domingo, 14 de diciembre de 2025

A BAND OF BROTHERS (THE MILITARY MIND)

 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

(William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV Scene iii)

 

 

A BAND OF BROTHERS (THE MILITARY MIND)

Karen Cronick

In Shakespeare’s play, Henry V, he depicts an English military incursion into France in which the invaders are outnumbered and poorly equipped. The king exhorts his army not to flee, but to stay and fight, for glory, and for a basic feeling of loyalty among the soldiers who, he says, share a common mission. They are like brothers. In this play they do stay and fight, and they win the battle for their king. We can ask: why do soldiers stay and fight? How do they perceive their culture’s power structures? What´s in it for them?

In this essay we will review different aspects of the collective awareness of power, from the relatively inoffensive ideas in Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and Carl Gustav Jung, to more darkly elaborated views of dominance, expressed, for example, in Adolf Hitler´s Mein Kamph. We will not be referring to Thomas Hobbes’s idea of voluntary submission in order to avoid interpersonal violence (Hobbes, n.d.) because the kind of surrender we examine here involves cultural permission for cruelty and killing. Hobbes does refer to a “shadow kingdom”[1], but he also describes human nature as basically kind.[2]  Nor will we refer to the Marxist idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, because his original conception of the idea can be interpreted as a harmonious agreement among the previously downtrodden to create a social system in which economic justice would replace exploitation.[3]

We will examine the motives of soldiers and activists, who often give their lives for causes for which they, personally, will perceive no benefits. We will look at what happens to those who must face danger and kill others for these causes.

Our basic questions are, how is dominance created and why is it often successful? And what motivates the extreme obedience of the soldier and the more violent political activists? We will see power depicted as a cultural inheritance, a psychological drive, and a as the result of indoctrination.

Hitler

We will begin, very briefly, with Adolf Hitler. He expressed his views in several writings, above all in Mein Kamph (My struggle), a sort of autobiography of his radicalization, first in his native Austria and later in Germany.

Like many people who see the use of unmitigated power as a solution to their own, and their country’s problems, he claimed to have a difficult childhood.[4] He lost his parents early, and complained of economic difficulties. He was active from a young age in nationalistic politics, and talked of participating in street demonstrations in which:

 “[…] we saluted with a ‘Heill’ and sang the Deutschland úber alles, instead of the imperial [Austrian Empire’s] anthem, despite the admonitions and punishments. […] It is understandable, then, that at that time I was not among those who felt indifferent” (Hitler, 212., p. 15).  

In his rise to power, he observed that:

"The crowd bows more easily to the one who dominates than to the one who implores, feeling inwardly more satisfied with an intransigent doctrine that admits of no doubt, […] The masses do not know what to do with freedom, feeling even slightly abandoned. […] I also came to understand the importance of physical terror both in the individual and in the masses (p. 34).

He also stated that:

The State does not consist of a meeting of economic managers carrying out an activity within a specific living space, but is the organization of a community of morally and physically homogeneous beings, with the aim of improving the conditions of conservation of their race and thus fulfilling the mission that Providence has assigned to it. This and no other is the purpose and raison d'être of a State (p. 97).

With this brief review of some of his thoughts, we can appreciate both Hitler’s goals and the means he used to achieve them. He was an extreme exponent of the idea of unilateral power that is maintained for the sole purpose of control in and for itself. Even his goal of racial dominance supposes that among his followers there will be constant reenactments of abusive dominance.

Many questions can also be posed about Hitler’s followers. Klímova (2015) asks about the role of the social unconscious, psychological regression, nonverbal communication, community rituals, and the existence of true or false collective selves. She suggests that there is a:

[…] false collective self, similar to the false self in an individual, [that] is born and grows as an outcome of the identification with aggressor. Especially the traumatized groups are prone to succumb to aggressor –in the search for a mighty protective authority.  Masses of previously traumatized people are trying to find rescue in the identification with a Big We (Big Us?).

We have begun with this figure because of his extreme position, which he explained in detail in Mein Kamph. This position allows us to create contrasts with other personages who have thought about power seen as dominance. We will examine the idea of collective identity in the following pages.

Nietzsche

Nietzsche has been accused of forming a philosophical current that justified fascism even though he strongly disliked nationalism. The fascists used his ideas (like the Übermensch[5] and Will to Power) for their own ends. Fascism interpreted these concepts as state worship and Arian racial superiority, which is a perversion of his critique of herd mentality. Nevertheless, his ideas about obedience and the natural superiority of the leader can easily be understood in these terms. In the following paragraphs we will review some of his writings.

Nietzsche decried what he perceived as a growing European nihilism which he described in the Will to Power (1968) as:

a psychological state, [… that happens] when we have sought a “meaning” in all events that is not there [….],  a totality, a systematization, indeed any organization in all events, and underneath all events, and a soul that longs to admire and revere has wallowed in the idea of some supreme form of domination and administration […. or] a disbelief in any metaphysical world [… or] any belief in a true world. (p. 12-13).

These are three states. He likened the lack of meaning as the loss of Christian values in Europe. The second state, systematic conceptual “organization” of reality may refer to Hegel’s and Marx’s growing influence, and the third one may refer to a scientific conception of the world. In any case, Nietzsche (p. 16) points out how people -and society-, having lost their old authority, “seek another authority that can speak unconditionally and command goals and tasks.” This new influence may be a personal voice, abstract reason, or social instinct in the sense of the herd. With obvious reference to Hegel, he also mentions “history” that possesses an immanent spirit and a goal within itself. Nihilism “reaches its maximum of relative strength as a violent force of destruction—as active nihilism” (p. 18).

He never really defines the “will to power”. Beery (2020, p. 4-5) offers a summarized definition from Martin Heidegger (1991), and John Richardson (2002) as:

 “an absolute objective certainty which makes up the main driving force behind all nature and reality. Under this interpretation the universe and all that inhabits it does not merely express a Will to Power, but rather is a Will to Power. [….] That is, all reality/all living things are in a constant power struggle amongst each other, in order to spread out and strengthen their power.”

This concept of power is similar to Darwin’s idea of the biological competition that leads to species’ survival and mutation.

Nietzsche proposed “Active nihilism” in The Will to Power, as a rejection of “the horror of existence”, and as a means for creating meaning, and value. Beery (2020, p. 24) cites Heidegger (1991). who said: “[t]he expression ‘will to power’ designates the basic character of beings; any being which is, insofar as it is, is will to power”. And Beery (p. 25) goes on to say that in Nietzsche “[…]  all aim-driven behaviors, whether conscious or unconscious, are reducible to an expression or manifestation of will to power. Here, will to power serves as a unifying principle behind all organic and inorganic beings and their functions.”

Power is not just a form of self-realization for Nietzsche. Beery (p. 40) quotes from The Gay Science in which Nietzsche argues that:

Benefitting and hurting others are ways of exercising one’s power upon others… One hurts those whom one wants to feel one’s power…we benefit and show benevolence to those who are already dependent on us in some way; we want to increase their power because in that way we increase ours.

