How new technologies are changing the ethos of the warrior and why it matters for the most peaceful citizens

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Throughout human history, the possession of weapons and a special relationship with death have given the right to rule. But times are changing.

All people are different, and all times are different, we will not dispute the obvious. All warriors are also different, but there is a point that brings together representatives of professional military corporations of all countries and all eras.

The modern Russian military bears little resemblance to the Japanese samurai (our happiness: the samurai could try a new sword on the oncoming commoner, the Russian military still somehow restrains itself). But any military man (unless he is completely devoid of the ability to reflect) in any century and in any place would understand what the first lines of "Hidden in the foliage", "Hagakure", compiled at the beginning of the XVIII, and maybe at the end of the XVII century collection of sayings of the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo:

"I realized that the Way of the Samurai is death."

Every person lives for death, and although all people are different, all lives end in the same way. But for an ordinary person, death is always a shock, a catastrophe, and most importantly - a surprise, even if doctors announced to an ordinary person in advance how many months are left for important and unimportant matters. And for a military man, death is a natural background of life, a professional risk. The business of a military man is to kill, and the readiness to die at any moment is the first item in the list of costs of the profession.

Even in the era of nuclear powered missiles flying along an unpredictable trajectory (that is, gizmos, albeit the latest, but psychologically outdated, pulling military traditions from the last century), the battle is presented as an exchange of fatal blows, involving the inevitable death of all participants. The path of the nuclear samurai is also death, there is even more clarity here.

This readiness, the consciousness of death as a component of one's own business, creates the special character of the military. A samurai, a legionnaire, an arrogant feudal lord and even an ordinary mass army mobilized for a certain period. As long as he is in form, he accepts the rights and risks of the warrior corporation, he shares that specialty.

This particularity is expensive; power grows out of it.

The conscious willingness to die has created the right to rule for centuries.

States grow out of this particularity. The noble ones were called noble because they were born for war and death (such a blessing). There is a well-known example with the formation and existence of serfdom in Russia, that is, with a story about the fact that one person can, almost like a thing, belong to another and see in this state of affairs something ordinary.

The serfs were not that they were somehow particularly pleased with their unhappy lot, it happened, and cut the gentlemen, sometimes on a large scale and with enthusiasm, but in general they understood: they exchange their freedom for the right not to fight if the sovereign calls. They were replaced in the case of murder and death by their masters, who were obliged to serve, that is, to appear "on horseback, crowded and armed" at the royal call. They were protected from enemies who also claim the right to kill and are ready to die if the process so requires.

But when the decree "On the freedom of the nobility", issued by the unlucky Peter III, and then confirmed by the lucky Catherine II, appeared, questions arose about the foundations of Russian life. The answers to those questions, however, have not yet appeared, and the new members of the military corporation (they are still called "siloviks") dream of the revival of feudalism with a new face, but yes, that's another song.

For centuries, history has been understood and described as a series of wars (and diplomatic games that either delayed or brought wars closer), that is, as the work of members of professional military corporations.

The lot of a warrior seemed enviable, and a heroic death in the name of some ideals - the most worthy of human deeds.

And only recently, some historians realized that changes in the heads of the most ordinary people are more important than the deeds of sovereign princes in shining armor. However, in school history textbooks (at least in our country) there are still battles and princes in armor. Or dictators with mustaches, fathers of victories, performers of deeds. Children will think for a long time that the world is arranged this way: a gun gives specialness, specialness gives power, states exist to scare or beat each other, and a person - for the sake of heroic death.

Or they will not, because technology comes into play, and changes in minds are occurring faster than before, often too fast for a person to notice them. The drone operator's journey is not death. This is the way of the office clerk. He goes to work with a sandwich in his bag, just like millions of other clerks. He also sits down at the computer and presses the buttons in the same way. His skills are about as unique as those of a schoolboy playing a shooting game.

And he certainly did not conclude any special marriage with death. On the contrary, he filed for a divorce with death. On the screen - again, like in a computer game - cars and little people flicker. He looks at them through the crosshairs, but he certainly isn't expecting a retaliation. These flickering figures do not know who he is or where he is, they have no chance of an answer. The bomber pilot could be shot down, and you have to wander through the napalm-drenched former jungle. The drone pilot cannot be shot down. This means that his specialty is over, and death is no longer the background for his office life.

But behind this is the possibility of incredible shifts in human ideas about the nature of power and building relationships with it. Because earlier, that is, always - let's repeat the good, - the peculiarity of an armed person created power.