The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Robin Nürnberger CD MDiv, MSW, RSW (ON) A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctorate in Philosophy degree in Religious Studies, Department of Classic and Religious Studies Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada 2018 The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Abstract This project describes the role of ritual in the basic entrainment processes of Canadian soldiers. Building on the ecological systems theories of Urie Bronfenbrenner and Roy Rappaport, this project construes human adaptation to occur within multiple interdependent planes of ordered biological, sociostructural, psychosocial and symbolic (even transcendent) meanings and interactions within integrated social ecologies or “living systems.” Rappaport’s theory supports the argument that invariant, embodied actions and impulses not encoded by ritual performers establish social order, values, motivations, competencies, dispositions and representational or symbolic meanings—understood within this project as worldview—circulating within and regulating integrated human ecologies. Ordered sequences of invariant actions and impulses have also come to be conveyed within human phylogenic and ontogenetic developmental processes. This project specifically explores the hypothesis that embodied ritual dynamics pervade the basic entrainment rite of Canadian soldiers. The analysis draws on the ritual theory of Rappaport and the psychosocial developmental theory of Erik Erikson to describe the manner in which innate social regulating impulses and liturgically ordered ritual processes are exploited, in conjunction with predictable human psychosocial developmental imperatives, to build foundational martial dispositions, a spontaneous impulse to radical solidarity and a robust, homogeneous and multivocalic worldview in Canadian soldiers. Such a worldview is adaptive to all aspects of service within the Canadian Armed Forces. The rudimentary martial worldview inscribed upon recruit soldiers and officer candidates forms the foundational background to all subsequent martial meaning and adaptation in so far as it is collectively maintained throughout the military career. This argument maintains that a ritual analysis of adaptive meaning and solidarity among soldiers has profound implications for the structure and direction of future research investigating the persistent and well documented rates of distress, maladaptation and health pathology among serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [i] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [ii] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Acknowledgements Many have guided me over several decades in the completion of this project. They have done so by being outstanding living examples of kindness, character, leadership and scholarship. Such support has been provided generously and without hesitation and has flowed from the purest motives to dedicated service and excellence within the specific vocations of each of those mentioned below. I wish to acknowledge Warrant Officer Don Thomas CD (retired) – my first martial mentor – for his relentless example of character and military excellence. I have been equally inspired by the spiritual and academic examples of Rev. Grace Brown, Robert Williamson, John Kleiner, Steven Baldner and perhaps most profoundly, Rev. Vern Ratzlaff. As I broadened my studies into the realm of Social Work, Patricia MacKenzie, Klaus Gruber, Paul Doerksen, Ken Collier and Jeff Karabanow each contributed in critical ways that will always be remembered by me and without which I could not have progressed. I am especially grateful for the work of my dissertation examiners Marie-Francoise Guedon, Vern Neufeld-Redekop, Theodore de Bruyn and external examiner Barry Stephenson for their considerate reading and encouraging reception of my thesis submission and final defense. I maintain the utmost enduring respect for my primary dissertation supervisor Adele Reinhartz and am most grateful for her support, clear direction and encouragement at key moments of decision – even before I had formally entered into this programme of study. Comparable exemplars of scholarly acumen, integrity, wisdom and leadership are extremely rare. I wish also to recognize the contribution of Anne Vallely who provided critical guidance as co-supervisor on the anthropological aspects of my argument. The last few words I reserve for my partner Maureen O’Halloran who has always been, for me, a steadfast and patient source of encouragement in life, work and academic study. Many thanks My Dear. Lieutenant Commander Robin Nurnberger CD (Retired) Ottawa, 17 September 2018 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [iii] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [iv] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation “Wholeness, holiness, and adaptiveness are closely related if not, indeed, one and the same” Roy Rappaport (Ecology, Meaning and Religion 1979 p. 234). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [v] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [vi] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Table of Contents Abstract……………….……..………………………………………………….………............i Acknowledgements..…………………………………………………………………….…..iii First Word..………….…………………………………………………………….v Table of Contents……………………………………..…..……………….……..……..…..vii Prologue……..…………..…………..……………………………………………….....….…...1 Section I – Foundations……….……………………………………………………...……..9 Chapter 1 – Introduction….……………..………………………………………........…..11 1.1 Indoctrination, Transformation, Death and Rebirth – What Basic Training Is Not………..12 1.2 Entrainment as Adaptation to an Environment, System or Rite of Passage……..…………14 1.3 Enculturated Values and Priorities as Worldview – A Critical Concept………............…...16 1.4 Martial Worldview as Adaptive, Resilient Hedge Against Anomie………………….…….18 1.5 Development of an Hypothesis About the Role of Ritual in Martial Enculturation….…….24 1.6 Descriptive Approach and Analysis Within This Project…………………………….…….27 1.7 Embodied Meaning, Tacit Competence and a Critical Phenomenological Observation.......30 1.8 Significance of the Project ……..……………………………………….……………….…33 1.9 Chapter Arrangement……………………………………………….………………..…..…42 Chapter 2 – Analytical Framework and Methodology – A Positioned Description of Cultural and Ritual Processes………………..……….…………........45 2.1 General Methodological Approach…….…………………………………………….……..45 2.2 A Positioned Insider Participant’s Description….…………………………….....................46 2.3 Methodological Challenges – Theoretical Framework and Data Selection………..............53 2.4 Linear, Functional, Synchronic Considerations and Levels of Analysis…………...………54 2.5 Ecological, Evolutionary, Ontogenetic and Phylogenetic Levels of Analysis……………..57 2.6 Ethical Considerations……………………………………………………………...………60 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [vii] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 3 – Literature Review…………………………………………………..………61 3.1 Literature Addressing Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Processes of Martial Entrainment…………..…………………………………………….…………………………….61 3.2 Cognitive, Symbolic and Embodied Aspects of Culture or Individually Enculturated Worldviews…………….……………………………………………………….…….………….70 3.3 Ritual Processes of Ethology and Primary Socialisation…..………………….…………….80 3.4 Perfected or Invariant Performance and Embodied Ritual Practice, Techniques of the Body……………………………………………………………………………………………...88 3.5 Ritual Features of Authority, Responsibility, Canon and Sanctity …………………………90 3.6 Ritual and Ceremonial Processes of Symbolic Projection and Collective Consciousness.…92 Section II – Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – Correlated Features, Mechanisms and Dynamics….........................................................................95 II.1 Introduction to Section II – Overview, Critical Concepts and Tensions…………….…….95 II.2 Rituals Processes of Socialisation or Re-socialisation…………………….………………96 II.3 Rituals and Rites………………………………………………...........................................96 II.4 Critical Theoretical Concepts about Worldviews and Liturgical Orders of Rites……........96 II.5 Other Ritual Features of Inscribed Meaning………………………..…………………….102 II.6 Rite of Passage or Human Developmental Process – An Enduring Tension………..........104 II.7 Martial Entrainment as a Synergy of Ritualised Developmental, Liturgical, Symbolic and Ecological Processes……………………………………………………………………………108 II.8 Refining and More Precisely Situating the Target of Analysis…………….…………......111 Chapter 4 – Ritual Processes of Transition, Stratification, Primal Socialisation, Foundational Developmental Processes, Group Solidarity and Martial Morality……………………………………………...............................................115 4.1 Critical Distinctions………………………………………………………………….……115 4.2 Transition Between Ritual Domains and Cultures – Symbols, Oaths and Putative Options – Deferred Affiliations…………………………………………………………….……………..118 4.3 Sifted, Sorted Ordered and Leveled – Dominance, Aggression and Submission…..….....121 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [viii] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 4.4 “One Man One Kit” and Related Moral Imperatives to Radical Equality and Responsibility – Ritual Qualities of the First Inviolable Postulate…………..………………..129 4.5 Bonding, Stigma, Exile and Extinction…………………..……………………………….131 4.6 Mentorship and Fortification of Martial Bearing and Morality…………..……................133 4.7 Junctures of Transition, Liminality and Corrective Ritual Regulation…………...............136 4.8 Undifferentiated Cohesion as a Definitive Martial Ideal…………………........................141 4.9 Supporting Theory and Analysis – Human Dynamics of Dominance, Social Hierarchy, Structure, Solidarity and Stigma ………………………………………………………............142 4.10 Ceremonial Performance and Ritual Dynamics of the National and Martial Cultus …....143 4.11 Proto Ritual – Atavistic Dynamics of Territoriality, Dominance, Submission, Aggression and Cohesive Bonding within the Ritual Entrainment Process – Ecological Motivations to Territoriality and Dominance……….………………………………………………………..…147 4.12 Martial Re-Socialisation and Eriksonian Developmental Principles……………….……..157 4.13 Inductive Challenges and Competencies within Erikson’s Developmental Life Crisis Theory……………………………………………………………………………………….….159 4.14 Articulating the Foundational Eriksonian Psychosocial Developmental Challenges and Competencies…………………………………………………………………………………...161 4.15 Concurrent Inscription of Foundational Impulses of Martial Identity Belligerance and Cooperative Intraspecific Killing – The Concept of Pseudospeciation…..….…………………163 4.16 Animal and Human Pseudospeciation – A Constellation of Ethological Dynamics; Group Specific Ritualization of Indexical Signals of Aggression, Redirection, Harmless Discharge of Aggression and Bonded Group Cohesion, Stigma…………..……………………....…………164 4.16.a. Animal (Phyletic) Pseudospeciation…………………..………….…….……….……...165 4.16.b. Human (Cultural) Pseudospeciation……………………………………....……..…..…166 Chapter 5 – Ecological Implications of Perfected Performance Developmental Processes of Martial Identity and Generativity Perfected Performance and Moderated Consciousness………………………….171 5.1 The Secondary Phase of Ritual Entrainment, Embodied Individual Practices of Perfection and Embodied Collective Practices of Perfected Synchronised Performance…………………173 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [ix] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 5.2 Supporting Theory and Analysis – Martial Identity and Ecosystemic Dimensions of an Enduring Martial Role…………………..…………………………….…………………….…177 5.3 Generativity and Invariance in Martial Ecosystems – A Subsequent Developmental Challenge……………………………………………………………………………………....180 5.4 Practices of Liminality, Dissociation, Altered Consciousness and Collective Identity…………………………………………………………………………………………186 5.5 The Question of Responsive Performative Cadence……..................................................192 5.6 Practices of Parabolic Corporality – Embodied Roots of Collective Martial Consciousness………………………………………………………………………….............195 5.7 Excursus – Ritual, the Human Symbolic Facility, its Phylogenetic Emergence and the Possibility of Martial Identity and Ontogenetic Exploitation of Ritual Processes……..………200 Section III – Enacted and Reproduced Authority and Ceremonial Performance – Cosmised Martial Meaning, Relations and Ultimate Obligation…………… ……………………………………………………… …………….209 III.1 Introduction to Section III………………………………………………….……….....…209 Chapter 6 – Ritual Processes of Enacted Authority, Symbolic Projection and Elaborated Sociality……………..………………………………….……………....213 6.1 The Moment of Acquired Individual Ritual Competency………….………..………..…..214 6.2 Distributed and Ultimate Authority, Invariance and Gravity within the Martial Ecosystem…...............…………………………………………………………………………215 6.3 Another Point about Liturgical Order..…………………………………..…….................217 6.4 Ritual Competence in the Projection of Martial Authority – The Performative Leadership Assessment Ritual of Officer Candidates……………………………………………………....218 6.5 Ceremonial Performances and Projected Social Structure………………………………..226 6.6 Mess Tradition and Ceremonial Entrainment……………………………………….…….229 6.7 Ceremonial Display of The Martial Cosmos – The Officer Cadet Mess Dinner...…….…232 6.8 The Graduation Parade……………………………………………………....……………236 6.9 Analysis and Theory……………………..………………………………….………….....240 6.10 Passive Realisation and Symbolic Projection of Martial Social Hierarchy and Structure..242 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [x] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 6.11 Ritual Production of Translocal Sociality, Collective Morality and Solidarity – Some Observations and Theory……………………..…………………………..…………………… 243 6.12 Totemic Objects and Representational Possibility of the Human Body in Maintaining Collective Solidarity…………..……………………………………………….…248 6.13 A Neo Durkheimian Theory of Mechanical Solidarity and Collective Consciousness – The Hybrid Symbolic/Indexical Worldview of Canadian Neophyte Soldiers…………………250 Chapter 7 – Summary and Concluding Remarks; Gravity and Sanctity in the Martial Worldview – Sacrifice, Solidarity, Transition and Integrity, Future Research on Soldiers’ Adaptation…..….…257 7.1 Ritual Cultus of the National Domain …..……………………………………………......257 7.2 Scapegoats, Sacrificial Awareness and Other Fictions About Soldiers………….…….…258 7.3 The Ritualised Emergence and Final Articulation of Sacred Martial Nomoi..…...............259 7.4 Integrity Versus Despair – A Final Developmental Challenge and Ritual Passage.……...263 7.5 Future Research Regarding Soldiers’ Adaptivity and Health Pathology……………...….265 Bibliography.........................................................................................................269 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [xi] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [xii] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Prologue A familiar moment in an alien setting. The young captain knocked on my door to tell me he was ready to drive me around camp and to get me sorted out. He addressed me in the matter of fact way a clerk at a store would address a customer who had come in to look at a set of golf clubs or a new pair of shoes. The professional tone of voice and measured deference indicated this young soldier understood the continuum of demands and expectations being imposed upon him by our boss, the Commanding Officer (CO). It was clear that I had very little time to finish my “in clearance” routine and that the CO wanted me back at the hospital and seeing patients as quickly as possible. I had arrived the previous week for a two month deployment to Kandahar Airfield (KAF) to complete clinical rotations as a Social Work Officer at the Canadian Role 1 Field Hospital and at the much larger American Role 3 Combat Hospital down the road. I had been to KAF on four previous occasions for brief, focussed assignments. Now, in the summer months of 2010, during the fighting season at the height of the Afghanistan War, I would be involved in a more lengthy deployment providing clinical mental health services to Canadian and American troops. The card in my pocket had to be taken around to all the usual places: pay, records, rations, quartermaster, and a dozen other places on camp. At these stops routine “in clearance” transactions would transpire in same sequence as at every base at the start of every training course or assignment of duty for every Canadian soldier. Services and goods exchanged for information and signatures. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [1] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation I was still jet lagged from the original three day transit marathon from Ottawa, Trenton, Baden and Al Minhad, the not-so-secret airhead outside Dubai. There body armour, a pile of weapon parts, slings, holsters and an ungodly amount of ammunition were unceremoniously pushed across the table at me in exchange for my scrawl at the bottom of a card I didn’t get a chance to read. Kit and arms I had not seen in some time but still familiar none the less. Longestablished habits and muscle memory creaked into gear as I assembled my weapons quickly. More by feel and impulse than by recollection or sight, charging magazines and stowing them in pockets, my fingers working the buttons and arranging the load symmetrically and methodically as if by some choreographed routine. The cold, heavy, awkward heft of the load lingered for a moment, and then that familiar warmth as the weight and edges seemed to meld comfortably, becoming part of my own body. This overwhelming flurry of activity and chaos packed into an impossible few moments before we were herded into the holding area on the tarmac to wolf down a box lunch. Then role call from the flight manifest, safety briefing and weapons clearance in preparation for the long, hot, airless flight over to KAF. The chalk had been over cramped, soldiers and weapons wedged too tightly on webbed seats, helmets bumping those of others and somebody’s knee boring a bruise into my shin from the very start of the three hour flight. Loadies stepping on seats and over soldiers’ bodies in their incessant back and forth safety checks. The tension waned as I relied on my mask and bearing – that face and posture I had learned to adopt as a young man from the earliest days of my service in uniform: how to hold myself and respond when overwhelmed and uncomfortable. How to accept imposed circumstances, uncertainty and fear within the canons of reason and common sense that pervade all transactions between Canadian soldiers and their job. This had been just like old times but with more nausea. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [2] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation We drove around the sprawling camp in search of initials in boxes on cards. My “in clearance” routine had already been interrupted for the better part of a week by an impromptu errand before I even had a chance to fully gain my bearings in theatre. Upon reporting in at the unit and meeting some of the clinical staff, the CO had abruptly indicated that I would be on the next wheeled convoy to Forward Operations Base (FOB) Masum Ghar in Panjwai district—the heartland of the Taliban. A series of deaths and explosive dismemberments had been sustained over several months by a detachment of combat engineers whose mission was to clear the steady stream of nasty devices cached each night on the roads and trails transecting the region—a critical threat to the lives and limbs of Coalition troops and local civilians alike. Our medics had been monitoring the troop closely but had not been trained to manage the range of invisible psychic injuries that accompany the physical wounds they could so expertly treat. My job was to engage with the engineers and provide mental health services or referrals as required. A whirlwind of file reviews, consultations and preparations ensued and on the third morning, after few hours of anxious sleep, I made my way to the transport compound for the tactical brief and white knuckle road movement a few hours to the west. Before heading out one of the unit docs took me aside and asked if I could look in on a certain non-commissioned officer (NCO) at the FOB he had treated a few weeks before. There had been an IED strike on an armoured patrol vehicle and the NCO had assisted in recovering the charred remains of a junior soldier with a shop vac after they finally got the fire put out. A final, devastating act of care by a leader for one of his own. I found out later that everybody in the dead soldier’s section had drawn together, closing the gap seemlessly and had kept going as if on autopilot, carrying out their duties with a kind of rote, mechanical professionalism and impervious solidarity. All without a single complaint. Day after day. I barely recall the psycho ed briefing I gave the exhausted specialist engineers I had been sent to see but I will never forget the details that emerged in the half dozen walk and talks I conducted over the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [3] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation course of the week with some of those hardened sappers and corporals from the troop who later asked to see me. Men not even half my age who had been thoroughly thrashed and concussed while rolling over exploding devices in their heavy, shielded mine detection vehicles. Their limbic systems so lit up and agonised that they hadn’t been calm enough to sleep in weeks. All had been forever changed but were more tightly bonded together by the sights, smells and the intrusive images they shared. Erupting twisted metal, vaporised coolant and kinetic eviscerations they had come to accept as routine events—the unbearable weight of duty and dread pressing harder with each successive blast. And then a bit of drama on the last afternoon of the week as one of our Chinooks with its belly full of troops was shot down a few kilometers out by a hidden insurgent. The wounded beast slamming onto the valley floor and disgorging its cargo, miraculously without any loss of life. I carried out my trauma assessments and tried to stay out from underfoot as the medics checked everyone over. All but a few looked ok and nobody wanted to talk about it. That all changed by the time I got back to KAF the next day to resume my work at the clinic. Things had sunk in and the anxieties started to overwhelm soldiers and air crew alike. The young captain told me that the CO had taken calls from the COs of other units concerned about their troops from the crash who would now be coming in to see me later in the day. As we drove, the captain briefed me on the usual information; who was who, what was what, which physicians and psychiatrists were available to consult and prescribe, and everything I needed to do that day. As we drove down the main avenue in the sprawling camp, routine sights, sounds and sensations presented themselves in order. Soldiers in pairs on morning runs—gaits locked in sync, almost silent. The loudspeaker song of an imam’s call to prayer, then revving engines, aircraft and industry. And then the smell of diesel fumes, mess hall food…raw sewage. My mind embraced these things as novel and exotic as my body and reflex moved me through well worn patterns of © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [4] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation affect and acceptance—old habits of assimilating too much info at once through a ruse of controlled, muted resignation. The in-theatre briefings and agenda in the following days were relentless. Theatre orientation, standing orders and intel update, physical security threats, personal protective equipment, electronic countermeasures, explosive threats, preventive medical briefings for theatre specific health threats, statistics reporting, casualty evacuation protocols, professional technical directives, rounds, medical documentation and file security. Most every discrete action having a guiding directive. Even our comportment off hours was constrained—an imposed code of war taboo about sexual separation and continence. A paring of the moral from the volitional, supposedly a sequestered realm of purity on righteous campaign—authoritatively legitimised by a spectrum of regulatory trappings, ethical constructions and patriotic Coalition rhetoric. In total the mission began to appear as a complex of complementary rules and expectations guiding us through the rhythms of our days, the days of our weeks and the seasons of our tour. By the end of the second week I could do my job fully. I could treat and refer my patients, brief their officers, direct my subordinates and advise my commander—all within unchanging patterns of pre-formatted question, answer, report and return. Everyone could. That was what we trained for from the start. Then, nearly a full year later in the throes of yet another deployment to KAF, now the Task Force Social Work Officer in Charge of the Mental Health Unit at the Role 1 for the next six months, the routines and constraints unchanged except for the details. Minor, petty demands imposed by a faceless succession of uninspired leaders to put their personal stamp of authority onto the mission. It didn’t much matter to anyone, each day just another unremarkable banality of sameness in the sintering desert. One even comes to find predictable themes in the salacious details of patients’ most personal shames and ideations. Apparently too, oppressive thoughts can become © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [5] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation rituals. I vividly remember the night this spell of vacuuous invariance was broken for a few short, gleaming moments I will never forget. The knock came again to my door but this time around midnight. “Grab your beret Sir, I’ll wait for you.” I knew what that meant, my crumpled beret stuffed in the bottom of a kit bag, the climate here too hot and the sweaty talc dust too thick to allow the daily wearing of a lined black felt hat. We walked through the cooler, still night air, in the wee hours down roads that would have been teaming with motor traffic and troops during daylight hours. Joined along the way by others, some Americans but mostly Canadians and a few Aussies (or was it Kiwis?) in fine wide brimmed headdress reserved, like our berets, for what passed for formal occasion in theatre. The long, irregular line of short-term pilgrims stretched out before us illuminated by reflective belts and the dispersed flashing lights of blue or green or red lapel beacons each soldier was porting. Converging near the runway, our loose procession rounded the corner near a propped open gate at the TLS building at the flightline. This was the site of the famous Taliban Last Stand, the final hold out of insurgent fighters when the American forces had assaulted and secured the airfield that would become the epicentre of the epic war on terrorism that was to ensue. I had walked through this building in awe on my first brief trip into theatre, already three years ago, and had looked up to the ceiling and some walls of the Russian architecture to see the remaining marks of bullet holes and combat damage on the inside of the edifice. War porn. Our line converging with others from several directions as we were funnelled through the gate beside the terminal and onto the tarmac—air traffic at the busiest single runway airport in the world seized to a halt while our procession, now a single stream of sombre (or was it curious?) comrades moved into formation and stacked up neatly behind the troops from a fallen soldier’s unit in lines parallel and proceeding from the body of the transport aircraft, its rear ramp open and lowered to the pavement. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [6] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation We formed up, weapons slung or holstered randomly with no consideration given to the rank or size of those beside us. Unusual in the extreme in a world where leaders and subordinates do not form up together. Ever. The gravity of the event had been telegraphed a short few days earlier as our computer screens froze and our overseas telecoms were cut in the wake of the death of our countryman—all external communications restricted until the next of kin were notified. Nothing is worse than to hear gossip back home about a death in theatre where your child or spouse is serving. That is at least until being informed by that crush of chaplains, military police and rear party officers whose job it is to break the news. And always in that dour, formulaic manner family members come to rehearse compulsively like a mantra in each quiet moment while their loved one is deployed. I had gotten the call almost immediately—from Graceland, the Special Forces base in town, home to the best and brightest. And the most secretive. Could I send someone to see their troops? Even super soldiers were having a hard time of it. The parade was called to attention and the words were spoken, again, just as imagined. Honour, loyalty and duty resound in the words of those who speak and bless and sermonise. The open tail of the aircraft, lit brightly against the blackness of the Afghan sky, devoid of competing light and reference except for the blue strip lights stretching out for miles. The raised deck of the aircraft with the maple leaf flag as backdrop and the towering tail, several stories tall, like some cathedral in a travel brochure. I looked into the open bay of the fuselage, an inner platform raised above the congregation waiting for the escorts to bring on the flag draped casket—for all the world like an altar upon which is offered this sacrifice. The padre beckoning for us these images and invoking these figures. And then the procession and pipes. Oh God the pipes, summoning those demons and tears. As the laden escort and preacher marched by in slow, stilted, formal step with that gaelic bastard tearing the cosmos, a shiver of stifling gravity, or heaviness, or insignificance © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [7] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation or peril washed over me. Like the inexplicable wave of loss I felt for an unmet soldier when that awful phone call came. And then it was done. The ramp closed slowly, extinguishing the light and sacrifice. Elvis had left the building. That sea of tan and blue and green and black berets dispersed, quietly into the night, back down those roads to our own lines. Our discussions on the way muted, altogether spent. To find my head back on my pillow, only an hour from the time it was roused. And to sleep and to rise again tomorrow, to report and to treat and relate to others as always but now, somehow, as one more deeply compelled. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [8] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Section 1 Foundations © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [9] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [10] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 1 Introduction New members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF)1 undergo a formal, initial entrainment process called basic training that transpires over the course of three or four months. Successful completion of the basic training process is a gateway to a much longer and more specialised process of technical occupational formation for specific employment within the organisation. If successful in basic and subsequent occupational training, soldiers will then serve their country and, if necessary, participate in war or in a range of peacekeeping or domestic operations throughout their career. Graduates of basic training think, act and carry themselves differently than they did before. Once entrained, neophyte soldiers evince a resilient set of understandings, values and practices meant to sustain soldiers within the much broader Canadian martial milieu. 1 The official name of the Canadian military was established in 1968 with the unification of the army, navy and air force as the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This was officially changed in the 1990’s under the Chretien-era government to the Canadian Forces (CF). The title of CF continued in official use until 2013 when the use of CAF began to regain popularity and unofficial use with government and military leaders. The use of CAF, at the time of this submission, predominates. I employ the title Canadian Forces or CF throughout the remainder of this project, in keeping with the terms in use during the greater period of http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-military-is-getting-a-new-name-again © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [11] my own military 12 March 2013. service. The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 1.1 Indoctrination, Transformation, Death and Rebirth – What Basic Training Is Not Basic training is often referred to within Canadian Forces publications, training documents and the military vernacular as a process of “indoctrination” despite any negative connotations that attach to that term (Rose 2014, CFLRS BMQ/BMOQ 2016 p. 7). Indoctrination is primarily described by the Canadian military training system and all higher command authority as a didactic process furnishing its incoming members with baseline “doctrine” or discursive knowledge orienting new members to their organizational role: Doctrine is a body of knowledge and thought that provides direction and aids understanding. The CF definition of doctrine is “fundamental principles by which military forces guide their actions in support of objectives.” It is authoritative but requires judgment in application. It embraces established wisdom in the areas of problem solving, decision making and planning, and is sometimes defined as simply “what is taught” (CFJP 01 2009 p. 1.1). Within the Canadian Forces, the expectation is maintained that soldiers will come to be oriented firstly to loyal service on behalf of Canadian martial and constitutional mandates and secondly that such orientation can be instilled into the very ethos of martial neophytes by didactic indoctrination processes (CFJP 01 Doctrine, 2009 p. 1.1). Doctrine delineates the principles governing soldiers’ actions and the core values it expects each of its members to evince following basic training as duty, loyalty, integrity and courage. These core values are construed specifically in relation to soldiers’ orientation to higher symbolic constitutional mandates, laws and the organisation’s sanctioned mission on behalf of Canadian national interests. These core values are further articulated within a set of primary imperatives of martial ethos within which the Canadian Forces expects soldiers to engage their unique martial responsibilities, orient themselves to their duties and express their martial identities. These imperatives include the acceptance of unlimited liability, the demonstration of fighting spirit, discipline and team spirit but again, always couched in the broader understanding that soldiers enact these imperatives to better “serve Canada to the best of their abilities” (CFJP 01 Doctrine, 2009 pp. 4.3 to 4.5). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [12] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The terms indoctrination and basic training are still employed interchangeably within the Canadian military. Nevertheless, the term indoctrination would be better understood as an extended, ongoing process that occurs gradually throughout a developing military career over which time a soldier might come to endorse a range of national, patriotic, organisational ideals, dispositions or higher symbolic understandings. Such qualities, dispositions and imperatives do not fully emerge, circulate or substantially develop within the initial entrainment processes of neophyte soldiers articulated within this analysis. There is therefore only a limited degree of true indoctrination transpiring within the basic training process. The term as it is generally used is not usefully descriptive of the range of intersecting processes, mechanisms and tacit understandings at play within the entrainment process of Canadian recruits. Scholarly efforts to formally explore, analyse and describe Canadian basic military entrainment primarily in terms of indoctrination or the organizational imputation of ideology (that which is doctrinally or symbolically endorsed by an institution or structure) would be misguided.2 For related reasons I also do not approach the analysis of Canadian martial entrainment as a process of profound transformation. Such descriptions of basic military entrainment exist (Dievendorf 1996, Bornmann 2009, Gibson 2012, Stacey 2018), sometimes framing it as a 2 There is a great deal of international scholarship and analysis exploring the basic military training process as one of formal indoctrination or of the imputation of national ideology. Such analyses have particular traction when applied to the entrainment of soldiers during times of war and imminent threat to the security of the nation-state. Under such circumstances indoctrination can enhance combat effectiveness by maintaining a close connection between national identity and the goals of war (Brathwaite 2014, Stacey 2018). Martial entrainment under these circumstances might then emphasise critical features and symbols of the national ideology (see Robert Bellah on civil religion 1967, 1988, 2005) and the intensification of patriotic ideals throughout the recruiting and basic training processes. Within my analysis I highlight the very opposite phenomenon – that is Canadian recruits’ ritual transition away from the primary symbols of the Canadian national ritual realm into the sequestered Canadian martial ritual realm that maintains a muchdiminished emphasis on national, constitutional and regnal symbols throughout the military career except at conspicuous transitional moments that make allowance for civilian outsiders to observe such ritual events. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [13] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation dialectical process enacting a profound transformation of social identity. This is most especially the case if such a profound transformation is constructed to occur within the mythic-ritualistic imagery of death and rebirth (Dievendorf 1996, Gibson 2012). Within my analysis of basic entrainment that highlights human developmental dynamics, neophyte soldiers are not exchanging one established social identity for another. Canadian soldiers are typically inducted into the military system at a time of developmental readiness to address, for the first time in their lives, fairly normative psychosocial impulses to establishing an enduring social role or psychosocial identity. I frame this specific motivation as a predictable linear developmental juncture which is being explored by neophyte soldiers with a view to establishing their enduring psychosocial identity as soldiers within the Canadian Forces—a process which only begins, as I have already stated, with basic training. The point is that neophyte soldiers have typically not established, or satisfactorily established, their social identity at any time previously in their lives. For this reason, there is no requirement or even possibility of some grand transformation of identity or great symbolic or psychic death and rebirth as described in some accounts of martial entrainment.3 1.2 Entrainment as Adaptation to an Environment, System or Rite of Passage Basic entrainment takes place within a sequestered training environment or subsystem of the broader Canadian military organization within which specific standards and obligations obtain. The demands of the military recruit environment and its training agenda constitute a comprehensive field of social meanings and imperatives within which soldiers will come to understand themselves, to be motivated to act within their new training milieu, and perhaps most 3 It would seem more reasonable to look for traces of profound transformation, psychic death and rebirth within literature exploring the experiences of conscript or volunteer soldiers in times of war when those who had already established their psychosocial identities within other professions or social roles were forced to undergo profound transitions and make costly existential sacrifices in order to engage in war and to survive battlefield hostilities. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [14] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation importantly, come to construct their own martial identities as neophyte soldiers. Every demand and stipulation comprehensively reinforces every other. Such demands and obligations are overwhelming and touch upon almost every aspect of soldiers’ lives. It is a totalised environment.4 Following basic entrainment Canadian soldiers will describe the process as an intense period of adaptation to the martial environment, as having transpired in a series of prescriptive performative actions, or perhaps in the mastery of a foundational body of propositional understandings and executive military skills. Soldiers may, if pressed, also describe the process as a rite of passage because of the inherent physical and mental hardships that have been imposed throughout the entrainment ordeal. That some soldiers should identify the martial entrainment process as a rite of passage is not surprising given the widespread use of the term and popular belief that hardship and adversity alone could constitute such an event. What is not widely considered is that events comprising a rite of passage in the ethnographic accounts and most scholarly analyses are necessarily also connected with predetermined human psychosocial developmental junctures that must necessarily transpire within a specified order of occurrence, for reasons that will be elaborated within this analysis, in order to accomplish the psychosocial purposes and effect the developmental changes for which they have been contrived or evolved. This is to argue that rites of passage, in addition to features of excruciating physical activity and psychic hardship, must also include developmental and liturgical (that is ordered and sequential) features. This is overwhelmingly the case within the entrainment processes of Canadian soldiers. The specifically ordered spectrum of formulaic practices, sequential performative experiences and endless rote demands of recruit training are structured to intersect with social and developmental impulses that 4 See E. Goffman 1961 re “total institutions” and A. Gofmann 1998 re Mauss and “total social facts.” © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [15] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation determine the degree to which recruits will come to adapt to a new martial milieu. It is also useful to describe how the ordered ritual processes of basic military entrainment exploit human developmental processes that may be nested within even broader systemic dynamics that ensure the reproduction of formal martial social structures and pre-existent meanings over time – that is ecological or ecosystemic features – that are only scarcely or superficially considered within extant scholarly accounts of martial entrainment. 1.3 Enculturated Values and Priorities as Worldview – A Critical Concept The specific task at hand for recruits is to endure the challenges of the entrainment process by adapting themselves to the alien but comprehensive and integrated system of values, meanings, actions and demands that obtain within the military training system and which will provide the foundational orientation to later function within other subsystems of the broader Canadian martial society. More specifically, recruits adapt to this new environment by constructing and integrating ways of understanding, acting and interacting with its other members of martial society. Recruits come to emulate and endorse the values and imperatives circulating within the Canadian martial social system and in so doing, perpetuate it. In consideration of its comprehensive demands for individual adaptation to the values and imperatives shared by all Canadian soldiers, this entrainment process could well be understood to constitute an initial process of martial enculturation (see parallel observation among British Royal Marine recruits in Mark Burchill 2011).5 5 E.B. Tylor noted that “culture” entails a complex inventory of elements including knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. For Tylor the condition of culture – that is the broad range of human dynamics, mechanisms, features and principles within which the endowment or acquisition of culture transpire and which constituted the laws of human thought and action – was a subject worthy of careful analysis (Tylor 1920, [1871] p.1). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [16] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Peter Berger describes culture as the sum of all human socially constructed products (1967 p.6, see also note 8 p.188).6 He maintains that homo sapiens’ inherent sociality and the unique unfinishedness of human individuals at birth results in the requirement to collectively create and order worlds of meaning to inhabit. This includes society itself, and the specific ordering of experience and prioritisation of values every society maintains. Berger and Luckmann (1966) describe in considerable detail a dialectical social process by which human individuals are confronted with the general valuations of one’s society and the coercive forces exerted by society in bringing individuals’ actions, temperaments, consciousness and dispositions into sync with these ordered valuations. Within this dialectical process, individuals subjectively appropriate and internalise the common, ambient meanings of their social group, and, by means of dynamic social mechanisms, come to regard locally appropriated and ordered social meanings as representative of general reality and of what is morally significant. Berger refers to the structures, valuations, priorities and ordered arrangement of cultural products, experiences and meanings of a group that confront members of society as its nomos (Berger 1967 p.19). All these collective meanings or human social products appear as concrete and stable imperatives but are so only insofar as they are perpetuated by ongoing 6 Berger differentiates his use of the term culture, following that in use by American cultural anthropologists at the time to refer to collectively determined social products, from a much narrower use of the term following sociologists in the Parsonian tradition that primarily equated culture with symbolic products (see especially Clifford Geertz 1957a p. 623). Both of these articulations of culture are too narrow to adequately describe the processes and dynamics within which humans adapt to their environments and, contra Berger’s thesis, humans retain innate impulses maintaining social cohesion and structure which are prior and foundational to the emergence of culture and the symbolic facility. It appears that an analysis of the laws of human thought and action – that is human social dynamics, motivation, action and impulse which constitute the conditions of culture – must extend beyond collectively created mores, structures and symbolic phenomena and include innate impulses and spontaneous actions that undergird all socially constructed human products and processes. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [17] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation interaction with the social group. Individuals participate in the perpetuation of these meanings and adopt, through a range of cognitive projections and integrated legitimations, specific attitudes, dispositions and motivations referred to by Berger as a weltanschauung or worldview (1967 p. 32).7 1.4 Martial Worldview as Adaptive, Resilient Hedge Against Anomie Within Berger’s analysis, worldview is nothing other than a grand, overarching, rationalised and integrated schema legitimising the broadest meanings, dispositions and priorities pervading a social group that appear factual and patently obvious to its members. Such collective meanings function as a sort of emic logic8 or conscious sensibility about how the world works and how one should interrelate with others within it (Berger 1967 pp. 32–51). Berger gave specific attention to a particular species of such integrated legitimations which were understood to correspond to actual cosmic realities that endowed the individual subject with a degree of existential significance in relation to, or by means of, such cosmic forces. Berger refers to this integrated range of socially constructed, cognitive or affective legitimations within the consciousness of members of any society as religion (Berger 1967 p.32). 7 The concept of “worldview” is a current subject of resurgent academic interest and was the primary focus of the March 2018 Gunning Lectures: Religion as Worldview and as Ways of Life at the University of Edinburgh. Ann Taves, the primary lecturer for the event, emphasises that the critical evolved human capacity is in fact the ability to generate worldviews. Taves endorses a major paradigm shift in the study of religion and envisions the future academic study of the philosophy, history and anthropology of religion as being subsumed under interdisciplinary academic umbrella programmes in worldview studies—programmes that Taves thinks should emphasise adaptive human ecological considerations (The Religious Studies Project [podcast transcript] 16 May 2018). Such thinking in current scholarship corresponds directly with the analysis offered within this project. 8 Gregory Bateson, in his ethnography of the Iatmul people of New Guinea, describes his objective or explanatory task as “…. describing culture as a whole in such a manner that each detail shall appear as the natural consequence of the remainder of the culture.” Bateson’s analysis of Iatmul culture centres on a single, central performative ritual complex of his informants—the naven—and is undertaken within his belief that the living, interlocking nexes of a culture can be expressed in cognitive, analytic, and therefore logical terms (1965 [1958] pp.1-2). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [18] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation For Berger, worldviews and religion serve a critical purpose. Berger argues that collectively shared worldviews and prioritised values provide the primary shield and source of security and resilience against all conceivable types of distress. Collective meaning can be perturbed by egregious or uncountenanced events that Berger calls marginalising experiences. Similarly, individual members of a group can be alienated or denied interaction with others to collectively revisit and maintain these meanings and values. Individuals alienated from society lose the ability to effectively respond and accommodate themselves to changes or stresses within their environment and to order experience in terms of collective meanings. Berger referred to this type of chaotic disordering of socially constructed and perpetuated, prioritised orders of meaning as anomie. Anomie and loss of meaning stalks soldiers in the course of harsh circumstances where terror, death, injury, failure or stigma threaten to separate them from comrades with whom adaptive meanings and dispositions are socially constructed. In light of the forgoing then it will come as no surprise that the martial entrainment process should incorporate measures and instill meanings ordered to fortify cohesion among soldiers. This analysis will describe specific strategies embedded within the martial ritual entrainment process that fortify collective identification, solidarity and corporate consciousness in the face of broader environmental features of the martial experience which can act, periodically, to alienate soldiers from their social groups and meanings of primary identification. For Berger, then, collective legitimations and religious projections function to maintain access to socially produced cognitive or discursive meaning and to forestall terror (Berger 1967 pp. 38–46). Some aspects of the Canadian martial entrainment process engage and confront recruits directly with traditional religious meanings. Some soldiers may engage personally in religious legitimations as a hedge against, or in the wake of overwhelming circumstances perceived to relate to cosmic forces or entities. The role of these religious meanings within the martial entrainment © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [19] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation process and institutional rituals of Canadian recruits is not only oriented towards the regulation of cosmic alienation or disordering forces. Within the Canadian martial subculture or worldview, religious meanings are also deliberately invoked as a means of conveying gravity, priority, solidarity or enduring deistic or regnal endorsement of mission. Cosmic authority is also invoked as a threat of ultimate consequence within the field of significant meanings of neophyte soldiers. Berger’s articulation of the fact that each society establishes and imposes its prioritised values and view of reality, as well as exercising a unifying degree of control over the consciousness of its members, provides a foundational concept for my analysis of the ritual installation of the martial worldview (see especially Berger 1967 pp. 14–15). Berger provides little explanation of exactly how the meanings and valuations of a social group come to be imposed upon new members. He proceeds throughout his analysis as if this were strictly a cognitive or discursive social process. Berger’s analysis of human worldviews also does not include any elaboration of that range of human impulses, dispositions and motivations which are not socially constructed and which all humans may possess at birth. Neither does his analysis consider factors that constrain human priorities, values and meanings which may emerge with particular urgency at specific developmental junctures humans traverse at predictable times throughout life. Additionally, within Berger’s sociological discussion of the social construction and dialectical dynamics of human meaning there is little elaboration of why ritual enactments should occur in human societies, except as acts of remembrance (Berger 1967 pp.40–41), or why they often involve such intense physical hardship, precision and repetition as I will describe of Canadian military entrainment. His analysis also has little to say about why human ritual practices should resonate so deeply or be so entrenched within human cultural practice or why it is that rituals appropriate primal behaviours, impulses and faculties that have emerged in the course of hominid evolution before the appearance of the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [20] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation symbolic or representational facility and that continue to play out in individual human developmental trajectories. Berger’s neglect of human embodied ritual and developmental processes is also significant in light of Robert Bellah’s portrayal of human ritual performance as the primary mechanism catalysing the evolved emergence of homo sapiens from hominid forebears. Before Bellah, anthropologist Roy Rappaport portrayed ritual performance as undergirding the full range of adaptive, moral but also religious ideals human societies would come to articulate specifically within their local biosocial-symbolico-transcendent environments (living systems or ecosystems in the most comprehensive sense). Rappaport later described how the formal non-symbolic features or entailments of ritual performance functioned as the primary mechanisms undergirding the installation of an ordered spectrum of embodied, cognitive and symbolic understandings about how the world operates within the perspective of individuals. He called these emic understandings about the world, about its laws of valuation, causality, obligation and human agency within it a cognised model. This term corresponds rather directly with Berger’s concept of worldview. Some subsequent analyses of ritual processes abolish any distinction between religious and non-religious cognised models or worldviews (Laughlin 1997, Bloch 2008). Within this approach such models are simply the subjective apprehension of the operative dynamics, absolute obligations and laws by which the cosmos functions and is subjectively significant.9 Maurice Bloch (2008) highlights 9 The lack of clear analytical distinction between religious and non-religious worldviews is appropriate given that any subjective model or understanding of the universe and its processes and one’s relation to those processes is necessarily limited or incomplete. Supposedly then astrophysicists and high priests, both of which might embody their traditions’ highest collective formulations about the operation of the cosmos, are ultimately engaged with and committed to their respective cognised models by some degree of faith. As Mary Douglas has said, there are surely limits to foundational knowledge underpropping any worldview so that, in the final analysis, “…knowledge of the world is always founded in trust and faith” (Douglas 1999 p.x). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [21] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation the important related point that most every society perpetuates ideas about transcendent structures within its worldview and that societies that do not do so are the rare exception. This analysis will primarily employ various concepts from Roy Rappaport’s ritual theory from essays within his 1979 book Ecology, Meaning and Religion, (primarily from the essay Obvious Aspects of Ritual [OAR]) to explore the role of ritual in establishing and maintaining critical adaptive features and priorities of the martial worldview of Canadian recruits. Within this analysis I focus primarily upon the operation of ritual, liturgical and developmental processes in the establishment of an exclusive, embodied and subordinated solidarity in all neophyte Canadian soldiers which I have come to understand as the predominating feature of the adaptive Canadian martial worldview. Rappaport maintained specifically that adaptive, ritually constructed worldviews maintain within their primary form a particular hierarchy or order of socially specific meanings (both canonical [pre-existent, symbolic] and obvious [observable, embodied, nonsymbolic] meanings - 1979 pp. 173–175) associated with various levels or degrees of gravity –my term for what he sometimes referred to as sanctity within his theoretical corpus. Some of the specific cultural constructs that in Rappaport’s view were maintained by the formal qualities of ritual were social contract, inviolable postulates and ordered authority. His schema associates ritually derived adaptive orders of meaning, culture and social structure with concepts employed pan-culturally in association with religion.10 This analysis also employs the psychosocial developmental theory of Erik Erikson (1968, 1980, 1982) to explore the critical interactions 10 Durkheim defined religion as a unified set of beliefs and practices relative to the sacred that unites a group holding such things into a moral community. Canadian soldiers are ritually assimilated into a group that holds specific values and practices to be grave and inviolable – that is sacred regardless of whether individual soldiers maintain a belief in supernatural entities. I argue then that the martial culture as realised within the individual worldviews of Canadian soldiers formally constitutes a religion within Durkheim’s definition of the term (Durkheim 1995 [1912] p.44). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [22] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation between ritual and human developmental processes in establishing martial values and priorities at specific junctures within the life cycle of soldiers. These inscribed values and especially the highly defined and policed hierarchies of social order, social role, authority, propriety and gravity characterise and altogether permeate the Canadian martial system and subculture. I adopt the human systems perspective elaborated by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1995, 1999, 2005). His model of analysis considered the various human systems or subsystems within which an individual developed, the interrelations between the various subsystems of human operation, the personal characteristics of the individual, developmental change over both lived time and historical time, and the range of variable mechanisms that drive development—proximal developmental processes (see Edinete and Tudge 2013 p. 244). Bronfenbrenner referred to his model variously as a bioecological or simply an ecological model.11 1.5 Development of an Hypothesis About the Role of Ritual in Martial Enculturation However the martial entrainment process might be framed or conceived within the scholarly literature, there abides a tacit understanding among Canadian soldiers, military leaders and instructors that something more than the transfer of discursive knowledge is occurring throughout the basic training process. Soldiers, leaders and instructors express in a very general way that the 11 Bronfenbrenner did not maintain an ecological approach in the same sense as Rappaport’s ecological living systems analysis which addressed the regulating interactions between all features of the physical biosphere, human social structure and symbolic or transcendent realm. Nevertheless, I do make limited use of Rappaport’s cognised and operational models concepts within my methodology and develop his other proposition that invariant acts and impulses not encoded by the performers regulate human systems and meanings within my analysis of Canadian recruit resocialisation and developmental impulses (but at a more granular or foundational level of analysis than the proximal influences and invariant behavioural or developmental impulses considered by Bronfenbrenner to be regulating human systems – see Edinete and Tudge 2013). The role of pre-encoded invariant signals regulating human meaning and sanctity within human systems was also explored in Rappaport’s theoretical work specifically with regards to nonsymbolic or obvious aspects of formal ritual structure, authority and liturgical order. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [23] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation imposed performance of strictly ordered, repetitive and arduous actions throughout the basic entrainment process in some way functions to establish group cohesion, loyalty, collective orientation, and martial fortitude. Soldiers seldom express any clear analysis of just how such ordered, arduous performative actions instill these martial dispositions or attempt to describe the various human processes and dynamics undergirding the formation of these qualities. I have come to doubt that the initial entrainment process of soldiers functions primarily to generate a sense of duty or loyalty to the organisation or commitment to martial policy, ideals or national mandate. Rather, my experiences and analysis of the training process and subsequent interactions with soldiers throughout my career leads me to believe that the initial entrainment process fundamentally orients soldiers to a kind of radical, conscious solidarity with other martial comrades within a very narrow span of authority, not primarily to the broader symbolic national constitutional agendas or organisational ideals articulated within its institutional doctrine statements. While Canadian recruits do exhibit a distinct and foundational shared orientation and martial ethos which may come to include some of the core symbolic values described within the official doctrinal publications mentioned earlier, the foundational martial qualities I wish to describe do not derive primarily from what is taught in terms of “knowledge and thought that provides direction and…understanding.” The qualities I wish to describe are inculcated primarily through the perfected accomplishment of an ordered spectrum of individual and collective performative actions mastered by recruits throughout the entrainment process in addition to a very restricted range of didactic processes that convey propositional, doctrinal, knowledge. More specifically, the term basic training should properly be understood to emphasise non-discursive processes that establish a range of embodied dispositions and also a limited set of collective orientations and symbolic constructions that crystalise in specific order, for reasons I will explain, over the course of the basic entrainment process. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [24] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The performance of an ordered, highly perfected range of invariant, pre-encoded individual and collective ritual actions constitutes the most prominent feature of the Canadian Forces basic training process. Canadian martial entrainment is altogether imbued with ritual processes and results in a robust and enduring set of adaptive performative dispositions, prioritised values, beliefs, bodily practices and contingent symbolic elaborations about the world which soldiers inhabit, hold to be grave or inviolable and reproduce throughout their careers. My hypothesis is that this Canadian martial worldview and the inscription of its foundational adaptive prioritised valuations and dispositions upon Canadian soldiers is best understood through the application of an analysis that employs theory addressing ritual, developmental, liturgical and ecological dynamics to describe the various processes that transpire in the course of basic military training. The martial entrainment process necessarily depends upon the ordered enactment of ritualised embodied actions, impulses, and gestures, that is the operation of adaptive, invariant and pre-encoded dynamics and mechanisms that have been critical to human evolution and all individual human development. This type of descriptive analysis of the intersection of ordered ritual, developmental and ecological dynamics within Canadian martial entrainment processes and the inscription of an adaptive martial worldview in Canadian soldiers has not been undertaken to this point within scholarly literature. The analysis will consider the phenomenon of Canadian martial ritual performance within my own hypothesis that the training curriculum exploits the operation of ordered ritual processes in the creation of adaptive shared meanings and projections Berger argued were critical to the resilience and security of all human subjects. Rituals are employed within Canadian martial entrainment in part because neophyte soldiers are poised to respond to specifically ordered, predetermined developmental processes and imperatives at specific junctures of human development. The ritual entrainment processes reliably establish a discrete range of adaptive collective © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [25] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation orientations, embodied dispositions and moral or ethical imperatives in neophyte soldiers. Martial entrainment employs ritual processes to engage, at the various junctures I will describe, social and developmental mechanisms that act specifically to inculcate tendencies in groups of unrelated adults to cooperate, to tolerate aggression, to endure discomfort, to bond and to identify with the new group; to identify and exclude non-group members; to observe specific taboos; to defend the group; and to persist in self-sacrificial activities that could result in harm or death. These martial orientations, dispositions, motivations and meanings generated through ritual entrainment processes differ from cognitive socialised knowledge and are perpetuated by embodied ritual mechanisms and dynamics. Such ritually inscribed martial meanings come to frame soldiers’ own martial reality and consciousness. Historically, these inculcated dispositions and ordered obligations have been harnessed to support and legitimise collective belligerent competition for territory, resources and in modern humans, symbolic moral and religious postulates, against others – specifically in the enterprise of war. Such dispositions and obligations, once developed in Canadian soldiers, constitute foundational martial dispositions and include a distinct, resilient set of moods, attitudes or motivations within which a soldier will conduct his or her life. The ritual construction of martial meaning and the establishment of the military ethos with a discrete range of embodied dispositions among Canadian soldiers is an exercise in the practice of world construction or world building (Berger 1967 pp.27–28). Berger argues that the establishment and conservation of such an adaptive and ordered set of meanings and legitimations constitutes a worldview that insulates those maintaining such constructions from anomie. It also appears then that the socially and ritually constituted martial worldview, when projected upon broadest reality, could be considered to constitute a religion within widely © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [26] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation accepted definitions of that term (Geertz 1973, Berger 1967, Durkheim 1995 [1912]).12 Adaptive martial worldviews are formally indistinguishable from many examples of religious enterprise. This justifies the investigation of the ritual formation of soldiers as a scholarly question within the field of religious studies. This also justifies the use of analytical methodologies and theoretical considerations of scholars of anthropology and sociology of religion in the examination of martial ritual processes. 1.6 Descriptive Approach and Analysis Within This Project As mentioned, the primary aim of this project is to describe the ritual establishment of collective solidarity and moral consciousness and the inscription of the foundational martial worldview upon neophyte Canadian soldiers. This project will incorporate an insider’s retrospective account—my own interpretive description—of various features of the entrainment rite of Canadian soldiers with an analysis describing the dynamics and the adaptive developmental and symbolic processes by which the major foundational features of the martial worldview are installed in recruits. Portions of this project will explicate the manner in which ritual can function to deploy, moderate, perpetuate and attenuate meaning within adaptive martial worldviews by means of invariant signals and actions that maintain social hierarchy, orders of authority, obligations, and performative compliance with inviolable, even sacred postulates. The various chapters contribute discrete critical blocks of ethnographic and theoretical background supporting 12 I note that Ann Taves, as president addressing the plenary session of the American Academy of Religion in 2010, conceded that the weight of all historical scholarly effort has failed to arrive at a stable definition of religion (although she did appear to reduce religious phenomena to biosocial impulses to parenthood and play – views which would root sanctity within innate human processes such as I explore throughout this project – Taves 2011 pp.303-308). The question therefore remains open as to whether the foundational martial worldview and grave meanings of Canadian soldiers or the ritual maintenance of martial systems constitute authentic religious phenomena or practice. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [27] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation my analysis of the adaptive ritual uptake and maintenance of meaning and order among Canadian soldiers. The analysis will first describe the initial entrainment rite and constituent rituals of the Canadian Forces. My descriptive analysis of these events and processes will follow the general pattern of descriptions of ritual events and ceremonial performances observed by ritual specialists, religious scholars or anthropologists of religion. Such descriptions aim to be congruent with the experiences and perceptions of those performers described in the account. I will describe and analyse the role of ritual, and even the operation of various features or components of ritual performance, in the initial establishment in recruit soldiers of a specific set of martial dispositions and priorities coupled with a set of obligations and motivations that apply to all members of the Canadian military community. My analysis will also describe how the successful completion of the initial weeks of the ritual entrainment process endows the neophyte soldier with a measure of ritual competence and martial self-awareness. A critical ritual competency developed within the entrainment process is the correct orientation and degree of habituated bodily subordination of the neophyte soldier to the full range of ordered meanings having currency within the Canadian martial ecosystem.13 In the course of the entrainment process, soldiers must adapt to accommodate themselves to a broad spectrum of atavistic, moral, legislative and relatively invariant (inviolate, even canonical) manifestations of authority and obligation which will be examined herein. As will be described, these martial meanings and obligations are cultivated in, or more accurately inscribed 13 See Charles Taylor (2016 pp. 42, 43, 48) regarding the unformulated, embodied (that is non-discursive) meaning, structural regulation and spontaneous hierarchical disposition circulating within human society. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [28] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation upon,14 recruits by means of a prolonged and excruciating process of re-socialisation into a selfcontained world where the only requirement for success is solidarity with others in the correct performance of predetermined and invariant actions. Following the initial weeks of the basic training process, soldiers invariably begin to evince the confident expectation—and a resultant sense of security—that actions conforming to the established martial dispositions and understandings will be fully endorsed by all other members of the Canadian military community. Providing this sense of security and certainty is one of the primary functions of any worldview. In Peter Berger’s analysis, such security may fall within the specific domain of religious worldviews and is provided, as we will see, to order existence and to create a formidable shield against chaotic and marginalising circumstances. Neophyte soldiers begin to perform and impulsively reproduce the meanings and structured hierarchies pervading the training milieu. Soldiers understand implicitely that those who do not adapt in conformity with the explicit canon of martial meanings will not be accepted or supported within this community. They will be alienated from the social communion and plunged into a state of chaotic despair (Berger 1967 pp. 23, 49–51). The argument will also situate the ritualised martial entrainment of Canadian soldiers within a broader context, namely, the adaptive role of ritual and the performance of predetermined and invariant actions and impulses within various human ethological, developmental and evolutionary dynamics. This perspective recognises Bronfenbrenner’s theoretical imperative that analyses of human social phenomena should consider the implications of reciprocal systemic 14 Catherine Bell has offered an important observation that unlike simple cognitive knowledge, ritually derived meanings become deeply and irrevocably inscribed upon or embodied by ritual participants (see especially Bell 1992 pp.94-117). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [29] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation dynamics of adaptation over short and very long periods of time. The various features of the military training environment and curriculum exploit general social ritual mechanisms and faculties that have functioned ontogenetically15 and phylogenetically to undergird and direct the formation of comprehensive, hierarchically ordered systems of shared values, expectations, and obligations in human social groups. These meanings and imperatives in turn support a subsequent range of further elaborated symbolic meanings. I will describe how a range of higher symbolically elaborated meanings and the enculturated adaptive motivations native to the Canadian martial worldview are catalysed among recruits as a result of various features of the ritual entrainment process. Comparable analyses have not yet been employed in the description of Canadian soldiers’ initial adaptation to their martial environment. 1.7 Embodied Meaning, Tacit Competence and a Critical Phenomenological Observation Bernhard Leistle has observed that within phenomenology, most especially in the wake of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, human meaning is broadly understood to include the full gamut of embodied relational perceptions and tacit embodied, intersubjective competencies emerging from the sentient subject’s interactions with others within the world. This specifically includes the “prereflective and pre-verbal dialogue” between the sentient body and the world which are decidedly sensory and experiential in nature and which permeate all human interrelations and intersubjective meaning circulating within and constituting human social systems (in Köpping, Leistle and 15 Throughout this project I employ the term ontogenetic to refer to the typical developmental processes humans must individually negotiate over the course of the life cycle. Erik Erikson’s work focused on these typical ontogenetic processes which transpire in predictable sequential order within the course of one’s psychosocial development. Within this project I differentiate one’s individual ontogenetic development from the broader phylogenetic development which refers to collective human evolutionary stages of development as a species. Both ontogenetic and phylogenetic developmental processes transpire as adaptive processes within specific individual, social, chronological or evolutionary environments or planes of consideration. This is to say that there are systemic or ecological considerations pertinent to such processes which I will address in the course of this analysis. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [30] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Rudolph [eds.] 2006 pp. 40 ff.). This phenomenological approach to meaning has important implications for the understanding of ritual and identity and coincides in critical ways with Rappaport’s living systems theory, but takes place within a theoretical orientation and at a level of analysis largely beyond that carried out within this thesis. Critical phenomenological insights, however, will be employed at specific junctures throughout this analysis to highlight important points. The underlying concept that embodied non-symbolic meaning circulates within human ritual processes undergirding adaptive multivocalic worldviews, however, is most critical to my analysis. Within this project I emphasise the manner in which the expression and circulation of precultural, non-symbolic signals is critical within the martial worldview.16 Such expressions maintain dominance, territoriality and dispositions of authority or bodily subjugation within the martial ecosystem. These (indexical) inscribed dispositions come to undergird a range of embodied martial competencies or meanings and situate a neophyte soldier securely within the martial social structure and broader culture at specific developmental junctures. An analysis of the operation of these embodied non-symbolic impulses, motivations, proficiencies, bodily dispositions, tacit competencies and the foundational operation of such pre-reflective meanings17 within fully elaborated martial worldviews has not been fully explored by theorists in the way I am proposing within this analysis. 16 Philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that non-symbolic embodied agency forms a tacit background to all human representational or symbolic communications – specifically language (1990 p. 270, 1995 pp. viii, 13, 15, 19, 2016 pp. 41-44, see especially Ruth Abbey in Charles Taylor – Philosophy Now Series 2000 pp. 178 ff.). George Lakoff has similarly highlighted the primacy of embodied spatio-kinetic orientation to the subsequent constitution and expression of human symbolic constructions (Lakoff 2012, see also Lakoff 1987 in Douglas 1999 pp.285 ff.). 17 See Charles Taylor 2016 pp. 41-44 on the opaque initial embodied processes of constitutive meaning undergirding representational meaning and descriptive human language. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [31] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation In this analysis I develop Rappaport’s observation that both cognitive (symbolic) and noncognitive (innate, atavistic, pre-encoded, indexical) meanings are present in any ritual process and that such meanings circulate freely within and regulate human social groups, systems or structures. In my analysis, the term worldview presupposes the concurrent operation of a broad range of noncognitive, non-symbolic human meanings upon which further symbolic representational elaborations are at all times contingent.18 Berger’s term worldview will be retained throughout in view of its broad currency, but with the understanding that the concept also conveys the broad spectrum of human ways of meaningful embodied action, interaction, experience, disposition, orientation, habit and adaptation within a specific human ecosystem. Humanity has not, at some point in its development, evolved and altogether transcended the use of more primal meanings, motivations, practiced embodied competencies and pre-reflective impulses—including some primal and adaptive non-symbolic meanings humans share with other animals. The martial worldview or military culture then consists not simply of cognitive socially constructed meanings. It incorporates innate non-cognitive embodied impulses, signals, communications, tacit competencies, dispositions and adaptations that make it possible for new recruits to maintain cohesion, endure psychosocial developmental challenges, physical hardship and desolating circumstances as they adapt to the excruciations of continuous training for operational deployment cycles in theatres of war. When undisrupted, embodied adaptations later maintain and reproduce the martial routines, rituals and the generation of adaptive martial worldviews in others. Such adaptations preserve the homeostatic hierarchy of martial social structure, meanings and values that sustain soldiers through the marginalising desolations of war 18 Such understandings also resonated with ritual scholars Edmund Leach 1965 [1954], Roy Rappaport 1979 [1974] and Catherine Bell 1992 pp. 101, 131 ff. (in Quack and Töbelmann 2010 pp. 20-22). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [32] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation in successive generations of new recruits. This is how the living Canadian martial ecosystem regulates and perpetuates itself. 1.8 Significance of the Project This analysis describes the ritual processes of entrainment by which Canadian soldiers create and later maintain critical features of their adaptive worldviews. My analysis is based on a range of theory describing adaptive human ritual, liturgical, developmental and systems or ecological dynamics. Similarly, I find that there has been only limited and indirect consideration by Canadian Forces leadership, Canadian military health entities or collateral scholarship regarding embodied systemic or ecological ritual entrainment processes, mechanisms and dynamics that may be complicit in Canadian soldiers’ adaptive ability to engage and persist in martial existence or the enterprise of war. Canadian martial society is only superficially understood by those outside of it. Of course, any attempt to render an account of a particular society, cultural system or process is difficult; the various disciplines that consider such things have developed ways of addressing these challenges and describing such phenomena. Such accounts are significant to the extent that they describe practices, features, structures and functions extant within a given society and provide reasonable accounts or interpretive descriptions of how such societies or systems make sense of the world. I push beyond this traditional approach by offering, in addition to a critical analysis, the experiential insights of an insider to the explanation of the ritually inscribed martial worldview. My specific approach is unique with regards to the ritual enculturation of Canadian soldiers and the ritual means by which an adaptive, living worldview is inscribed upon recruits to meet the demands of martial existence. For this reason, my analysis will contribute distinctly to present knowledge about Canadian martial society and those who participate within it. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [33] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation In addition to advancing knowledge about the ritual entrainment, worldview and the living culture of Canadian soldiers, my analysis suggests an alternative way to frame, explore and account for soldiers’ resilience and adaptivity. My analysis describes the manner in which specific meanings and dispositions, and the mechanisms by which they are ritually inculcated in members of Canadian martial society, are adaptive and allow soldiers to withstand the rigours of war and the prolonged training and deployment cycles of military existence. The martial environment is harsh and, as with any other human ecosystem, there are mortal dangers and human casualties. Accordingly, survival and adaptive resilience in soldiers are theoretically situated around those who are deeply inscribed with the adaptive martial values and dispositions with which to endure bellicose environments. Within my analysis, the primary and most adaptive ritually inscribed disposition of Canadian soldiers is the collective impulse to radical solidarity and identification with other soldiers with whom one has been identically and comprehensively inscribed throughout the most formative developmental stages. This would seem patently impossible in the case of Canadian soldiers from diverse backgrounds who are entrained in adulthood alongside a group of previously unknown other adults at a point midway through the normal schedule of predictable human developmental stages. As I will explain, such a radical and comprehensive re-formative developmental process and collective disposition is accomplished through the uniquely-evolved ritually-ordered schedule of performative physical, social and symbolic re-socialisation processes that are orchestrated to exploit the most rudimentary adaptive ethological and psychosocial drives, motivations and social impulses common to humans and other social animals. The upshot is that the Canadian martial entrainment process has evolved to furnish an adaptive, collectively-held consciousness and foundational morality comprehensively and near homogeneously forged and maintained within ritual processes commonly undergone by Canadian soldiers. This homogeneous, collectively held worldview and consciousness does not persist apart © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [34] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation from the group within which it is held and ritually maintained in absolute solidarity with other soldiers. This state of being is explored by Émile Durkheim in his portrayal of “elementary” clan consciousness, solidarity and collective morality in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912]). Within “elementary” societies that participate in a high degree of homogeneous meaning, embodied practice and inclusive identity or solidarity, anyone who is separated or alienated from ongoing social or ritual participation quickly becomes stigmatised and loses his or her grasp on the ability to maintain meaning and adaptive resilience (and ultimately physical or psychosocial health) in the world. This is a state described in the literature as anomie.19 19 A fulsome treatment of anomie as either a state of social disorder or as maladaptive alienation from the constraints and protections of the moral collective is beyond the formal objectives of this project but appears to be the critical condition that the adaptive martial worldview of Canadian soldiers is meant to forestall. Similarly, it is not the primary purpose of this project to describe at length the well documented, unprecedented and undiminished rates of current distress and maladaptation in Canadian soldiers (Thompson, VanTil, Zamorski, Garber et al 2016, Zamorski 2011, Zamorski, Rusu, Garber 2014, Lee, Sudom and Zamorski 2013, Zamorski, Bennett, Rusu, Weeks, Boulos, Garber 2016). By way of background, the concept of anomie was addressed by Émile Durkheim as alienation from social constraints in his 1893 doctoral thesis The Division of Labour in Society and was pursued at some length within his 1897 [1970] work Suicide: A Study in Sociology with extensive consideration given to the question of elevated rates of suicide among soldiers during a period of social upheaval in nineteenth century Europe. The concept has since been pursued by Leo Srole (1962,1965) as a term relating to an individual’s alienation of self-from-others and by Wolfgang Jilek (1974, 1982, 1985) in his study of North American West Coast Salish Indian society as a psychodynamic pattern of depression, spiritual sickness, feelings of rejection, discouragement, and relative deprivation, frustration, defeat, and lowered self-esteem as a result of rapid, harshly imposed acculturative processes (see especially Deflem 1989 pp. 629630). This relates directly to Anthony Wallace’s (1985 [1972]) observations regarding anomie (citing Merton’s earlier work) focused on a range of psychosocial pathology among American Plains Indian groups experiencing extreme sociostructural disorder as a result of unprecedented acculturative pressures. Such descriptions of anomie are also well in keeping with documented mental health problems and psychosocial dysfunction among Canadian Aboriginal Residential School Survivors who collectively manifest disturbing rates of suicide, depression and associated pathology subsequent to the systemic interruption/destruction of cultural and normative developmental processes (Elias, Mignone, Hall, Hong, Hart and Sareen 2012, Nagy 2015, Hackett, Feeny and Tompa 2016, Nelson and Wilson 2017) and, I would emphasise, the disruption of traditional, ritually maintained social ecologies and worldviews. I add here that Canadian soldiers similarly exhibit twice the rates of depression as the regular Canadian population as well © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [35] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Berger did not develop the importance of collective ritual performance, while Durkheim did not fully explore the operation of ethological or developmental processes in the collective creation of adaptive meaning within their theoretical bodies of work. This analysis highlights a range of embodied, pre-conceptual dispositions and ordered social liturgical dynamics circulating within the developmental processes of neophyte soldiers who are also acting within a broader system of structured social hierarchy and adaptive canonical meanings. This analysis then, in Durkheim’s schema of ordered meanings, is an explication of the “sacred” as it exists for Canadian soldiers in the highest and most inviolable dispositions to moral solidarity. My argument could then be described as a project articulating the martial nomos as homogeneous, embodied moral consciousness and solidarity. I have still not fully stated the ultimate practical significance of this project. As I have said, worldviews are evolved to be adaptive within specific living social ecologies. When soldiers maintain collective solidarity—when martial nomoi supporting martial meanings and dispositions are ritually maintained and when the matrix of social structures within which such nomoi are adaptive remain stable—soldiers remain incredibly resilient throughout the various phases of their careers, including the desolating experiences of operational deployment to theatres of war. Nevertheless, war is perilous, military life is arduous and various features or structures of the martial ecosystem may change, degrade or disappear. Soldiers do fall out of communion with comrades, in Berger’s sense, and lose access to collective mechanisms, structures and processes as elevated rates of other mental health problems, substance abuse and that military mental health leadership are particularly concerned about elevated risk of suicide among soldiers and in particular, stigma (Thompson, VanTil, Zamorski, Garber, Dursun, Fikretoglu, Ross, Richardson, Sareen, Sudom, Courchesne and Pedlar 2016, Zamorski 2011, Zamorski, Rusu, Garber 2014, Lee, Sudom and Zamorski 2013, Bernier [Surgeon General Mental Health Strategy Report] 2014). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [36] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation within which to create and maintain meaning. This results in a range of dysfunction that is manifested in individual soldiers which is well documented and which has been the focus of an unprecedented range and intensity of psychomedical surveys, research and interventions by those within the Canadian Forces health system and those of coalition armies with whom the Canadian military collaborates on international operations.20 Although the psychomedical response to Canadian soldiers’ individual distress and alienation has been unprecedented and costly, it is no secret among academics, epidemiologists and those involved in providing front line psychosocial or psychomedical services to troops that rates of dysfunction, distress and alienation among Canadian soldiers have not diminished over the course of the last seventeen years.21 It is clear that 20 These dysfunctions appear phenomenologically identical to the examples that Durkheim, Wallace and Jilek described as anomie but have been exclusively researched and addressed by the Canadian Forces medical and epidemiological systems within a psychomedical diagnostic and treatment paradigm that emphasises greater surveillance and efficiency in the detection and treatment of specifically diagnoseable mental health problems in individuals. Such atomistic approaches are not structured or positioned to develop macrosytemic analyses that could describe the manner in which current maladaptation among soldiers might be related to broader structural factors undermining the integrity of formerly adaptive collectively-held constructions of martial consciousness, inviolable meaning and morality inculcated and maintained by ritual processes such as I describe within this project. In the management of both Canadian soldiers suffering disproportional rates of psychosocial pathology and First Nations populations with disproportionate rates of anomie-like pathology it appears that systemic emphasis on individual therapeutic intervention has displaced broader structural analyses and interventions which might more directly address the sources of such phenomena – see observations of Dian Million 2013, Kirmeyer, Gone and Moses 2014 in Rosemary Nagy 2015 p. 530. 21 This time period is significant in that it closely coincides with the Afghanistan War Era – the longest sustained period of continuous operational deployment within an active theatre of war by Canadian military forces. It also coincides with the implementation of the Canadian Forces Primary (Health) Care Renewal Initiative (CF PCRI) which included robust and enhanced (individual) mental health surveillance mechanisms quantifying soldiers’ general mental health and operationally associated rates of health pathology (see Bernier/Surgeon General Report 2014, Zamorski, Bennett, Rusu, Weeks, Boulos, Garber 2016). The enhanced health care and deployment health surveillance mechanisms and associated epidemiological cell orchestrating research within the Canadian Forces health system situated within the Canadian Forces Directorate of Force Health Protection (where I was employed between 2006-2008 as Officer in © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [37] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation there remain unexplored “gaps” within current research into soldiers’ dysfunction, specifically with regards to adaptation throughout the various life stages such as described within this project (see Thompson, Van Til, Zamorski, Garber et al 2016 p.11). While the primary aim of this project is to describe the ritual inscription of the adaptive martial worldview and its contribution to collective solidarity and moral consciousness among soldiers, it cannot escape notice that the predominating interventive strategy of Canadian military psychomedical entities and CF Mental Health leadership to the dysfunction of alienated troops (and that of related organisations that address the psychomedical needs of soldiers, veterans and their families) has been, and remains, the individual identification and the solitary, isolated (not collective, integrated and macrosocial) assessment, diagnosis and treatment of individual soldiers in hope of their restored function within the collective. This individually-oriented diagnostic construction of soldiers’ distress22 and atomistic Charge of the CF suicide prevention portfolio) have determined that rates of psychosocial distress among Canadian soldiers is in some cases double that of the general Canadian population. These rates of pathology have persisted to a degree altogether undiminished despite the unprecedented surveillance, research and clinical resources addressed to soldiers’ distress by the Canadian military since the implementation of enhanced surveillance mechanisms after 2001 (Zamorski, Bennett, Rusu, Weeks, Boulos, Garber 2016). 22 The diagnostic protocols of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) that prevailed within North American psychomedical practice (including that of the CF Health Services Group) between 1980 until 2013 technically required consideration of socioecological health factors by the diagnosing clinician as a formal component of any clinical diagnosis on Axis IV of the multiaxial diagnostic process (APA DSM-III 1980, DSM-IV 1994, DSM-IV-TR 2000). Subsequently, with the introduction of the APA DSM-5 (2013), the diagnostic philosophy of the APA shifted and the multiaxial diagnostic matrix of previous versions of the DSM has been eliminated (Regier, Kuhl, and Kupfer 2013). This has arguably even further diminished structural or macrocontextual considerations of patients’ health related challenges as the diagnosing clinician’s observations regarding complicating socioecological factors are now limited to brief remarks within the diagnostic narrative (Dailey, Gill, Karl and Minton 2014 pp. 172-173). The practical reality is that a comprehensive psychosocial investigation cannot be carried out in a clinical setting by a diagnosing clinician for each individual patient, and, as has been noted, even the former DSM diagnostic model formally limited the consideration of important contextual factors within a diagnosis (Eriksen and Kress 2006 p. 204). In the minority of cases where a diagnosing clinician would request a thorough psychosocial (psychosocioecological) investigation and © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [38] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation model of intervention pervades the Canadian Forces health system. Those advocating this approach have monopolised the discourse and resources and have directed interventions almost exclusively at soldiers’ distress as an individually-situated pathology.23 This hegemony of diagnostic analysis and intervention has been perpetuated at all levels primarily by those who have not fully experienced the subordinating, levelling and bonding processes of the typical Canadian military entrainment processes described within my analysis. This individually-oriented model and system of constructing soldiers’ distress is imposed on soldiers in clinical settings away from the locus of martial activity and has been altogether monopolised by those researchers and clinical leaders who do not fully participate in the collective ritual maintenance of martial consciousness, meaning and case report of a clinical social worker or mental health professional prior to diagnosis, such information subsequently remains locked within the confidential confines of the patient’s medical file. The upshot is that while there is currently substantial research investigating Canadian soldiers’ individual adaptive challenges and extensive epidemiological research being conducted regarding rates of individually diagnosed health pathology within the CF, there is no comprehensive analysis of or inquiry into Canadian soldiers’ rates of dysfunction or health challenges resulting from diminished integration within much broader collective, ritually maintained processes or structures of the CF macrosystem or organisational superstructure. This is surprising given the recent emphasis on the problem of “stigma” (that is exclusion or alienation) in the published literature and public statements of the CAF (Thompson, VanTil, Zamorski, Garber, Dursun, Fikretoglu, Ross, Richardson, Sareen, Sudom, Courchesne and Pedlar 2016, Zamorski 2011, Zamorski, Rusu, Garber 2014, Lee, Sudom and Zamorski 2013, Bernier [Surgeon General Mental Health Strategy Report] 2014). The development of a specific analysis constructing soldiers’ dysfunction as a macrosocial pathology of diminished collective integration requiring formal structural response and of additional supporting processes to record, collate and report this type of psychosocioecological data could restore critical regulatory operations necessary to the adaptive functions of the CF as a living system or ecology. Such an analysis would also support a new range of research into structural sources of health and dysfunction among Canadian soldiers. 23 John Whelan makes the important point that the pervasive medicalisation of individual soldiers’ maladaption has unhelpfully relegated the consideration of soldiers’ distress to the psychomedical domain and its model of mental health analysis, in effect sequestering such distress from consideration within the broader domains of social, public or political discourse (28 May 2018). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [39] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation priorities as they are actually practiced within the collective existence of the living operational units and command headquarters of the Canadian Forces.24 The concrete significance of this project lies in the association it highlights between the adaptive solidarity of soldiers and their participation in ritually perpetuated processes, practices and structures of the Canadian martial ecosystem. Future research could develop models of health assessment, diagnosis, intervention and systemic feedback prioritising continued integration within ritually perpetuated social processes and structures as a prime determinant of soldiers’ health. This approach has been avoided by the current powers that be25 but has been publically available for consideration, at least in some nascent or partial form, since the earliest beginnings of formalised social analysis (Durkheim and Catlin 1938) and as initially proposed by Durkheim himself as 24 The Primary (Health) Care Renewal Initiative (PCRI), as part of a much broader suite of health reforms within the CF Rx2000 Programme beginning in 2001, included a new clinical health delivery model which severed uniformed military physicians’ ongoing and exclusive assignment to specific units and their soldiers and instead distributed soldiers among a range of civilian and military primary care physicians and mental health clinicians situated at a centralised clinic who treat soldiers of all units. This effectively diminished individual military physicians’ ongoing identification and integration with specific units and their effective observations, communication and efficient feedback (a critical feature of all systems and ecological analyses of systems) to a Commanding Officer regarding the observed corporate health of a unit’s soldiers. This new health delivery model has also thwarted uniformed military physicians’ participation in the ongoing ritual processes of specific units which are fundamental to maintaining solidarity and clinical efficacy in detecting, diagnosing, reporting and addressing the collective distress and adaptive dysfunction of a unit’s soldiers. 25 Should the time come when the distress of Canadian soldiers is investigated as a problem of anomie or disrupted ritualised collective adaptive processes, the key features of soldiers’ practice and ritually inscribed priorities as described within this project would provide a useful framework for the development of research questions to identify broader systemic factors impinging upon or incongruent with adaptive martial worldviews and the range of ritual dynamics maintaining social equilibrium as described herein. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [40] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation alienation from the protective constraints of collective morality—anomie—as a fruitful place to begin consideration of soldiers’ despair, loss of meaning and suicide (Durkheim 1970 [1897]).26 The analysis which is to follow describes the mechanisms by which basic entrainment within the Canadian Forces results in a shared collective orientation, consciousness, solidarity and ethos that is catalysed within an ordered sequence of ritual performances intersecting with embodied individual, collective, and contextual processes and dynamics. This analysis is positioned primarily to describe the ritual establishment of embodied martial dispositions to group solidarity and collective consciousness and the manner in which these come to undergird subsequent collectively shared symbolic constructions and embodied dispositions that constitute the foundational martial worldviews of neophyte soldiers. I wish to specifically explore and emphasise the sparsely described operation of the developmental, liturgical, and systemic dynamics at play within this ritual entrainment process and the manner in which such dynamics coalesce in There was a very promising mention of Durkheim’s foundational sociological analysis within a significant Canadian 26 Forces epidemiological report document produced in 2015 – specifically regarding his theory concerning the “complex interrelationships among a multiplicity of characteristics” determining psychic dysfunction and suicide in soldiers (Rolland-Harris, Zamorski, Matheson, Whitehead – The Surgeon General 2015 Report on Suicide Mortality in the CAF 1995-2014 p.16). Paradoxically, there was no mention of the specific concern of “anomie” to which Durkheim was referring, or any further mention of Durkheim, or any consideration of his macrosocial analysis of anomie as alienation from collectively held, ritually maintained meaning and morality in the remainder of the document. Similarly, there has been no subsequent consideration of this construction of soldiers’ distress by the Canadian Forces and no indication of any emerging intention within the Canadian Forces to consider the issue of soldiers’ alienation from collectively held meaning – anomie – in future. I note here only a single scholarly work constructing current dysfunction and pathology among modern soldiers as a broader condition of anomie (see James Beneda’s 2017 analysis of post 911 American soldiers’ experiences of war as portrayed in novels). Beneda’s analysis however attributes the anomic state of modern American soldiers to a macroscopic moral or ideological betrayal, not as the result of a degradation of ritual processes regulating the stability of the martial worldview or social structure such as I suggest here should be the target of future research into sources of widespread dysfunction and pathology within the Canadian martial ecosystem. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [41] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation the collective orientation, consciousness and disposition to the adaptive solidarity of Canadian recruit soldiers and officers. I located no similar accounts of the ritual mechanisms and human developmental, liturgical or ecological dynamics operant within the basic entrainment processes that establish or inscribe the adaptive worldviews of Canadian soldiers. As such, this project, as a self-contained account of the social, developmental, cultural, even religious mechanisms of ritual adaptation within the Canadian martial milieu, is primarily intended as a contribution to the academic fields of ritual studies and religious studies. It is also hoped that the propositions of this analysis would be received by other fields where the human dynamics of adaptation are critically considered and researched, most especially by those practicing therapeutic and systemic interventions with soldiers and veterans for whom a knowledge of adaptive ritual processes would be essential. 1.9 Chapter Arrangement Section I, Chapters 1, 2 and 3 (introduction, analytic framework/methodology and literature review) comprise the foundational section of this project. Section II, Introduction examines unique correlations between human developmental, liturgical and ecological processes. These correlations were not altogether ignored by Arnold van Gennep in his seminal considerations of ritual passage but their existence offers some insight into the fact that rituals accompany significant human life events and that their occurrence and liturgical qualities of presentation throughout the human life cycle have evolved to correspond to the developmental priorities of human ritual performers. At this point it is possible to clearly situate and analyse ritual performance as a phenomenon occurring within a specific developmental space. This has important implications for the construction of the term worldview as referring to the collective conceptions of a “people” (Geertz 1957) or of individuals in socially subordinated solidarity with others as I primarily construct it. Chapter 4 will articulate the ritualised process by © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [42] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation which the Canadian Forces resocialises, enculturates and situates new soldiers within the Canadian martial ecosystem. Chapter 5 considers the ritual features of rote, embodied practice among neophyte soldiers and engages with various theory in the analysis of the significance of perfected, demotivated performance of ritual. The importance of various ritual techniques of the body in the establishment of robust martial worldviews, the maintenance of martial systems or ecologies and unified consciousness will be considered. Section III Introduction outlines the dynamics of enacted authority and performance which will be considered in the following chapters. I highlight the phenomenon of acquired ritual competency as a decisive moment of cultural saturation after which neophyte soldiers come to spontaneously perform the martial nomoi. Chapter 6 considers Rappaport’s theory on the ritual qualities of canonical invariance and authority pervading—one might say defining—the military ecosystem. I describe decorous ceremonial features of the martial entrainment rite and describe the human processes operating within the constellation of ceremonial features performed by neophyte soldiers that catalyse higher symbolic constructions within the cognised models of performers. Throughout this analysis I highlight and develop theory supporting the proposition that human symbolic constructions are at all times contingent upon ongoing but more primal human nonsymbolic processes such as those described within previous chapters. Chapter 7 considers the primary meanings and values of the martial ecosystem inscribed upon recruits and the degree to which such meanings relate to concepts of sacrifice. I describe subsequent developmental processes of soldiers and the adaptiveness of specific ritually inscribed worldviews within subsequent social realms into which all living soldiers must eventually make ritual passage in the course of subsequent developmental life stages. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [43] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [44] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 2 Analytical Framework and Methodology The Positioned Description of Cultural and Ritual Processes 2.1 General Methodological Approach My methodology in considering the role of ritual in the entrainment processes of Canadian soldiers resembles that used in the fields of ritual studies, religious studies or the anthropology of religion. My method includes the description of a range of specific events or performative actions I recount as an insider who has participated in these events. My experiences regarding these events and performative actions are then considered in light of selected theory from the much wider corpus of scholarly literature pertaining to the practices, human processes or systems I describe or more generally to social or cultural mechanisms and dynamics common to all humans. I primarily employ the theory of scholars whose work has focused on ritual, psychosocial developmental, ecological or religious processes. A reasoned analysis or interpretation of the relationships and dynamics inhering within and between these events, systems and processes is then developed. This analysis includes critical elaborations I construct as an analyst who is now working within a theoretical perspective removed from the one I first occupied as an insider participant in the events I recount. This analysis is meant to convey a reasonable account of a range of human processes and mechanisms I describe but within the terms, meanings and current language of the humanities © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [45] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation or of social scientific discourse. From this foundation I develop and defend an hypothesis regarding the role of ritual in the initial entrainment processes of the Canadian military. 2.2 A Positioned Insider Participant’s Description Throughout this project I position myself as an insider participant in the events I recount, fully enculturated in the systems of meaning that I will discuss. In the course of several periods of military service occurring between 1980 and 2013, I twice underwent the ritual entrainment process, first in late 1980 as a young non-commissioned Regular Force combat engineer and then again in early 1990 when I earned a commission as a Regular Force officer. In the summer months of 1992 I was employed as a course officer responsible for a platoon of non-commissioned army recruits undergoing their basic military training. In that capacity, I was responsible for the general conduct and delivery of all aspects of the recruit basic training syllabus and also for the direct supervision and discipline of the military non-commissioned officers (NCOs) who were involved in the direct care and entrainment of my recruits. This analysis is based on my study of ritual theory, religion, and cultural phenomena. It also draws on my academic and professional formation and practice within the field of social work, a provincially regulated health discipline that evaluates and addresses the psychosocial and developmental adaptation of subjects within human systems. Social work practice employs models of human ontogenetic development and social adaptation and is broadly informed by systems theory—an ecosystemic model of analysis that describes human adaptation within nested dynamics of individual, family, organisational and social processes. This orientation corresponds in important ways to the ecosystemic or living systems theories of Urie Bronfenbrenner and Roy Rappaport. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [46] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation I write this thesis as one sufficiently removed from the events I portray so as to now be able to apply a critical analysis to my observations and experiences. My professional formation included several years of continuous supervision of my own practice, case observations and analyses of human subjects. This supervision was conducted by licensed preceptors to certify that observations and analyses were at all times factual, ethical, balanced, free of obvious bias and meeting clinical and legal reporting standards. Finally, I draw on a range of subsequent professional and military formation and experience in the provision of psychosocial services and in the clinical supervision of other professionals and their analyses of the adaptive processes of their subjects. This project is positioned within the field of religious studies, and is informed primarily by ritual theory. I recognize that aspects of this study might also pertain to other social science fields. I do not engage in formal ethnography or anthropology but I am mindful of critical considerations and insights from those fields that can inform my description and analysis within this project, particularly within the narrative portions of my account. My approach is unorthodox in that I analyse features of a stabilised ritual process of entrainment viewed as cultural adaptation transpiring within the developmental capacities of martial neophytes. Descriptions of culture, or processes within cultures, are frequently approached within the disciplines of ethnography, anthropology or sociology by “participant observers.” These are researchers who, typically, but not exclusively, gather data cross-culturally through field work with informants within the target culture. Activities are recorded, sorted, coded, analysed, and described within the parameters of ethnographic or anthropological practice, frequently with the agreement or participation of the informants. There are various degrees of participation possible, all involving some degree of influence over the data, and interpretive bias on the part of the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [47] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation researcher. It is always a subjective process to some degree. This process inevitability entails some subjectivity in the selection, analysis, and interpretation of the data. There may be a negotiation of expectations and performative motivation on the part of research subjects. Participant observation may even involve a degree of deception, whether unconscious or deliberate (Kawulich, 2005). What is consistent in classical participant observer accounts is that the participating researchers are never fully insiders. They remain, to some degree at least, removed from the perspective, meanings, and motivations of their informants whose full motivations and capacity for disclosure or consent within any interaction remain opaque to the participant researcher. In the present account, I am not a participant observer in the typical sense just described but an insider participant. I did not engage in field work or interview informants during or after the events I describe.1 At the time that I was participating in the events and processes I describe I did not anticipate using these experiences as the subject of scholarly analysis. In that sense, my descriptions are free from some of the challenges faced by traditional participant field researchers as described by Kawulich (2005). This point does not necessarily render my insider descriptive account absolutely objective. A degree of distortion in analeptic2 accounts is understood to be unavoidable; the assumption of—or striving for—objectivity that originally pervaded ethnographic endeavours has generally been abandoned within fields that now produce accounts or interpretations of cultural processes (Collins and Gallinat 2010 pp. 4–5, van Ginkel 1994 pp. 12–13). Nevertheless, the importance of reporting events from a perspective of deep and lengthy 1 This differs in important ways from the other academic descriptions of the ritual or developmental dynamics of basic military training consulted for my analysis (Gilmore 1990, Dievendorf 1996, Winslow 1999, Irwin 2008, Bornmann 2009, Burchell 2011, Gibson 2012, Newlands 2014, Haldén 2016, Syed-Mohammed 2016, Stacey 2018). 2 I credit my primary dissertation supervisor Professor Adele Reinhartz for the technical identification of this species of post hoc interpretive distortion (Reinhartz 2017 pp. 113-126, 1989 pp. 3-16, see also Daniel Dubuisson 2016 p. 60 notes 10,11). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [48] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation enculturation and of repetitive participation in the rituals reported of a given culture, most especially when such events involve moderated states of consciousness such as I describe of Canadian martial ritual performance, may be a neglected consideration manifested in some crosscultural participant observer accounts (see especially the discussion in Charles Laughlin 1997). Again, within the analysis that is to follow within this project, I rely on my professional and technical formation and experience in the description and analysis of human systems and developmental processes in order to maintain the reasonable objectivity of my account. My work will enact a reflexive, insider (at times auto-ethnographic) perspective in the vein of those that have gained acceptance within ethnography and anthropology (see Judith Okely’s survey of autobiography in ethnography since the 1950’s in Okely and Callaway 1992 pp. 1–28). I located comparable recent scholarly accounts of military recruit entrainment in the course of my literature review authored by Jerry Morton (2004), Mark Burchell (2011) and Stephen Stacey (2018). Morton (2004) recounts his own experiences as a young American combat officer undergoing basic training during the Vietnam War. Like myself, Morton did not undergo his basic entrainment with the intention to later write a scholarly analysis of his experience. Rather, after post war duty as a professor at a military college, subsequent doctoral studies and a long career as a psychologist, Morton was able to bring his specialist analysis to his depiction and critique of the American military training system as experienced by a true “insider.” Burchell, an alreadyqualified British Royal Marine reservist, conducted his own ethnographic insider participant field work by accompanying a course of recruit Royal Marine reservists through all phases of their arduous one year, part-time, basic qualification course. His phenomenological insider participant account, though not strictly autoethnographic, represents the first anthropological account of the sequestered Royal Marine cultural environment and description of its enculturation processes and © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [49] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation rituals. Burchell argued that this type of privileged access to informants affords an interpretive advantage or veracity to the insider participant’s account. He maintained that insider participant ethnographic approaches are important within military milieus and contribute distinctly to extant scholarly accounts because “….the professional soldier often sees the social scientist as naïve of Military institutions” (quoting Morris Janowitz 1965 p.31 in Burchill 2011 p.7). Stephen Stacey (2018) carried out his field work and phenomenological analysis of the training experiences of American post 911 Marine Corps recruit informants from the perspective of one who had himself successfully completed Marine Corps training in 1996. Stacey primarily employs symbolic interaction theory, organisational psychology and social learning theory in his analysis. His use of social identity theory corresponds at critical points with my analysis insofar as he examines recruits’ experiences of the initial martial socialisation process relative to identity formation, group bonding, perseverance and organisational commitment. These themes resonate with some of the martial dispositions that emerge via ritual and normative developmental processes within my analysis of Canadian recruit formation. Okely acknowledges that this type of autoethnographic format can lend authority to an account but cautions that such accounts (and I include here insider participant accounts) may simultaneously convey a range of distortions, prejudices or perspectives of privilege on the part of the author that threaten to undermine such authority (in Okely and Callaway 1992 p.7). Taking such scholarly precautions into account, I am sensitised to a number of unique challenges that constrain my description. Have I taken appropriate steps to distance and defamiliarise the “self” from the experiences in order to cultivate an appropriate ethnographic “gaze” (van Ginkel 1994 pp.11–12)? As the insider do I portray my experience from the appropriate vantage point of insight and bracketed self-awareness rather than from personal mythology or narcissism (Okely in Okely © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [50] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation and Callaway 1992 p.2, Kawulich 2005 pp. 5ff., Creswell 2013)? Am I overly concerned about the potential responses of my professional colleagues and other insiders (van Ginkel 1994 pp.14– 15, Okely 1992 p.5)? Do I uncritically assume a broader range of experience of the target culture than any one individual could convincingly comprehend (van Ginkel 1994 p.13)? As an insider, I must bear in mind that some a priori meanings may be so obvious or implicit to me as the writer that they escape mention or explanation within my analysis (Leach 1982 p.127 in van Ginkel 1994 p.11). Nevertheless, as an insider I can potentially bring to light many elements that outsiders might miss. In addition, the informal literary form, the use of vernacular language and reflexive “voice” or perspective common to the autoethnographic genre may convey something of the cultural tone or “feel” of the events I portray. Ritual specialist Ronald Grimes says of the reflexive use of one’s own experiences: To some this shift of attention seems narcissistic – the crass introduction of autobiography into ethnography. No doubt, in its worst examples this is the case. But in the best ones something else is going on. In these instances criticism is assuming the form of selfexamination and self-criticism. What becomes evident in reflexive ethnographies are the ways… (the insiders) bear the values of dominating culture, the ways author-ethnographers “construct” the very people they study (Grimes 1996 p.281). The approach I have just described considers the experiences and observations of an insider participant within a range of applicable scholarly theory in order to produce an interpretive account of the role of ritual in the initial entrainment processes of the Canadian military. My approach involves the interplay between insider and outsider perspectives; I am an insider to the events and experiences that constitute my data, but I apply outsider theories in the analysis of this data. Such an analysis can highlight previously unconsidered mechanisms of reciprocal influence that do not easily emerge from other approaches. Rappaport endorsed a similar approach incorporating an operational perspective such as might be brought to bear by an outside observer, anthropologist © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [51] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation or analyst upon the cognised understandings of insiders or informants about a specific series of events. Rappaport initially intended simply to observe ecological balance, production and adaptation between a population and other organisms within their discrete environment. In conducting this research, he discovered that the metaphysical meanings and motivations animating his