Likewise, our use of our power can benefit us even when we help others because we thusly make them dependent, which heightens our own power. In the same way, when we hurt others, we increase our own feeling of power over them. Beery (p. 42) cites Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

But wherever I found the living, there I heard the speech on obedience: Whatever lives, obeys. And this is the second point: he who cannot obey himself is commanded. That is the nature of the living. […]commanding is harder than obeying …. Where I found the living, there I found the will to power; and even in the will of those who serve I found the will to be master. (Nietzsche, 1987, p. 12)

Just as people have the will to command, they also obey, either their own dictates or those of others. A person who obeys another accepts his masters’ goals as superior to his or her own. Those who cannot command themselves are commanded by others. However, it must be observed that Nietzsche also said that intentionally hurting other people is a sign of weakness.

He has traced a very fine line in which he recognizes domination as a legitimate social force, but he rejects cruelty. This rejection would be a moral decision, but he does not clarify where this limitation would come from. If there is no overriding ethical structure, the reasons for rejecting viciousness are not clear.

 Will to power in Jung

Jung modified Nietzsche’s idea of the will to power. Instead of “domination” he turned it into a psychological drive for agency. It became willpower (or ego energy) in his writing, an energy that exists uneasily alongside Eros. It is, in his concept, a force of the libido that can either act as healthy assertion or as a destructive tendency.

Jung (1970, p. 9) reminds us that the idea of an "unconscious" has its roots in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and that he referred to the individual psyche in this way:

 In the first place it was a designation for the state of forgotten or repressed mental contents. In Freud, the unconscious, although it already appears—at least metaphorically—as an acting subject, is only the meeting place of these forgotten and repressed contents, and only because of these it has a practical significance.

Jung refers to an active and necessary unconscious that gives basic meaning to existence through symbols, archetypes and animi which are culturally shared. He speaks of a collective unconscious. Cultures take care of their archetypes and legends, because they arise from this collective and mythical knowledge, which is a kind of underground and ancestral water of knowledge. Once they are lost, as when in Europe the Catholic religion ceased to be universal, anxieties and social crises are evoked. Jung says that when the primitive passions are uncontained, the conscience is easily weakened "and possession can take place. Hence, the efforts of humanity are always directed to the strengthening of consciousness" (p. 27). Cultural walls must be built.

 […] These walls, erected from primitive times, later served as the foundations of the Church. And when symbols age and weaken, it is also these walls that crumble. Then the waters rise and limitless catastrophes befall humanity. (1970, p. 27).

The idea of "possession" has several interpretations that Jung does not elaborate. The most obvious is individual neurosis.  But since the unconscious is culturally shared, there can be collective repercussions to cultural losses. We might posit the development of a general need to create religious, ideological or sociopolitical belief systems in which people can hide. Submission stems from the loss of old beliefs.[6]

In Jung, however the will to power is largely benevolent. This willpower must first be exercised on an individual level, when the “inner parent” nurtures one’s capacity to achieve long-term fulfillment.

However much the ego can be proved to be dependent and preconditioned, it cannot be convinced that it has no freedom…. The existence of ego consciousness has meaning only if it is free and autonomous…. There are temporal, local, and individual differences in the degree of dependence and freedom. In reality both are always present: the supremacy of the self and the hubris of consciousness (Jung, 1954, p 28)

Psychologically, the will to power is the opposite of love or Eros. Where love is predominant, there is little will to power; and where the will to power is dominant, love is lacking.

The medieval state and religious explanations of power structures

The three men we have cited so far in this essay complain of the loss of cultural belief structures, specifically structures that justified and explained power relationships. To understand this anguish, it is important to examine just what this historical loss meant. It is also important to show that this kind of loss was not unique: it has happened many times.

Kingdoms and belief systems come and go. Before the city of Rome fell to the Visigoths in the year 410, Rome was considered eternal. Traditional Roman beliefs had upheld centuries of political systems, from the Republic to the many emperors that vied for regency in the peninsula and its territories. As EBSCO (n.d.) observes, the Eternal City was no longer safe. “The physical damage was relatively light, but the psychological shock was great.” It was just one of the major cultural upheavals that mankind has experienced, and that has demanded major shifts in belief systems.

But Catholic Christianity was about to be established politically and culturally in what was to become Europe. The bishop of Hippo Regius at the time of the fall of Rome, Saint Augustine, responded to the crisis by writing his De civitate Dei (413-427/2021 -The City of God) over a period of about thirteen years. With this writing, Saint Augustine bridged several cultural breaches: the first was the idea of the loss of the eternal city. In his vision secular power was transient, and at the same time eternal: it was temporal but subordinate to God's law. The emperors, kings, and queens only rule on earth to keep order and represent God’s will. He also created a bridge between the old Roman pantheon and Christianity. He distinguished between the earthly city which was founded on mundane, passing issues, and the City of God which represented eternal truths. He saw the Earthly City as immersed in selfish motives of power and ostentation, although guided by the holy hand, while the City of God was built on divine love and eternal peace. Finally, he gave concrete, physical existence to the idea of a worldly and human environment that could aspire to eternal values.

After the Christian Catholic church lost power many centuries later, there were many thinkers that longed for the lost certainties of Catholic medieval culture. We need to ask what this culture had to say about the relationship between belief systems and the state, and ultimately between religion and the maintenance of power.

One way of observing the relationship is to look at medieval art.

A work that demonstrates the intimate relationship between the church and earthly power is the Mosaic at Ravenna at San Vitale. It represents the Emperor Justinian I and Empress Theodora in the sixth century. These royal figures show the union between imperial power and the Church in Byzantine art. The fact that terrenal political figures were placed near the alter shows how close power was to divinity.  Other works, such as the numerous depictions of the crowning of the Virgin, show her being exalted as the Queen of Heaven. These paintings often include angels, local kings, and noblemen arranged hierarchically around her, as if they were in an earthly imperial court. In other words, the artists imagined that heaven would have power structures similar to those in found in the king's extended household, with nobles and family, that is, a center for ceremony and justice.

This justification of Catholic hierarchy was challenged by the emergence of the Protestant churches, and then by the Renaissance and the Illustration. Nietzsche and Jung depicted the need many people had for explanations of the political changes in the XVIII and XIX centuries, and for justifications for the existing power-based inequalities. The popular response to Fascism in Germany, Italy, and other places shows that the longing for belief-supported power structures was widespread, especially among those who considered that they should have influence and political clout themselves.

 

The grey zone

In the second chapter of Primo Levi’s book, The drowned and the saved, he introduces the idea of the “grey zone” (Levi, 2004).  The grey zone is described a self-classification of prisoners in the death camps during WW II that collaborated with their jailers. They had privileges in exchange for this.  Levi says that in situations where few have power, some of the dominated obtain concessions. This is encouraged by those in the upper levels. In prison situations a hybrid class of the prisoner-functionary develops, and inhabits the gray zone. A subdivision of the relation between the masters and servants appears. This phenomenon is clearly not restricted to prisons. It is a characteristic of the psychology of underdog class in any given political setting.

It further develops the idea of hierarchy. Within any given class in an up-down distribution of power, there can be subclasses of privilege in which relative power can be exercised by some over others. This can be found in governmental agencies, schools, businesses, police departments, and military bases, and any other semi-independent organization immersed in a greater power structure.

Military Culture

Military organization is necessarily hierarchical and based on power structures. The armed forces have usually been under the exclusive command of their nation’s principle civilian leader although some legal or traditional limits might exist to his or her capacity to declare war. (Conquerors like Alexander the Great or the Genghis Khan were both rulers and generals, but usually there has been a difference in these status levels.) The kings (or emperors or conquerors, or in modern days, dictators or presidents) had (and have) the power to oblige the obedience of their generals, and they in turn could order the lower ranks. Only the top leaders and their generals could order the deployment of these forces.

In general, uprisings in kingdoms and dictatorships are simple power grabs, as in the times described by Shakespeare in the Wars of the Roses in England in the XV century, or the murder of Hamlet’s father, Old Hamlet, in Demark by his brother, Claudius. These stories in Shakespeare are generally tragedies, but in history they are simply variations on the theme of power.  

When the generals have posed a problem for leadership in republics, however, there have been dramatic responses. Brutus’ motivation (at least in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Cesar) for taking part in the assassination (execution?) of Julius Cesar was to preserve the Republic, although this action did, in fact, signal the Republic’s end. In modern times generals may be peacefully disposed, as when President Truman removed General Douglas MacArthur from his command in 1951 during the Korean War. MacArthur was vociferous in his desire to continue the war, even attack China. But Truman reaffirmed civilian control over the military.

Until modern times the kings and generals would take an active part in the battles, sometimes suffering wounds or even death. There are famous works of art, such as the mosaic of the Battle of Issus in which Alexander the Great wounded king Darius III of Persia. Generals stopped fighting on the front lines when battles became large engagements and communication systems could be handled by radio, telegraph, telephone connections, and other technologies. By World War I, generals mostly commanded their troops from a distance, thus ensuring their own personal safety.

The foot-soldier has always been at the other end of the command chain. These days he or she is the only one that actually carries the weapons and kills the enemy. But the lower ranks have never had a say in their deployment. This required the development of a global belief system that turned military obedience into a respected duty, and which considered these soldiers to be potential heroes.

To understand this, we must return to the idea of belief systems. Military belief systems combine formal martial values with those of recognized religious faiths. Christian, Islamic, and other faiths are often used to help soldiers deal with issues of loss and death. But for Grimell (2024) the comparison is deeper: he describes military ethics as implicit religion, as “practices that can be understood and described as sacred – something greater than the self and worthy of dying for” (p. 162). He says, in fact, that some soldiers have not been able leave the militia because of “the perception that military service held deeper meaning than a life in civilian work” (p 164). It is similar to monastic life and other communal experiences in that:

This organized communal life cultivates strong beliefs, specific ethics and codes of conduct, numerous rituals, devotion to a cause and purpose, loyalty to the members, potential sacrifices and even standardized clothing, circumscribing individual uniqueness through the enforcement of a uniformed identity (p. 165).

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Smith (1993) goes further. He was, at the time of the publication of his article, an official in the United States Air Force Reserve. He said that:

 “humanistic values are materialistic and self-centered, [while] spiritually-based believers trust in divine power greater than themselves, [they] regard others as equals, and believe all men possess an eternal spirit which is of more worth than the physical world” (p. 4).

He affirmed that these two ways of viewing the world affect people´s moral ideas. He considered that the humanists are simply erratic opportunists that change their moral viewpoints for personal gain. He would discard Kant’s method of looking for categorical imperatives in favor of relying on the Ten Commandments. Smith rather trusted people who accept their morality from a received religious doctrine. Of course, humanism does change according to the logical development of the philosophy that gives It form, while doctrine is relatively stable.

Grimell defines the military as “a […] society with members. The social processes in such a […] society include, but are not limited to, military training facilities/schools/academia, a legal system, healthcare support, cultures, units, members, and so on” (p. 166).

All military structures have a code of values. These norms have sometimes been expressed in ways that civilian societies find abhorrent. This tension between military and civilian values has a long history. Homer’s description of the Trojan war, especially it’s end when the whole city of Troy and most of its inhabitants have been destroyed, attests to his sympathy for the victims -even though he was Greek and had descended from the victors over Troy (Homer, 1989, Cronick, 2024). This same sympathy appeared in later Greek playwriters such as Euripides’ (n.d.) The Trojan Women. The Roman destruction of Carthage in the year 146 has produced similar reactions. In modern times the total destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending WWII, has also been questioned.

After World War II, and the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, the newly instituted United Nations, established the International Law Commission (ILC)[7]. The newly adopted rules of war evolved from the Nuremberg Principles, which accepted the code of individual accountability for war crimes (solders cannot claim they were "just following orders"). The ILC codified these principles into permanent international law, in the 1949 in the Geneva Conventions and the 1948 Genocide Convention. In the Nuremberg trials, however, only the defeated Germans were tried.

Heward, C.,  Li, W., Tie, Y. C., & Waterworth, P. (2024, p 282) observe that:

The military is a unique cultural institution that significantly influences its members, contributing to the development and transformation of their identities. Despite growing interest in identity research in the military, challenges persist in the conceptualization of military identity, including understanding how it forms, assessing the influence of military culture on identity development, and evaluating the implications for mental health.

These authors examine the reactions of military veterans who retire to civilian life. They observe that martial experience impacts service members’ self-perceptions, worldviews, and mental health. They say that some aspects of military life are positive, like their sense of identity. This reduces suicidal thought among retired veterans. However, the strong sense of interconnectedness, and the role that fellow-soldiers have as an extended family, lead to a sense of loss after retirement and correlates with depression, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and negative affect (p. 283).

The consequences of violence on the civilian population

The experience of participating in a street gang, or of being affected by one, can have similar repercussions in people and communities.

Llorens (n.d.) says that chronic violence leaves traces on the people who suffer it. He refers specifically to the conditions produced by illegal street gangs, but also refers to the effects of wars on populations living in conditions of military threat. One of the results of living in violent situations is post-traumatic stress, a condition that also affects soldiers who have seen combat. Among its symptoms are hypervigilance, hyper-aggressiveness, fear, isolation, loss of hope, desensitization and emotional anesthesia.

Llorens observes that these traumas can exist at the collective level. A culture of fear and isolation develops. The development of a "double consciousness" can occur that combines the acceptance of violence as "normal" but that generates individual and collective fear that can be debilitating.

Llorens points out how, after episodes such as civil wars, there can be increases in internal civilian violence in the affected countries. One of the results can be an increase in neighborhood distrust, social fragmentation, and the development of an identity crisis in which people reduce their personalities to the conditions of "us" are opposed to "them" (whatever “them” may be).  

Another important element is the creation of the "gray zones" that Llorens quotes from Primo Levi (2004), in which the victims of violence can become victimizers, losing their essential humanity. Quoting Martín Baró, he observes that the trauma of the experience of violence is not caused only by individuals, nor does it have effects only on them, (Llorens, p. 30). It can become a local culture. Thus, trauma is not just caused by individual people, nor does it have effects only on them. Martín Baró (1990) considered that the tasks of de-ideologization, depolarization, and demilitarization are as important as is attention to the traumas of war.  He spoke of the rupture of coexistence and the dehumanization of the Other.

These individual and collective traumas produce a phenomenon that Llorens calls the militarization of the mind: it is found in the beliefs that the armed forces are necessary to pacify the country. It also appears in the ideas that having enemies is a natural condition; hierarchies are necessary; and the law of the strongest is something natural. All this leads to the naturalization of violence.

Final Reflections

Christensen, G. (2023) observed that “Research in other historical periods and cultures … shows that power cannot be conceptualized through merely hierarchical and top-down models but must be understood as complex phenomena, which can be distributed, questioned, and come from below.” This idea has been developed in an anthropological sense by Graeber and Wenfrow (2021) in their book, The dawn of everything.  They develop ample evidence to show that in the early human tribes, power was distributed among all the members, and decisions were made through consultation processes.  In this essay we have not analyzed distributive power, but we have reviewed this idea in Cronick (2025).

