It’s no accident that the military targets adolescent
males for recruitment. Physically mature yet mentally immature, when
narcissism is highest and worldly experience is low, when “invincibility”
is curbed by a strong (childhood) neediness to be forgiven by, and
to impress, a strong father-figure. |
But military tactics go a lot deeper. There are over
100 billion neurons in the brain constantly refining new pathways.
Adolescence is a time when outside “stressors” reshape the prefrontal
cortex, stressors that incline them to “high excitement and low effort”
stimuli. And that can involve anything from drugs to violent video
games (“video game brain”), from sex and power to celebrity status,
to the romance of “hero worship.” |
The brain is highly impressionable. But "impressionable"
doesn’t simply mean being “easily persuaded.” It means being vulnerable
to hard-wiring new circuits and creating neural pathways that last
forever. To military recruiters, it’s a process of stopping the brain
from developing naturally and being rewired for a world of control
and submission, conflict and violence, the “romance” of war, heroism
and martyrdom. |
“Wired for war” is a loaded phrase. It means not just
where “manliness” is equated with facing down danger, but a much deeper
predisposition to “controlling” life in general – because life is
dangerous and untrustworthy. This normally translates to a very rigid
(“conservative”) approach to life, religion, society, politics, marriage
and parenthood. |
The Reverend Emmanuel Charles McCarthy gave the analogy
of the early 4th century (Augustine period) of Christianity when new
Christians were forced through “purgation rites” as a rite of passage
for inclusion. The military training process was (unknowingly) used
then: shutting down empathic pathways and starting new ones that went
against the grain of natural development. Referring to then and now,
McCarthy described it “from being Christ-like in the world to being
extremely un-Christ-like.” |
Experts call it “the priming of neurons” - refining
neural pathways of the young and impressionable. In this manner teens
are “primed” by way of violent video games with “paramilitary” themes.
These games get the process started early, conditioning neurons several
years before recruiters begin reading student records (violating privacy
rights), weeding out likely candidates and approaching them at home,
by mail, or at school (sometimes without parental knowledge) – then
filling their brains with stories of “high excitement and low (mental)
effort.” |
The long-term consequences can be devastating. Violence
is not just contagious, it dominates a young man’s decision-making
process the rest of his life. What’s called “dominative power” (using
fear and intimidation to get what one wants) continues on through
marriage and parenthood. It becomes the ruling principle in “value
clarification skills” and “conflict resolution skills” which becomes
a multi-generational syndrome passed on to their children.
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But ask the military if it cares. So entrenched in its
“song of the sword,” war as “the father of all things,” that anything
like neuroscience becomes just another weapon with which to exploit
the unknowing. “Follow your left” when marching (the “receptive” side
for right-handed people) is just a start to another neurological imprint
- necessary in a world fraught with danger and evil. |
But the worst tragedy of all is the indelible scarring
this has on our young who, if left alone, would most likely follow
their natural instincts, more natural “pathways” of higher consciousness
and learning. |
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