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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31294 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Returning to the world involves a grieving process, he argued.

That's something Bret Deveraux touched upon in his blog. Why didn't premodern soldiers have PTSD? While my take is that premodern warfare was more immediate and cathartic, he thinks it's three things:

  • ubiquity of experience: everyone would've had some experience with war back then, so you wouldn't lament the lost of military camaraderie
  • celebration of warfare: not "you shot ten Iraqis? You did what you had to", but "you speared ten fleeing Persians in the back? Fucking rad"
  • purification rituals: instead of praying to Jesus alone to find inner peace you had a legible ritual: if you walk into this temple as a warrior, make this offering, do this ritual, say these words, then you walk out as a farmer again and your life of warfare is washed clean and wrapped in the same bundle of oiled rags as your arms and armor.

He thinks that while bringing the first two back would be a regression, bringing back the third one might be a sensible option. Maybe he's right? Beatify some American soldier, build a shrine to him in the Black Hills, establish a pilgrimage to the shrine.

see https://acoup.blog/2020/04/24/fireside-friday-april-24-2020/ starting from

was there post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the ancient (or medieval) world? And I’m going to tilt at that particular question here in a fireside in part because the absence of evidence doesn’t quite make for a riveting collections post and arguments from silence must always be cautious.

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