I've looked through all the boxes of books, thinking that there might be some papers in them, but I still can't find the articles. I did find some books though that I can scan in pages from for the blog. For example, I mentioned the history atlas from the DDR (East Germany) that makes Martin Luther out to be a revolutionary; that's one of the books I found.
But for now I'll start chapter 4, which has ca. 50 pages of text followed by 15 p. of footnotes. I'm not going to use the footnotes here, but I just mention that because it's the kind of book that has references and the like. I'm just skipping over them for the purposes of our discussion here.
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Chapter 4 of The Taming of the Troops
Co-optive Rational Control Through Behavioral Science Management
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"The most nonconfrontive of domination on the social control continuum is based on two, but usually compatible principles. One is the liberal principle of inclusion and co-optation, and the other is the principle of rationalization - the application of social scientific knowledge to redesign human relations." (p. 88)
Basically, co-optation, as the author describes it with examples and the like, would be like giving dissidents a chance to air their grievances, so then just by virtue of having "been listened to" they are somewhat pacified and then on top of it, the army will make some other improvement completely unrelated to the grievance, and that co-opts the dissidents.
The rationalization part is the use of aptitude tests and the like to match soldiers to specific positions.
I've skipped over a lot here, because it doesn't seem to apply to Vienna. However, here's an interesting tidbit to chew on:
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"In educational background, dissidents are more likely to have had college training than typical Army soldiers. Those having college training were most often listed as organizing dissident activities, whereas high-school graduates tended toward less serious activities." (p. 106)
I don't think this applies to Vienna either. I think I was the closest thing there was to a dissident, at least during my tenure there, and I certainly wasn't among the most educated there. I didn't even have a master's degree at that point yet, and the place was swarming with people with Th.M. and Th.D. degrees (masters and doctorate of theology).
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"Officers could monitor potential dissidents or transfer them to some position where they would have little responsibility or contact with other soldiers. They could be kept out of power or sensitive positions, such as intelligence, aviation, or military advisers to foreign nations." (p. 107).
I was eventually side-lined in Vienna, and I also often didn't have much work to do, and the thinking described here is probably part of the reason, but there are other approaches to describing my experience than what is given here. Hopefully we'll get to them. But this reasoning here isn't completely off-base as far as my experience in Vienna is concerned.
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After a discussion of attitude studies in the Army, the author has this to say:
"Why is such detailed information so important? Subordinated people have complex attitudes: they may, at the same moment, hold contradictory conceptions of themselves. For example, if a GI is continually told he is lowly and worthless and it is always demonstrated to him what an incompetent bumbler he is, then he beings to accept this image and to view himself in the same terms his "superiors" use to define him. He may indeed feel that he could not run the Army any better than it is already being run, and that he really is not enough of a man to measure up to Army traditions. Repression produces a feeling of worthlessness in the repressed. But simultaneously, repressed people are often conscious of their powerlessness, and they resent those who have power over them." (p. 111)
I won't say I was constantly berated like in the army, but somehow the process did result in some of the reactions described in this chapter. Except in my case fear was also a big thing, more than anger.
The author continues this discussion showing how this process can lead to an intense one-person revolt. Then he refers to Hegel:
"Hegel argues that the most important struggle is within the slave's own mind, rather than between the master and the slave. I think this interpretation of reactions to oppressive conditions is what is missing when idealism and psychopathology are given as the only reasons for resistance." (p. 111)
It sounds like there are 3 possible internal bases, on a personal scale, for responses to repressive situations: 1) from an ideological basis; 2) from a psychopathological basis (e.g., insanity); and 3) an internal struggle between being made to feel incompetent and his resentment of those over him.
I think I came from the first of these, but there are people who would prefer to say I am coming from the 2nd or 3rd basis. It's possible that the third one was used a bit in socialization, to break newcomers guards down. I certainly experienced it, but I'm not sure how widespread that was.
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Here's one that's not related to Vienna:
"Officers, reflecting their more educated backgrounds, feel that since soldiers are resisting the army, they must be highly political and ideological and opposed to imperialism and to United States policy." (p. 115)
Are the officers really that brash about being pro-U.S. imperialism? I would definitely make a very terrible soldier on that count alone!
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And continuing directly from that quote:
"The real explanation is precisely the reverse. Soldiers resist the Army because they find it oppressive. They do not like regimentation, pretty uses of authority, constant, useless formations and marches, and, to them, ridiculous constraints on their lifestyle. Once they express their hatred of the Army, then they are predisposed to think in more ideological terms. They being to search for a justification to legitimate their feelings because they feel no civilian would support their resistance in merely the kinds of terms that preserving their own humanity would require... So being anti-war or anti-imperialist is often the consequences of being anti-Army." (p. 115)
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Humanity is over-rated anyway, who needs it? It's really nice and pleasant to be treated like a robot...
