Numéro 2009/2 (N° 11)
2009/2
The soldier and his/her society
Claude Weber
Dans Inflexions 2009/2 (N° 11), pages 63 à 71
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The notion of culture is one of the fundamental concepts of anthropology, sociology and social sciences as a whole. By discrediting naturalized theories – as everything about mankind can be interpreted by it – culture has indeed made it possible to explain human behaviour and to make distinctions between social groups, communities and human societies. Through an attempt to apply this concept to the military world, we shall try to provide certain logics of it, to underline some of its acknowledged evolutions and in the end, to show the usefulness and the importance of an ongoing analysis of military cultures.
The notion of culture
The concept of “culture” is polysemic. There are several hundred versions of it, according to the disciplines (sociology, ethnology, etc.), the theories favoured by researchers, the periods of social science history, etc. The use of this notion is all the more delicate since the latter is closely and directly associated with symbolic, that is to say, that which is always difficult to agree on. For lack of time and space, we shall merely give simple definitions in this article. Culture will be understood in it as a “combination of knowledge, beliefs, values, standards and practices that are common to a given group” or as “all of the acquired forms of behaviour” [1] referring to ways of life and of thinking peculiar to human collectives. The central idea is that the culture of a group expresses itself through a certain number of practices, behaviours and representations: language, beliefs, customs, ethics, artistic and technical creations, politics, law, education methods and economy, etc. These elements can be likened to a style, to a “spirit” peculiar to each culture and which more or less influences the behaviour of the members of society. However, even though cultures impose themselves upon individuals, no individual can synthesize within him all of the elements of the culture he belongs to. Also, each will only have a partial knowledge of it: the individual appropriation of a culture is an endless process, which gradually takes place all throughout one’s life. Most of the time, individuals only integrate that which is necessary in order to conform to their various statuses (relating to sex, age, social condition, etc.) and play the social roles that ensue. Even though culture is passed on though socialization, it would be proper to mention the subconscious dimension that goes with the process. For Emile Durkheim, the founder of French sociology, there is “collective consciousness” in very society, and feelings common to all of its members. This “collective consciousness” precedes the individual and imposes itself upon him. It is external to him and transcends him. Each culture offers a subconscious pattern for all of the activities of life.
Military culture or military cultures? How to define them?
The study of military culture requires avoiding a few pitfalls. In order to define the latter, it may indeed be tempting to want to draw a list, which is as exhaustive as possible, of characteristics, aspects and practices peculiar to the institution. For example, to say that servicemen wear short hair [2] and a uniform, insignias, use distinctive body movements and vocabulary, stay within compounds whose architecture presents specific traits, like to sing, celebrate and commemorate, are deeply attached to certain values, share a singular status, etc. is not wrong but proves to be insufficient in defining the logic of the milieu. Furthermore, such an approach quite often lapses into preconceived notions and persistent stereotypy by leaving out day-to-day real-life experience and by freezing reality. Another frequent tendency consists in making a distinction between the “military” and the “civilian” and then in characterizing one in contrast with the other. However, reasoning through the assumption that the “military world” and the “civilian world” are two homogeneous and antagonistic social worlds is absurd. In the same way as society as a whole, the world of defence is plural. We must talk about military cultures.
So as to best grasp the logic of military cultures, we must go back to the armies’basic raison d’être. As is underlined by German sociologist Max Weber, “any organisation, any institution endowed with a particular purpose has a specificity”; that of the military institution is to exercise legitimate violence. The purpose of the army is therefore warlike, in a real or virtual mode (deterrence), offensive or defensive [3]. Servicemen must be ready to kill and to be killed. This deliberately concise and blunt assertion has the virtue of clearly defining the ultimate action of the armies— which of course does not systematically merge with their activity -, and thus of declining and understanding the expressions of military cultures. With a view to being able to, if the circumstances so require, respond to the challenge of war, the institution must equip itself with an organization and particular operating modes, sometimes even extremely specific. These are supposed to make it possible to constantly have operational staff, staff that is qualified and equipped, ready to accept the entrusted assignment as well as its consequences. To talk about military cultures is thus to analyse the systems and the means— organizational, institutional, moral and legal as well as architectural, symbolical and mythological, etc. — set up so that the armies can play their role of military wing of the State.
