Koenigsberg: My objective is to help people think of “normal” forms of behavior (normative, actually) as abnormal or pathological. It relates to your image on Facebook, facing a crowd with an individual pointing and saying to the crowd, “You are wrong, and I am right.”

Warfare is usually viewed as a “normal” dimension history and behavior. My objective is to view war as a form of sickness or severe pathology (the murder of millions of people, etc.). At this moment in time, I am “radical” calling war a severe form of pathology, whereas historians are the “normal” ones.

So, I’m not only calling war abnormal, but calling the HISTORIANS ABNORMAL for pretending that war is normal and writing about it as if it is normal. If I am right (and you are right, assuming you agree that war is pathological), then WE BECOME THE NORMAL OR NORMATIVE ONES, and anyone who “believes in” war becomes sick or abnormal. Dig?

HAMMER--I Iike the framing of war as abnormality and the picture reminds me that there is a myth that implies normal. I like the word awaken also.  I didn't realize this by just deciding to and inside I feel I still struggle with accepting war as normal.

Koenigsberg: Yes, the myth of war implies that it is “normal.” This is why this myth has attained such power. To overcome a myth, one has to have the courage to stand against it. Yes, it is a struggle to go against conventional views. However, wasn’t that the meaning of that image of you saying to the crowd, “I’m right and you’re wrong?” Putting one’s money where one’s mouth is. And one suffers LESS when one goes against the group.

What is the precise nature of the pathology of warfare, and why do people have difficulty saying war is pathological, in spite of our intuitive understanding that it is profoundly pathological?