Have you ever read the book "We" by Zamyatin? It's a satire along the lines of Animal Farm, but pokes fun at totalitarian regimes. Zamyatin predated Orwell and influenced his work. Anyway, this book is great for considering life as a human robot. It's probably almost as fun as life in the Army.
But getting back to Vienna...
My responses to what I was experiencing in Vienna probably had a tinge (or more) of wanting to preserve my own humanity. And the experiences that I've had in the last couple decades have very much been a cause of trying to understand them and thus developing changes in my ideology. I don't know that I've thought about it like this, but it's very possible that I've had hatred for those people in Vienna for how I was treated. Initially, upon arrival in Vienna, I didn't react so much to how I was being treated, but to how the mission seemed to operate. But eventually as my experiences indicated that I was being singled out for bad treatment my reaction became more personal. My problem, unlike the hypothetical resister in the Army was not so much whether a "civilian" would support my resistance, but whether those back home would even believe me... which wasn't helped by the fact that it was so hard for me to even explain what happened.
I must admit that my becoming a pacifist was initially because of my own treatment in situations that I feel were aggravated by virtue of me being my father's daughter. But I also see the things that affected me as having somewhat systemic roots, so it's not just for myself, but that I've had a glimpse into some awful things that are built into the system, sort of like a dormant virus as far as some specific emanations of the system are concerned. By "system" I mean things like the missions and military-related systems, but which are actually part of larger systems, like the missions being emanations of western evangelical Christianity. These missions, for example, didn't just sprout up from a vacuum and it's the churches back home that support them.
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"...the Army's reluctance to present strongly ideological propaganda to its troops is a result of a variety of forces in addition to survey research, such as the civilian furor resulting a few years ago from General Edwin A. Walker's extreme right-wing ideological indoctrination programs." (p. 116)
ECM didn't have any such inhibitions or external constraints regarding right-wing ideological indoctrination, albeit it was a very minor part of the Candidate's Course. I don't know that I remember anything like this from SGA, though.
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In this section, the author discusses some changes in the leadership style that took effect in the 70s. He finished discussing some things that are becoming more lax, but now introduces new aspects being add to the leadership repertoire.
"The change is one from a fatherly role to closer to a counselor, therapist or labor-relations expert. The change is partly one of a different attitude towards soldiers. Since many soldiers seem unwilling to learn 'followership,' the leader cannot deal with them as dependent, loyal, but errant children, but, rather, must see them as a potentially oppositional class.
..."According to a West Point leadership text... nondirective counseling is the best approach... In this way the soldier should not feel that anyone is trying to manipulate him or sway him. Nondirective counseling allows a wide range of sentiments to be expressed and many kinds of complaints can be aired. An officer could give the impression that he will redress these grievances or otherwise correct the problem, or he could deal with the soldier as a therapist, helping him surmount his maladaptive behavior and feelings.
...This emphasis on understanding social psychological processes is apparent in The AWOL Soldier - a Challenge to Leadership... This pamphlet is typical of many recent Army leadership documents that de-emphasize punishment and emphasize getting the men to set standards for themselves through exploiting knowledge of their motivations." (p. 125-126)
It's possible that this was one approach to leadership in Vienna, although there were "punishments" (negative reinforcements) in play there too, although the leadership would probably deny any use of these things. But it sure felt like it anyway, and I think this may have been used with other new people too, but not to the extent it was with me. They did use a kind of counseling approach though, and I think it wasn't uncommon for secretaries to go to their bosses for spiritual guidance and help with personal problems, for example. I didn't really do this though. I don't remember ever talking about personal problems with my boss, although it's possible I did, but if so, probably regarding something incidental.
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"Democratic, decentralized organizations have high morale, respond well to changing conditions, and are quite productive in certain kinds of tasks. Instead, with co-optive techniques, the Army tries to create an illusion of the unity of officers and men but not the reality. Without a true unity of purpose and a diffusion of power, co-optive techniques can be only a smokescreen for class relationships." (p. 127)
This author really cuts to the chase here, and I find it refreshing. I am not sure that the Vienna mission was co-optive, although the leadership may at times may have used these approaches, and it was certainly not democratic and didn't claim to be.
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There was a lot in this chapter that I just zipped through and didn't see at all relevant and even what I did get out of the chapter wasn't anywhere near as helpful as the previous one was, as far as a tool for making sense of my experiences is concerned. The next chapter is a shorter one, but I'll pick it up next time.
Good night.
~ Meg
