Cruelbreed
05-16-2009, 10:12 PM
Very interesting read that in my eyes peers into what's needed to build strength in a soldier. "Creating power through discipline of the body"
"For all the rigor of basic training and the strict abstemiousness and discipline of military life, the American military is not, by and large, an ascetic institution. Comfort, though not the top priority, is also not systematically rejected."
May 17, 2009
No Food for Thought: The Way of the Warrior
By JAMES DAO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/james_dao/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
You have to marvel at how Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/stanley_a_mcchrystal/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a former Special Operations commander and the newly appointed leader of American forces in Afghanistan, does it. Mastermind the hunt for Al Qaeda in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and plot stealth raids on Taliban (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban/index.html?inline=nyt-org) strongholds in the Hindu Kush while getting just a few hours of sleep a night, exercising enough to exhaust a gym rat and eating one meal a day to avoid sluggishness. One meal. Who was it who said an army runs on its stomach?
It was, lore has it, Napoleon (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/napoleon_i/index.html?inline=nyt-per). But for all his keen appreciation of logistics, Napoleon, as a young privilege-rejecting Jacobin, also exemplified something more McChrystalesque: the notion that soldiers should live austere, even ascetic lives. It is an idea with a long and storied history.
The word asceticism comes from the Greek word for exercise. And while Buddhists and early Christians made world-denying behavior a foundation of their spirituality, the Greeks as often as not viewed asceticism as a source of physical, emotional, even political power.
“The Christians grafted notions of piety and reverence onto asceticism, but the Greeks saw it as about power,” said William R. Pinch, a history professor at Wesleyan University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/wesleyan_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org). “They believed you could create power by disciplining the body.”
The Spartans, of course, took the concept to its earliest extreme. Just how spartan were the Spartans? By age 7, all boys were required to enter military training that entailed, as the historian Paul Cartledge put it, “trial by ordeal.” They went barefoot in all weather and all terrain, wearing a single “homespun garment,” even in bitter cold. They used reeds for beds and were purposely underfed, to encourage them to learn how to steal food. Even dancing was turned into an endurance sport. By comparison, Lt. Gen. McChrystal’s 12-mile runs to work when he lived in New York might have seemed positively Athenian.
The Greeks, not surprisingly, were deeply impressed by the asceticism of yogi warriors on the Indian subcontinent. Indeed, yoga (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/y/yoga/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), what we view today as a low-impact exercise regime for overweight men and decreasingly lithe women, was once the daily discipline of a Hindu military culture, Professor Pinch said. Through excruciating postures, controlled breathing and tongue manipulation, the yogis believed they could push a snake-like energy from the pelvis to the head, making them all but invincible.
“It was less about self-denial and more about the cultivation of power,” said Professor Pinch, the author of “Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires” (2006, Cambridge). “The whole point of this is to turn yourself into a god, a supernormal being. There was a clear tactical advantage of believing, and having your enemy believe, that you were immortal.”
The belief in one’s supernormalcy, as well as an obsession with work, might help explain the prevalence of asceticism among revolutionaries. Lenin famously adopted a hyper-austere lifestyle after reading “What Is To Be Done?” by the antimonarchist Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Mao and Castro were said to be ascetics in their early guerrilla phases, though the paunches of their later years betray unrevolutionary tastes for the lush life. And Ralph Nader (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/ralph_nader/index.html?inline=nyt-per), green revolutionary and consumer protection warrior, does not own a car or a credit card and appears to have worn the same dark suit since 1957.
Mr. Nader aside, America has not exactly been a hotbed of asceticism, military or otherwise. The father of our revolution, George Washington, while capable of impressive frugality and self-denial, nevertheless aspired to the life of a country squire, with an eye for the latest dishware, jewelry and clothing from England.
For all the rigor of basic training and the strict abstemiousness and discipline of military life, the American military is not, by and large, an ascetic institution. Comfort, though not the top priority, is also not systematically rejected. You can buy a latte at many military bases. No one is required to sleep on reeds. And yes, the Pentagon wants its troops to eat. Indeed, a 1995 study was conducted by the Institute of Medicine (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/institute_of_medicine/index.html?inline=nyt-org) to determine why American soldiers tended to under-eat during training and in the field. Lack of choice in food — surprise — was a major reason.
