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A Terrible Love of War
From world-renowned psychologist and bestselling author of The Soul's Code, a profound examination of the roots of man's primal love/hate relationship with war.
War is a timeless force in the human imagination-and, indeed, in daily life. If recent events have taught us anything, it is that peacetime is not nearly so constant and attainable as wartime. During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought-2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is.
In A Terrible Love of War, James Hillman, one of the central figures in psychology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, fills this great void and undertakes a groundbreaking examination of the origins, needs, and rewards of war. Moreover, in this brilliant inquiry, Hillman explores many other essential questions, such as:
€ Is war a necessary part of our human soul and, therefore, a necessary part of our lives?
€ Why do we need enemies?
€ What scars does warfare carve on the psyche of its soldiers? And why does it have such a permanent effect?
€ If war is such a "normal" part of our existence, why do we fear it so much? And alternately, how could we ever embrace a force so destructive, so wanton, and so inhuman?
€ Can the impulse to engage in war be tamed?
Hillman asserts that "if we want war's horror to be abated so that life may go on, it is necessary to understand and imagine." A Terrible Love of War is a crucial tool to understanding war-a crucial book for us all.
War is a timeless force in the human imagination-and, indeed, in daily life. If recent events have taught us anything, it is that peacetime is not nearly so constant and attainable as wartime. During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought-2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is.
In A Terrible Love of War, James Hillman, one of the central figures in psychology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, fills this great void and undertakes a groundbreaking examination of the origins, needs, and rewards of war. Moreover, in this brilliant inquiry, Hillman explores many other essential questions, such as:
€ Is war a necessary part of our human soul and, therefore, a necessary part of our lives?
€ Why do we need enemies?
€ What scars does warfare carve on the psyche of its soldiers? And why does it have such a permanent effect?
€ If war is such a "normal" part of our existence, why do we fear it so much? And alternately, how could we ever embrace a force so destructive, so wanton, and so inhuman?
€ Can the impulse to engage in war be tamed?
Hillman asserts that "if we want war's horror to be abated so that life may go on, it is necessary to understand and imagine." A Terrible Love of War is a crucial tool to understanding war-a crucial book for us all.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
40 people are currently reading
819 people want to read
About the author
James Hillman
175 books577 followersJames Hillman (1926-2011) was an American psychologist. He served in the US Navy Hospital Corps from 1944 to 1946, after which he attended the Sorbonne in Paris, studying English Literature, and Trinity College, Dublin, graduating with a degree in mental and moral science in 1950.
In 1959, he received his PhD from the University of Zurich, as well as his analyst's diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute and founded a movement toward archetypal psychology, was then appointed as Director of Studies at the institute, a position he held until 1969.
In 1970, Hillman became editor of Spring Publications, a publishing company devoted to advancing Archetypal Psychology as well as publishing books on mythology, philosophy and art. His magnum opus, Re-visioning Psychology, was written in 1975 and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Hillman then helped co-found the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture in 1978.
Retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut on October 27, 2011 from bone cancer.
In 1959, he received his PhD from the University of Zurich, as well as his analyst's diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute and founded a movement toward archetypal psychology, was then appointed as Director of Studies at the institute, a position he held until 1969.
In 1970, Hillman became editor of Spring Publications, a publishing company devoted to advancing Archetypal Psychology as well as publishing books on mythology, philosophy and art. His magnum opus, Re-visioning Psychology, was written in 1975 and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Hillman then helped co-found the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture in 1978.
Retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut on October 27, 2011 from bone cancer.
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June 17, 2013
I have read quite a few books about war, especially about Vietnam, wanting to reinforce my belief that war is a really bad idea regardless of how regularly it happens. So I picked this book at least partially enticed by the title, A Terrible Love of War. As I often do, I looked at a few GR reviews before I started reading. I find that it helps me to prime the pump. Especially with a book that looks like it will require some brain work. I mean it’s listed as psychology and philosophy and war. Sounds like a challenge to me.
I have been reading “short & thin” books recently. In addition to the enticing title I also selected this book off my shelf because it is relatively thin – 217 pages of text. Then I read the words and was trapped before I could put it down.
This is a book published in 2004, before Goodreads began in December 2006, so misses the normal bump of readers that a book often experiences just after publication. As of today, there are only 122 ratings and fourteen reviews. Most of the reviews are very short. But the average of the ratings is 4.06.
James Hillman wrote 27 books before this one including one Re-Visioning Psychology that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He wrote A Terrible Love of War late in his life. Hillman was a post-Jungian who initiated archetypal psychology in the early 1970s. He died in 2011 at the age of 85.
I think it helps to put a face and voice with a book. Here is about eight minutes of words from author James Hillman about psyche: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFng0W...
This book contains the awareness of a genius or the ramblings of a madman. You decide which. There are a lot of indented words in this LONG REVIEW to help you decide. This is indeed a warning. Here are the first words from the book:
The first chapter of the book is titled “War is normal.” Sounds obvious enough, right?
If you read this book (and based on the number of GR ratings, you probably won’t) you will have to decide if Hillman is thinking outside the box or is off the wall. It is very likely you will find your beliefs about why people are the way they are challenged. He is often bracketed with Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion.
As is often the case reading a person’s obituary gives you a good synopsis of her/his life. Thus, a couple of quotes from the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/hea...
I am stumbling around stealing the words of others (but giving credit you’ll notice) to share with you the content and impact of this book. I feel somewhat like an academic who is not prepared to take this course. I had a hard time imagining that I would make it to the end of this relatively short book. But it is packed with information and lassoed me in quickly. Here are a couple of his paragraphs:
If you have read all these words, you have some idea what James Hillman was about. I know I had never heard of him and certainly did not realize what I was getting into when I picked up this book. I have a hard time clearing my mind – I should work on meditation – and you sure need a clear mind to absorb what this book has to say. It is slow going. I had to plod along but was often captivated by the message to the extent I could understand it.
Hillman gathers and uses very interesting facts (from a lot of sources that are well footnoted) that I can read and absorb even when I do not necessarily agree with (or understand) the conclusions. This book contains a ton of information. The notes and bibliography are impressive additions. Wouldn’t this have been a great college course? Too bad Hillman moved on to the happy hunting grounds before the free online education at www.coursera.org got its start. He might have loved it; imagine teaching thousands of students from around the world. Hillman was a popular speaker and I am sure he would have loved the chance to reach so many people with his ideas.
I started out being shocked by Hillman’s writing: It is necessary to fall in love with war if you have any hope of mitigating it? Really? But as I read more about him and his ideas, I was more admiring even when I was not convinced. He was asking me to throw aside my lifetime of learning about psychology and to take a brand new approach: “He argued that reality is a construct of the imagination – the stuff of myths, dreams, fantasies and images.” [Quote from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/201... ] Deep stuff and hard to grasp for me. Kind of what Hillman says about war: you have to understand it and “love” it (Accept is another word maybe.) in order to have any hope of making change. I will have to work more on understanding before I can consider if I agree. As a person who has wanted to end war for a long, long time, it seems like I should have some understanding of Hillman’s concepts.
