War of Hearts: Love and Collective Attachment As Integrating Factors in Finland During World War II (SECTION I NEW APPROACHES TO FASHION AND Emotion) (Essay‪)‬

The so-called new military history has replaced the purely "military" and heroic histories of war with histories of mutilation, trauma, chaos, genocide, and repression. (1) Unquestionably, a set of draconic repressive techniques was necessary to make people endure suffering, and to persuade them to fight and commit brutal acts. Still the glorification of war in propaganda and literature, for instance, should not only he seen as manipulation, by which common people were forced to make sacrifices for the cause of the elite. (2) Romantic, even elevated accounts of war could echo true sentiments and the desire for consolation among the wartime population. (3) Often they served the purpose of concealing and making up a reality of war too horrible to be confronted as such; yet at the same time they could be based on real experiences of genuine meaningfulness. Disturbingly, for many the war truly seemed to be a fulfillment of "positive" desires, such as the need to love and to be loved, and to experience one's own life as meaningful. Love--more than hate--made people fight (4). In the following piece, we examine primarily the "positive" emotions in war--personal and collective bonds of attachment, altruism, the experience of fulfillment--rather than "negative" emotions--fear, hatred, and aggression. Our aim is by no means to dispute war's devastating and violent nature, but to understand, the central and often perverted role of love in both enduring and motivating this violence. As British military psychologists discovered during World War II, the so-called hate training aimed at making killers out of male citizens proved to be inefficient and even harmful, whereas the positive motivations of protecting one's family and country turned out to he much more sustaining. (5)