These early manifestations of distributive power were almost lost when early city-states began to appear. We have not dealt with this theme in this essay, but it remains as a subject for further reflection. Here our interest has been to explore how power can permeate culture, and almost be seen as a human need.

We have reviewed ideas related to the philosophy of power, its cultural, ideological, and personal manifestations, and its incorporation in certain religious dogmas. We have seen how the will to power, and willpower can justify both tyranny and challenges to oppression through the establishment of new hegemonic systems. We have considered how, in a given totalitarian society, sub-systems can develop as described in the writings of Primo Levi (2004). And we have considered military belief structures in which obedience and brotherhood (as in the “band of brothers”) become almost identical concepts. Finally, we have considered the trauma produced by neighborhood violence that reinforces gang loyalty and produces “us versus them” identities, that Llorens (n.d) called the “militarization of the mind”.

In order to create fewer power-based cultures it is important to understand authoritarianism and its historical justifications. The philosophical and psychological reflections that have been written about this topic reveal an underlying preoccupation, an almost unconscious ethos of discomfort with the idea of power, conceived of as the domination of some individuals over others. We can continue to accept it, thus denying this discomfort, or we can understand it as one cultural phenomenon among many others, and thus it is modifiable.

Footnotes

[1] "Hobbes shadow kingdom" refers to an allegory of a hypothetical state of political and religious tyranny, where erroneous doctrines extinguish reason. 

[2] Hobbes says that he cannot conceive of the posibility that man might find pleasure in perceiving great unhappines in other people (p. 33).

[3] This, of course, was not what appeared in “communist” regimes like Russia, China or the other countries that claimed affiliation with Marx’ ideas.

[4] The  role of childhood trauma in the creation of later power-related trauma was explored in Cronick (2024).

[5] The Übermensch in Nietzsche is a philosophical ideal of a person who overcomes traditional morality, and creates his own values; it embodies self-conquest. This ideal can be found in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

[6] A most obvious example of a neurotically engendered system of this type might be the belief in a flat earth, but possibly there exists any number of situations that require extreme loyalty and the refusal to examine other ideas.

[7] The ILC was established in 1947 to develop a set of international laws to define acceptable conduct in war and to define what are war crimes. It is made up of 34 legal experts elected by the UN General Assembly that do not represent any particular government interests. The ILC prepares documents to facilitate the elaboration of international treaties regarding the laws of war.


Referencias citadas en el texto

Agustine, Aurelius (427/2015).   City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods.  Roman Roads Media https://files.romanroadsstatic.com/materials/romans/nicene-christianity/City%20of%20God.pdf

Martín-Baró, I. (1990). Picología social de la guerra: trauma y terapia. San Salvador. UCA Editores.

Beery, J.A. (2020, May 6). Towards an Understanding of Nietzsche’s Will to Power. Bridgewater State University https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1314&context=honors_proj

Christensen, G. (2023). Three concepts of power: Foucault, Bourdieu, and Habermas. Power And Education, 16(2), 182-195. https://doi.org/10.1177/17577438231187129

Cronick, K. (2024, March, 26). La personalidad del tirano y sus efectos históricos. Blog: Reflexiones4-Karen.  https://reflexiones4-karen.blogspot.com/2024/11/la-personalidad-del-tirano-y-sus.html

Cronick, K. 2025. An essay on participation and political consciousness. LATAM Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades. 6, 2 (mar. 2025), 1088 – 1102. DOI:https://doi.org/10.56712/latam.v6i2.3685. Also published in: Blog: Reflexiones4-karen.blogspot.com. https://reflexiones4-karen.blogspot.com/2025/09/participation-as-ideal-and-as-political.html

Darwin, Charles (1859/2015.). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1st edición), Londres: John Murray,

EBSCO Research. (s. f.) Saint Augustine’s The City of God | Research Starters |. EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/saint-augustines-city-god

Euripides (415 BCE/n.d.). Trojan Women. Translated by E. P. Coleridge. Heroization.  https://kosmossociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Euripides_Trojan-Women.pdf

Graeber, D. & Wenfrow,  D. (2021). The dawn of everything.  London: Allen Lane de Penguin Books.

Grimell, J. (2024). Military Commitment and Identity as Implicit Religion: A Key to Understanding the Loss of Profundity in the Transition from Military to Civilian Life. Scandinavian Journal Of Military Studies, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.31374/sjms.295

Habermas, J. (1787/1992). Teoría de la acción comunicativa. (Theory of   Communicative action). Vol I. Madrid: Taurus Ediciones.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1807/1971). Fenomenología del espiritu. (Fenomenology of the Spirit).  Fondo de Cultura Economica. México https://www.proletarios.org/books/Hegel-Fenomenologia_Del_Espiritu.pdfxHeidegger, Martin (1991). Nietzsche. Harper.

Heward, C.,  Li, W., Tie, Y. C., & Waterworth, P. (2024). A Scoping Review of Military Culture, Military Identity, and Mental Health Outcomes in Military Personnel. Military Medicine, 189, 11/12. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38836843/.

Hitler, A. (2013). Mi Lucha. (My struggle). ISBN: 973-958-46-1882-5: Sigfrido Casa Editora Medellín, https://archive.org/details/miluchaadolfhitler/page/n1/mode/1up

Hobbes, Thomas (1651/n.d.). Leviatán. Feditorial.  https://www.suneo.mx/literatura/subidas/Thomas%20Hobbes%20Leviatan.pdf

Homer. (VIII century a. C. /1989). The Iliad of Homer, Translated by por Alexander Pope. The Guttenberg Project. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6130. Recuperado el 30/6/2020

Jung, C. G. (1954), “The Practice of Psychotherapy,” CW 16, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Jung, C.G. (1970). Arquetipos e inconsciente colectivo. Ediciones Paidós Ibérica, S.A. https://ia904500.us.archive.org/10/items/jung-carl-gustav.-arquetipos-e-inconsciente-colectivo-ocr-1970/Jung%2C%20Carl%20Gustav.%20-%20Arquetipos%20e%20Inconsciente%20colectivo%20%5Bocr%5D%20%5B1970%5D.pdf

Kant, Emmanuel (1785/2004). Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated by Translator: Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. EBook #5682. https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/5682

Klímová, Helena (4/1/2015). False we – the false collective self and the social unconscious in a totalitarian system. False we-TelAvivBookLaunch. https://cspap.cz/download/clanky/Klimova2015FalseWe.pdf

Levi, P. (2004). The Gray Zone. En Bourgois, P. y Scheper-Hughes, N. (Eds.) Violence in war and peace: an anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Levi, P. (1958/2002). Si esto es un hombre. Traducción: Pilar Gómez Bedate 1987. Muchnik Editores,  https://centrodocumentacion.psicosocial.net/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/levi-si-esto-es-un-hombre.pdf

Llorens, M, Souto, J, Zapata, M. Alzualde, C. Escorcia, L., Armas, M., García, K., González, R. (n.d.). Militarización de la mente. Violencia crónica y su impacto en la convivencia de las comunidades. Dicen que están matando gente en Venezuela. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358032841_Militarizacion_de_la_mente_Violencia_cronica_y_su_impacto_en_la_convivencia_de_las_comunidades/link/692c4b0eacf4cf63853a1d8b/download?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIn19

Marx, Karl (2020). El Capital. (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy). booksbylanguage_spanish, Siglo XXI. https://archive.org/details/marx-el-capital-obra-completa

Mehrtens, Sue  (n.d., 2). Jung and Others on Love and Power.   https://jungiancenter.org/jung-and-others-on-love-and-power/

Mehrtens, Sue (n.d., 1). Can We Really Assert “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way?” Jung on the Relation of Ego & Will Power. Jungian Center for the Spiritual Sciences. https://jungiancenter.org/can-we-really-assert-where-theres-a-will-theres-a-way-jung-on-the-relation-of-ego-will-power/

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1968). The will to power. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Vintage Books, Random House. https://ia803205.us.archive.org/27/items/FriedrichNietzscheTheWillToPower/Friedrich%20Nietzsche%20-%20The%20Will%20to%20Power.pdf p 79

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (1883/1987). Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Walter Kaufmann (Penguin Books.

