Great distance lets soldiers deny they are killing humans

Evidence

Grossman comments that when there is a great distance between the soldiers and the victims and when the soldiers cannot see those victims, the soldiers “can pretend they are not killing human beings,” which is why bomber pilots who have massacred thousands of civilians have been able to feel not the slightest regret. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 399

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Geocentric war law is attacked to justify lethal policing beyond borders — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 248; Distance killing is not morally less terrible than passionate violence — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 960; Soldiers found reassurance in ritualized activity rather than actual danger — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 194 (+3 more)

Related

• Distance killing is not morally less terrible than passionate violence (similarity 0.83)
• Geocentric war law is attacked to justify lethal policing beyond borders (similarity 0.83)
• Distant violence can become more graphic rather than more abstract (similarity 0.80)
• Remote warfare will shift trauma study from victims to perpetrators (similarity 0.79)
• Drone missiles have larger lethal radii than conventional infantry weapons (similarity 0.79)
• Remote killing removes reciprocal constraints that traditionally shaped warrior morality. (similarity 0.78)
• Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (similarity 0.78)
• Drones add the remote control’s range to the weapon’s range. (similarity 0.78)
• Remote weapons make war unilateral with deaths confined to the enemy side (similarity 0.78)
• Impersonal long-range killing is aseptic homicide rather than rational progress (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Distance killing is not morally less terrible than passionate violence #contradicts (0.80) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 960
• Soldiers found reassurance in ritualized activity rather than actual danger #corroborates (0.60) — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 194
• Remote weapons make war unilateral with deaths confined to the enemy side #expands (0.60)
• Drones undermine the tacit geographic limits built into the laws of war #expands (0.55) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 851
• Soldiers can experience wartime as sheltered idyll rather than danger #expands (0.50) — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 47