So, here is what it comes down to for me:
Can I buy this? Can I do this? I think I’ve got a way to go down that road where a different language is spoken and the signs are confusing.
Chapter One War Is Normal – “War is a mythical happening and those immersed in it are removed to a mythical state of being.” This chapter grabbed me almost immediately. I used a lot of post-it notes marking interesting spots. Because of the wealth of information I gave this chapter 4 stars
Chapter Two War Is Inhuman – How the war battlefields from many eras affect Mother Earth. We see that war respects no limits of time, space or methods. Men lose fear and caution. That Mythology as an important factor in war even today is a little too “out there” for me. 2.5 stars
Chapter Three War Is Sublime – War has weapons “that hold beauty and violence in permanent embrace.” There is “simply love for war itself’ and love for a leader. The increase of American aggressiveness comes from the proliferation of weapons, not TV. But don’t expect gun control. This chapter is a mix of captivating bits and dull bits. Another 2.5 stars.
Chapter Four Religion Is War – If we understand that “war is religion”, we should think about the idea that “religion is war”. The Greeks “did not believe in their gods; they lived with them as myths.” This chapter will require a lot more work by me to understand it. Again 2.5 stars.
I did not follow the focus on mythology throughout the book. That is a problem for a relationship with Hillman’s ideas. It was a combination of not completely understanding and not being able to put aside my previous versions of the truth. One thing I might do is to continue reading some of Hillman’s books – like his Pulitzer Prize nominated book mentioned earlier. But I will have to decide if I “get it” enough to move forward.
If you have a good brain and want to try out a view of war that will likely be new to you, you might try this book out.
This dense but mostly readable (are those two things compatible?) book gets three stars from me because it challenged me to think about something completely new, something that could upset my applecart . There were three chapters that got 2.5, but the first chapter got a 4, thus, 2.9.
I have been reading “short & thin” books recently. In addition to the enticing title I also selected this book off my shelf because it is relatively thin – 217 pages of text. Then I read the words and was trapped before I could put it down.
This is a book published in 2004, before Goodreads began in December 2006, so misses the normal bump of readers that a book often experiences just after publication. As of today, there are only 122 ratings and fourteen reviews. Most of the reviews are very short. But the average of the ratings is 4.06.
James Hillman wrote 27 books before this one including one Re-Visioning Psychology that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He wrote A Terrible Love of War late in his life. Hillman was a post-Jungian who initiated archetypal psychology in the early 1970s. He died in 2011 at the age of 85.
Archetypal Psychology relativizes and deliteralizes the notion of ego and focuses on what it calls the psyche, or soul, and the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, "the fundamental fantasies that animate all life.” Archetypal psychology likens itself to a polytheistic mythology in that it attempts to recognize the myriad fantasies and myths - gods, goddesses, demigods, mortals and animals - that shape and are shaped by our psychological lives. In this framework the ego is but one psychological fantasy within an assemblage of fantasies. Archetypal psychology is, along with the classical and developmental schools, the third school of post-Jungian psychology.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetyp...
I think it helps to put a face and voice with a book. Here is about eight minutes of words from author James Hillman about psyche: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFng0W...
This book contains the awareness of a genius or the ramblings of a madman. You decide which. There are a lot of indented words in this LONG REVIEW to help you decide. This is indeed a warning. Here are the first words from the book:
One sentence in one scene from one film, Patton, sums up what this book tries to understand. The general walks the field after a battle. Churned earth, burnt tanks, dead men. He takes up a dying officer, kisses him, surveys the havoc, and says, “I love it. God help me. I do love it so. I love it more than my life.”
We can never prevent war or speak sensibly of peace and disarmament unless we enter this love of war.
The first chapter of the book is titled “War is normal.” Sounds obvious enough, right?
I base the statement “war is normal” on two factors we have already seen: its constancy throughout history and its ubiquity over the globe. These two factors require another more basic: acceptability. Wars could not happen unless there were those willing to help them happen. Conscripts, slaves, indentured soldiers, unwilling draftees on the contrary, there are always masses ready to answer the call to arms, to join up, get in the fight. There are always leaders rushing to take the plunge. Every nation has its hawks. Moreover, resisters, dissenters, pacifists, objectors, and deserters rarely are able to bring war to a halt. The saying, “Someday they’ll give a war and no one will come,” remains a fond wish. War drives everything else off the front page.
If you read this book (and based on the number of GR ratings, you probably won’t) you will have to decide if Hillman is thinking outside the box or is off the wall. It is very likely you will find your beliefs about why people are the way they are challenged. He is often bracketed with Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion.
As is often the case reading a person’s obituary gives you a good synopsis of her/his life. Thus, a couple of quotes from the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/hea...
James Hillman [was] a charismatic therapist and best-selling author whose theories about the psyche helped revive interest in the ideas of Carl Jung, animating the so-called men’s movement in the 1990s and stirring the pop-cultural air.
. . .
Mr. Hillman followed his mentor’s [Carl Jung] lead in taking aim at the assumptions behind standard psychotherapies, including Freudian analysis, arguing that the best clues for understanding the human mind lay in myth and imagination, not in standard psychological or medical concepts.
. . .
Feelings like [anxiety and depression], he said, are rooted not in how one was treated as a child or in some chemical imbalance but in culture, in social interactions, in human nature and its churning imagination. For Mr. Hillman, a person’s demons really were demons, and the best course was to accept and understand them. To try to banish them, he said, was only to ask for more trouble.
. . .
“Some people in desperation have turned to witchcraft, magic and occultism, to drugs and madness, anything to rekindle imagination and find a world ensouled,” Mr. Hillman wrote in 1976. “But these reactions are not enough. What is needed is a revisioning, a fundamental shift of perspective out of that soulless predicament we call modern consciousness.”
I am stumbling around stealing the words of others (but giving credit you’ll notice) to share with you the content and impact of this book. I feel somewhat like an academic who is not prepared to take this course. I had a hard time imagining that I would make it to the end of this relatively short book. But it is packed with information and lassoed me in quickly. Here are a couple of his paragraphs:
War certainly does rely upon the individual’s repressions and/or aggressions, pleasure in demolition, appetite for the extraordinary and spectacular, mania of autonomy. War harnesses these individual urges and procures their compliance without which there could be no wars; but war is not individual psychology writ large. Individuals certainly fight ruthlessly and kill; families feud and harbor revenge, but this is not war. “Soldiers are not killers.” Even well-trained and well-lead infantrymen have a strong “unrealized resistance toward killing” which tactically impedes the strategy of every engagement. Only a polis (city, state, society) can war: “The only source of war is politics,” said Clausewitz. “Politics is the womb in which war develops.” For war to emerge from the womb, for the individual to muster aggression and appetites, there must be an enemy. The enemy is the midwife of war.
. . .
Mind you now: there may not actually be an enemy! All along we are speaking of the idea of an enemy, a phantom enemy. It is not the enemy that is essential to war and that forces wars upon us, but the imagination. Imagination is the driving force, especially when imagination has been preconditioned by the media, education, and religion, and fed with aggressive boosterism and pathetic pieties by the state’s need for enemies. The imagined phantom swells and clouds the horizon, we cannot see beyond enmity. The archetypal idea gains a face. Once the enemy is imagined, one is already in a state of war. Once the enemy has been named, war has already been declared and the actual declaration becomes inconsequential, only legalistic. The invasion of Iraq began before the invasion of Iraq; it had already begun when that nation was named among the axis of evil.
If you have read all these words, you have some idea what James Hillman was about. I know I had never heard of him and certainly did not realize what I was getting into when I picked up this book. I have a hard time clearing my mind – I should work on meditation – and you sure need a clear mind to absorb what this book has to say. It is slow going. I had to plod along but was often captivated by the message to the extent I could understand it.
Hillman gathers and uses very interesting facts (from a lot of sources that are well footnoted) that I can read and absorb even when I do not necessarily agree with (or understand) the conclusions. This book contains a ton of information. The notes and bibliography are impressive additions. Wouldn’t this have been a great college course? Too bad Hillman moved on to the happy hunting grounds before the free online education at www.coursera.org got its start. He might have loved it; imagine teaching thousands of students from around the world. Hillman was a popular speaker and I am sure he would have loved the chance to reach so many people with his ideas.
I started out being shocked by Hillman’s writing: It is necessary to fall in love with war if you have any hope of mitigating it? Really? But as I read more about him and his ideas, I was more admiring even when I was not convinced. He was asking me to throw aside my lifetime of learning about psychology and to take a brand new approach: “He argued that reality is a construct of the imagination – the stuff of myths, dreams, fantasies and images.” [Quote from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/201... ] Deep stuff and hard to grasp for me. Kind of what Hillman says about war: you have to understand it and “love” it (Accept is another word maybe.) in order to have any hope of making change. I will have to work more on understanding before I can consider if I agree. As a person who has wanted to end war for a long, long time, it seems like I should have some understanding of Hillman’s concepts.
So, here is what it comes down to for me:
Our civilian distain and pacifist horror – all the legitimate deep-felt aversion to everything to do with the military and the warrior – must be set aside. This because the first principle of psychological method that any phenomenon to be understood must be sympathetically imagined. No syndrome can be truly dislodged from the cursed condition unless we first move imagination into its heart.
Can I buy this? Can I do this? I think I’ve got a way to go down that road where a different language is spoken and the signs are confusing.
Chapter One War Is Normal – “War is a mythical happening and those immersed in it are removed to a mythical state of being.” This chapter grabbed me almost immediately. I used a lot of post-it notes marking interesting spots. Because of the wealth of information I gave this chapter 4 stars
Chapter Two War Is Inhuman – How the war battlefields from many eras affect Mother Earth. We see that war respects no limits of time, space or methods. Men lose fear and caution. That Mythology as an important factor in war even today is a little too “out there” for me. 2.5 stars
Chapter Three War Is Sublime – War has weapons “that hold beauty and violence in permanent embrace.” There is “simply love for war itself’ and love for a leader. The increase of American aggressiveness comes from the proliferation of weapons, not TV. But don’t expect gun control. This chapter is a mix of captivating bits and dull bits. Another 2.5 stars.
Chapter Four Religion Is War – If we understand that “war is religion”, we should think about the idea that “religion is war”. The Greeks “did not believe in their gods; they lived with them as myths.” This chapter will require a lot more work by me to understand it. Again 2.5 stars.
I did not follow the focus on mythology throughout the book. That is a problem for a relationship with Hillman’s ideas. It was a combination of not completely understanding and not being able to put aside my previous versions of the truth. One thing I might do is to continue reading some of Hillman’s books – like his Pulitzer Prize nominated book mentioned earlier. But I will have to decide if I “get it” enough to move forward.
If you have a good brain and want to try out a view of war that will likely be new to you, you might try this book out.
This dense but mostly readable (are those two things compatible?) book gets three stars from me because it challenged me to think about something completely new, something that could upset my applecart . There were three chapters that got 2.5, but the first chapter got a 4, thus, 2.9.
March 28, 2022
Hillman takes a thought-provoking approach to the phenomenon of war, very likely uncomfortable to early 21st century sensibilities that have been cultivated on a sedate and mostly also uncritical diet of liberal democratic ideas. Yes, war is horrific. And it is also a crucible in which the spirit of individuals and communities is forged. Today, we witness how Ukraine is rediscovering itself as a body politic under the onslaught of Russian cruise missiles. And we sense how bracing this is. It's a tricky position, I realise that. The mere thought of Mariupol is also a punch in my gut. But Hillman deserves the benefit of doubt when he raises the following point at the very outset of the book:
"We can never prevent war or speak sensibly of peace and disarmament unless we enter this love of war. Unless we move our imaginations into the martial state of soul, we cannot comprehend its pull. This means “going to war,” and this book aims to induct our minds into military service. We are not going to war “in the name of peace” as deceitful rhetoric so often declares, but rather for war’s own sake: to understand the madness of its love. Our civilian disdain and pacifist horror—all the legitimate and deep-felt aversion to everything to do with the military and the warrior—must be set aside. This because the first principle of psychological method holds that any phenomenon to be understood must be sympathetically imagined. No syndrome can be truly dislodged from its cursed condition unless we first move imagination into its heart."
It's a typical Jungian strategy. Here is an example of a comparable move in C.G. Jung's quasi-autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections when he approaches the subject of life after death. Why on earth would we spend time on something for which there is not a shred of empirical evidence? Jung starts with the observation that nowadays the mythic side of man is given short shrift. He can no longer create fables. “As a result, a great deal escapes him; for it is important and salutory to speak also of incomprehensible things. (…) We are strictly limited by our innate structure and therefore bound by our whole being and thinking to this world of ours. Mythic man, to be sure, demands a ‘going beyond all that,’ but scientific man cannot permit this. To the intellect, all mythologising is futile speculation. To the emotions, however, it is a healing and valid activity; it gives a existence a glamour which we would not like to do without. Nor is there any good reason why we should. (…) A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some image of it - even if he must confess his failure. Not to have done so is a vital loss. For the question that is posed to him is the age-old heritage of humanity: an archetype, rich in secret life, which seeks to add itself to our own individual life in order to make it whole. Reason sets the boundaries far to narrowly for us.”