Richardson, John (2002). Nietzsche's System. Oxford University Press.

Shakespeare, William (1601/1992).  The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.  Moby Lexical Tools. https://www.w3.org/People/maxf/XSLideMaker/hamlet.pdf

Shakespeare, William (1595-1596/ n.d.). The Tragedy of Richard III. Mowat, Barbara A. & Westine, Paul, Editores). Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/PDF/R3.pdf

Shakespeare, William (2013). Henry V. An Electronic Classics Series Publication. https://www.ucm.es/data/cont/docs/119-2014-02-19-4.%20Henry%20V.pdf

Shakespeare (1599/n.d.). Julius Cesar. NoSweatShakespeare.com.  https://nosweatshakespeare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Julius-Caesar-PDF.pdf

Smith, Joseph D. (1993, April 15).  Belief: foundation of military strategy. USAWC military studies program paper. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA263590.pdf

Additional Referencias

Cronick, Karen (2024, 2). Los griegos y...nosotros: 2da edición Edición Kindle. Anuncio en la página web: https://www.amazon.com.mx/Los-griegos-nosotros-2da-edici%C3%B3n-ebook/dp/B0D7CGQQ6P

McCullough, Lissa (2023).  On Power in Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt: Contrasts and Correlations. Chapter one. To be published in: Kathryn Lawson and Joshua Livingstone, eds., Hannah Arendt and Martín-Baró, I. (1990). Psicología social de la guerra: trauma y terapia. San Salvador. UCA Editores. https://www.academia.edu/107708675/On_Power_in_Simone_Weil_and_Hannah_Arendt_Contrasts_and_Correlations

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Gay Science; with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1974).

Weil, Simone: Unprecedented Conversations. (London: Bloomsbury, 2023). https://www.academia.edu/107708675/On_Power_in_Simone_Weil_and_Hannah_Arendt_Contrasts_and_Correlations

 

 

 

 

 




domingo, 30 de noviembre de 2025

Antecedentes de las guerras de las colonias en América

 

K. Cronick

Hay que buscar las causas de los malestares sociales en la historia de las naciones y las culturas. Desde el inicio de la historia escrita (y legendaria) el control social ha sido manejado por los reyes, emperadores, conquistadores y dictadores. Ellos se apoyan en seguidores complacientes quienes se han beneficiado con títulos, fortunas y un cierto rango de poder personal y ancestral. Dados estos beneficios, ellos resisten los reclamos de sus súbditos para cualquier forma de cambio. Además, entre los mismos seguidores existe una especie de memoria social que a veces conserva los sistemas de micro privilegios que dan la religión, la raza y la nacionalidad.

Por estas razones el gesto independentista en la América hispánica era ideológica y políticamente complejo. Es necesario revisar la historia de las ideas y de los conflictos bélicos que han afectado la región para entender por qué la independencia en las Américas Españolas no condujo a repúblicos democráticos y autogestionarios. A continuación, en este breve ensayo, revisaré estas enmarañadas historias para intentar desenredar las ideologías y la memoria de las conquistas para poder entender, no sólo estos acontecimientos, sino sus consecuencias.

En contraste con la lucha anticolonial de los Estados Unidos, en el sur hubo poco del componente libertario -en los sentidos originales de Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau y Montesquieu-.[1] Estos filósofos sentaron las bases tanto para la Declaración de Independencia estadounidense como en su posterior Constitución, documentos que se fundamentaron en ideales como derechos naturales y  gobiernos limitados, la separación de poderes, la libertad de expresión y tolerancia, y el contrato social y la soberanía popular.

Después del éxito de la independencia de estas colonias británicas, y la adopción de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos por la Convención de Filadelfia el 17 de septiembre de 1787 y su ratificación por los estados individuales a partir de 1789, hubo movimientos libertarios en otros lugares como Francia que influyeron en el desarrollo de los movimientos en las colonias hispánicas. Sin embargo, la Revolución Francesa, que comenzó con la Declaración de los Derechos Humanos (26 de agosto de 1789), terminó con Robespierre, el reino de terror de los Jacobinos y las guerras napoleónicas. Es importante revisar estos tiempos en Francia para entender los movimientos separatistas de América Latina. Haremos un breve repaso de estas historias.

Desde el comienzo hubo mucha oposición a la idea de construir una democracia libre en Francia. Primero, los que se oponían a la monarquía francesa tuvieron que confrontar la amenaza de guerra de parte de los reinados circundantes como Prusia y Austria que defendían a la corte de Luis XVI. Luego hubo también amenazas de Rusia, España, Holanda y Cerdeña. París se militarizó frente a las amenazas, tanto las del exterior como de los conflictos internos entre las diferentes fuerzas monarquistas y revolucionarias. Como resultado, tuvo varios gobiernos en la última década del Siglo XVIII, comenzando con una monarquía constitucional bajo la Constitución de 1791; esta administración se convirtió en la Primera República Francesa a partir de 1792. Luego hubo diferentes fases, terminando con la Convención y el Directorio.

Napoleón Bonaparte, un militar que ascendió en los rangos castrenses durante los tiempos revolucionarios, ganó prestigio en 1795 defendiendo el gobierno de las turbas monarquistas, y ya para el año 1796, estaba comandando operaciones militares en Italia. Fue popular en Francia, y pasó de Primer Cónsul a Emperador en 1804.  Invadió a España en 1808 e impuso a su hermano, José Bonaparte como rey de este país. Esto provocó un levantamiento popular en la península, una guerra de guerrillas y una crisis de legitimidad en la corona española. Hubo movimientos de resistencia en España, dando inicio a un proceso que, a la larga, impulsaría la independencia de las colonias en América.

Normalmente no relacionamos los acontecimientos del fin de la Revolución Francesa, (su guillotina, su emperador Napoleón y su invasión a España, tan claramente conmemorado por Francisco de Goya), con los acontecimientos en Caracas que se inició en el 1808. El movimiento hacia la independencia de Las Américas comenzó por dos vertientes:

La destitución del rey Carlos IV de España ocurrió principalmente a través de su abdicación forzada en el Motín de Aranjuez en marzo, 1808, que lo obligó a ceder la corona a su hijo Fernando VII. Posteriormente, tras la intervención de Napoleón, ambos fueron forzados a abdicar nuevamente el 5 de mayo de 1808 en Bayona. (Britannica Editores, 2025).

