summary for HIS class

Wars and instabilities have generally proved subject partakers and those who are involved into severe consequences. Wars are also able to emerge a new breed of thinking among citizens and soldiers. This came to a bare discovery by Gustave Le Bon, a French Psychologist who was also a physicist. This essay will attempt to elaborate Gustave Le Bon’s ideas concerning the act of war.

Le Bon suggested that wars had tragic consequences to partakers, these included families being torn apart, daily routines being interfered with and constant destabilization of historical forces. Wars also had adverse effects upon an individual’s psychological life.

On Collective force, it goes that hypnotism and aligned imitation arises when a crowd emerges. This is irrespective of whether the crowd is spontaneous or choreographed. People will surrender their personal responsibilities and give in to the emotions of a crowd. A crowd can thus assume a life of its own with respect to the course it pursues. (Le Bon, 2011). 

This is another effect brought about by an atmosphere of war. It creates new personalities, these personalities added up to nations. Psychological transformation of persistent war and an antagonistic surrounding is solely responsible for the emergent personalities. This was evident in France; a society which was initially filled with self-indulgence habits, a nation whose rhetoric was full of anticlerical sentiments and internationalist predisposition. The nation in 1914 abandoned their initial culture and embraced genuine patriotism, religious faith and self-abnegation. This happened as a result of war.

Le Bon in his is views he strode on the verge of over-exalting his patriotism by hugging so much praise on the French army. He claims that the French army was inherently stable, self-restrained and controllable. By marshaling so much negativity upon the German army Lebon claimed that the German army was brutal, unrestrained and terribly bloodthirsty. This perfectly illustrates his inner contradiction going by the fact that the French army that he praised had originally succumbed to the very barbarism in 1793-1794. This is the very act that he abhorred.

The letter perfectly illustrates Le Bon’s reflections on the effects of war and to some extent the traits of German soldiers. Karl describes how he missed home so dearly. This exhibits how wars separate families and loved ones when boots are taken to battle fields, “to think back to home! But away with such thoughts.”(Witkop, 1929). Battlefield incidents have psychological effects on troops. Karl delivers a graphical description on how he meditated upon the lives of his departed comrades in the event if war.

Going by Le Bon, it is true to conclude that war is an outright atrocity that the modern society must reject. Its subsequent consequences cannot stand the test of morality. Going with solutions offered by Le Bon, atrocities currently being witnessed in West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Iraq and Ukraine should never be tolerated by the international community. The international community must engage in intensive diplomacy.

References

Witkop P., (1929) German Student’s War Letters

Le Bon, G. (2011). The Crowd: A study of the popular mind. New York: Macmillan.