The Military Destroys the Egocentric

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The Military Destroys the Egocentric

I was recently watching, for the third time, the movie "Full Metal Jacket". For those who have been privileged to serve in the military this movie will bring back ^#%*@ memories. For those who have not had this privilege this movie will be instructive as to certain means to instill the proper attitude into the citizen turned soldier.

The military recruit spends eight weeks in basic training upon first entering service. This eight week period includes an introduction to certain skills and knowledge required by all military people. Primarily, however, these eight weeks are designed to change dramatically the attitude of the recruit.

One aspect of this attitude change focuses upon changing the natural egocentric attitude into a sociocentric attitude. We do not generally recognize that we are motivated by the impulse to "view everything within the world in relationship to oneself, to be self-centered". We are innately egocentric.

The people who study such matters seem to conclude that the normal human reaction is generally irrationally egocentric. The military, I think, wishes to change that irrational egocentric behavior into an irrational sociocentric behavior with the military as the social group which replaces the individual ego.

It appears that the key question of an egocentric is "How can I get what I want and avoid having to change in any fundamental way?"

My point in mentioning all of this is to draw your attention to this natural egocentric behavior because it is the source of many of the problems our world is faced with. One of the reasons we (USA) get into terrible messes is because we do not study our adversary and develop rational solutions. Often egocentric tendencies on the part of all humans are our adversary.

I do not think we understand this natural behavior well enough. What is your considered opinion?

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Chuck-

The problem with movies is that they are acted. The only reality is actors acting and directors directing.

I've seen FMJ and I've done that sort of training and any similarities are superficial.

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Well, there is (IMO) a lot of truth to the proposition that the whole purpose is to tear down the ego, then build it back up.

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The title of this thread merely states the [CENSORED] obvious.

You don't want individuals in the military. You want people who can obey orders. Obviously, you want them to have some individual thought of their own, so they can fight smarter and not harder (yes, a perversion of the corporate buzz-phrase "work smarter, not harder").

However, ultimately the military needs to kill some individuality.

In fact, it's not limited to the military.

All society's need to kill at least some individuality and creativity.

You don't, for example, want an air traffic director to suddenly think, "I'm tired of doing things the same way as every other air traffic director. I'll be an individual and get these guys to land the airplane on the control tower roof".

Any group organisation tends towards destroying at least some aspect of individuality and ego. It is vital for them to survive.

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Spendius

What aspects of the movie did you feel to be unacceptably unrealistic?

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I would say that in the natural state we act egocentrically almost always. Only when we have learned how to think rational can we begin to modify that innate tendency. But no matter how rational we train our self to be we must constantly be on guard against irrational behavior. I suspect the urge to act selfishly is as strong as the urge to over eat or to smoke. I think the egocentricity is combated through careful cultivation of good intellectual character traits.

We can go to school and learn all of the rules and standards of rational thinking and from that we can use that knowledge to be selfish minded or we can be fair-minded. I think that we can compare this to the philosopher and the sophist. I do not mean to set the philosopher on a high pedestal but I merely use this word because I cannot think of another. But I think you get my drift.

What the military does is replace the ego with the group. The attitude of the individual becomes focused upon the group and many of the instinctive behavior that was egocentric now become sociocentric. Even when these soldiers have been seriously wounded in Iraq it appears that their desire is to get back to their buddies.

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And I'm saying it's not just the military. All organisations where people are grouped do the same thing.

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Wolf wrote-

Quote:

Any group organisation tends towards destroying at least some aspect of individuality and ego. It is vital for them to survive.

True. And society, particularly a highly complex industrial democracy, is a group organisation.

Chuck wrote-

Quote:

What aspects of the movie did you feel to be unacceptably unrealistic?

It picks out entertaining bits from a time scale which in reality goes at the same pace as today has been going and is therefore forced to distort the picture to pander to the audience's voyeuristic tastes. It sucks up to the audience for bums on seats. I took it as a comedy as I do all movies because that is what they actually are. Entertainment. Anything realistic would empty the theatre. It's mostly hanging about in practice and doing all the usual things young men do in groups.

It was quite enjoyable though in some respects. I thought Strangelove even funnier. Didn't Warhol make a movie of somebody asleep for 8 hours? At least that was realistic.

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The military tends to replace a predominantly egocentric person with a predominantly sociocentric person.

The attitude of the soldier becomes indoctrinated into a particular group; the military. S/he becomes a member of a strong group and begins to unquestionably accept from that group a way of talking, a set of friends and enemies, certain rituals, behavior patterns, etc.

I suspect the change from civilian to soldier might be compared with the change from believer to non believer or vice versa. It might be compared to the young person who becomes a gang member. It might be compared with the non ideologue becoming an ideologue.

Sociocentric thinking is egocentric thinking wherein the group tends to replace the ego.

I am not a sociologist but from my readings this is pretty much a consensus of those who study such things.

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Chuck wrote-

Quote:

The military tends to replace a predominantly egocentric person with a predominantly sociocentric person.

I would agree as long as you don't go overboard with "tends". The tendency will vary from person to person.

But I wouldn't go so far as to say-

Quote:

Sociocentric thinking is egocentric thinking wherein the group tends to replace the ego.

It can happen but generally there is little thinking because orders comes down from up top and most of them are unwelcome.

There is resistance to the training in some parts of the intake which might be classed as group thinking in a biological sense and thus similar to what is found in any male workforce acting together. The ratebuster is not very popular and less common than the movies depict.

One thing I did learn which has been useful is that eating is no big deal as Socrates had pointed out. It is too small a part of life anyway just like filling the tank up with gas is only a small part of a vehicle's life. Everything is good when you are hungry. So I never developed a taste for expensive restaurant meals where egocentricism is on full bore with all that fanny about "delicious" and the more expensive the meal the more it is "delicious". People who go in for that have been trained by the restaurant industry and its lackeys and lickspittles and they all look and behave in what seems a very odd way for those who have been through something vaguely resembling the depiction in the movie mentioned above.

I would say "Carry On Sergeant" is more realistic or Bootsie and Snudge or even Bilko. Catch 22 is a bit over the top but not far off the mark in its essentials.

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The Military Destroys the Egocentric

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