Media emphasis on drone pilot trauma legitimizes them as classic soldiers

Evidence

By making it a point of honor to distance themselves from those whom they consider to be a bunch of wimps, those self-appointed spokesmen for “classic” soldiers indirectly illuminated the role that this media-promulgated theme played in the debate. The emphasis placed on the supposed traumas suffered by drone operators made it possible to assimilate them, via a common psychic vulnerability, to classic soldiers (fighters suffer from the stress of fighting and so do drone operators, so drone operators must be fighters too) and to humanize them as agents of armed violence (despite the technical nature of their weapon, they were not just cold killers). — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 372

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Assumed drone-operator trauma serves to legitimize them as real soldiers; The media narrative of traumatized drone pilots has no empirical basis.; Feigned empathy with victims legitimizes drone homicide publicly — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 378 (+5 more)

Related

• Assumed drone-operator trauma serves to legitimize them as real soldiers (similarity 0.96)
• The media narrative of traumatized drone pilots has no empirical basis. (similarity 0.91)
• Media accounts of drone pilot trauma lack corroborating evidence (similarity 0.88)
• Drone psychopathology lies in produced compartmentalization, not operator trauma (similarity 0.86)
• Drone technology structurally rules out existing trauma diagnoses. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone operations constitute a pure case of perpetration-induced traumatic stress. (similarity 0.82)
• Drones create a crisis in military ethos by contradicting traditional warrior values. (similarity 0.81)
• Drone operators are called brave for risking their psychic rather than physical lives (similarity 0.81)
• Eliminating reciprocal exposure to violence makes drones look like cowardly weapons. (similarity 0.81)
• A diagnosis of perpetration-induced stress is needed for drone operators. (similarity 0.81)
• The psychological effect of drone killing on operators remains empirically unresolved. (similarity 0.80)
• Feigned empathy with victims legitimizes drone homicide publicly (similarity 0.80)
• Drone advocates came to believe their own claims of negligible collateral damage. (similarity 0.79)
• Air Force pilots were drones’ most virulent early critics, not pacifists. (similarity 0.79)
• A few hundred drone operators’ moral feelings can be dismissed as irrelevant (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Media accounts of drone pilot trauma lack corroborating evidence #qualifies (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 370
• Drone psychopathology lies in produced compartmentalization, not operator trauma #complicates (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 427
• Drone operators are called brave for risking their psychic rather than physical lives #expands (0.65)
• Drone technology structurally rules out existing trauma diagnoses. #complicates (0.60)
• Risk-free drone operators morally resemble assassins, not soldiers #qualifies (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 509