At their final training session, soldiers at the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) close-combat instructors’ course are faced with an extreme situation. Clad in full protection gear, they must face consecutive opponent and fight until they can fight no more. The training setting presents to the soldiers a dilemma epitomized in the instructor’s question ‘‘Do you want to quit?’’ The author argues that the question, as well as, the situation as a whole presents the trainees with a paradox that seems at first to be a moral dilemma. However, since the training setting simulates real battle, the question which also has an existential facet, is in fact a pseudo moral dilemma, reversing the order of self-interest and self-regard.
Evens Terrance, Two Kinds of Rationality-Kibbutz Democracy and Generational Conflict ( Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 2.
2.
Handelman, Don, ‘‘Introduction: Why Ritual in its Own Right? How So?’’ Social Analysis 48, 2 (2004): 1-32; and Kapferer, Bruce, ‘‘Ritual Dynamics and Virtual Practice: Beyond Representation and Meaning,’’ Social Analysis 48, 2 (2004): 35-54. Their heuristic proposition is to study ritual-in-its-own-right. See also Bar-On Cohen, Einat, ‘‘Timing in Karate and the Body in its Own Right in Anthropology,’’ Social Analysis 51, 3 (2007): 1-22; and Bar-On Cohen, Einat, ‘‘Kibadachi -Pain and Crossing Boundaries within the Lived-in-Body and within Sociality,’’ The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (incorporating Man) 15 (2009): 610-29.
3.
Evens, Two Kinds of Rationality-Kibbutz Democracy and Generational Conflict, 2.
4.
Evens T.M.S. , ‘‘Bourdieu and the Logic of Practice: Is All Giving Indian-Giving or is ‘Generalized Materialism’ Not Enough,’’Sociological Theory17, 1 (1999): 3-31.
5.
Although military service is compulsory in Israel for both men and women and female soldiers assume an array of roles, in particular as military technique instructors, in the several close-combat instructors’ courses that I have observed, only three female soldiers participated, while two others were instructors. As we shall see, this is a ruthless and virile environment and it is difficult, though not impossible, for female soldiers to be admitted. During the ‘‘fights’’ training, in any case, I was the only woman in the hall. On masculinity and the Israeli army see also Sasson-Levy, Orna, ‘‘Construction Identities as the Margins: Masculinity and Citizenship in the Israeli Army,’’ The Sociological Quarterly, 43 3(2002): 357-83; Kaplan, Danny, The Men We Loved: Male Friendship and Nationalism in Israeli Culture (New York: Berghahn, 2006); Kaplan, Danny, ‘‘What Can the Concept of Friendship Contribute to the Study of National Identity?’’ Nations and Nationalism 13, 2 (2007): 225-44; Ben-Ari, Eyal, ‘‘Masks and Soldiering: The Israeli Army and the Palestinian Uprising,’’ Cultural Anthropology 4, 4 (1989): 372-89. Ben-Ari, Eyal, Mastering Soldiers: Conflict, Emotions and the Enemy in an Israeli Unit (New York: Berghahn Books, 1998).
6.
Evens Two Kinds of Rationality-Kibbutz Democracy and Generational Conflict, 13; Evens Terrance, Anthropology as Ethics-Nondualism and the Conduct of Sacrifice (New York: Berghahn, 2008).
7.
In the discussion between King (King Anthony, ‘‘The Word of Command-Communication and Cohesion in the Military,’’ Armed Forces & Society 32, 4[2006]: 493-512; King Anthony, ‘‘The Existence of Group Cohesion in the Armed Forces-A Response to Guy Siebold,’’ Armed Forces & Society 33, 4 [2007]: 638-45) and Siebold (Siebold Guy L., ‘‘The Essence of Military Group Cohesion,’’ Armed Forces & Society 33, 2 [2007]: 286-95), concerning the source of cohesion in military performance, the ‘‘fights’’ seem to support King’s point of view. He maintains that cohesion cannot be separated from the collective practices in which military personnel are engaged, whereas for Siebold, social cohesion refers to the underlying bond between soldiers, which exists independently of any particular activity. The ‘‘fights,’’ and particularly the strength the fighters draw from their comrades in the circle, would indicate that army cohesion does not stem from ‘‘going the distance together’’ alone but from ongoing, situated, and planned efforts to encourage cohesion within training.
8.
For a recent example, see Lebel Udi , ‘‘Civil Society versus Military Sovereignty-Cultural, Political, and Operational Aspects,’’Armed Forces & Society34, 1(2007): 67-89.
9.
The soldiers call this ‘‘schnitzel:’’ they are instructed to plunge into the sea in full uniform, then roll around on the beach until they are covered head to toe in damp sand, like a schnitzel cutlet. This takes place on the slopes of a steep cliff between the sea and the training base called the metzukon, ‘‘the little precipice.’’
10.
Bar-On Cohen Einat, ‘‘Globalization of War on Violence-Israeli Close-Combat, Krav Maga, and Sudden Alterations in Intensity,’’ Social Anthropology 14 (2010).
11.
Bar-On Cohen, Einat, ‘‘Survival, an Israeli Ju Jutsu School of Martial Arts-Violence, Body, Practice and the National,’’Ethnography10 ( 2009): 154-84.
12.
Evens, Two Kinds of Rationality-Kibbutz Democracy and Generational Conflict, 16.
13.
Ibid., 3.
14.
Kaperer, Bruce , The Feast of the Sorcerer-Practices of Consciousness and Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 155.
15.
Scarry Elaine , The Body in Pain-The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
16.