"For all the rigor of basic training and the strict abstemiousness and discipline of military life, the American military is not, by and large, an ascetic institution. Comfort, though not the top priority, is also not systematically rejected."
May 17, 2009
No Food for Thought: The Way of the Warrior
By JAMES DAO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/james_dao/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
You have to marvel at how Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/stanley_a_mcchrystal/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a former Special Operations commander and the newly appointed leader of American forces in Afghanistan, does it. Mastermind the hunt for Al Qaeda in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and plot stealth raids on Taliban (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban/index.html?inline=nyt-org) strongholds in the Hindu Kush while getting just a few hours of sleep a night, exercising enough to exhaust a gym rat and eating one meal a day to avoid sluggishness. One meal. Who was it who said an army runs on its stomach?
It was, lore has it, Napoleon (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/napoleon_i/index.html?inline=nyt-per). But for all his keen appreciation of logistics, Napoleon, as a young privilege-rejecting Jacobin, also exemplified something more McChrystalesque: the notion that soldiers should live austere, even ascetic lives. It is an idea with a long and storied history.
The word asceticism comes from the Greek word for exercise. And while Buddhists and early Christians made world-denying behavior a foundation of their spirituality, the Greeks as often as not viewed asceticism as a source of physical, emotional, even political power.
“The Christians grafted notions of piety and reverence onto asceticism, but the Greeks saw it as about power,” said William R. Pinch, a history professor at Wesleyan University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/wesleyan_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org). “They believed you could create power by disciplining the body.”
The Spartans, of course, took the concept to its earliest extreme. Just how spartan were the Spartans? By age 7, all boys were required to enter military training that entailed, as the historian Paul Cartledge put it, “trial by ordeal.” They went barefoot in all weather and all terrain, wearing a single “homespun garment,” even in bitter cold. They used reeds for beds and were purposely underfed, to encourage them to learn how to steal food. Even dancing was turned into an endurance sport. By comparison, Lt. Gen. McChrystal’s 12-mile runs to work when he lived in New York might have seemed positively Athenian.
The Greeks, not surprisingly, were deeply impressed by the asceticism of yogi warriors on the Indian subcontinent. Indeed, yoga (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/y/yoga/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), what we view today as a low-impact exercise regime for overweight men and decreasingly lithe women, was once the daily discipline of a Hindu military culture, Professor Pinch said. Through excruciating postures, controlled breathing and tongue manipulation, the yogis believed they could push a snake-like energy from the pelvis to the head, making them all but invincible.
“It was less about self-denial and more about the cultivation of power,” said Professor Pinch, the author of “Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires” (2006, Cambridge). “The whole point of this is to turn yourself into a god, a supernormal being. There was a clear tactical advantage of believing, and having your enemy believe, that you were immortal.”
The belief in one’s supernormalcy, as well as an obsession with work, might help explain the prevalence of asceticism among revolutionaries. Lenin famously adopted a hyper-austere lifestyle after reading “What Is To Be Done?” by the antimonarchist Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Mao and Castro were said to be ascetics in their early guerrilla phases, though the paunches of their later years betray unrevolutionary tastes for the lush life. And Ralph Nader (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/ralph_nader/index.html?inline=nyt-per), green revolutionary and consumer protection warrior, does not own a car or a credit card and appears to have worn the same dark suit since 1957.
Mr. Nader aside, America has not exactly been a hotbed of asceticism, military or otherwise. The father of our revolution, George Washington, while capable of impressive frugality and self-denial, nevertheless aspired to the life of a country squire, with an eye for the latest dishware, jewelry and clothing from England.
For all the rigor of basic training and the strict abstemiousness and discipline of military life, the American military is not, by and large, an ascetic institution. Comfort, though not the top priority, is also not systematically rejected. You can buy a latte at many military bases. No one is required to sleep on reeds. And yes, the Pentagon wants its troops to eat. Indeed, a 1995 study was conducted by the Institute of Medicine (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/institute_of_medicine/index.html?inline=nyt-org) to determine why American soldiers tended to under-eat during training and in the field. Lack of choice in food — surprise — was a major reason.