Fun Stuff > CHATTER
The most off-topic WCDT discussion ever
GarandMarine:
--- Quote from: Carl-E on 16 May 2013, 14:57 ---GarandMarine, it's not just conditioning to the kill - you mention the ugly aspect of dehumanising the enemy, and that's an interesting psychological process of its own. My god daughter served recently (Iraq was still on) as a weapons tech in HI and came back from basic talking about "Hadjis", an attempt at a derogatory nickname for Iraqi's rather like Vietnam's "Gooks".
Or even WWI's "Huns".
I won't mention what the Nazi's called their enemies...
Dehumanising takes place on many levels, and she was back for two or three years before she was even able to think of a person with "Hadji" characteristics as human. It was a major breakthrough for her - with a good bit of tears involved.
--- End quote ---
I mention that in the full article if you click through to link. Dehumanization in reference to killing was mentioned in this thread so I only linked the relevant part about killing and rates of fire when engaging the enemy circa WW1/WW2. It's an eight page psych paper that I did my own research for, I promise I have a complete picture of dehumanization. That said I still refer to hadji as hadji, though I make a point of distinguishing (as do most of my mates) between Iraqi and Afghani civilians and hadji. Hadji is the bad guy who kills your friends, wants to kill you, and murders women and children on the regular, he has no honor, no self respect and only deserve swift violence visited upon him and his ilk. Dehumanization? Yes absolutely. However an enemy who rigs an ice cream cart with an IED in downtown Kabul specifically to target children does half the world on that himself.
What's interesting to me is how dehumanization as a psychological structure towards the enemy has moved, it's become a more complex form, allowing for the compartmentalization of "the enemy" and "the civilian populace who's getting just as shot up by the enemy as you are" there's guys who don't make that distinction, especially after tours in primarily hostile areas but I'd say in my experience they're the exception not the rule. Further dehumanization in the classic sense is at the very least officially discouraged in the military, a lieutenant who gives a briefing to his platoon and uses terms like "hadji" in a derogatory fashion around his company commander will probably get a talking to, if tape of it leaks to youtube and the command is forced to take notice, mast is certainly possible. Obviously propaganda posters (of which I have some excellent examples if you click through to my article) are a thing of a bygone age, yet still it lives. Some of it's the enemy we're fighting, but the process has moved underground into the barracks and the "grape vine" (a.k.a "the underground") where it continues to live to these days.
Again, not that it's hard to cast our current enemy in the bad guy's light, murdering women and children on the regular kinda sets that to easy mode for the average American lad or lass.
Or stories from the locals like the picture this letter from the mayor of Tal Afar, Iraq to the 3rd ACR (a local unit) paints: http://www.hardchargers.com/3dacr.pdf
--- Quote from: Method of Madness on 16 May 2013, 17:44 ---It honestly sounds complementary. Not intentionally so, but "fear those fuckers, they're crazy" is a pretty big complement to give to an opposing army.
--- End quote ---
That's why I've always liked some of the nicknames they've given Marines through out the world. Even if the Teufuel Hunden one is completely made up. Whenever enemy propaganda talks about us, from WW2 to modern times we're listed as psychotic murder machines. Whether they're calling us shock troops, Marines, black boots or white sleeves (old desert nickname, Somalia in particular) or just referring to us as America's elite soldiers who have to murder a family member to join. (that is REAL enemy propaganda)
westrim:
All this talk of dehumanizing is very interesting, but beside the point as far as Ender goes. The reason he existed in the first place was because his brother was too ruthless and his sister too empathetic, so they hoped he would be a medium, empathetic enough to anticipate the enemy and ruthless enough to annihilate them. Keeping him uninformed that things switched from games to reality was just keeping bothersome details out of his mind, because he couldn't de... sentient them. To use what I said earlier, he had the box of morality and not killing things, so they made sure he didn't know the box applied. Anything otherwise would have broken him- did break him, when it was over- because as Carl-E mentioned, most solders defense is their status in the chain of command. Ender was at the top, with no one to blame. And not just for killing the Formics, but all the soldiers on the ships, all the mistakes that might have killed more in a battle than could have been. He never could have ordered the suicidal final attack had he known he was ordering actual ships to die. He thought he was just delivering an FU to the jerks that programmed such an obviously hopeless battle, where there was no way any ships would survive as they always had before.
TL;DR, Dehumanization doesn't apply because Ender never knew there was someone at the other end.
--- Quote from: Storel on 16 May 2013, 16:10 ---
--- Quote from: Redball on 16 May 2013, 15:35 ---The reference to Hun as used by British and American officers in World War I is at the bottom of the Wikipedia link in Loki's post. In the 19th century, German soldiers were told to fight like the Huns of old, if I recall the sense of the reference.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. So "Hun" is not derogatory when applied to the people who established a large empire under the rule of Attila the Hun, but it is derogatory when applied to Germans. (Or to anyone else who isn't an actual Hun, I suppose.)
--- End quote ---
It's not derogatory anymore period, because that usage no longer exists. It would be like trying to say someone is boastful by calling them a cracker- you'd get a totally different reaction.
Method of Madness:
--- Quote from: Westrim on 16 May 2013, 20:36 ---his brother was too ruthless
--- End quote ---
This actually isn't true. (The only reason I brought out that tiny bit of your post is because as far as I can tell I agree with the rest)
westrim:
--- Quote from: Method of Madness on 16 May 2013, 20:51 ---
--- Quote from: Westrim on 16 May 2013, 20:36 ---his brother was too ruthless
--- End quote ---
This actually isn't true. (The only reason I brought out that tiny bit of your post is because as far as I can tell I agree with the rest)
--- End quote ---
I realized that was the wrong word after posting, but dangit, I couldn't' think of the right one. A couple other characters describe him that way though, before they learn more.
Loki:
--- Quote from: Redball on 16 May 2013, 15:35 ---But Loki, did the reporter or the source confuse "hon" = "honey" with "Hun"?
--- End quote ---
Yes. Although, I just double-checked, and to her defense, the user in question did spell it hun.
She describes her attempt to talk to a female-looking avatar:
--- Quote from: Rebecca Casati, Spiegel 8/2007 ---Draco answers [in English]: “Sorry, Hun. I’m a guy and only into other girls.”
“Hun” is the English word for “Hun [the tribes]”. And for “German”. And it also means a wind instrument formed of clay and played in Korea. I decide that none of the three is an insult and continue on.
--- End quote ---
Clearly, the reporter did think to check Wikipedia, but not Urban Dictionary. Also, the bolded paragraph has apparently been since removed from the online version of the article, I assume because of reader letters and blog posts advising her that hun is, in fact, short for honey. Still, I would expect a reporter doing a report on Second Life be somewhat familiar with web slang.
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