Review by New York Times Review
SEBASTIAN JUNGER CO-DIRECTED two documentary films, "Restrepo" and "Korengal," about a platoon of American soldiers deployed to a tiny, utterly primitive and exceedingly dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. Both films were riveting meditations on the experience of war. Grinding boredom gives way to bowel-emptying fear, followed sometimes by episodes of nearly psychedelic blood lust and the frankly sexual pleasure of unleashing a .50-caliber machine gun on enemies who are doing the same to you. We see the calming routines of mending one's kit in the interludes; the improvised forms of social authority that emerge in a place far beyond the reach of law; the rude affection and deep love among brothers in arms. Both films have a timeless quality to them, surely because of Junger's tact as a journalist and his fundamental sympathy with his subjects. What the films depict is not the high-tech warfare of remote control that affirms our clean self-image, but the recalcitrant realities of killing. We see the joys and depravities of a cell of men released from the neutering moral regulation of American society. That society has a mission for them to do, but it cannot avow the means by which it is to be accomplished and must avert its gaze from the appalling maleness of it all. How do you return home from such an experience? This is the question Junger asks in "Tribe," which has the subtitle "On Homecoming and Belonging." In a pre-modern tribe, Junger points out - or indeed a modern society such as Israel, in which the burden of defense is widely shared and never remote from the collective experience - war has a shared social meaning. But in a cosmopolitan society such as our own, far removed from the scene of battle, the human qualities demanded and cultivated by war are fundamentally at odds with our public principles. We think the "take care of your own" mentality of the tribe emanates from a different stage of human development, part of an us-versus-them mind-set that we pride ourselves on having left behind in the forward march of reason. What the French scholar Pierre Manent said of European enlightened opinion could be said of its American counterpart: We believe "we have become so universally human that we have no enemies." And yet we rain down more death around the world than just about anybody. A society with less false consciousness about these matters would reintegrate soldiers returning from battle by putting them to work. Doing so would tacitly affirm the continuity in their contribution to our common good. Instead, Junger points out, such is the misalignment of our culture and military service that someone who has fought is regarded as fundamentally damaged. The way we receive combat veterans returning home is by treating them as victims and putting them on disability. Victim status confers the only form of moral redemption we know, and we offer this freely - on the condition that a veteran submit to therapy. If the therapy is successful, he will come to accept the obsolescence of precisely those traits that made him a good fighter. With the help of a little medication they wither, like a limb that has been tied off to prevent an infection from spreading. Only then can the veteran hope to claim his prize, which is to become a well-adjusted consumer and cog in the corporate economy. Junger argues persuasively that post-combat psychological problems must be understood as a problem of reintegrating to society on such terms, at least as much as they are due to the trauma of war. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a medical term for a cultural problem: the basic impossibility of digesting the experience of combat as an isolated individual among other isolated individuals, each devoted to pursuing his or her private interests. There is no tribe. To risk one's life for the common good is to declare oneself outside this cultural logic of acquisitive individualism ; the veteran is an outsider to us by definition, and no amount of yellow ribbons can change that fact. In his platoon, he belonged. It is not so surprising, then, that many combat veterans miss the fellowship and say they would return to it if they could. The brief introduction to "Tribe" is a micro-masterpiece in which Junger sketches the discontent of bourgeois life. In the Boston suburb where he grew up, "neighbors hardly knew each other. And they didn't need to: Nothing ever happened in my town that required anything close to a collective effort." I expect Junger will be savaged by reviewers on two fronts, for reasons that derive as much from the moral one-upmanship of book reviewing as from his blind spots: It will be said that as an adventure-seeking journalist who doesn't have to live out the full consequences of his argument, he overemphasizes the psychological benefits of war and also romanticizes tribal people. This is fair enough, and a case could be made that he is guilty on both counts, despite his explicit awareness of both hazards. But to fixate on these transgressions would be to flatter our own prejudices and inoculate ourselves against the critical force of his argument. A more serious limitation of the book, in my view, derives from Junger's reliance on evolutionary psychology for his explanatory framework. The just-so stories that various professors have offered, after imagining what survival on the Pleistocene savannas might have required, cannot compete with the kind of material gathered by a journalist who is alive to the human drama unfolding before his eyes in a firefight. There are very few elements of human experience that can pass through the sieve of social-scientific explanation without coming out thin and watered down; one wishes Junger had favored his own ethnographic reporting over such explanation and included more of it. The book also sorely lacks any sustained attempt at intellectual history. The questions he is asking are in fact perennial questions of political philosophy, and they have a history that could have enriched the book immeasurably. The self-deceptions of contemporary society that Junger elaborates run too deep to be relieved by exhortations to "support our troops." The conclusion one reaches upon finishing "Tribe" is that we should bring back the draft and have universal, obligatory military service. It is hard to think of a public-policy reform that would do more to heal the growing chasm of social class, affirm our shared destiny as citizens and at the same time discipline our foreign policy. A nation of 320 million will never be a tribe, but if after such a reform we still have enthusiasm for putting "boots on the ground," those boots will belong to "us" rather than "them." MATTHEW B. CRAWFORD'S most recent book is "The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 29, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
