Perception

So I was driving to school on this lovely, wet, 32 degree day, when I heard something very interesting on the radio (ESPN radio...here comes another exhausted sports analogy).  They were discussing Dallas Cowboys' head coach Wade Phillips and his coaching style.  Wade Phillips, for those of you who don't know, is a very laid back coach.  While that may be good to some players, overall, it is not effective in football, nor war.  They said that he will never gain his players' respect because you cannot go from being laid back, where your players don't respect you, to being a hard-ass and demanding their respect.  On the contrary, they brought up Tom Coughlin, head coach of the New York Giants.  After being criticized for being too hard on his players, he took his intensity down a notch, and the Giants won the Superbowl.  This led me to think about perception and how the way we are perceived drives how we act-- in football and in war.

Very much like they way players perceive their coach, the way soldiers perceive their general is important. As we have seen throughout the literature we have studied, different leaders leads to different leadership styles, which all impose different perceptions upon soldiers.  Agamemnon was seen as greedy, so he could not get his top soldiers to fight for him.  Robert E. Lee was seen as too risky, so he couldn't get his top generals to agree with him.

To go along with the perception of leadership in war, one thing that conflicts Americans today is global perception of our military.  Does our being in Iraq send a bad message about ourselves to other countries? Does water-boarding at Guantanamo Bay give America a ruthless perception?  Perception has completely changed the way we use our military.  It's why we abide by the Geneva Convention and get a U.N Sanction to go to war.  It is why we call into question the ethics of winning. Is it worth winning if we lose all credibility in the process? Because the way we are seen may is what gives us credibility, we have had to adjust the way our military works. Torture is unethical to us, even if it can save lives.

If I could say all I was thinking about this, I would ramble on forever and lose an audience to read it, so that's why I'm cutting it off a little abruptly. To wrap things up, I decided that perception has a lot to do with the way a war works.  How effective a leader can be, and the way in which armies operate. Mr. Nevelow once said in 9th grade Wellness that "perception is reality." To be honest, I never understood that quote until now, but I think it's fitting. Though the way others see us really isn't our problem, it creates realities that do affect us, making perception reality.

Balancing Act

So today in class, we began to wrap up our discussion on The Killer Angels. Mr. Crotty asked us if we liked the book, so naturally I thought about what aspects of the book I liked and disliked. Overall, I enjoyed reading this one more than the Illiad and Troilus and Cressida just because the language is slightly easier to understand. However, thinking back on our fishbowl excercise, I thought about one thing that really resonated with me after we finished the book.



We read out loud several passages that gave us a good idea about the styles of leadership among those in command. For General Lee, we decided that he saw the men as expendable pawns, and had no problem sacrificing them for what he thought could better the army. I, and most of our class, agreed that not only is an odd way of seeing people, but it is also wrong from a tactical standpoint.



Next we looked at Longstreet. He was very defensive with his decisions, seeing the men as people and not just numbers. Again, I, was not completely sold on his philosophy of war. Sure it's better to value your men, however as a leader you cannot put the lives of individuals before the survival of the army. I'm glad that Longstreet doesn't want to throw his men into a gauntlet like Lee does, but not wanting to get your hands dirty takes away from the overall effectiveness of a leader.



Finally, we looked at Chamberlin on the Union side. We read a passage in which he sent his own brother to defend a pass. His brother likely died, but that action demonstrates why I think Chamberlin is the better leader of the three. He is willing to make risks (i.e. sending his brother to his death), but he is much more aware of when the situation calls for actions like that. He won't just send people to die if there is no purpose. He thinks logically about his actions. While Lee just does what he wants and Longstreet who over thinks his decisions, Chamberlin is a perfect balance of the two, which is what makes him an effective leader.



An important part of being a leader is being open minded. If you just do whatever you want and ignore those who oppose you, there is no way you will come out successfully. To me, leadership is having a balance of logic and risk; a balance of a killer and an angel.

The Great Debate

Like probably 90% of our class did, I am choosing to write on that fierce debate that we had the other day.  Is war inevitable? Is it part of human nature? A lot of people brought up a lot of interesting points, so I just want to toss out my closing ideas on the matter.

I was on the side that took the "yes" position, so even though I can choose my stance here, I'm going to remain on the side.  I do think war is inevitable. However, I do not think it is human nature.  A lot of people on the "no" side used the argument that even when you're pushed against a wall, most people still could not end another person's life.  I know Mr. Crotty said that war is not necessarily equal to killing, but I just do not think war and/or killing is in our DNA. Conflict, yes. But war, no.  To me, war is inevitable for a different reason.  It is not human nature, but it is a direct product of other qualities of humans.  I know there are tons of pacifist and altruists out there, but as a whole, I would say that humans are greedy. I'm not calling out anyone, but looking back on history, every nation that has survived has done so by conquering others.  I don't think Caesar woke up and felt the desire to wage war, but I feel like he, along with every other emperor, saw land that was not theirs and desired to take it using any means necessary.  This is what I think is the root of war.  The human desire to expand, to conquer, and to flourish.

Be it over land, resources, freedom, or any number of causes, when  something that you are willing to die for is threatened, most will do anything to protect it.  So in terms of war being human nature: I think war is a response to many other aspects of human nature, which in turn, makes it inevitable.