Bearing in mind the prospect created by the possibility of a battle, it then becomes possible to rationally understand the setting up of a certain number of specific systems: the recruitment, the training system, the integration and instruction methods, the need to create a closely-knit, united and obedient collective, the search for uniformity in view of an identification with the group of belonging, the organization as a whole, etc. However, it must be pointed out that this way of apprehending military cultures, of trying to grasp their meaning in view of the latter purposes of the armies, does not mean that all that is practiced and all that may be observed within a given military institution at a certain point, is necessarily useful to the battle, that the forms of battle do not evolve or that the battle is the only parameter to be taken into account when it comes to assessing the organization and operating methods of the armies [4]. The fact remains that the demands of violent action cannot be taken away. Going back to the previous examples, having short hair saves time in case of a wound to the head and favours the homogeneity of individuals. The uniform, which was at first shimmering so as to distinguish the forces present amid the smoke of battlefields, gradually camouflaged itself in order to meet new tactical conditions. The insignia, spontaneous creations during World War I [5], perfectly illustrate the manner in which the tactical needs of reconnaissance and efficiency during travels along the Sacred Way leading to Verdun construct and complete the cultural creations, be they material or symbolical. The search for efficiency – speed, precision and clarity – accounts for the setting up and the use of a vocabulary made up of abbreviations and words that ring out like orders. How can we understand other than through the will to generate the cohesion and the obedience of the staff – the most appropriate behaviours for the chaos of the battle – the development of military compounds and spaces that are characteristic of milieus where square structures and straight lines represent authority, honesty, rigour and simplicity, etc., where “the closed, square and rectangular shapes put the symbolical emphasis on the themes of defence of inner integrity […] whereas the regular, closed and curved spaces would be par excellence a sign of gentleness, peace and safety” [6]? How can we not grasp that the traditional and memory logics of the armies (celebrations and commemorations in various forms of the “Ancients” and exceptional feats of arms) aim to constantly remind us of the spirit of sacrifice of the past generations and the examples to be followed? How can we not acknowledge that the evocation, the attachment and the upholding of certain values contribute to the quest for community solidarity? Lastly, even though there are still several examples, how can we not accept that the specificity of the military career, functional as well as socio-political, demands submission to the State and professional constraints that fit in a particular status, thus making servicemen somewhat unusual citizens [7]?
A culture in motion
These few declinations of an original raison d’être of the military institution allow the illustration of other dimensions inherent to the concept of culture: the constant interdependence of all the elements of an organic totality, which makes it possible to go a little further in the apprehension of an overall logic; the form of inner coherence peculiar to every culture, or yet again, the double function that is generally found. First function: social cohesion, since culture legitimizes social relations and gives meaning to the bonds that unite the individuals in the organization and the established hierarchy. Second function: the integration of the individuals, all the more so since the latter subscribe, or don’t, to the values and to the rules of life of the community.
Culture, as we have seen, is passed on through socialization, from generation to generation, as the numbers are renewed. But we must keep in mind – and this is a trait quite often minimized, if not denied, in the case of an institution that is too often characterized by its conservative dimension – that this social heritage is not fixed and is constantly changing. If recognizing that battle remains a major foundation of any military organization and consequently generates specific cultural expressions, the form, the nature and the frequency of this warlike confrontation are changing elements and of various influences, more or less pronounced. The example of the uniform perfectly conveys the idea of evolution according to the needs and technical progress. When the smoke of the battlefields starts to drift away, what is of prime importance is to become less visible to the adversary. For all that, the correlation between possible changes inherent to the battle and the cultural expressions is not systematic. Just think, so as to remain with the dress example, about the thirst for revenge after the defeat of 1870 symbolized by the wearing of red trousers by the French troops during the first world conflict rather than plainer uniforms or yet again – another absurd dress tactic – the late endowment of the French army with the camouflage dress on the sole pretext that the latter was a reminder of the misdemeanours of certain paratroopers, who were the first to have sported this uniform.
Beyond the direct experience of warlike violence, the societal and political environment can equally steer certain evolutions described as cultural within the military institution. Analyzing military cultures and the ever-inevitable changes thus amounts to re-examining histories, military history and its experiences of violence whose legacies gradually established the standards, the rules, the regulations, the models, the practices, the logics and the modes of action of the arms and of the armies, and also the political logic in which the institution is rooted [8]. By way of illustration, let us go back to the last great disruption of the last few years: the reform relative to the professionalization of the armies in 1996.