Although not the most dangerous parts of the body in terms of life-threatening injuries, they are the most efficient targets for stopping a combatant: a blow to the testicles induces excruciating pain and a blow to the head causes disorientation.
17.
Japanese Sumo fighters learn to hide their testicles inside there bodies.
18.
Gremillion, Helen, ‘‘The Cultural Politics of Body Size,’’Annual Review of Anthropology34 (2005): 13-32.
19.
If, as the joking episode in the office indicates, boasting is an important feature of masculinity, then following Bateson’s suggestion on schismogenesis, Bateson, Gregory, ‘‘Culture Contact and Schismogenesis,’’ in Steps in the Ecology of the Mind (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000 [1972]), 61-72, the origin of violence may be found in boasting, and not the other way around, that is, male violence may very well be the consequence of masculine boasting rather than its characteristic.
20.
On joking and male bonding see Lyman , Peter, ‘‘The Fraternal Bond as a Joking Relationship: A Case of the Role of Sexist Jokes in Male Group bonding,’’ in Changing Man: New Directions in research on Men and Masculinity, ed. Kimmel Michael (Newbury Park: Sage, 1987), 148-63.
21.
Sion Liora and Eyal Ben-Ari , ‘‘Body, Sexuality and Family Among Israeli Reserve ombat Troops,’’Israeli Sociology9, 1 ( 2007): 149-71 (In Hebrew).
22.
Handelman Don, Nationalism and the Israeli State-Bureaucratic Logic in Public Event (Oxford: Berg, 2004); Handelman, Don and Katz Elihu, ‘‘State Ceremonies in Israel-Remembrance Day and Independence Day,’’ in Models and Mirrors, Towards an Anthropology of Public Event, ed. Don Handelman (New York: Berghahn, 1998), 191-233; Bar-On Cohen, Einat ‘‘Survival, an Israeli Ju Jutsu School of Martial Arts-Violence, Body, Practice and the National;’’ on national commemorations in other countries, see Kaperer, Bruce, Legends of People, Myths of States: Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988).
23.
Handelman, ‘‘Nationalism and the Israeli State-Bureaucratic Logic in Public Event,’’ 145.
24.
Kapferer (The Feast of the Sorcerer-Practices of Consciousness and Power, 179), asserts, drawing on Deleuze, that ritual is ‘‘a practice in virtuality,’’ correspondingly the fights too are ‘‘a practice of virtuality,’’ although they posit a radically different relation between the actual and the virtual.
25.
On actuality and virtuality or potentiality in Deleuzian thought, see Colebrook Clair, ‘‘Actuality,’’in The Deleuze Dictionary, ed. A. Parr (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), 7-9.
26.
Evens, Two Kinds of Rationality-Kibbutz Democracy and Generational Conflict. Another existential cum moral question would be ‘‘Why don’t you lose weight?’’ Or perhaps even, ‘‘Why does your body fail you in sickness?’’ ‘‘Why do you get old?’’ In our society, these questions have come to occupy a central position (see, e.g., Featherstone, Mike, ‘‘Postmodernism and the Aestheticization of Everyday life,’’ In Modernity and Identity, ed. Lash Scott and Jonathan Friedman (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). I also think that much of the construction of nationalism (at least, Israeli nationalism) draws on such confusion of genres, insinuating that ‘‘You must choose freely to serve your country, or we will all perish,’’ which I will not expand beyond this footnote for the time being.
27.
Agamben, Giorgio , State of Exception (Chicago : Chicago University Press, 2005 ).
28.
Evens, Two Kinds of Rationality-Kibbutz Democracy and Generational Conflict, 13.
29.
Scarry, The Body in Pain-The Making and Unmaking of the World, 20.
30.
Ibid., 47.
31.
The question of sacrifice plays a central role in national and military ethics (see Handelman, Nationalism and the Israeli State-Bureaucratic Logic in Public Event, Kapferer, Legends of People, Myths of States: Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia, Bar-On Cohen, Survival, an Israeli Ju Jutsu School of Martial Arts-Violence, Body, Practice and the National), but I will not go into this issue here. I will only note that sacrifice returns the dilemma into moral dimensions, albeit those of the collective rather than of the individual combatant. Namely, the offering is sacrificed for the collective good. Nevertheless, at the ‘‘fights,’’ the soldiers train to survive and not to sacrifice themselves.
32.
Agamben, State of Exception.
33.
Evens, ‘‘Bourdieu and the Logic of Practice: Is All Giving Indian-Giving or is ‘Generalized Materialism’ Not Enough.’’
34.
For Foucault, agency too is not explained and can therefore be understood as transcendent and not a result of the social system, in the question of the relations between discourse and agency too the ethic point of view Evens suggests shutters the dualistic relations between agency and discourse and, perhaps more importantly, posits agency inside the social arena. See also Turner, Terence, ‘‘Bodies and Anti-bodies: Flesh and Fetish in Contemporary Social Theory,’’ in Embodiment and Experience-The Existential Ground of Culture and Self, ed. Thomas J. Csordas (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 27-47.
35.
For Foucault, more specifically on this question, see Neocleous, Mark, ‘‘Perpetual War. Or ‘War and War Again’: Schmitt, Foucault, Fascism,’’ Philosophy & Social Criticism 22, 2 (1996): 47-66.
36.
Eyal Ben-Ari, private communication.
37.
Bar-On Cohen , ‘‘Timing in Karate;’’ Bar-On Cohen, ‘‘Kibadachi;’’ Bar-On Cohen, Einat, ‘‘Kime in Japanese Martial Arts and the Moving Body,’’Body & Society12, 4 (2006): 73-93.