This way of thinking is exemplary for Jung, and it fits hand in glove with his drive to bring to light and to tap into human beings' repressed potential. In the process of individuation Jung invites us to go beyond the bounds of reason, to establish a connection with the mysterious realm of the unconscious and to connect with our guilt-laden shadow persona.
Hillman transposes this line of thought to the subject of war. This book aims to present an archetypal psychology of war—the myths, philosophy, and theology of 'war’s deepest mind'. The aim is not to control, comprehend or eliminate war. It' s not about what is true or false, morally bad and good. The aim is, as Jung said, to embrace an archetype to make us more whole, to sediment these mythic spirits into cultural rituals of sacrifice, art, and atonement.
The early Enlightenment philosopher Giambattista Vico offers, perhaps, an even more powerful clue to the ambit of Hillman's project. Vico went against the grain of Cartesian doxa by putting human being's capacity for 'inventio' (rather than proof) at the center of his historiography. Inventio triggers a mutation of consciousness. In his 'Nuova Scienza' he writes: "Rational metaphysics teaches that man becomes all things by understanding them, this [i.e. Vicos own] imaginative metaphysics shows that man becomes all things by not understanding them; and perhaps the latter proposition is truer than the former, for whan man understands he extends his mind and takes in things, but when he does not understand he makes the things out of himself and becomes them by transforming himself into them." By inventing something we forge a passage to a new evolutionary level. We create a context that as yet does not exist. We might see Hillman's 'sympathetic imagination', brought to bear on the phenomenon of war, as an act of invention that forces us to rethink who we are.
Having endorsed the scope and intention behind's Hillman's project, I have to admit that the book does not live up to its promise. The narrative is very loosely composed, in an almost stream-of-consciousness sort of way. The prose is very often a pleasure to read, as is often the case with Hillman. But the argument doesn't make a lot of headway beyond the initial, fascinating expression of the ambition to give shape to the archetypal impulse of war. And Hillman is sometimes perilously close to glorifying and sacramentalising war as some sort of ultimate (male) initiation rite. Indeed, for some soldiers the 'storms of steel' are the "one great lyric passage in their lives" and a limit experience of comradeship.
However, my thoughts went back to a passage in which the elderly Wilfred Bion reminisces about his service as a tank commander in the First World War: "These clichés do nothing to convey an impression to anyone who had not had the experience but to me - sixty years later - their very banality recalls that immensely emotional experience. The behaviour, facial expression, and poverty of conversation could give an impression of depression and even fear at the prospect of battle. Fear there certainly was, fear of fear was, I think, common to all - officers and men. The inability to admit it to anyone, as there was no one to admit it to without being guilty of spreading alarm and despondency, produced a curious sense of being entirely alone in company with a crowd of mindless robots - machines devoid of humanity. The loneliness was intense; I can still feel my skin drawn over the bones of my face as if it were the mask of a cadaver. The occasional words exchanged echoed like a conversation heard from afar. ‘Wipers’, ‘Yes, the Salient’, Guns sound a bit frisky.’ ‘Awful - but cheer up - you’ll soon be dead.’ ‘You’ve said it.’"
Hillman doesn't talk about these experiences of glacial fear and loneliness. But it's probably there, rather than in the intoxication of battle, that "the maximum of intensity and the maximum of impossibility" can be experienced at the same time.
Dutch historiographer Eeclo Runia is probably is more successful in carrying out Hillman's program. In his book 'Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation Runia holds that there is a fundamental opposition between two diverging approaches to the past: a traditional, 'botanising', positivist conception of history on the one hand, and what he refers to as 'commemoration'. Runia: "Commemoration hinges on the idea that acts of people are committed by us—not, of course, in person, but as members of the group, the nation, the culture, and ultimately the species that brought the catastrophe about. Calamitous acts of people are made by us, because they could have been made by any one of us—if, by chance, we had been born a couple of hundred kilometers farther down or if we hadn’t been blessed with—as the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl has expressed it—“the grace of late birth.”"
I believe that this understanding of commemoration - as a self-reflexive attempt to formulate an answer to the question “Who are we that this could have happened?” - is very much in the spirit of Hillman's sympathetically imaginative approach to war. And indeed, both authors refer to a common root source: Vico. And both invoke the notion of the 'sublime' to characterise the confrontation with what we don't like to be confronted with. But Runia offers deeper insights here. Hillman's conception of the sublime remains a wishy-washy shorthand for a feeling of awe in confrontation with the numinosity of war. For Runia an historical moment in time is sublime when it constitutes a leap in the unknown, a collective effort of invention by creating a new civilisational context (as happened in the French Revolution and in the First World War).
It wouldn't be much of a surprise if, in the next few decades, humankind would want to leap away from its shriveled past as colonisers and consumers into a new civilisational context. What upheaval do we have for ourselves in store? Ernst Jünger wisely professed himself an optimist for the 22nd century.
"We can never prevent war or speak sensibly of peace and disarmament unless we enter this love of war. Unless we move our imaginations into the martial state of soul, we cannot comprehend its pull. This means “going to war,” and this book aims to induct our minds into military service. We are not going to war “in the name of peace” as deceitful rhetoric so often declares, but rather for war’s own sake: to understand the madness of its love. Our civilian disdain and pacifist horror—all the legitimate and deep-felt aversion to everything to do with the military and the warrior—must be set aside. This because the first principle of psychological method holds that any phenomenon to be understood must be sympathetically imagined. No syndrome can be truly dislodged from its cursed condition unless we first move imagination into its heart."
It's a typical Jungian strategy. Here is an example of a comparable move in C.G. Jung's quasi-autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections when he approaches the subject of life after death. Why on earth would we spend time on something for which there is not a shred of empirical evidence? Jung starts with the observation that nowadays the mythic side of man is given short shrift. He can no longer create fables. “As a result, a great deal escapes him; for it is important and salutory to speak also of incomprehensible things. (…) We are strictly limited by our innate structure and therefore bound by our whole being and thinking to this world of ours. Mythic man, to be sure, demands a ‘going beyond all that,’ but scientific man cannot permit this. To the intellect, all mythologising is futile speculation. To the emotions, however, it is a healing and valid activity; it gives a existence a glamour which we would not like to do without. Nor is there any good reason why we should. (…) A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some image of it - even if he must confess his failure. Not to have done so is a vital loss. For the question that is posed to him is the age-old heritage of humanity: an archetype, rich in secret life, which seeks to add itself to our own individual life in order to make it whole. Reason sets the boundaries far to narrowly for us.”
