Re: War games and war was Re: Just heard the news

On Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:48:58 EDT, Glenn M Wilson <triphibious@juno.com>
wrote:

>Why is it that war games seem so... well, Fun... but the real thing is
>so... Horrific?  Is it because it has the 'distance' of history or (for
>SF and Fantasy) 'not reality' or because we compartmentalize our minds
so
>easily?

Humans are hardwired for conflict. We evolved in a competitive
environment.
The recent horrible events have shown this quite graphically. People
have been
quoted as saying they ran away from the building collapses, even
continuing to
run after they had escaped the danger zone. The anger that's felt and
the
feeling of needing to lash out is another reaction. Psychologically,
we're
wired for conflict, or surviving conflict.

We also have an ability to compartmentalize. We can abstract things. You
hear
it all the time now, with military analysts explaining rather calmly
what's
happened. I had a rather interesting, albeit morbid, discussion on how
someone
could survive the WTC collapse in spite of (actually, because of) being
on the
top floor. It's easy to roll dice and remove stands of Civil War figures
attacking an artillery unit. We can do this without thinking about the
men
who's heads were shredded by cannister shot, who's bodies were ripped
apart,
and who's feet slipped on the entrails of their compatriots. That
doesn't mean
we won't weep at the sight of flag-draped caskets.

Wargaming is a mental exercise. It's a chess game with realistic
parameters.
It's a learning tool, if the game is done properly, for understanding
historically accurate tactics. There's also the whole "what if" idea of
seeing
if you could have done it better than the original commanders. At it's
core,
it's a competition. Unlike chess, most wargames are not solely "out
thinking".
The random factor is seen by many as making wargames much more
interesting
games than the completely cerebral chess or completely random card and
dice
games.

Wargaming is cathartic. In a weird way, people coming up with terrorist
scenarios in the aftermath of this week's disaster are coping in their
own
way. It may be insensitive and morbid, but for some it's a way of coping
by
forcing the whole thing into a game context. It's easier to play "good
guys
and bad guys" instead of watching the horror on TV. As much as many
people
don't like this, it is a natural response.

There are plenty of other reasons. There's the geek military hardware
lovefest. If you're a Freudian, you'll have a field day with the macho
symbolism of playing with "guns". At it's most basic, it's playing with
toy
soldiers but with an intellectual component sophisticated enough for an
adult.

Okay, so much for Psych 101. I haven't touched the moral aspect, and
that's
where things get really hairy. I have talked to someone who won't play
fantasy
games due to his belief that magic is anti-Christian. There are plenty
of folk
who will ONLY play fantasy, or science fiction, because of its divorce
from
reality. I get caught up in this myself. I may run a cop versus
terrorist
scenario, except the "terrorists" will be either Cthulhu cultists or
Greys.
It's the same scenario, but the fantasy aspect takes the edge off it.
There
are historical topics that I'm less comfortable playing than others. I
know of
a lot of people who simply will not play World War II games for this
reason.

Which brings me to the darkside to wargaming. We've all seen the guys in
the
Nazi t-shirts at conventions. There are folk who wargame simply to
relive the
"glory of combat" (a glory that everyone believed in until photography
showed
the true horror of war). There is no glory in warfare. If you doubt
this, ask
a veteran. Now, I'm not advocating placing decapitated "killed" figures
on the
SG2 field, or the like, but I also like to keep things in perspective.
Even in
SG2 I don't celebrate when a squad is eliminated. 

If someone glorifies war, they may wargame. If you wargame, it doesn't
mean
you glorify war. It's an abstraction. So is paintball, collecting action
figures, making military models, and even playing "capture the flag".
Not
everyone can understand that. Don't let anyone belittle you for playing
wargames. At the same time, understand how they may have issues at
seeing
someone "glorifying war".

It's not an easy thing to explain...

Allan Goodall		       awg@sympatico.ca
Goodall's Grotto:  http://www.vex.net/~agoodall

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan,