On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

by Dave Grossman

To fail to do this leaves us with only two possible results: to go the route of the Mongols and the Third Reich, or the route of Lebanon and Yugoslavia. No other result is possible if successive generations continue to grow up with greater and greater desensitization to the suffering of their fellow human beings.

The essence of this book has been that there is a force within mankind that will cause men to rebel against killing even at the risk of their own lives. That force has existed in man throughout recorded history, and military history can be interpreted as a record of society’s attempts to force its members to overcome their resistance in order to kill more effectively in battle.

We must understand where and what that psychological safety catch is, how it works, and how to put it back on. That is the purpose of killology, and that has been the goal of this book.