This way of thinking is exemplary for Jung, and it fits hand in glove with his drive to bring to light and to tap into human beings' repressed potential. In the process of individuation Jung invites us to go beyond the bounds of reason, to establish a connection with the mysterious realm of the unconscious and to connect with our guilt-laden shadow persona.
Hillman transposes this line of thought to the subject of war. This book aims to present an archetypal psychology of war—the myths, philosophy, and theology of 'war’s deepest mind'. The aim is not to control, comprehend or eliminate war. It' s not about what is true or false, morally bad and good. The aim is, as Jung said, to embrace an archetype to make us more whole, to sediment these mythic spirits into cultural rituals of sacrifice, art, and atonement.
The early Enlightenment philosopher Giambattista Vico offers, perhaps, an even more powerful clue to the ambit of Hillman's project. Vico went against the grain of Cartesian doxa by putting human being's capacity for 'inventio' (rather than proof) at the center of his historiography. Inventio triggers a mutation of consciousness. In his 'Nuova Scienza' he writes: "Rational metaphysics teaches that man becomes all things by understanding them, this [i.e. Vicos own] imaginative metaphysics shows that man becomes all things by not understanding them; and perhaps the latter proposition is truer than the former, for whan man understands he extends his mind and takes in things, but when he does not understand he makes the things out of himself and becomes them by transforming himself into them." By inventing something we forge a passage to a new evolutionary level. We create a context that as yet does not exist. We might see Hillman's 'sympathetic imagination', brought to bear on the phenomenon of war, as an act of invention that forces us to rethink who we are.
Having endorsed the scope and intention behind's Hillman's project, I have to admit that the book does not live up to its promise. The narrative is very loosely composed, in an almost stream-of-consciousness sort of way. The prose is very often a pleasure to read, as is often the case with Hillman. But the argument doesn't make a lot of headway beyond the initial, fascinating expression of the ambition to give shape to the archetypal impulse of war. And Hillman is sometimes perilously close to glorifying and sacramentalising war as some sort of ultimate (male) initiation rite. Indeed, for some soldiers the 'storms of steel' are the "one great lyric passage in their lives" and a limit experience of comradeship.
However, my thoughts went back to a passage in which the elderly Wilfred Bion reminisces about his service as a tank commander in the First World War: "These clichés do nothing to convey an impression to anyone who had not had the experience but to me - sixty years later - their very banality recalls that immensely emotional experience. The behaviour, facial expression, and poverty of conversation could give an impression of depression and even fear at the prospect of battle. Fear there certainly was, fear of fear was, I think, common to all - officers and men. The inability to admit it to anyone, as there was no one to admit it to without being guilty of spreading alarm and despondency, produced a curious sense of being entirely alone in company with a crowd of mindless robots - machines devoid of humanity. The loneliness was intense; I can still feel my skin drawn over the bones of my face as if it were the mask of a cadaver. The occasional words exchanged echoed like a conversation heard from afar. ‘Wipers’, ‘Yes, the Salient’, Guns sound a bit frisky.’ ‘Awful - but cheer up - you’ll soon be dead.’ ‘You’ve said it.’"
Hillman doesn't talk about these experiences of glacial fear and loneliness. But it's probably there, rather than in the intoxication of battle, that "the maximum of intensity and the maximum of impossibility" can be experienced at the same time.
Dutch historiographer Eeclo Runia is probably is more successful in carrying out Hillman's program. In his book 'Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation Runia holds that there is a fundamental opposition between two diverging approaches to the past: a traditional, 'botanising', positivist conception of history on the one hand, and what he refers to as 'commemoration'. Runia: "Commemoration hinges on the idea that acts of people are committed by us—not, of course, in person, but as members of the group, the nation, the culture, and ultimately the species that brought the catastrophe about. Calamitous acts of people are made by us, because they could have been made by any one of us—if, by chance, we had been born a couple of hundred kilometers farther down or if we hadn’t been blessed with—as the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl has expressed it—“the grace of late birth.”"
I believe that this understanding of commemoration - as a self-reflexive attempt to formulate an answer to the question “Who are we that this could have happened?” - is very much in the spirit of Hillman's sympathetically imaginative approach to war. And indeed, both authors refer to a common root source: Vico. And both invoke the notion of the 'sublime' to characterise the confrontation with what we don't like to be confronted with. But Runia offers deeper insights here. Hillman's conception of the sublime remains a wishy-washy shorthand for a feeling of awe in confrontation with the numinosity of war. For Runia an historical moment in time is sublime when it constitutes a leap in the unknown, a collective effort of invention by creating a new civilisational context (as happened in the French Revolution and in the First World War).
It wouldn't be much of a surprise if, in the next few decades, humankind would want to leap away from its shriveled past as colonisers and consumers into a new civilisational context. What upheaval do we have for ourselves in store? Ernst Jünger wisely professed himself an optimist for the 22nd century.
October 1, 2020
Archetipinės psichologijos pradininko James Hillman žvilgsnis į karą.
April 30, 2021
This is my 2nd book of James Hillman and as the first (the soul's code) it did not disappoint me.
Hillman tries something challenging here, he tries to explain and understand why and how humanity's love for war keeps returning through the centuries. The analysis covers social behaviours, historical facts, myths and religious influences. In particular the last chapter is dedicated to religions and monotheisms and how they are so deeply connected with war and conflict.
In my opinion this book has a profound catartic value; it tries to help everyone to better understand our social behaviour and interaction with the 'different' and perhaps how to mitigate the peculiar urge for conflict.
I read it slowly and it has been a pleasure every time I went back to it.
Hillman tries something challenging here, he tries to explain and understand why and how humanity's love for war keeps returning through the centuries. The analysis covers social behaviours, historical facts, myths and religious influences. In particular the last chapter is dedicated to religions and monotheisms and how they are so deeply connected with war and conflict.
In my opinion this book has a profound catartic value; it tries to help everyone to better understand our social behaviour and interaction with the 'different' and perhaps how to mitigate the peculiar urge for conflict.
I read it slowly and it has been a pleasure every time I went back to it.
April 24, 2025
No lo terminé, me quedé en 2/3 partes, pero el reading challenge no se va a terminar solo :)
Es un ensayo, nada especial, pero yo esperaría una cuestión más apegada a la realidad e historia, pero en buena parte de lo que leí, habla mucho de mitología, y enreda con cosas que a veces me resultó dificil de seguir, ya no podía leer más de 2 páginas seguidas, le agregas unos poemas y una pizca de bosquejos al aire y bye. Un libro para aquella persona que quiere andar de mamador en una tertúlia, nada más.
Es un ensayo, nada especial, pero yo esperaría una cuestión más apegada a la realidad e historia, pero en buena parte de lo que leí, habla mucho de mitología, y enreda con cosas que a veces me resultó dificil de seguir, ya no podía leer más de 2 páginas seguidas, le agregas unos poemas y una pizca de bosquejos al aire y bye. Un libro para aquella persona que quiere andar de mamador en una tertúlia, nada más.
