tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10112235.post1194163151405655461..comments2023-09-22T10:27:08.895-07:00Comments on Life As I Know It: HumanimalHistoryGeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02670515936852776370noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10112235.post-79984616677678807752008-12-21T11:57:00.000-08:002008-12-21T11:57:00.000-08:00I wrote my high school senior thesis on this subje...I wrote my high school senior thesis on this subject (animals). I strongly agree with you!<BR/><BR/>On a side note- and <I>not</I> to pick on you- but it's "afghans" not "afghani," which is a unit of their money. Yeah, I didn't know this either until I read "An Unexpected Light: Journeys through Afghanistan." Since then, oddly, it has bothered me when they are called "afghani." Go figure. Just thought I'd spread this bit of trivia around.Aravishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07766002202567429153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10112235.post-5273655245043800542008-12-14T09:52:00.000-08:002008-12-14T09:52:00.000-08:00vesta44 - I get the point about seeing enemies as ...vesta44 - I get the point about seeing enemies as others on the battlefield, but the point of the documentary was that they were being trained to think of these people as not human in order to make torture okay. I actually think that either way of creating "other" in order to inflict harm is potentially harmful to the person who is going through the conditioning. Because you can't switch that stuff off. It's one of the reasons why I think war is wrong...and that societies that send young, healthy men and women to war need to be especially concious of the damage we are inflicting on them.<BR/><BR/>PTSD may have something to do with that, but the clinical definition has to do with trauma caused by a real or perceived threat to your own safety. Which I think that anyone going into a war zone is going to experience (civilian or military).<BR/><BR/>On a related note, there is one program that I've heard of that pairs returning soldiers with PTSD with guide-dogs-in-training. The idea being that they come to relate closely to another living being in a very gentle way.HistoryGeekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02670515936852776370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10112235.post-68533973246408279072008-12-13T17:03:00.000-08:002008-12-13T17:03:00.000-08:00If soldiers weren't trained to see enemies as "oth...If soldiers weren't trained to see enemies as "other", if they saw the supposed enemy as human, then the stress they face after tours of combat would be even greater than it is now (and how much of that PTS is due to the fact that they don't always believe the conditioning that the enemy is "other"?).<BR/>As for animals being less than humans, I've never believed that. We have a cat that holds a grudge forever. DH said that 3 years ago, one of his grandsons tried mistreating the cat and got clawed for his trouble. To this day, the cat won't have anything to do with that child, and if the kid won't leave him alone, the cat will claw the hell out of him. So I know the cat remembers, he doesn't do that to anyone else (no one else has ever tried to mistreat him).vesta44https://www.blogger.com/profile/15480692717585745934noreply@blogger.com