La influencia francesa motivó al reformista rey Carlos IV a cambiar de rumbo.  Estableció controles en la frontera para impedir la expansión revolucionaria gala y puso fin a los proyectos reformistas.  Se inició un periodo de conservadurismo y represión en que estuvieron presentes los funcionarios de la Inquisición.

En las Américas españolas, sobre todo en Caracas, hubo un gran apoyo a Fernando. Como consecuencia, en Caracas donde comenzó toda la agitación separatista de América Latina, hubo bastante rechazo a los principios libertarios que caracterizaron la fundación de los Estados Unidos y el inicio de la Revolución Francesa.

Por el otro lado estaba el “juntismo” venezolano. Inés Quintero (citada por Leal, 2019) sugiere que, al lado del apoyo a la corona española, y en oposición a los franceses, se ocultaban dos designios entre los americanos. Uno era la idea del reconocimiento de las colonias como entidades con derechos iguales a los de la península (sin llegar a la independencia), y el otro era lo de la independencia en sí. Estas dos opciones fueron debatidas en reuniones en Caracas. Este “juntismo” fue activamente reprimida por Fernando de Rojas y Mendoza, gobernador de la provincia de Venezuela. El poder administrativo se ejercía desde Caracas. Todas estas opciones hubieran implicado la investidura de nuevas autoridades, y hubo resistencia entre los que estaban en el poder para no perder sus privilegios.

El nacimiento de ideas independentistas ocurrió a raíz de aspiraciones que tenía ciertos miembros de la élite americana para lograr reconocimiento y “representación” en España, pero no de la España dominado por Napoleón. Hubo mucho apoyo para la restitución de la monarquía hispánica bajo Fernando VII, pero era importante evitar cualquier reconocimiento del gobierno de Napoleón. Los anhelos de mayor poder para los colonialistas, tenían que contemplar la conservación temporal de sus lazos con la península, pero en nombre de Fernando VII. Al lado de estas esperanzas hubo un creciente deseo para independencia.[2]

Leal (2019, p 73) dice al respecto:

“Pero ¿de qué se está hablando cuando en ese contexto se enuncia que “se pensaba establecer la independencia” […]? [… P]rimero, el de crear un gobierno con nuevas autoridades, formado entre otros por criollos principales sin separarse de la Metrópoli […]; segundo, el “juntista”, esto es, […] la eventual usurpación del “pérfido Napoleón” a fin de preservar la soberanía del rey y la integridad de la nación española con la creación de una junta a semejanza de las establecidas en la península […] y tercero, el de la ruptura, separar las provincias de la Península al amparo y protección de Inglaterra sin profesión de fidelidad al monarca cautivo.”

Hubo un largo proceso de debate y “conversación”, que, según Leal (2019) dio lugar a nuevas formas de sociabilidad y la idea de naturaleza de “la cosa pública”.[3] Todo esto aumentó la participación de los coloniales y la resignificación de las opciones que tenían. El gobierno montó un proceso judicial en contra de estos “juntistas” en 1808 quienes propusieron la formación de una junta como las de España (en apoyo a la corona de Fernando). Esto sólo aumentó las tensiones. Poco a poco hubo más apoyo para la idea de una lucha armada para lograr una independencia total de España. Desafortunadamente en Venezuela iba a ser una guerra cruel en que muriera un tercio de su población, y que destruyera la economía.

La "declaración de guerra" de Bolívar en 1813 contra España (llamado el Decreto de Guerra a Muerte) contempló la ejecución de todos los peninsulares que no apoyaran la independencia. Los americanos fueron perdonados, incluso los colaboradores con los españolas. El objetivo era definir la lucha como a una guerra internacional entre Venezuela y España.

La herencia política de esta lucha armada fue mucha inestabilidad en los gobiernos del siglo XIX en Venezuela y el continente. En Venezuela se asomaron diversos caudillos. El país sufrió la Guerra Federal en que la única vía al poder fue la violencia. Finalmente se iniciaron las dictaduras declaradas de Cipriano Castro y Juan Vicente Gómez defendidas por Laureano Vallanilla Lanz (1929) como ejemplos del “gendarme necesario” para poder pacificar el país. Los absolutismos han sido la norma en América Latina.

La militarización del conflicto y sus eventuales costos en vidas y bienes era tal vez evitable. No se puede rehacer la historia. Sólo podemos analizarla para evitar la comisión de equivocaciones similares.

Notas:

[1] Es importante recordar que la influencia de la Ilustración en la fundación de los Estados Unidos fue acompañada por la esclavitud y la masacre de los pueblos indígenas. Por esta razón el país lleva arrastradas complejas sombras culturales. Se explora esto en Cronick (s.f.)

[2] Uno de los primeros voceros de la independencia era Francisco de Miranda, aunque la influencia francesa que tuvo este militante alejó a mucha de la aristocracia caraqueña.

[3] En Cronick (2025) se observa que la idea de “cultural incorpora las ideas de un cambio intencionado y reflexivo” que surgen de las conversaciones entre personas individuales. En este sentido el individuo se ubica en la base del desarrollo de su cultura. Hay claras influencias históricas, y, evidentemente, una desigual participación de las personas de más influencia y poder en la sociedad. Pero esta perspectiva pone la cultura, al fin, “al servicio del bienestar de todos los miembros de la sociedad. Incluso en países donde los líderes han utilizado aspectos culturales para fortalecer su propio poder, la diversidad cultural permite cuestionar algunas prácticas. En Sudáfrica, por ejemplo, el apartheid fue desafiado por miembros tanto de la población blanca como de la negra, y finalmente Nelson Mandela se convirtió en el primer presidente negro del país.  Tanto él como el anterior presidente (blanco), Frederik de Klerk, compartieron el Premio Nobel de la Paz en 1993 por sus esfuerzos, respaldados por un inmenso esfuerzo colectivo.” 

References

Britannica Editors ( 2025, Oct 10). Ferdinand VII. king of Spain. Historyhttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferdinand-VII#ref2716

Cronick, Karen. (s.f.). Democracia y libertad en la construccion de las Americas (Spanish Edition): Cronick, Karen: 9798310595514: Amazon.com: Books. (s. f.). https://www.amazon.com/DEMOCRACIA-LIBERTAD-CONSTRUCCION-AMERICAS-Spanish/dp/B0DX29RL4N   En el blog: karen.blogspot.com/2024/07/democracy-and-freedom-in-construction.html

Cronick, K. 2025. An essay on participation and political consciousness. LATAM Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades. 6, 2 (mar. 2025), 1088 – 1102. DOI:https://doi.org/10.56712/latam.v6i2.3685. Also published at: https://reflexiones4-karen.blogspot.com/2025/09/participation-as-ideal-and-as-political.html

Arnold   Hauser  (1951). The Social History of art. (Historia social de la literatura y el arte). P. Varas- Reyes, traductor.  Yorik. https://proletarios.org/books/Hauser-Historia-Social-de-la-literatura-y-el-arte.pdf

Vallanilla Lanz, Laureano (1929). Democratic Caesarism. Caracas: Universal Typography.  https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5Qae2v4tNNwdSJwJDjXy4w7CUWEfhRjm88h6tisaexQJSmN7x2hRlC53hie-vs-HXpf_Wf-Ga2gXZv9todSOsUmbXdles8szWJTFyw_T-WVED8eZZ8W8JfUpQEuakVewwhKLMdiM6G_-4WglSnRgeptAlDpQ-bbwdS41PBjZpMMQySnv-r1Jnja-ljPxL4C0dX-DCXiayZdtMKU_bc4AnXVbKDDoYxJbiSoMsv6fZTWYESOdYVKxIYyRJV-feA1rjLBU9-YUQIxKisQLHw7-J8RqbMpISow

Leal Curiel, Carole (2019). La primera revolución de Caracas, 1808-1812: del juntismo a la independencia absoluta. Caracas: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung; abediciones, 2019.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jueves, 20 de noviembre de 2025

Actividades para liceístas para combatir la exclusión

[Nota: Algunas de estas actividades fueron tomadas de fuentes de la Internet cuyos datos bibliográficos no se conservaron.]