February 16, 2016
Frustrated with the Author. Such excellent ideas and thesis, but his delivery lacked an over-arching coherence to tie all his various excellent points beautifully together. One of Carl Jung's protege's, I had high expectations for him as he tried to tackle such an incredibly challenging topic. He takes on the challenge of Humans and War and why it seems to be such an inescapable part of the human experience as well as why it shatters the men and women involved in it.
He argues that peace is only known as the 'absence of war' which, by it's definition makes it intricately linked to war to give Peace any meaning whatsoever. Pacifism is just another form of War by other means, waged by employing tactics of non-violence but it is still a form of warfare.
Then he dives deeper into just what War is, and argues that is a human experience that transcends human reason because it only exists in the realm of madness and chaos. That the predictable world of the average human is forever crushed by the randomness and chaotic events of war. That the human souls struggles to comprehend the incomprehensible. He suggests that the only way to do this is through using the ancient myths, as they try to give form to madness in the personification of the ancient Gods of Ares and Aphrodite.
War is more than just horror and cruelty. The juxtaposition of life's extremes makes for experiences of the sublime as well. Aphrodite brings love and beauty into war, and through her union with Ares they birth the child Harmonia.
Monotheistic religions fuels war by being founded upon the premise of one true God, which makes tolerating any other Gods a threat to that very foundation. Thus the only way to stabilize that foundation is to attack those of differing religions who pose as a possible contradiction to yours.
In the end, the only way to control War is through the God Ares, using the lessons of War against war itself. Only Veterans can speak with the needed restraint and authority to try and slow the "March to Folly". Only the martial arts can control the martial spirit.
The sons of Ares are Phobos and Dienos (monstrosity)
My favorite Quotes"
"Even those who know history are doomed to repeat it because, though it may be easy to kill the living, it is hard to kill the dead"
"To reach a certain point in life that is as close to the unliveable...the maximum of intensity and the maximum of impossibility at the same time" -Nietzsche.
"Myths are the norms of the unreasonable"
"Not only does 'peace' too quickly translate into 'security' and a security purchased at the price of liberty. Something more sinister also is justified by peace which de Tocqueville superbly describes as a "new kind of servitude' where a "supreme power covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but i compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothin better than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of which the government is the Shepherd"
"Only a shell remains of the human person who consists of memories, feelings, words, needs for food and shelter"
"Death seems to want the thymos first, the emotional blood of the personal life before the death stiffens the body"
"An eerie mood that would come over people in battle, a kind of transcendent despair...They feel something in their soul surrender, and they give in to everything they've been most afraid of. It's like a glimpse of eternity"
"The god whom the soldier serves kills the-life soul and the trooper who survives comes home a revenant"
"It is no longer possible for me to speak, my tongue is broken, a thin fire runs underneath my skin. There is no sight in my eyes, my ears hum, sweat pours down me, trembling seizes my whole body. I am paler than the grass, and I seem little short of dying"
"The sublime is sheer chaos, beyond reason, beyond finity, beyond order"
"To encounter that place, that moment of amazement, to be elevated by traveling to the edge of the bearable where one is filled with fear. Is this longing for the sublime what draws men to war"
He argues that peace is only known as the 'absence of war' which, by it's definition makes it intricately linked to war to give Peace any meaning whatsoever. Pacifism is just another form of War by other means, waged by employing tactics of non-violence but it is still a form of warfare.
Then he dives deeper into just what War is, and argues that is a human experience that transcends human reason because it only exists in the realm of madness and chaos. That the predictable world of the average human is forever crushed by the randomness and chaotic events of war. That the human souls struggles to comprehend the incomprehensible. He suggests that the only way to do this is through using the ancient myths, as they try to give form to madness in the personification of the ancient Gods of Ares and Aphrodite.
War is more than just horror and cruelty. The juxtaposition of life's extremes makes for experiences of the sublime as well. Aphrodite brings love and beauty into war, and through her union with Ares they birth the child Harmonia.
Monotheistic religions fuels war by being founded upon the premise of one true God, which makes tolerating any other Gods a threat to that very foundation. Thus the only way to stabilize that foundation is to attack those of differing religions who pose as a possible contradiction to yours.
In the end, the only way to control War is through the God Ares, using the lessons of War against war itself. Only Veterans can speak with the needed restraint and authority to try and slow the "March to Folly". Only the martial arts can control the martial spirit.
The sons of Ares are Phobos and Dienos (monstrosity)
My favorite Quotes"
"Even those who know history are doomed to repeat it because, though it may be easy to kill the living, it is hard to kill the dead"
"To reach a certain point in life that is as close to the unliveable...the maximum of intensity and the maximum of impossibility at the same time" -Nietzsche.
"Myths are the norms of the unreasonable"
"Not only does 'peace' too quickly translate into 'security' and a security purchased at the price of liberty. Something more sinister also is justified by peace which de Tocqueville superbly describes as a "new kind of servitude' where a "supreme power covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but i compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothin better than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of which the government is the Shepherd"
"Only a shell remains of the human person who consists of memories, feelings, words, needs for food and shelter"
"Death seems to want the thymos first, the emotional blood of the personal life before the death stiffens the body"
"An eerie mood that would come over people in battle, a kind of transcendent despair...They feel something in their soul surrender, and they give in to everything they've been most afraid of. It's like a glimpse of eternity"
"The god whom the soldier serves kills the-life soul and the trooper who survives comes home a revenant"
"It is no longer possible for me to speak, my tongue is broken, a thin fire runs underneath my skin. There is no sight in my eyes, my ears hum, sweat pours down me, trembling seizes my whole body. I am paler than the grass, and I seem little short of dying"
"The sublime is sheer chaos, beyond reason, beyond finity, beyond order"
"To encounter that place, that moment of amazement, to be elevated by traveling to the edge of the bearable where one is filled with fear. Is this longing for the sublime what draws men to war"
July 31, 2020
I have followed James Hillman now for years. His book, The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life is a worthy reference book. It sums up life and living -a very intelligent book.
In an article by Richard A. Koenigsberg, the library of Social Science, he ponders: People say they would like to achieve peace. But how can peace be attained if people love war?
He adds that... A journalist during the First World War recalled meeting a wounded Canadian soldier in pain. He reports how he tried to console the soldier:
As I looked into his face and saw the look of personal victory over physical pain, I gripped him by the hand and said: “My good man, when you go back home to Canada, back to your home, you need not tell them that you love your country, that you love your home—just show them your scars.”
Being wounded functioned as a testimonial: demonstration of love. In war, the good (the sacred ideal) and the bad (violent acts) are fused into one.
Why do people love war? Because it provides the occasion to demonstrate one’s devotion. We love war because it allows us to prove that we love our country.
