Finally got around to Section 1 of Grossman's book.
Grossman completes the first section as follows:
Well yes, but does this resistance actually translate into refusing to kill under any circumstances?There can be no doubt that this resistance to killing one’s fellow man is there and that it exists as a result of a powerful combination of instinctive, rational, environmental, hereditary, cultural, and social factors.
There is surely a scale into which all people fall in this regard?
Say from a '10' where he will actively seek out opportunities to kill (the psychopath) to the '0' who will rather die himself than kill a human.
Its (IMHO) a bit like sex where the first attempt is hesitant/tentative/uncertain but it gets easier with experience.
So the statement in Grossman's book is meaningless other than to record that there will be a small percentage of soldiers who resist killing to the extent that they place their own life and those of their comrades at risk. I suggest that the majority of these will find a way to get themselves out of a combat role and thus avoid such a scenario developing.
There are of course a number of "inputs" which help to reduce this resistance to kill. For example the demonisation of the enemy through race/tribal/religious based propaganda and/or through the actions of the enemy (typically atrocities) to the extent where soldiers begin to believe that to kill them would be doing a service to humanity.
I will skip the non-firer aspect as this has been tainted by the SLA Marshall controversy.
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