The War in Ukraine – Viewer Discretion Advised
Just like every war that has proceeded it, our society and humanity in general, is morbidly fascinated by the war in Ukraine. While still technically confined within Europe, it is nonetheless taking place in front of us on our phones, computers, tablets and televisions. I think maybe it’s time we turn it off.
As an example, I recently watched a man suffering in a trench. He appeared cold, alone and obviously wounded by the way he lay and struggled to move. I held my breath as I saw a grenade fall almost on top of him, then watched aghast, as he managed to grab and throw it a short distance away before it exploded. I exhaled deeply as the video ended, then swiped up on my phone to watch a funny video compilation of goats fainting.
The video clips were on TikTok, and the first showed a Russian soldier in Ukraine being targeted by a drone equipped to drop modified grenades, the second needs no further explanation. The stark contrast and randomness of the two back-to-back videos is mind boggling. That millions have watched, and shared similar videos especially like the one from Ukraine is even more so.
Most of the spectators of that small fragment of war will never know the sheer terror, exhaustion, and dread that soldier felt or what was going through the mind of the drone pilot dropping those grenades. That 20 second clip captured all the futility and savagery of modern war but in most cases will have barely elicited an emotional response – for many it was just a cool video amongst other cool videos.
Never has war been documented by its participants like this. It started in earnest during the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and progressed substantially over the next 21-year period. But the videos coming out of Ukraine from body and helmet cameras as well as drones is astonishing in both the sheer volume and for their quality.
In its infancy at the onset of the GWOT, the happenings of war captured by combatants was infrequent, choppy and pixelated - that is no longer the case. The sights and sounds being taken in Ukraine border on the surreal. You can almost feel the droplets of moisture in the air from the fog of a soldier breathing heavily or smell the burnt fabric and blood on ripped and torn personal protective equipment. Even the essence of concussive artillery fire is captured vividly as your phone shakes in your hand transmitting the ‘WHHHCRUMP’ of incoming and outgoing rounds while your eyes and brain simultaneously register the flash and recoil of the canon or eruption of dirt and fire.
Having some small experience with the war in Afghanistan and the effect of grenades, artillery and drone strikes on humans, I’m sensitive to this type of media and try to avoid it. But I also think it qualifies me, to a very limited extent, to say that watching snippets of war without appreciation for what it truly is, is perilous for our humanity. Is it healthy to watch a video of a remote-controlled harbinger of death drop explosives on a human being, followed in quick succession by a clip of cute myotonic goats, or scene from the ‘Office’? I’d argue no, and a quick search of psychology studies on exposure to media violence would seem to support my supposition.
By exposing ourselves to these videos in an innocuous fashion we’re normalizing war and violence. Your mind is incredible at adapting to and processing trauma and with repeated exposure to such sights and sounds you’re numbing your emotional bandwidth to human suffering. Whether you recognize it or not after a while you’ve become desensitized to it - It’s just another video among thousands. Being desensitized to violence, to war, only serves to enable it.
The war in Ukraine is not a video game or a movie, it’s real life. It’s not some actor playing a character, it’s a real man or woman who is going to be killed in a horrible violent way. If you can watch that without any feelings of empathy, or revulsion, regardless of their nationality, you’ve not only reached a point of desensitization, but you’ve crossed into the realm dehumanization as well. This is the act where you’ve gone from simply lacking empathy to no longer attributing positive human qualities to a person or group.
This is where I fear as a society we are headed, hastened by our consumption of war on social media. History has shown us repeatedly that it’s a quick phycological hop from desensitization to dehumanization of large groups of people. Once that happens it’s usually not long after you’ll find that most of the world’s greatest human atrocities have been perpetuated.
When it comes to watching the war in Ukraine, viewer discretion is advised, or we might suddenly find ourselves no longer watching, but re-enacting humanities greatest mistakes of the past.