James Hillman starts his book:
--One sentence in one scene from one film, Patton, sums up what this book tries to understand. The general walks the field after a battle. Churned earth, burnt tanks, dead men. He takes up a dying officer, kisses him, surveys the havoc, and says, “I love it. God help me. I do love it so. I love it more than my life.”
We can never prevent war or speak sensibly of peace and disarmament unless we enter this love of war.
In an article by Richard A. Koenigsberg, the library of Social Science, he ponders: People say they would like to achieve peace. But how can peace be attained if people love war?
He adds that... A journalist during the First World War recalled meeting a wounded Canadian soldier in pain. He reports how he tried to console the soldier:
As I looked into his face and saw the look of personal victory over physical pain, I gripped him by the hand and said: “My good man, when you go back home to Canada, back to your home, you need not tell them that you love your country, that you love your home—just show them your scars.”
Being wounded functioned as a testimonial: demonstration of love. In war, the good (the sacred ideal) and the bad (violent acts) are fused into one.
Why do people love war? Because it provides the occasion to demonstrate one’s devotion. We love war because it allows us to prove that we love our country.
James Hillman starts his book:
--One sentence in one scene from one film, Patton, sums up what this book tries to understand. The general walks the field after a battle. Churned earth, burnt tanks, dead men. He takes up a dying officer, kisses him, surveys the havoc, and says, “I love it. God help me. I do love it so. I love it more than my life.”
We can never prevent war or speak sensibly of peace and disarmament unless we enter this love of war.
July 26, 2007
I recently re-read the Iliad – and suspected that Hillman's book (which I'd bought a few years ago but never read) would deepen my appreciation of Homer – as indeed it did. Hillman is always a pleasure to read. As he's aged, he's become more transparent, more mellow in his meditations. If A Terrible Love of War lacks the cerebral pyrotechnics of Re-Visioning Psychology or Myth of Analysis, it still evokes reflections of grief, and lends clarity to a topic it's impossible to treat dispassionately.
December 29, 2008
I am actually reading this book for debate... It is surprisingly a good read, despite it's slightly macabre title. It is about the psychological effects war has on us, as humans. It also talks about how ever since the dawn of time, humans have always have been at war, and if not, trying to prevent war. Hillman suggests the best way to comabt the normalization of war is to embrace it. There are also surprising sources to back Hillman up, like Donald Rumsfield, Albert Einstein, Churchhill among many others. You really need an open mind to process these sometimes "out-there" ideas.
January 15, 2015
A discussion of the psychological and mythic bases of war – that it is a force with its own life and drives. War – Ares – is a god, and will have Its way. Although beautifully written and simple, lucid prose, it is nonetheless a difficult book to grasp – gleaning essential truths about war and violence throughout history, religion and psychology. And to those who have faith that war can be “replaced” by peace, Hillman offers no comfort – the acts of war may be directed, even transmuted, but war is, he establishes part of what makes us human.
October 3, 2016
This book has an original and insightful approach to the idea of war, how we can understand it better and cope with it as a ubiquitous force in our world that effects every single one of us. It really shines a helpful light in a very dark corner of the mind. I couldn't put it down for the first 3/4s. The last chapter got a little less laser-beam as the first few, much more axe-grindy (Hillman admits as much) but this does not attract from the overall experience imo.
October 2, 2013
Not as depressing as it sounds, if you claim to strive for peace. As the author says, “War is first of all a psychological task….the first principle of psychological method holds that any phenomenon to be understood must be sympathetically imagined.”
January 21, 2021
Fascinating. A deeply moving, disturbing and insightful book on war, psychology and the mythology that plays through war. A must read for anyone interested in any of these subjects... Especially those following the recent events in the USA.
July 23, 2008
The author tries to come to grips with our seeming obsession with war. Excellent read.
April 3, 2009
Interesting review of the human passion for war. His conclusions are somewhat vague, but I guess he is a psychologist after all...
April 20, 2024
Hillmans GORGEOUS/DISTURBING final BOOK.
On the SUBLIME/AWFUL subject of WAR.
To be EMPHATICALLY CLEAR .
James Hillman was VEHEMENTLY opposed to WAR.
Hillman took any opportunity to speak out against WAR, violence, domination, patriarchy, capitalism and exploitation.
ENGENDERING POLITICAL ACTIVISM was his MISSION.
Hillman was a FIERCE critic of PSYCHOLOGY that didn’t view people and FUNDAMENTALLY POLITICAL, and THERAPY that offered RELIEF, but DEPOLITICIZED people in the process.
Given all of that.
Hillman was not blind the MYTHIC POWER of WAR, and SUBLIME ATTRACTION that PEOPLE have to VIOLENCE.
He refused to PRETEND like that was not SO.
Furthermore.
Hillman INSISTED that ignorance of these facts, WILLFUL or OTHERWISE, would only DENATURE efforts to END WAR, CURTAIL VIOLENCE and CONTROL GUNS.
As such.
Many of his COUNTER INTUITIVE, COUNTER PHOPIC, INTENTIONALLY PROVOCATIVE statements would have CERTAINLY gotten him CANCELED by today’s OBSCENELY LITERAL, and BLINDLY PURITANICAL CANCEL KIDS.
However.
It is EXACTLY this PASSION and FEARLESS CONVICTION and COMMITMENT to IDEAS and WILD CONVERSATIONS that make him so VITAL READING RIGHT HERE/NOW!
GOD OF WAR
Hillman examines WAR from the ARCHETYPAL PERSPECTIVE.
As he is apt to do.
MARS/VENUS/VULCAN
In Greekoroman mythology:
MARS/ARIES is the god of war.
VENUS/APHRODITE is the goddess of love and erotic beauty.
And.
VULCAN/HEPHAESTUS is the god of technology.
As the legend has it. These three were in a LOVE TRIANGLE. VULCAN and VENUS were married. However VULCAN was unattractive and VENUS was in love with MARS. And the two were having an affair. The jealous VULCAN created an ingenious MECHANICAL NET to entrap and catch MARS/VENUS in the act and hung it over their marital bed. As such, the unsuspecting VENUS/MARS were caught red handed.
GUNS
Hillman observes that guns are the embodiment of MARS (violence) VENUS (beauty - they are) and VULCAN (ingenuity). Hillman (himself an ingenious, beautify child of MARZ) compares the American gun crisis to HEPHAESTUS NET.
And BOY ARE WE CAUGHT IN that ACT!
Altogether RED HANDED!
Much more to say about the AMAZING book.
My notes were pages and pages long.
But that’s about all the energy I have for this review.
So for now I will have to leave it at that.
5/5 stars ⭐️
On the SUBLIME/AWFUL subject of WAR.
To be EMPHATICALLY CLEAR .
