Book Review: A Terrible Love of War

A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman. The Penguin Press: New York. 2004.

The Profound and Terrible Love of War

This is one of the most unsettling and important books I have read in a long time.  The book begins with a scene from the movie Patton where Patton walks among a field of burnt tanks and dead men, kisses a dying officer and says, “I love it. God help me I do love it so. I love it more than my life.”  Hillman declares if we would grasp how men could actually love war, it must first be understood.

A writer and Jungian psychologist Hillman takes us on a journey into the depths of human consciousness and reaches into the realms of myth for understanding.  What is it about war that creates such a hold on human beings?  There are four chapters in this book and together that shape what becomes a meditation on the nature of war: War is Normal; War Is Inhuman; War is Sublime; Religion is War.

War is Natural, War is Normal

Our natural state is one of war.  Of five thousand six hundred years of written history, fourteen thousand six hundred wars have been recorded. Two or three wars per year. There is always a war going on someplace in the world.  Peace is merely the breath between wars.   War is not only common, it is acceptable. It is in our speech as in war on drugs.  And there are always hawks who can find new enemies and young people to sign up for the fight.

Ordinary Men Do Horrific Things In War

The fact that war is inhuman is perhaps what motivates many of us to become peacemakers. It is the perversions of war, the chaos and dehumanization of ordinary men in battle who rape, sodomize, torture, maim and disfigure the enemy, prisoners and non-combatants, that horrifies  helpless by-standers of the world.  An insanity, which has been called seeing red by some can take over at times in the midst of battle and men find themselves committing atrocities they are later helpless to explain.  Technological advances in precision bombing have only accentuated the ability to kill without connection to victims.  It is no wonder that so many military personnel come home and commit suicide or with chronic PTSD.

The Awe-fulness of War

The most fascinating chapter is the one entitled War is Sublime for here Hillman explores the idea that war can be a transcendental or spiritual experience, sublime in the sense of terrible and beautiful at the same time.  Soldiers can feel the most profound love for comrades and all fear of dying leaves them.  All senses are heightened. This is a kind of radical aliveness that few of us ever get to experience in our lives.  I had a glimpse of this when I traveled in Hebron in the West Bank in 2003 and knew that shooting could break out at any moment.  It is life on the raw edge.  It may be this yearning for intensity and self sacrifice that lures men into war over and over again.  Hillman calls this meeting the face of the god-Mars or Ares, take your pick.

Will We Ever Find a War to Tame War?

Reading this book leaves one with a sense of helplessness.  War will always be with us. There is nothing we can do about it. Is that really true?  The peacemaker in me rebels deeply against this.  There must be more ways to be radically alive than having to sacrifice oneself in battle! We absolutely do NOT have to murder and slaughter others year after year, century after century.  I will be coming back and re-reading Hillman many times to come.

Questions of Inquiry:

1. Will humans ever tire of war?

2. Is peacemaking a fruitless enterprise?

3. Why are humans so hooked on war?

What was your response to this post? Have you read Hillman’s book? Leave a comment and join the conversation.