On the (n)everchanging at wars. A study about violence towards the body of the Other
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/pen.v79.i303.y2023.010Keywords:
war, violence, Other, Iliad, networksAbstract
If there is any action, within war, by which it is shown how far hate towards the Other enemy goes, it is without doubt the treatment given to dead bodies. In Iliadic war scenes we see the powerful wish to despoil the corpse of the enemy, whether by the warrior’s own hands or by abandoning it to feed the dogs and birds of prey. Nowadays, we have watched in social media news related to published pictures of Western soldiers posing by dead bodies of those who belonged to the enemy —or even torturing or putting to shame the body of the adversary—. How is it possible that human reactions towards the Other-as-enemy have not changed for over 3,000 years? Mutilation of the enemy’s lifeless body represents the ultimate dehumanization of the Other. When Achilles drags Hector’s body, pulling his face along the ground, he fervently wishes to disfigure it: the face is the part of the body that individualizes the person. Thus, the life of the Other, in wartime, becomes a life worthy-of-beingdestroyed. These lives are considered inferior and, therefore, not deserving of the same rights or privileges that enjoy identification as «We». Following that reasoning, the «I» comes to be seen as having legitimacy for performing such violence actions, as we will see on this paper.
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