Ain't gonna study war no more
...except I actually need to, for my job
Quick note: because of heavier work responsibilities of late, I’m going to move to writing 4 newsletters a month (Sundays only) rather than biweekly; every other Sunday, content will go out for paid subscribers only.
Today, a soundbite reflection rather than an essay:
I’ve been working, in my “day job,” on a class of movies that I would never force myself to sit through otherwise: action films.
When it comes to entertainment, the kinds of fantasies that animate the minds of boys as they play at being super heroes or warriors is about as distant a desired category as you can get for me.
I’d go so far as to say that it downright triggers my contempt.
Is it because I grew up among passionate pacifists on one side and a mother traumatized by inescapable violence on the other?
Is it because my dad refused to let us ever have toy guns when we were growing up?
Is it because I’m a girl and that kind of thing was never “marketed” or made to appeal to me?
As I work through these movies — some recent, some classic — it occurs to me that they’re basically porn: the “plot” really only serves as a vehicle to get the viewer where they want to be, which is witnessing explicit action.
Some of the classics especially strike me as downright demonic given what began happening so frequently in the future. The line between a machine-gun filled revenge story and the onset of frequent mass shootings is thicker than I’m comfortable with.
Our collective desire for action films has not ceased, and I think a lot about the reason why.
The old protest song Ain’t Gonna Study War No More was, apparently, fantasy. We love to study war, which is conspicuous for a society that says that all it wants is peace. Can we study that instead?
So action movies, like porn, are made to show us what we’re thirsty to see.
But sex is a human drive, necessary for our survival. Is violence?
My first answer is an instinctual “no.” A drive for sex is universal; a drive for violence is not, and a drive for pain, an inevitability of violence, certainly isn’t.
So what gives? Why do action films, and sports fighting, and shows about narcos have such an audience? Do we just feel bored and empty, and they give us some excitement? Not all societies are obsessed with violence, which tells me it’s a cultural, not a biological obsession.
But even as a product of a culture that glorifies violence, I personally can’t see the appeal. Is watching it cathartic (best case) or inspirational (worst case)?
What’s our obsession with continuing to “study war”?
Honest question.
I recall seeing a documentary on human behavior quite a few years ago. The speaker gave the following scenario:
You’re on your way to work, when you notice there are two trains, on the same track heading for each other at speed. You know what’s going to happen, but you can’t tear your eyes away from the ensuing wreck.
Now consider that this begins happening every month. The second time, your reaction might be, “Oh no, not again”, but after several months you barely even notice when it happens.
The initial crash grabbed your attention because is was so dramatic and unusual, but after it becomes a regular occurrence, you start to ignore it.
The speaker went on to describe the incessant push for technology to support higher and higher resolution in video games. People would get used to a relatively low resolution, and eventually stop playing. That is, until the next, new, higher resolution game came along.
I think the action movies are just another example of the human tendency to “normalize” any activity that becomed rote. Action movies have to become more and more “action packed”, or if you prefer, violent, to attract an audience. The Superman TV shows that I used to watch as a kid would be a colossal flop today – there’s nothing there that would draw an audience.
Consider the movie rating system, and what gets flagged. Violence, certainly, but some of the others are nudity, sexual content, language, and drug usage. There seems to be little or no limit to how much violence can be presented, but push nudity/sexual content too far and the film ends up with an unmarketable “X” rating.
It wasn’t always this way – “A Clockwork Orange” depicted home invasion, rape, and brutality, and was originally rated “X”. Midnight Cowboy was originally rated “X” as well. Today they’re barely an “MA-17”. So violence becomes to conduit to grab attention and attract a big audience because there’s no viable alternative.
Google’s AI Overview says the answer to your honest question is “We continue to study war to understand its causes, consequences, and potential for prevention. Studying war helps us learn from past mistakes, analyze the factors that lead to conflict, and potentially find pathways to peace. It also provides insights into human nature, the evolution of societies, and the development of technology.”
But I think your real question might be: Why do humans/countries continue to war with/hurt each other? An answer to that question might be found in this Change My View subreddit where the topic for debate is posed as:
**Peace will never be obtained because as a species, humans have an innate drive to destroy and take all that they can get however they can get it. Even the nicest person has the capacity to do this. As a human you are inherently selfish and self-preserving.**
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/jet8rb/cmv_peace_will_never_be_obtained_because_as_a/
It’s an interesting thread with LOTS of opinions… expressed in MANY ways… as we humans are wont to do (which, of course, may in part answer your question, as well). The reply that resonates most with my beliefs is:
**From a strictly scientific standpoint, this is completely untrue. It's cooperation and altruism, not competition, that has driven the survival of our species. Human beings have no fur or protective pelts, no sharp teeth or claws, can't run very fast, and our offspring take an extremely long time to mature and require a lot of care and teaching. The only strength that aided in our survival was intense cooperation within groups.
The advent of agriculture changed all of that when human beings started personally owning resources and land and then fighting over them rather than resources and land being communally owned and managed. It's the rules of the society we live in and its hierarchal [sic] power structures that create self-interest and competition. It does not come from our "nature." This is pretty well understood and documented in anthropology.**
…and I also agree with another’s sentiment that **“Humans are animals that are still evolving”** and appreciate his/her/their accompanying theory that “The question is where our evolution will take us in terms of our relationship between our sense of morality and our primal instincts.”**
I doubt there’s “one correct answer” to your question, Sarah, but I thought you might enjoy someone at least taking a stab at it. Besides, I wanted to test if the double-asterisks actually work to bold in substack comments. ☺️