Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    I agree with .0 that military training and combat are a likely source
    of much violence in our society.  Consider, that a very large
    percentage of the male population are trained killers - many with
    actual experience of killing people during the wars of this century.
    What happens when the man gets out of the military, the war is over,
    and he attempts to live like a normal human again.  It will undoubtedly
    cause an adjustment period.  Some will not adjust.
    
    I am sure that this is not the only cause of violence, but I don't
    think it should be discounted.
    
    Elizabeth

    One of the 'skills' taught to soldiers is to de-humanize the enemy.
    This allows you to kill without guilt. It is difficult to kill a
    fellow human. Much easier to kill a [gook, slope, jerry, nip, etc..]
    Unfortunately, when faced with opposition in civilian life, one
    can revert to this attitude. Disagreeing wife -> bitch (less than
    human) -> *bang* 
    The military creates attitudes useful for war, but obviously not
    in civilian life. Part of the responsibility lies with the process
    of discharging soldiers without helping them discard 'skills' that
    will hinder them in later life. Unfortunately, soldiers are often
    seen as tools to be used, then discarded. 

    re .2:
    
    > Unfortunately, soldiers are often seen as tools to be used, then 
    > discarded. 
      
    Hence the term "G.I." (i.e. "Government Issue")
                                                   
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    RE: .0
    
        I'm *not* a big fan of the military, but I think that you may
    be placing a bit more blame on the military than it deserves.  I
    think that the violent tendancies are being formed well before
    people are old enough to enter the military.
    
        There seems to be an increasing level of violent behavior in
    the children of our society. (I include teenagers in the group I
    call children) I don't have any statistics, but I would imagine
    that the percentage of children who perpetrate acts of violence is
    higher than ever.  I can think of a few examples of acts of violence
    which have left me bewildered and somewhat depressed.
    
         The Howard Beach beatings and killing.
    
         An article I read about gang members in East Los Angeles that
    indicated that killing someone increases a members prestige amoung
    his peers.
    
         The Milpitas, CA boy who killed a girl, bragged about it and
    took friends to see the body.  (I believe the movie "River's Edge"
    was based on this case.)
    
         Gay bashing incidents which have occurred in San Francisco
    instigated by youths from the central valley.
    
        Those are the incidents that I can think of off the top of my
    head.  Given time I could document the ones I have given, and provide
    quite a few more.
    
        I don't think that your premise is wrong.  I just think that
    there is evidence that the major cause of violence in our society
    today is present well before military life.
    
    ASP

    
    	I agree that conditioning happens in more places than the
    military, here's three examples off the top of my head;
    
1    	More men get sent to jail than women.   Jail is definitly
    a conditioning experience, they call it "rehabilitation", but the
    operative reality is "obedience".    The conditioning can definitly
    cause a type of repression that later leads to violence.

2       Biology classes can be a from of conditioning.  I once
    witnessed a biology experiment where a group of rabbits were
    given overdoses of anesthesia as an experiment.   I noticed
    that many students denied that the animals had feelings or
    knew in any way wehat was happening.   It became clear that
    these students were being conditioned to repress their own
    emotions through the process of "experimenting" on the
    rabbits.   This type of conditioning is now being given to
    almost as many women as men.   All doctors are required
    to dissect human corpses in similar ritual initiations, which 
    may partailly explain why so many medical professionals act 
    so dehumanized.
    
3	Gym classes are mental/emotional conditioning, not only
    physical.   When I was in junior high school, the gym teacher
    was an ex-marine who used his position to humiliate some
    students and give pseudo-authority to others.   I love
    exercise, but hated these gym classes.    The stronger
    boys were encouraged to act superior to the less physical types.
    The class was divided into ranks, with color-coded t-shirts.
    Later, we were subjected to the more rigorous and militaristic
    conditioning involved in "team sports".   Some good, like
    exercise and strong friendships came from all this, but there
    were also polarizations formed between the "jocks" and other
    groups.
    
    	Alan.

    I can fer sure relate to the all-male gym classes teaching boys
    how to be "real men". Co-ed classes have changed this some, I think,
    but I noticed in my male colleagues (whan I was teaching p.e.) an
    ...I'll call it..."uneasiness" with the new order. Somehow, the
    old P.T. and P.E. classes came from some type of military-type mindset,
    and it's taken a long time to wear that away.
    
