Conscripts experienced military discipline’s physical intrusion more than its conceptual control

Evidence

The doubt remains, however, as to whether the soldiers did read the new military machine as such, as a machine, as an apparatus that “appeared somehow greater than the sum of its parts, as though it were a structure with an existence independent of the men who composed it.” There is no doubt that the new conscripts felt this new machine encroach on their lives, snatching them from their homes, fields and villages, subjecting them to tiring, exhausting drills, ordering them to change their daily routines and affecting their modes of talking, sleeping, eating, etc. What is less certain, however, is whether they were conditioned to read reality and perceive it in terms of the distinction between the material and the conceptual realms that is central in Mitchell’s argument. In other words, although the material presented in this chapter gives the impression that the authorities managed not only to capture the bodies of the young men but also to control their minds and to “work from the inside out,” there is considerable doubt that the young conscripts did in fact see reality in that “enframed” way. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 750

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what evidence beyond the texts themselves would show whether conscripts actually internalized the ‘enframed’ worldview?
• XREF: Runs parallel to Fahmy’s general concern in this book with the gap between official records and common soldiers’ lived experience.