An unprecedented transformation
France being the land of its birth, conscription constituted a central institution in the lives of the French, be it only via social representations, positive or negative, generated by military service. The transition to an army exclusively made up of volunteers thus marked the disappearance of certain practices and cultural expressions that were traditionally associated with military obligations (rituals around the conscripts, etc.) and with everyday life within the military organization.
The decision relative to the professionalization of the French armies was the result of the convergence of various factors and wishes. Beyond the context of control of the public funds, a political will because of the sequence of crises (noticing that the military service had become unequal, lack of adaptability during the first Gulf War and refusal to send in conscripts, drastic reduction in financial resources) and the unshakeable desire of President Jacques Chirac, what especially stands out in our minds and in the argument used, is, on the one hand, the evolutions of the geostrategic context since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (collapse of the East bloc and removal of a threat, deemed major, to our frontiers, increase in the number of crises and conflicts of different kinds) and, on the other hand – direct consequence – an urgent need to modernize the armies and to have projectable, qualified and perfectly equipped forces. The model of mixed armies that existed up until then became totally inadequate. The new format, which was decided on somehow urgently, quickly set itself up, sequentially generating numerous innovations and changes: organizational, structural, functional and in terms of army-State-society relations. In the case of the Army, which was then less involved in professional logics than the Air Force or the Navy at the beginning of 1996, a genuine cultural revolution was evoked.
With a suspended military service, recruitment became the central issue of the professional army. So as to meet the requirements concerning numbers, the latter had to set up new and effective communication tools. Feminization, minorities known as visible, massive arrival of civilians: this opening up generates a reconstitution of the staff and of the structure in general, which is not without new questions regarding the management of the staff and the style of command or yet again, regarding the more massive integration of new “culture bearers”.
Besides recruitment, the development of loyalty and then redeployment are becoming major issues as the short-term contracts established speed up the renewal of staff, and jeopardize the traditional idea of a long and complete career in the army. A volunteer cannot be treated in the same way as a conscript. The Vivien plan of action, intended for the restoration of the buildings and quarters of the staff, is a perfect first illustration of it. With the arrival of women, it is the number of military couples that we see increase noticeably, which brings about new issues in terms of mobility. With the presence of a more significant number of young soldiers of foreign origin, questions of representativeness and integration arise. As for civilians, they favour systematic comparisons between statuses, their advantages and disadvantages, and generate new aspirations with the military population. The same goes for outsourcing, which establishes a daily confrontation with managerial practices that more or less bear no relation to the usual institutional customs. The logic of the thirty-five-hour week has to find its equivalent and questions the availability so often pointed at and demanded of the military career. Specialization entails the management of new careers, etc.
These examples are only part of the many disruptions that more or less strongly affect, or don’t, certain expressions and practices peculiar to military cultures. According to the level observed (ministry, armies, arms, units, etc.), the “cultural effects” of professionalization thus have more or less perceptible expressions.
The reform of the general status of servicemen: an indicator of the changes among others.
More than ten years after the reform of professionalization, the necessity to revamp the status of men and women in the army indeed became essential, for the evolutions recorded invalidated a great many articles, a few of which dated back to the establishment of the latter. We can evoke here occasional reasons (the debate on retirement or yet again, the Gendarmerie crisis in 2001) ; structural reasons relative to the new missions (we are no longer talking about war), to professionalization (increase in the acceptance of responsibility, specialization, composition, etc.) or to the European dimension (concern for harmonization), but also a whole series of evolutions of customs, which plays a major role, and indeed illustrates the impossibility and the absurdity of distinguishing a world of armies from its related society. Thus, the new forms of cohabitation (Pacs…), the advances made in technology such as the cellular phone or the Internet, with which it is becoming difficult to forbid the serviceman from communicating, the changes in terms of the number of working hours, the employment of the spouse on the increase, the lengthening of schooling, greater life expectancy – which raises serious questions regarding age limits – the increase in the divorce rate, in the number of reconstituted families and the effects on the loss of certain allowances, home ownership, the individualization of social relations, the distinction – much more marked than in the past – between private life and professional life, commonplace jurisprudence, etc., all are examples that show an indisputable decrease in military specificity and in community life, which the legislator couldn’t not take into account. Without questioning a certain discipline and the importance of adequate training, and all the while recalling the fundamentals (suspension of the right to strike in view of guaranteeing the permanent availability of the military wing of the State, etc.), the effects of juridical billeting, as it existed and as it had imposed itself upon the military staff for decades, had to be limited.
