. Volunteered? Even people my age forget that there was a draft until 1972. Younger people don't even know that there is a draft. Campuses did not want ROTC around. Men from the so-called "inner city" and Iowa farm boys like me were called up quickly. If you were drafted (2 years), you were very likely to go into infantry and be sent to Vietnam. I enlisted (3 years), figuring the extra year in uniform would give me a better chance of having more years out of uniform. War fiction massively confirms Paul's point that most fighters were not gung-ho and that men's early confidence and optimism quickly evaporated. Once you are in uniform, it isn't so much "culture" that enforces battle readiness as strict military discipline. In earlier wars, "cowards" weren't just shamed. Sometimes they were shot. That's another part of the recent past we don't need to revisit. I write about this coercion of men in my Substack "Gung-ho" essay.
Thanks, Tom, sobering and thoughtful. Some years ago one of my nephews, who was then in uniform, and I toured some of the famous military cemeteries along the Western Front. They are enormous, many of them, but you also find small ones surrounded by fields and woods. Sometimes we found German, French, and English soldiers buried in one cemetery; we found grave markers in Hebrew and Arabic. We saw a few female graves, nurses, as I recall. We saw some graves with unidentified remains. We were there just four days, but it forever changed my idea of war.
indeed Allen. Death and the reminder of death (like cemetaries) can be a great teacher. I will never forget working with dying patients as a therapist when I first got out of grad school. It taught me more than any school. It also amplified my gratefulness!
Until very recently, war cemeteries were unmistakably "gendered," because they contained the remains only of men. That was due not to some statistical aberration or even to masculinity, toxic or otherwise, but to conscription laws.
On Memorial Day, the rhetoric of war memorials and tombstones (let alone sermons, political speeches and even ads in newspapers for respectable stores) was--and still is--about sacrifice. Dead soldiers are said to have "laid down their lives" or "sacrificed themselves" on the nation's "altar" and thus followed the example of Jesus himself. Never mentioned, however, is the fact that it was their nation that sacrificed its sons--and implicitly their own parents. This fact should be self-evident, but it's not. The nation "forgets" it both in public and even in private. Just to make sure, journalists and politicians emphasize how eagerly, or at least willingly, these young men joined up, ignoring the fact that "willing conscript" is an oxymoron. The fact is that altruism alone--never mind youthful enthusiasm for a cause, for adventure or merely for three meals a day--is not enough to sustain a modern army except in sporadic and very limited military engagements.
This cultural amnesia takes a new form in our time. Armies are now allowed to recruit women for military service, including combat in some countries. But not, so far, allowed to conscript women. How, then, can we explain the tendency to erase gender when it comes to military rhetoric about current wars and even past wars? Women served bravely and effectively in World War II, for instance, but not in combat. They didn't volunteer for it and no one expected--or even allowed--them to do so. (The Soviet Union, where women flew bombers, was an exception that few people would want to emulate.)
I say all this not out of cynicism, because some conscripts really do believe sincerely in their nation's cause but out of realism. Personal religious or moral beliefs notwithstanding, massive armies could not be sustained without "universal" (male only) conscription. And that would be impossible without a combination of bribery (the promise of status or privilege for the survivors or glory for the dead) and intimidation (jail for evasion or execution for desertion).
Actually, conscription takes more than bribery and intimidation by the state. It takes a massive cultural effort to convince boys and young men that going to war is a destiny imposed by nature itself (which would actually obviate the need for intervention by the state). Today, the central argument for conscription relies on a tendentious form of evolutionary psychology (although you could argue that all forms of that are tendentious). It isn't "nature," however, that compels men to kill or be killed. No archaeological evidence suggests that our early Paleolithic ancestors had wars at all, partly because they had no settlements to defend or extend. In fact, no evidence indicates that those early communities had gendered "roles." (Childbirth is governed by sex, not gender.) All people--male and female, young and old--did whatever they could to defend their small communities from predators either animal or human. That changed during the Neolithic period with the rise of horticulture, agriculture and pastoralism, then cities, occupational specialties, hierarchies and gender systems. Even then, however, wars were seldom more than brief raids or skirmishes. That's because the combatants were mainly serfs--the people who produced food and without whom no community could survive. Katherine Young and I wrote about all of this in the third volume (Transcending Misandry) of our series on misandry. My point here is that testosterone, which frequently varies in level not only from one individual to another but also from one duration to another, is not enough to maintain "battle readiness" for months or years on end. Culture must reinforce nature, in short, with high status for what we now call "team players" and low status--shame or worse--for non-conformist others.
This is where I get into trouble with other conservatives--including men who have learned from infancy, often painfully, to make heavy emotional investments in conforming to traditional masculine archetypes. Many of the latter want to restore the recent past in toto. And I don't care, because I don't see conservatism as an end in itself. Not everything in the past (or in the present) is worth perpetuating. Slavery isn't. Neither is gendered conscription. Any gender system that turns men per se into weapons (or women per se into incubators) is flawed enough to be questioned seriously.
Paul! This comment is a post in itself. Many thanks for your insight into the cultural workings that is missed by most.
As a veteran of the US Army (Vietnam era, stationed in Korea), I am sometimes asked why I volunteered. Volunteered? Even people my age forget that there was a draft until 1972. Younger people don't even know that there is a draft. Campuses did not want ROTC around. Men from the so-called "inner city" and Iowa farm boys like me were called up quickly. If you were drafted (2 years), you were very likely to go into infantry and be sent to Vietnam. I enlisted (3 years), figuring the extra year in uniform would give me a better chance of having more years out of uniform. War fiction massively confirms Paul's point that most fighters were not gung-ho and that men's early confidence and optimism quickly evaporated. Once you are in uniform, it isn't so much "culture" that enforces battle readiness as strict military discipline. In earlier wars, "cowards" weren't just shamed. Sometimes they were shot. That's another part of the recent past we don't need to revisit. I write about this coercion of men in my Substack "Gung-ho" essay.
Thanks, Tom, sobering and thoughtful. Some years ago one of my nephews, who was then in uniform, and I toured some of the famous military cemeteries along the Western Front. They are enormous, many of them, but you also find small ones surrounded by fields and woods. Sometimes we found German, French, and English soldiers buried in one cemetery; we found grave markers in Hebrew and Arabic. We saw a few female graves, nurses, as I recall. We saw some graves with unidentified remains. We were there just four days, but it forever changed my idea of war.
indeed Allen. Death and the reminder of death (like cemetaries) can be a great teacher. I will never forget working with dying patients as a therapist when I first got out of grad school. It taught me more than any school. It also amplified my gratefulness!