Citation

Crit. Mil. Stud. 2022; 8(2): e1.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/23337486.2018.1516019

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

When the above article was first published online, the below paragraphs should have been merged with their previous paragraphs. Despite never having seen combat, and acknowledging that, with modern weaponry, 'Virtually everybody is a target. Since World War II, civilians are targets…' (#3), this officer clings to the defender/defended dichotomy: 'I would have a hard time not taking steps to protect women who were either serving with me or under my command' (#3). Woman's principal domain and priority is the family, organizationally incompatible with military life; this partly establishes women's Otherness, expressed in officers' references to 'those people', 'these people', 'those women', or 'them' versus 'us'. The obligation to martyr the self for the ruler recalls Emile Durkheim's 'obligatory altruistic suicide' (1951, 221). Durkheim explains that military heroism is, at its extreme, a form of suicide, but one that is imposed on the soldier who 'must be prepared to sacrifice himself upon being ordered to do so' (1951, 234). It is a duty 'imposed by society for social ends' (1951, 220). What type of society, asks Durkheim, would oblige this of its members? One in which 'the individual personality can have little value', where there is 'feeble individuation' and almost complete absorption of the individual into the group-in short, the military (1951, 220). This has now been corrected in both print and online versions. Taylor & Francis apologizes for these errors. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Language: en