In conclusion
Stability and vitality traditionally characterize military cultures. Even though there are some who regret a certain decrease in community and traditional expressions understood as important cohesion times – expression of a much more marked separation between private and professional life -, it does not mean that the vitality of military cultures is questioned. Moreover, this is completely understandable because “as it is likely to be confronted with disintegrative violence, the vitality of the military body may be more dependent on its culture than that of other social bodies” [9]. Furthermore, this more or less strong experience and proximity with battle show significant distinctions between the present and more or less powerful cultures, that which we are in the habit of calling the crack corps.
If certain traits travel down the ages, and seem to be, undoubtedly and permanently, part of a culture and of the military cultures, the evolutions and changes, more or less quick, more or less marked and remarkable, more or less underlined or studied, are no less essential. Cultural change can be seen as a continuous process, even if there are phases when everything speeds up and others are more stable. Certain expressions are often ahead of the adaptations of the mentalities themselves, as the rupture with deep-rooted habits cannot take place without bringing about fear and anxiety. With the suspension of military service, we have seen in some – followers of a well-tried system or generations marked by a logic of organizational system that has proved itself – the expression of fears regarding the dismantling and jeopardizing of an army-nation link. Beyond the use of an inadequate expression, we must face the fact that professionalization did not in any way generate a rupture between the armies and society, quite the opposite [10].
The institution is capable of accepting, and in an extremely quick manner, profound reforms of its organization. There is no shortage of examples in the last few decades. But any reflection on the change in the armies and the social change cannot choose to overlook the characteristics of the missions, as it is often the latter that are the cause of the necessary and required changes (evolutions of the skills and of the staff training, etc.). For all that, as we have seen, other realities (ideological and political regime, recruitment of new profiles and consequently of other “culture bearers”, etc.) must not be dismissed.
Perceived as a simple social heritage for too long, military cultures must really be understood as evolutionary and, in fact, as an object of perpetual interest. The image given by Epinal of a rigid and conservative institution has driven researchers away for to long a time. The constant analysis of military cultures is essential in view of partially apprehending the life of the national, territorial, social and cultural landscape, in order to characterize and specify what makes the military profession at any time, its everyday life, its profile and its place in society.
English translation
Notes[1]
Cf. Denys Cuche, La Notion de culture dans les sciences sociales, Paris, La Découverte, “Repères”, 1996.
[2]
It depends on the case and a study on the length of the hair according to the armies would be most interesting and instructive.
[3]
Cf. Bernard Boëne (sd), La Spécificité militaire, actes du colloque de Coëtquidan, Paris, Armand Colin, 1990.
[4]
If the functionalist or structuralist approaches facilitate a certain apprehension and interpretation of the institutional logic, they are still not sufficient to express the changing and evolutionary character of the culture, which we will come back to.
[5]
Cf. Christian Benoît, “La symbolique de l’armée de terre: de l’usage à la réglementation de l’usage”, in André Thiéblemont (dir), Cultures et logiques militaires, Paris, puf, 1999.
[6]
Cf. Gilbert Durand, Structures anthropologiques de l’imaginaire, Paris, Bordas, 1993.
[7]
Less and less in the West starting from the second half of the 20th century.
[8]
Cf. André Thiéblemont, Cultures et logiques militaires, Paris, puf, 1999.
[9]
Cf. André Thiéblemont (sd), Cultures et logiques militaires, op. cit., p.3.
[10]
Cf. Claude Weber, “Armed Forces, Nation and Military Officers: France at the Crossroad?” in New Directions in Military Sociology, Edited by Eric Ouellet (PR), Whitby, Ontario, Canada, De Sitter Publications, 2005, pp. 209-229.
Mis en ligne sur Cairn.info le 21/06/2019https://doi.org/10.3917/infle.011.0063
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