The Cognitive Dissonance of War
Then he rose, grenade in hand. He was pulling the fuse. He cocked his arm back to throw— and then he saw me looking at him across my rifle barrel. He stopped. He looked right at me. That’s where the image of his eyes was burned into my brain forever, right over the sights of my M- 16. I remember hoping he wouldn’t throw his grenade. Maybe he’d throw it aside and raise his hands or something and I wouldn’t have to shoot him. But his lips snarled back and he threw it right at me.[1]
This account in chapter 5 of The Good Kill took me back to a chapel service at Wheaton College that took place only a couple of weeks into my freshman year. The guest speaker, I have no idea anymore who he was, recounted a remarkably similar story of looking an enemy soldier in the eye as he pulled the trigger. At 18 years old, having grown up in an anabaptist tradition, at the time I firmly believed that all true Christians were pacifists, and I was genuinely horrified to hear this speaker’s story.
Fast-forward to November 2015 when 130 people died in coordinated terrorist attacks across 3 separate locations in Paris. Suddenly the atmosphere was charged with fear, and public spaces were flooded with police presence. And guns. Large guns walking right past me and my children ALL THE TIME. But this time I didn’t feel the same revulsion when I thought about the military police using their weapons. Mixed with the fear (I’m not proud of it, but I was honestly afraid) I felt a sort of comfort knowing that the police were there and ready to act if the worst should happen. I felt something else mixed in with the fear and the comfort. I felt a lot of cognitive dissonance. I still did not want to admit that I would be ok with someone being killed, even if they were attacking innocent people.
Fast-forward again to this semester and Marc LiVecche’s book The Good Kill. This book takes us on a winding journey through historical and current thought regarding pacifism and just war theories. LiVecche weaves together so many diverse voices that it almost becomes overwhelming to follow his line of reasoning (in the best sense because it is just so complex).
The powerful voices he draws on highlight some general principles:
For Timothy Kudo, to be willing to wage war “you have to recalibrate your moral compass.”[2]
For Reinhold Niebuhr “killing is wrong, but in war it is necessary.”[3]
And of course, Aquinas who wrote about “three conditions necessary for the just resort to force— sovereign authority, just cause, and right intention.”[4]
LiVecche lands on the idea that Christians are called to love our neighbor and sometimes that can look like “loving harshly”[5] especially if it is in defense of other neighbors who are innocent. He goes on to discuss “how to love a man even as you kill him… The first answer is the obvious one: with something akin to regret.”[6]
Later he puts it another way: There is no “contradiction in hoping for peace but engaging in war and weeping over it after the fact.”[7]
We seem obliged to live with cognitive dissonance. A purely pacifist stance is too idealistic and not tenable in the real world (“But, look at Costa Rica[8]!” my 18-year-old self would have said). Even if we adopt a Just War theology, it is doubtful that any war past, present or future could truly be said to meet all the necessary criteria. Even as LiVecche aims to relieve soldiers and veterans of their feelings of guilt, Martin Cook argues that it is psychologically difficult if not impossible.[9] It seems there is plenty of cognitive dissonance to go around.
I will conclude with one intriguing thought from LiVecche and then one more thought of my own. He says, “While pacifism remains a Christian option, it is one only in a way broadly analogous to something like the call to celibacy— an exception reserved for those few possessed by a very particular divine vocation. It is the pacifist, not the soldier, who is the exception to the Christian norm.”[10] However in his conclusion he points out that “in the United States less than 0.5 % serve in the profession of arms.”[11] So could it be that to become a just warrior is also a very particular calling, a vocation that God bestows on only a few, the exception to the Christian norm?
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[1] Karl Marlantes, What It Is Like to Go to War (New York: Grove Press, 2011), 29.
[2] Marc LiVecche, The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021) 17.
[3] Ibid., 39.
[4] Ibid., 86.
[5] Ibid., 73.
[6] Ibid., 109.
[7] Ibid., 177.
[8] https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/abolition-army-costa-rica#:~:text=Since%201949%2C%20Costa%20Rica%20became,of%20Costa%20Rica’s%20political%20life.
[9] Cook, Martin L. Issues in Military Ethics. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013) 115.
[10] Marc LiVecche, The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021) 95.