Prominent journalist Junger (War, 2010) examines a number of modern institutions to assess their roles in leading people to make individualistic choices rather than acting out the feeling of being competent, necessary members of a tribe or community. Humans now end up feeling isolated and alone, he believes, starting early in life. Unlike hunter-gatherer moms, who stayed close to their babies day and night, mothers are now often away from their infants, who sleep alone. He also observes that people are wired to help each other and risk their lives for complete strangers, but police and fire departments largely eliminate that need. Junger continues his long investigation into war, noting that although it inspires ancient human virtues of courage, loyalty and selflessness, it also does harm, including post-traumatic-stress disorder. He observes, Instead of being able to work and contribute to society a highly therapeutic thing to do a large percentage of veterans are just offered lifelong disability payments. Junger uses every word in this slim volume to make a passionate, compelling case for a more egalitarian society.--Springen, Karen Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Junger proffers a straightforward reading of his latest. He has a limited vocal range but a good narrator's voice, excellent pacing, clear diction, and just enough dramatic flair to engage listeners in his extended essay on the causes of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by so many veterans on their return from combat. His thesis is that war offers men and women conditions in which to make close friends, to feel an integral part of a community, and to feel there are always buddies to watch their backs. At home, in a nation of individualists, vets often feel they don't belong among those who haven't shared their experiences. Junger's sense of the significance and urgency of his conclusions manifests in his heartfelt narration. A Twelve hardcover. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
For millennia, humans banded together in tribes that provided food, shelter, economic stability, and defense from enemies. Western society evolved away from close-knit clans as economies diversified and industry developed and basic needs could be met outside the tribe. Even in a contemporary culture that values individual expression and independent thinking, the concept of "tribe" speaks to our need to identify with others and to belong. Junger (The Perfect Storm) observes that soldiers experience the value of the tribe, in which their lives depend on their comrades, and their comrades depend on them. When military deployments end, many combat veterans are at a loss without that support system. Junger extends his study to people who must work together to survive after natural disasters or terrorist attacks. This is a short book and a thoughtful one. Junger reads his own work clearly and precisely. VERDICT A good choice for popular collections.-Nann Blaine Hilyard, Winthrop Harbor, IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A short book with a solid argument about the downside of civilization's progress. The latest from Vanity Fair contributing editor Junger (War, 2010, etc.) mixes memoir, reportage, and historical research into a case for the advantages of the tribe and how connective, communal benefits are lost as society moves toward competition and individuality. The author begins with the early settlement of America, examining how colonists introduced to tribal life, or captured into it, might convert to it, but the process rarely worked the other way. "Indians almost never ran away to join white society," writes Junger. "Emigration always seemed to go from the civilized to the tribal, and it left Western thinkers flummoxed about how to explain such an apparent rejection of their society." The author then makes a leap in his argument that is as provocative as some will find it counterintuitive: how war and catastrophe seem to instill that tribal spirit that individuals have otherwise lost and how the stress of such times serves to improve mental health rather than threaten it. As jarring as conjecture about "the positive effects of war on mental health" might seem, Junger amasses plenty of academic and anecdotal support. From there, he makes another leap, to PTSD, asserting that its prevalence stems less from the traumas of battle than from the difficulties of rejoining a disjointed, divided society after collective tribal bonding. "The problem doesn't seem to be the trauma on the battlefield so much as reentry into society," he writes, showing how PTSD can affect returnees who have never experienced combat. The author resists the temptation to glorify war as the solution to a nation's mental ills and warns against the tendency "to romanticize Indian life," but he does succeed in showing "the complicated blessings of civilization,' " while issuing warnings about divisiveness and selfishness that should resonate in an election year. The themes implicit in the author's bestsellers are explicit in this slim yet illuminating volume. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