Objetivo: Darse cuenta de la importancia de la colaboración y la solidaridad.

Posibles actividades:

1. Dar la vuelta a la sábana: El profesor o profesora pone una sábana o tela grande en el suelo e invita a los chicos y chicas del grupo (puede hacer varios grupos con varias sábanas si son muchos) a ponerse encima ocupando la mitad de la sábana. A continuación, cuando estén todos colocados, se les pide que sin bajarse ni pisar el suelo en ningún momento, den la vuelta a la tela. Una vez transcurrida la acción, se promoverá un debate en el que se identifiquen las estrategias que han llevado a cabo los integrantes del grupo, cómo han llegado a girar la sábana, si han necesitado cambiar el plan original, y cómo con la colaboración de todos y todas lo han conseguido porque una persona sola no podía conseguirlo por su cuenta

2. Se les pide a los jóvenes que dibujan tarjetas de Navidad para personas que viven en ancianatos o que estén hospitalizados. Luego se las envían a una institución que está preparada para recibirlas. 

3. También se puede organizar visitas a ancianatos u hospitales para leer cuentos cortos a los residentes o pacientes. 

4. Se entrega a cada joven un globo de aire vacío. Se les pide que lo inflen, y que lo anuden para que no salga el aire. Luego deben escribir su nombre sobre el globo con un marcador. Finalmente, los alumnos deberán llevar sus globos a un pasillo estrecho y los sueltan. Se mezclan, y después se les pide que encuentren su propio globo y que lo traigan de vuelta al salón de clases. Se anota el tiempo de inicio y fin de la actividad. Una vez terminado esta primera fase, se les pide que suelten sus globos de nuevo en el mismo pasillo, y los mezclen. Cada alumno debe recoger un globo -cualquier globo- y entregárselo a su dueño. De nuevo, se toma el tiempo. Finalmente, en el aula se habla sobre la eficiencia de la colaboración vs la búsqueda individual.

5. Para fomentar la solidaridad en los liceos se pueden emplear técnicas como realizar proyectos de voluntariado y recolección de donaciones (comida, ropa, juguetes).

miércoles, 19 de noviembre de 2025

Witchweed (Poem)

We raise these kids

without a thought

Of kindness,

To bully or be bullied

In the vicious bleakness

Of our hurried lives.

 

They, the witchweed

Of society,

Join the STASI,

SEBIN, m15,

MOSAD, DINA,

ICE and KGB.

 

These are our children,

Stricken, driven

To a world of

Lovelessness.

 

It doesn’t have to be

This way. We can

Teach them how to love,

To see sisters, brothers

In the people on the street.


   -K.C.



sábado, 15 de noviembre de 2025

Wars are seldom glorious.

 

K. Cronick

Traditionally wars have been fought to maintain monarchies and conquerors like Alexander Magno, Julius Cesar, Genghas Khan or Napoleon Bonaparte. Still today armed disputes are often optional hostilities that have territorial implications. Even when national leaders proclaim objectives such as a “war on terror” or a“war against illegal drug trafficking” their true purposes are often regional control. Most non-territorial issues can be solved through negotiations.

The great generals and conquering kings, together with their immediate followers, have always been able to reap great benefits, but the foot soldiers must be convinced that their role is appreciated. They, after all, are usually the ones who pay the biggest price. For the higher military positions there has always been the possibility of fulfilling political ambitions through military service, but for the lower ranks, their tangible rewards have only been their salaries and possible retirement pay, together with a potential for loot and land resulting from active service. But traditionally they also have fought with a certain sense of honor, with the idea that the acquisition of new territories for the empire, and the defense of the existing empire’s borders was praiseworthy.

Plunder is possible reward, but even for the looters there is a possible moral problem. For that reason, the generals invented the idea of glory. Military glory is the opposite of compassionate reactions among individual soldiers when faced with the demand that they kill other human beings. Glory does not refer to the soldiers’ trade, but rather to values that go beyond humanism, that bypass it by referring to patriotism, loyalty and even xenophobia.

Sienkewicz (n.d.) mentions publications that have put forward the idea that even in ancient times soldiers may have suffered from their exposure to violent war. He says, that

“Since the publication, in 1995, of Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam, an increasingly popular view of PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] in soldiers holds that modern day combatants experience the horrors of warfare in much the same way as did ancient Greek and Roman soldiers and that PTSD must have been just as prevalent in the classical world as it is today.“

His own view is more moderate, but although the idea that empathetic reactions exist even among military personnel is not new, it is compelling.

Wars of conquest can be distinguished from those that have the purpose of “liberating” populations that have been defeated or colonized. The decolonization movement, that began in the XVIII century with the English colonies, spread throughout Spanish America during the XIX century. In the colonies that became the United States a working democracy was established. But “liberty” was not meant for everyone; later there were many human costs, mostly deriving from slavery and the massacre of the original, indigenous population. Next, the Spanish-American countries that obtained their independence from Spain developed  -almost universally- dictatorial governments.

In the XX century many African and Asian countries were able to achieve independence from European domination. These victories did not always lead to self-rule and functioning democracies. And they often implied painful losses for the local populations. For example, Beyer (n.d.) tells us that by the end of the Algerian war of independence from France, “between 500,000 and a million Algerians had been killed, out of an estimated population of just three million before the war. French losses were also high; between 150,000 and 200,000.” After independence in 1962, Algeria has had many challenges including a civil war. The country only achieved a multi-party system some 30 years after its liberation from France, but it has never developed a true democracy.

Wars are destructive for most people, but for some they are very profitable. By any ethical standards weapons manufacturers that make combat equipment like guns and vehicles should sell these wares at cost. The soldiers are expected to sacrifice themselves, and the armament producers should do the same. But they almost never do so. War profits refer to the economic gains made by executives or companies from conflict. These profits come mostly from selling weapons and supplies like uniforms and gear. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the U.S. president after WWII warned of the dangers that the military-industrial complex represents, but it has been a problem ever since the U.S. civil war.

Plans to go to war usually originate at the higher levels of power structures, and are often used as political tools to motivate the countries’ populations. People rally around the idea of the nation’s defense or its need to settle political quarrels. For this reason political rhetoric tends to be repetitive, and refers to the need to differentiate “us” from “them”.

In the United States the Korean and Vietnam Wars were “proxy” wars, motivated by international conflicts between the United States on one hand, and the Soviet Union and China on the other. In the United States Communism was feared among certain sectors, and they felt the need to defend American capitalism. For this reason, anti-colonial movements around the world were suspect after WWII. The Korean and Vietnamese wars were basically ideological confrontations reflecting the fears of the major economic interests of the time. However, by the time the Vietnam war began there was substantial opposition to the use of U.S. troops there, especially among the youth that were being drafted to go there and fight.

