...Randall Collins later coded videos found on YouTube to analyze and identify the situational markers of violence- and found that fights often ended without audience encouragement...
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...most violent conflict, then, needs a supportive population that acts as a wave which drives individuals to embody the crowd's energy in violent conflict...
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Most violence is incompetent because of its roots in this kind of collective fervor, and most possibly violent situations fizzle out because they lack the collective fervor behind the act. 'Fight or flight' is better described as 'flight through or flight away'.
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Those who are especially competent at violence are those who are in scenes that have figured out how to conduct violence without entering 'flight through or flight away' mode, which is usually driven by crowd dynamics...
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...in the military, these have historically been groups like snipers, artillery, mortar, and machine gun teams. This is because it's easier for them to, as a team, focus on a task at hand as a collective action, rather than as a direct confrontation...
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...by shaming those who pursue skills in competent violence, a population tacitly supports incompetent violence- violence that is not planned, but is the result of a sort of overflowing of emotional energy, the kind that results in 'flight through or flight forward'...
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...and it is this kind of violence, driven by fear, that often results in various forms of overkill. So by discouraging those who pursue skills in competent violence, a population crying out for violence is tacitly demanding overkill...
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...War for the sake of mass sacrifice, rather than war for expansion, where the purpose is to have as many young men die as possible, to prove the reality of the identities and ideologies of both sides, rather than to supplant and beat the other side.
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Not sure that's an actual dichotomy, looking at some of the ideological meat grinders of the previous century.
That said, agree a lot with your overall points!
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Compare to expanding Empires. Less attrition in those for the expanding side.
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Yes, but then, there's also the other side.