    --DE
    

    in re .5
    
    Medical students are required to disect cadavers so that they
    understand how the human body is put together. You simply cannot
    learn structure out of a book. You might be willing to trust
    yourself to a doctor who had never done a disection but I sure
    wouldn't.

    Re .5
    
    Remember, doctors aren't dehumanizing the cadaver - it really is
    already dead, and either by the person's choice or by misfortune
    (unknown person dies in the street - no relatives come forward and
    claim the body), the body is given to a medical school for educational
    purposes.  The corpse really doesn't feel its dissection, unlike
    the rabbits in the biology class who feel the experiments done on
    them.  Like Bonnie, I wouldn't want to go to a doctor, especially
    for surgery, who had never done a dissection.
    
    Elizabeth

    
    	There are books which well document the dehumanization aspects
    of having doctors-in-training dissect corpses.   It may be necesary
    for training (although there may be legitimate doubts on this) but
    the way this is done now in many medical schools shows no regard
    for the shock people can feel when asked to do this.   The ruling
    attitude in these situations is that it is proper or OK to develop
    a sort of macho attitude of detachment.   Students compete to
    prove they can "handle it" by eating lunch in the lab, etc.
    
    	This category of training may be necessary, but in it's current
    format it is a shocking and conditioning sort of experience that
    has psychic effects that are not being compensated for, or even
    looked at.    Sure the cadaver is dead, but it's not the cadaver
    I'm referring to here.   These procedures have powerful effects on the 
    student doctor's feelings.
    
    	Alan.

    I think Alan's point is well-taken:  imagine (Full Sens-O-Matic,
    please) yourself being 'asked' to take mat knife in hand and begin
    dismembering a cold, rubbery ex-human being.  I positively get the
    creeps at the thought and I've patched up my kids on many a drippy
    occasion!
              
    *ickkk*
    						=maggie

    Perhaps I am overly sensitive on this subject after 12 years of
    being a Biology teacher (and six years previous to that majoring
    in the subject). Once a person starts the process of a disection
    it should become an intellectual exercise in how the body is put
    together, where the muscles are, where the major nerves are...etc.
    etc...It is a process of learning about and understanding life by
    looking at the nolonger living...and it is an important and necessary
    part of an education in Biology or Medicine...just as looking at
    flowers and leaves is a part of Botany.
    
    and yes I did make an effort to insure that my students treated
    the animals that were used for disection with respect...and think
    I am not unusual in that respect.
    
    Cadavers are a different subject I will admit....for most people
    it is a lot harder to deal with the body of a human being...and
    yes there are macabre jokes because of that...but my feeling is
    that it is more in the nature of finger crossing, knocking on wood,
    and whistling in grave yards...dealing with a corpse reminds of
    our our mortality....and the jokes strike me more as a way of
    dealing with that fear than disrespect for life and persons.

    Look at it this way, if a doctor cannot deal with cutting open
    a *dead* body, how the hell is he or she supposed to deal with
    cutting open a living one (for surgery)?
    
    --- jerry

    Let's face it. People often use "black humor" and other desensitizing
    techniques to get through situations such as these. I used it when
    working in an insitiution for the mentally retarded - I mean, it
    *gets* to you after a while.
    
    I majored in physical education at a school which had both P.E.
    and Physical Therapy majors. The P.T.'s had a lot of work at the
    med school using corpses. The last class of P.E.'s to do that happened
    to be the class *before* mine <hear 19-year-old heaving LARGE sigh
    of relief, yea these many years ago>. I am currently enrolled in
    a night school program in massage therapy. Our Anatomy and Physiology
    teacher uses many plates from a book using pictures of a dissected
    corpse. It is so much clearer to *see* these things, muscles and
    where they attach, how the fibers run, bone structure, etc. in this
    way.
    
    I didn't notice anyone in my undergraduate classes becoming....er...
    jaded, I guess. Yes, there was a certain amount of joking around...
    but these protective mechanisms are necessary. My god, with the
    amount of death certain types of medical personnel deal with every
    day, of course they need protection.
    
    --DE