These were followed by Ronald Regan’s involvement in the uprisings in Nicaragua and Guatemala after 1981, and George W. Bush’s invasion of Panama in 1989. Later came the “wars on terror” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

None of these wars has resulted in increased democracy or prosperity. And although the military veterans continue to pay the price for their involvement in these places, and claim patriotic honors for their service, we are left with the sensation that they have been tricked into participating in what has had very little to do with “glory”.

We can say the same for Russia’s wars of expansion in Georgia in 2008, Ukrainia (since 2014), and Syria. In the same way China has been involved in armed conflict on its borders with Burma and India, and in skirmishes with Taiwan. None of these conflicts has led to the increased wellbeing of these countries’ populations.

The threats of war continue. They are manipulative tactics carried out by particular interest groups to maintain their own power or wealth, and have nothing to do with glory.

 

References

Beyer, G. (s. f.). Algerian War of Independence: Freedom from the French | TheCollector. TheCollector. https://www.thecollector.com/algerian-war-of-independence/

Sienkewicz, Thomas J.(n.d. ). Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Ancient Greek and Roman Soldier.. Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research. Humanities. https://camws.org/meeting/2014/abstracts/individual/U267.StressDisorder.pdf

sábado, 8 de noviembre de 2025

Richard III and Historical Tonypandy?

 

In Josephine Tey’s novel, The Daughter of Time, the term “tonypandy” appears repeatedly to denote historical lies motivated by the desire to whitewash some kings and unjustly attribute their crimes to others.

Richard III and Historical Tonypandy?

K. Cronick

This short reflection has to do with historical makeovers in general. Specifically, I have based my conjectures on a particular historical event: the supposed murder of the two princes in the Tower of London by English King Richard III in the XV century.

My thoughts about this are motivated by Josephine Tey’s mystery novel, The Daughter of Time (2009); in this novel a fictional detective, who is in the hospital recuperating from an injury, solves his boredom issues by investigating whatever accounts he can find about Richard III’s guilt in several assassinations, especially regarding the deaths of his two nephews, Edward V, aged 12,  and his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, aged 9, sons of King Edward IV.

Tey’s book is fiction in the sense that the main characters, Inspector Alan Grant, his nurses, his actress friend Marta, an American friend of Martha’s called Brent Carradine, and a few other personages have been invented in order to solve these historical crimes. Grant gets everyone else interested in the histories and myths surrounding King Richard, and the result is a sort of research into the stories told about him after his death. As readers we can’t judge the veracity of this research, but there are so many suggestive legends that we readers become Tey’s accomplices and accessories.

There are other stories of the same events. The most famous is William Shakespeare’s play, Richard III. It tells a different tale. Curiously the bard never wrote about Richard’s successor, Henry VII.

We know that Richard lived during the time of the wars of the roses (1455-85). This refers to a series of conflicts between two branches of the Plantagenet family whose members were rivals for the throne of England. On one side of the confrontation, the house of Lancaster was led by Henry VI (red rose), and on the other, the house of York was headed by Edward IV (white rose). Both had descended from Edward III.

During the reign of Henry, Edward IV fled to Flanders with his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (future Richard III). Later Henry was defeated at the battle of  Tewkesbury, and jailed in the Tower of London where he died. Rumor had it that Richard was his assassin. Then, with Henry’s death, Edward IV’s descendent Edward, prince of Wales, was heir to the throne as Edward V. Many historians attributed Edward’s arrest, incarceration, and finally his death to Richard’s machinations.

Shakespear describes Richard as a man who has decided to be evil: he says, “I am determined to prove a villain” (Act 1, scene 1, line 30, n.d.). He is ugly and deformed, unable to participate in the court-life parties, and so from the beginning of the play he decides to foment hate among his brothers and sisters, and finally to take over the power of the realm.

With an entirely different point of view, Josephine Tey’s novel does not dispute the sequence of these kings, but it does offer some doubt about Richard’s evil-doing. She almost never mentions Shakespeare, but has strong suspicions about Sir Thomas Moore’s writings that influenced the playwright. She says that his writings are an attempt to appease the power figures of the time rather than true historical accounts. Furthermore, they were written long after the events he describes. Tey claims that there were no contemporary accounts of the princes’ murders; she declares:

“[…]  Thomas More had been only eight when Richard died at Bosworth [….] Everything in that history had been hearsay [….] More had never known Richard III at all. He had indeed grown up under a Tudor administration. That book was the Bible of the whole historical world on the subject of Richard III—it was from that account that Holinshed had taken his material, and from that Shakespeare had written his, and except that More believed what he wrote to be true it was of no more value than […] a 'gospel-true' event seen by someone other than the teller. That More had a critical mind and an admirable integrity did not make the story acceptable evidence” (p. 45-6).

Tey concludes that Richard may have been a rather nice guy after all.

All of which brings us back to “tonypandy”. It may be that Richard is innocent of all the murders he has been accused of. It may be that the murder of the princes in the Tower of London never happened at all. When historians can be punished for telling the truth, or when all contemporary accounts of certain events disappear, we can never be sure.

Modern history is replete with tonypandy. Stalin tried it with partial success. These days history is recorded on the Internet and witnesses are manufactured as they are needed.

 

 

References

Shakespeare, William (1595-1596/ n.d.).The Tragedy of Richard III. Mowat, Barbara A. & Westine, Paul, Editores). Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/PDF/R3.pdf

Tey, Josephine (1951/April, 2009). The Daughter of Time.  A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_and_reburial_of_Richard_III_of_England



[1] 

sábado, 1 de noviembre de 2025

Apascacio Mata

 K. Cronick

Hoy no es el aniversario del acto ejemplar de civilidad del agente de la Policía Metropolitana Apascacio Mata, que detuvo la marcha de la caravana del Presidente de la República Luis Herrera Campins. Esto ocurrió el 17 de Marzo de 1.980 en la avenida Universidad de Caracas. Pero, luego de una conversación sobre la necesidad universal de respetar la ley, lo he recordado, quisiera llevar mi admiración para este hombre a una reflexión un poco más amplia. Hoy en día casi nadie se acuerda de Apascacio.

La caravana estaba a punto de pasar un semáforo en rojo, en una demostración más de la exoneración que siempre reclama el poder frente a las exigencias de la ley. Un agente de la Policía Metropolitana que dirigía el tránsito en ese lugar, llamado Apascacio Mata se lo impidió.

El agente Mata exigió: “Deténganse… paren… paren, el semáforo está en rojo… ¡ El paso es para los peatones” (Otilca Radio, s.f.). El escolta presidencial quiso ignorarlo, pero el propio Presidente Campins le dio la razón al agente y ordenó que la caravana se detuviera.

El incidente se volvió célebre. Apascacio fue invitado a almorzar con el Presidente Campins y  fue condecorado, y luego incluso, el presidente estadounidense Jimmy Carter, lo invitó y lo homenajeó en la Casa Blanca.

Es desafortunado que su nombre casi se ha olvidado. Invito a todos los lectores de esta reflexión que mencionen su nombre y su hazaña hoy a por lo menos una persona más, sobre todo a algún joven para que esta memoria histórica perdure.

Referencia

Otilca Radio (s.f.). Apascacio Mata, el policía que detuvo al Presidente de la República. https://radio.otilca.org/apascacio-mata-el-policia-que-detuvo-al-presidente-de-la-republica/


 
Locations of visitors to this page