[11] Ibid., 183.
About the Author
Kim Sanford
9 responses to “The Cognitive Dissonance of War”
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Fantastic post, Kim. After I became an adult, my parents drifted toward a denomination that was more pacifist than not (some within that tradition were certainly pacifists). The interesting part for me was that my father had served in the military (as did his father and father-in-law — my grandfathers). They are no longer in that denomination, by the way. I’m curious — how did your perspective / framework shift, having grown up in an anabaptist tradition?
Travis, I think the simple answer to your question is that with time and a little more adult perspective I saw how idealistic pure pacifism is. In other words, I’m not sure my ideal has actually shifted all that much, but I recognize that in a broken world violence happens. I guess I’m with Niebuhr: “killing is wrong, but in war it is necessary.”
Hi Kim,
You wrote, “However in his conclusion he points out that “in the United States less than 0.5 % serve in the profession of arms.”[11] So could it be that to become a just warrior is also a very particular calling, a vocation that God bestows on only a few, the exception to the Christian norm?”
That is an interesting notion. I shall have to dwell on it. The implication of course, is that the rest of Christianity are martyr’s? Cathy Glei (I Believe) asked the question.
This too I will have to dwell on.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Shalom…
Thanks for your comment, Russ. Let’s say we accept the premise that God gives a sort of special calling to a few to pursue pacifism and a special calling to a few others to give their lives to become just warriors. I’m not sure that leaves the rest of Christendom to be martyred. Could we say that the “rest” are left to work out their own unique ways to resist evil and and stand for justice in their various contexts? That could even include supporting and intentionally befriending veterans, as several of our cohort have mentioned.
Hi Kim- Thanks for sharing your experience of dissonance at during the 2015 Paris attacks. Your experience seems really relevant to this topic. I want to focus on your vary last question: “So could it be that to become a just warrior is also a very particular calling, a vocation that God bestows on only a few, the exception to the Christian norm?” Am I right in inferring an assumption that those who join the military are aware of the concept of a just war? This line made me think of the the kids I know who have joined up, and, while they may be patriotic, and generally have good intentions, I am not sure that this idea is on their radar. I think a portion would even say they are joining because of the professional and financial opportunities that would otherwise not be available to them. I would love to know what others think on that point.
Hi Jennifer,
Not to highjack Kim’s thread, I have a daughter at the U.S. Air Force Academy. We discussed the concept of Just War. Short story…nope the Academy had not discussed this with them. My son is a SGT in the Army and you are correct, that his motivation was patriotism (although he is technically a dual citizen US/Hungarian), the financial opportunities and a desire to be “on his own.” The concept of Just War is a topic I will have to broach with him. His unit has defensive mission on the Finnish/Russian Border.
Lots to consider here. Thanks for engaging. I always appreciate your thoughts.
Shalom…
Whoa, I really like, “So could it be that to become a just warrior is also a very particular calling, a vocation that God bestows on only a few.” This just might be the missing part in Mark’s book because war is so traumatizing. Just like God called many people in the Bible to war, there is a strong possibility he still calls just warriors. Thank you Kim.
As a parent how did you help your children process the terrorists attacks of 2015?
Thanks for asking, Todd. Yeah it was no joke trying to process our own experience while helping our 5 year old son do the same (our younger son was only 3 and not aware of what was happening). The hardest part was actually that he came home from school talking about the “bad men that hurt a lot of people” here in France and so he thought that we should probably leave France to stay safe. That was a hard conversation that I felt the impact of for a long time. By God’s grace we are still here!
Kim,
This is such a powerful realization that you shared. You wrote:
“Mixed with the fear (I’m not proud of it, but I was honestly afraid) I felt a sort of comfort knowing that the police were there and ready to act if the worst should happen. I felt something else mixed in with the fear and the comfort. I felt a lot of cognitive dissonance. I still did not want to admit that I would be ok with someone being killed, even if they were attacking innocent people.” The complexity of war and the killings make it so difficult to navigate what we would normally feel and what we feel in moments of fear. That gets amplified when the safety of our loved ones is factored it. I appreciate your honesty. I will be thinking about your concluding questions, “So could it be that to become a just warrior is also a very particular calling, a vocation that God bestows on only a few, the exception to the Christian norm?”