re: #546 OhNoZombies!

How would it not be necessary?

I don’t know what you mean. It is not necessary, because soldiers have indeed killed enemy soldiers without dehumanizing them. Many of them have written about it. I know that Ambrose has fallen into a bit of disrepute, but the many first-hand accounts he gives in Citizen Soldiers are worth reading.

It is not at all sociopathic to kill someone without dehumanzing them. It is more sociopathic to do so. The word ‘sociopathic’ is of very, very limited utility, though.

There was one ‘fighting Quaker’ in the Revolutionary war who shot a British soldier, and then dropped to his knees and prayed for that man’s soul. Then another soldier approached, and the Quaker shot him as well. Then, with tears streaming down his face, he begged god for his grace upon the souls of the two men he’d killed.

A fellow of his who’d seen it remarked to another fellow, “Seems odd to kill a man and then pray for him, doesn’t it?”

To which his fellow replied, “Seems a lot odder to kill a man and not even pray for him, doesn’t it?”