James Hillman was VEHEMENTLY opposed to WAR.
Hillman took any opportunity to speak out against WAR, violence, domination, patriarchy, capitalism and exploitation.
ENGENDERING POLITICAL ACTIVISM was his MISSION.
Hillman was a FIERCE critic of PSYCHOLOGY that didn’t view people and FUNDAMENTALLY POLITICAL, and THERAPY that offered RELIEF, but DEPOLITICIZED people in the process.
Given all of that.
Hillman was not blind the MYTHIC POWER of WAR, and SUBLIME ATTRACTION that PEOPLE have to VIOLENCE.
He refused to PRETEND like that was not SO.
Furthermore.
Hillman INSISTED that ignorance of these facts, WILLFUL or OTHERWISE, would only DENATURE efforts to END WAR, CURTAIL VIOLENCE and CONTROL GUNS.
As such.
Many of his COUNTER INTUITIVE, COUNTER PHOPIC, INTENTIONALLY PROVOCATIVE statements would have CERTAINLY gotten him CANCELED by today’s OBSCENELY LITERAL, and BLINDLY PURITANICAL CANCEL KIDS.
However.
It is EXACTLY this PASSION and FEARLESS CONVICTION and COMMITMENT to IDEAS and WILD CONVERSATIONS that make him so VITAL READING RIGHT HERE/NOW!
GOD OF WAR
Hillman examines WAR from the ARCHETYPAL PERSPECTIVE.
As he is apt to do.
MARS/VENUS/VULCAN
In Greekoroman mythology:
MARS/ARIES is the god of war.
VENUS/APHRODITE is the goddess of love and erotic beauty.
And.
VULCAN/HEPHAESTUS is the god of technology.
As the legend has it. These three were in a LOVE TRIANGLE. VULCAN and VENUS were married. However VULCAN was unattractive and VENUS was in love with MARS. And the two were having an affair. The jealous VULCAN created an ingenious MECHANICAL NET to entrap and catch MARS/VENUS in the act and hung it over their marital bed. As such, the unsuspecting VENUS/MARS were caught red handed.
GUNS
Hillman observes that guns are the embodiment of MARS (violence) VENUS (beauty - they are) and VULCAN (ingenuity). Hillman (himself an ingenious, beautify child of MARZ) compares the American gun crisis to HEPHAESTUS NET.
And BOY ARE WE CAUGHT IN that ACT!
Altogether RED HANDED!
Much more to say about the AMAZING book.
My notes were pages and pages long.
But that’s about all the energy I have for this review.
So for now I will have to leave it at that.
5/5 stars ⭐️
September 13, 2024
Reading this book gave me an insight about the matter I thought for so long: is world peace really exists in human mind? Which one came as the first born, war or peace? Why it is so difficult to love the perfect Jesus son of God? Is the world still need religion or any belief?
The answer is in this book. And it is worth to read.
The answer is in this book. And it is worth to read.
February 13, 2018
La guerra come stato maniacale collettivo e individuale.
Molto colto, abbastanza interessante.
Bibliografia ottima.
Molto colto, abbastanza interessante.
Bibliografia ottima.
June 21, 2021
Niezwykle błyskotliwa rozprawa na temat miłości i (do) wojny. Na minus średnie tłumaczenie utrudniające lekturę.
April 17, 2023
This incredible book is full of ideas and guidances for thinking about perception of war in our cultural and emotional background. Worth reading slowly and making notes.
February 6, 2017
This is my second time reading this book, and I'm hitting the same difficulty that I had the first time around: I find Hillman's ideas fascinating and challenging, even when I don't agree with them, but his writing style is too dry for my tastes. So I hesitate to recommend this book to others, even though I liked it well enough to reread it. Hillman looks at war via mythology and archetypes. For the most part, he sticks to wars in Europe and North America and describes war through the Greco-Roman gods Mars and Venus. Talking about Venus's part in war is one reason I've remembered this book for ten years: Hillman points out that even though we say war is horrifying and dreadful (Mars), we also make weapons that are beautiful and talk about the bonds of love and affection that war creates between fellow soldiers (Venus). For Hillman, love is not the antithesis of war, which leads to the final chapter in which he looks at why Christianity, a religion of love, has inspired so many wars. Try this book if you think looking at war psychologically and through mythology sounds interesting, but be ready for writing that goes off on tangents and sometimes gets too dense to let the author's ideas through.
July 3, 2012
I imagine James Hillman was masturbating furiously as he wrote this.
“Oh, yeah...” he said out loud.
If you’re interested in some self aggrandizing mental masturbation comprised mainly of other’s words (but sprinkled with bullshit), then strap yourself in for a brain numbing ride full of hyperbole and circular reasoning that ultimately goes nowhere. Enjoy!
“Oh, yeah...” he said out loud.
If it is a primordial component of being, then war fathers the very structure of our existence and our thinking about it: our ideas of the universe, of religion, of ethics; war determines the thought patterns of Aristotle’s logic of opposites, Kant’s antinomies, Darwin’s natural selection, Marx’s struggle of classes, and even Freud’s repression of the id by the ego and superego.“Mmm…condensing entire scientific, political, psychological and philosophical theories into a crude mold to fit my pretentious narrative really gets me off,” he noted as he fapped furiously.
We think in warlike terms, feel ourselves at war with ourselves, and unknowingly believe predation, territorial defense, conquest, and the interminable battle of opposing forces are the ground rules of existence.“HNGGHHH OH YEAHHHH.”
If you’re interested in some self aggrandizing mental masturbation comprised mainly of other’s words (but sprinkled with bullshit), then strap yourself in for a brain numbing ride full of hyperbole and circular reasoning that ultimately goes nowhere. Enjoy!
April 1, 2010
While the book itself is an easy read, the author seems to return to the same quote and the same descriptions too many times. That, coupled with a lack of true direction in the book and you're left feeling like you have a lot of unfinished strands. What I liked in this book were the factoids given about various wars, but if you're looking for a cohesive tale of why we fight, this isn't it.
December 30, 2007
First Hillman book I read - interesting given our current political climate.
March 22, 2016
Sobre A terrible love of war: http://500ejemplares.blogspot.com/200...
October 30, 2008
A non-traditional approach to what makes conflicts so endemic.
November 12, 2008
This book sums it up. An intricate exploration of the reason why we are prone to war and not just international wars but wars within the mind, society, family, etc.
February 16, 2009
Hillman's least interesting book to date. the book felt contrived and appeared to have been produced in haste. Very disappointing read on a topic which is so interesting
August 5, 2016
I'm leaving Goodreads, don't want to be a content provider for Amazon. This review is now available on LibraryThing, user name CSRodgers.
June 21, 2010
excellent....and interesting indictment of philosophers and theologians whom hillman thinks have 'dropped the ball' on analyzing war.
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