subjects’ practices and ritual cycles (cycles which sometimes played out over extended time periods of up to twenty years) actually regulated the physical ecology of the Tsembaga territory within the local parameters of human work capacity, land productivity and the destructive actions of overpopulated swine herds. The critical methodological point is that by incorporating an indigenous, insider “cognised” perspective into his outsider “operational” scientific analysis Rappaport could articulate the critical influence of native metaphysical meanings, postulates and obligations on wider ecological dynamics within models of analysis that were not employed by his informants. This interplay of insider and outsider perspectives exploits the classic dialectical considerations and interpretive dynamics that inhere and emerge between “emic” and “etic” perspectives of any human phenomena. Rappaport refers to this as an ecological or systems approach, and explains: 3 3 Throughout this project I note the efforts of Roy Rappaport to position the various features and priorities of his informants’ worldview, or cognised model, as fitting together organically and as corresponding comprehensively to all features of the local environment. The range of competencies and understandings acquired by Tsembaga Maring individuals that allowed them to adaptively participate within this environment was the “cognised model” or worldview as I have constructed the term for my analysis. This is to say that within Rappaport’s ecological ethnographic account, the various features of the Tsembaga Maring worldview – the inviolable understandings and sacred postulates that correspond, fit and reinforce all other features of the world — integrate the entire Tsembaga cosmos within a broad range of mythology, exclusions (taboos), transactional and transcendental social relationships, sacred obligations, knowledge and understandings. For the Tsembaga Maring, such understandings corresponded and integrated smoothly together and were probably more or less understood by all. Such understandings were further perpetuatuated by the routinised and articulated repertoire of ritualised priorities that, as Arnold van Gennep indicated, lead humans around the various seasons of life and through the several seasons of the year (in Rappaport OAR 1979 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [52] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation (T)he analysis of the ecological ethnographer consists of an integration of the cognised and operational models, an integration that permits him to describe the effects of behaviour undertaken with respect to the understanding of the cognised model on both the ecosystem and the population itself as they are represented in the operational model. In this way it becomes possible to assess the adaptiveness not only of overt human behaviour, but even the ideology that informs that behaviour (On Cognised Models in Rappaport 1979 p. 98). I have chosen this methodology because it supports a reflexive and reiterative interpretation of the events of the ritual entrainment processes and of the embodied human developmental dynamics I have experienced, observed and now describe. This comparative juxtaposition of viewpoints and a self-reflexive analytic consideration of tensions and correlations also resonates with comparative methodological approaches from the field of religious studies (see J.Z. Smith 1982 and Sam Gill 1998 pp.283–285). Such a methodology is well in keeping with the objectives of general qualitative research methodology that support the development of a rich and nuanced description of human phenomena (Lincoln and Guba 1985, Creswell 2003). 2.3 Methodological Challenges – Theoretical Framework and Data Selection My methodological approach is not without critical challenges. The first is the choice of theoretical framework within which to conduct my analysis. The second is the selection of data. The choice of theory and analytic framework are based at least in part on my hypothesis which originated prior to the formal analysis itself. My data consists primarily of the curricular features and routine events of basic military entrainment and my own experiences of the challenges and p. 176). Such rituals and the worldviews of the Tsembaga Maring that house such ritual practices also fit perfectly and were comprehensively adaptive to the world and physical ecosystem of the Simbai and Jimi Valleys of New Guinea at the time of Rappaport’s research there in the 1960s. This fully integrated trophic and symbolic hybrid economy of calories, adaptive human practice and symbolic thought existed then as a totalised or homeostatic ecosystem. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [53] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation stresses faced by all recruit soldiers and officer candidates as they transit and adapt to the ritual processes of the Canadian Forces training system. Reflecting on my earlier experiences now as an analyst, I select which of those experiences to describe within a range of theory that could explain the human dynamics driving the adaptive developmental, structural, ritual and symbolic processes of basic martial formation. Edward Evans-Pritchard suggests that a synthesised descriptive investigation should be approached more as an art than as a natural science and placed confidence in the enculturated competence of the researcher to select the appropriate data for analysis (see specifically his comments on 1969 [1951] p.82–85): Within the limits imposed by their discipline and the culture under investigation anthropologists are guided in choice of themes, in selection of facts to illustrate them, and in judgement of what is and what is not significant, by their different interests, reflecting differences of personality, of education, of social status, of political views, of religious convictions, and so forth (Evans-Pritchard 1969 [1951] pp.83–84). 2.4 Linear, Functional, Synchronic Considerations and Levels of Analysis I frame my analysis and description of the basic recruit entrainment rite as an inductive developmental process primarily in keeping with the life crisis theory of Erik Erikson (1968, 1980, 1982) but augmented with the perspective of homeostatic adaptation within living systems as employed by Rappaport (1968, 1979, 1984) and the social systems or ecological approaches typified by scholars such as Chess and Norlin (1991), Chetkow-Yanoov (1997) and Urie Bronfenbrenner (1995, 1999, 2005). This is in keeping with my experience and recollections of the ritual events I endured or facilitated but which I now describe as generally comprising a linear process implicating ritualised physical, psychosocial and symbolic processes of developmental challenge building in successive plateaus of embodied martial competency, disposition, symbolic construction and projection. These competencies in turn support the negotiation of successive developmental challenges and human adaptational processes throughout soldiers’ careers. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [54] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation This analysis also employs functional4 and structural5 considerations. My description of Canadian recruits’ adaptation follows the example from the earlier period of Rappaport’s scholarship insofar as it situates Canadian recruit soldiers within a larger self-supportive field of social structures and meanings that constitute the Canadian military cultural environment. This type of approach was employed in the pioneering works of early anthropologists and social theorists (see remarks on the foundational work of Malinowski 1961[1922], Herbert Spencer and Émile Durkheim in Elwell 2013 pp. 11–16). It also has its limitations, as noted by Andrew Vayda in the foreword to the first edition of Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors (Rappaport 1966, 1968 pp. 2–3 and Vayda in Rappaport 1968 p. xi). This approach can explain how a spectrum of structures function within a specific social system to reinforce and regulate all other structural features and institutions within the same system at the specific moment of analysis. For this reason, Rappaport’s earliest analysis of the Tsembaga Maring society and my corresponding observations of recruit soldiers within the training system can act as synchronic snapshots of how the various structures and institutions of each social group reinforce each other in a specific ethnographic case. Such analyses and observations do not attempt to account for the presence or origins of the various structures they describe nor do they address the reasons that one or another cultural feature performs the function ascribed to it by an analyst (see Vayda in Rappaport 1968 pp. vii–x). 4 Sociologist Kingsley Davis (1959) has argued that sociological or anthropological analyses that do not maintain a functional, that is organismic or ecological, analysis are fundamentally reductive and amount to expressions of pure description. 5 Andrew Vayda refers to Rappaport’s work as being a “functionalist” analysis (Rappaport 1968 pp.vii-x). Rappaport sometimes referred to his work as a functional effort (1979 p.53) but elsewhere referred to his work as maintaining a structural approach, or “a sort of structuralism associated with…cybernetics” (Stepanek 2006, Fabian and Rappaport 1982). There is some fluidity of terminology within Rappaport’s work and, as recounted by anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, even famous structuralists such as Claude Levi-Strauss sometimes equivocated on the definition of their school of analysis (see Matti Bunzl’s 2014 interview of Marshall Sahlins). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [55] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Although this project focuses on a single ritual process within Canadian military culture, it will help readers understand the role of ritual in martial culture more broadly. In particular, it will highlight the importance of ritual in inculcating martial meanings and priorities into the worldviews of neophyte soldiers. This manner of explanatory analysis is an established strategy within the ethnographic accounts as explained by Gregory Bateson: I wish to make it perfectly clear that I do not regard ritual, structure, pragmatic functioning and ethos as independent entities but as fundamentally inseparable aspects of culture. Since, however, it is impossible to present the whole of a culture simultaneously in a single flash, and since words must necessarily be arranged one after another, I cannot represent the culture as the elaborate interlocking structure that it is, but rather I must present it with words in linear series. I shall first present the ceremonial behaviour, then describe the various aspects of its cultural setting, and, finally, indicate how the ceremonial can be related to the various aspects of the culture (Gregory Bateson 1958 p.3). The training process for military recruits has no doubt undergone many small changes since my own experiences of basic training in 1980 and the early 1990s. Nevertheless, as Gregory Bateson noted of certain military structural institutions and collective practices (1958 pp. 120– 121), it is highly likely that the cultural features, taboos, and ethos of longstanding ritual processes remain stable despite minor changes over time. I would only add that as of 2018, there is still a substantial number of Canadian soldiers serving in uniform who were entrained during or before the events of my experiences recounted here from the early 1980s and 1990s. Those who have gone on to train others have relied on the same processes as they themselves experienced. My activities and deployments with the Canadian Forces across Canada and in Afghanistan confirmed that the critical features of the Canadian martial entrainment process and military ethos have remained largely unchanged since the time of my own entrainment. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [56] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 2.5 Ecological, Evolutionary, Ontogenetic and Phylogenetic Levels of Analysis Within ecological analyses, all features of an ecosystem directly regulate all others. Rappaport’s analysis provided a clear account of the systemic interplay and feedback mechanisms between culturally specific symbolic constructions, metaphysical motivations and biotic processes of populations. Rappaport described how transcendent postulates and Tsembaga ritual regulated the distribution of land and caloric production as well as the frequency of warfare, and the occupation of both the physical territory and the adjoining ecosystems of neighboring populations. This was a ground-breaking concept at the time; most analysts tended to view religion primarily as an emotional expression of human inability to influence the external world. In this context, ritual practice was understood as a human strategy to control anxiety, fear and to create a sense of emotional security. Rappaport cites George Homans’s summary of current thinking at the time: Ritual actions do not produce a practical result on the external world – that is one of the reasons why we call them ritual. But to make this statement is not to say that ritual has no function. Its function is not related to the world external to the society, but to the internal constitution of the society. It gives the members confidence, it dispels their anxieties, it disciplines their social organisation (Homans 1941 p.172 in Rappaport 1968 p.2). In his later theoretical framework, Rappaport argued that biological ecosystems and cultural (uniquely human) systems and meanings reciprocally regulate each other within a broader, more inclusive class of entity he refers to as a living system. Living systems “…include both organisms and associations of organisms, symbolic or cosmological constructions, social groups, structures, states, even societies” (see Adaptive Structure and its Disorders in Rappaport 1979 pp. 144–172). Despite the outward differences between a society such as the Tsembaga Maring of New Guinea and a modern institution such as the Canadian military, both entities constitute complex living socio cultural systems. Rappaport stated that: © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [57] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The application of a common set of concepts to organisms and to associations of organisms, some of which are culturally governed, is likely to attract charges of organic analogising. Such charges would be, in my view, misplaced. To say that organisms and associations of organisms are loci of adaptive processes is to recognise that they are both subclasses of a larger class, namely living or adaptive systems, and not to propose that social systems are detailed icons of organisms (or vice versa). To recognise general similarities among systems differing in obvious respects is not to deny their differences or the significance of their differences, but to contextualise them (1979 p.146). Building on the ecological systems theories of Urie Bronfenbrenner and Roy Rappaport, this analysis construes human adaptation to occur within multiple interdependent planes of biological, sociostructural, psychosocial and symbolic (even transcendent) meanings and interactions within broad and diverse social ecologies or living systems. Rappaport’s ritual and living systems theory corresponds in important ways to the understanding that non-symbolic, preverbal and pre-reflective embodied meanings circulate within human systems and allows for a nuanced articulation of the interplay between ritual performance, canonical authority, embodied pre-reflective meanings and innate (pre-encoded) socio-structural and developmental dynamics. For Rappaport, complex, liturgically ordered sequences of invariant actions characterise adaptation within human ecologies. I employ Rappaport’s ecological approach primarily to describe the function of human ritual within the immediate martial system of recruits. On that basis I describe how rituals serve an adaptive purpose within the emerging martial worldview of neophyte soldiers as well as the military ecosystem more broadly. This analysis develops the argument that embodied pre-encoded impulses and actions circulate within but are prior and foundational to subsequent social order, collective representative or symbolic meaning—understood as “worldview”—within the martial ecosystem. Within Rappaport’s ritual theory invariant, embodied actions and impulses not encoded by the performers provided the most basic units for the analysis of the processes regulating human adaptation, social © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [58] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation structure and culture within complex human living systems. Various foundational non-symbolic features and meanings circulating within the martial entrainment process lend themselves to consideration insofar as they all correspond to Rappaport’s definition of ritual action as “a form or structure…[that is], the performance of more or less invariant sequences of acts or utterances not encoded by the performers” (Rappaport 1979 p.175). After contextualising martial entrainment ritual processes within linear and ecological perspectives my analysis situates the adaptive role of ritual and the performance of predetermined and invariant actions or impulses within various human ontogenetic and phylogenetic dynamics over time. This accords well with Bronfenbrenner’s theoretical and methodological imperatives and Erikson’s description of human ontogenetic processes as occurring within and co-responding to a range of factors, including biological and ritualised psychosocial and cultural processes throughout the life cycle—that is over time6—within a given human ecosystem. Various details of the military training environment and curriculum exploit general social ritual mechanisms, processes and faculties that have functioned phylogenetically and ontogenetically to undergird the formation of comprehensive, hierarchically ordered systems of shared predetermined values, roles, expectations, and obligations in all human social groups. These meanings and imperatives in turn support a subsequent range of further elaborated symbolic meanings. 6 Beginning in the mid 1990’s Urie Bronfenbrenner came to emphasise his clinical observation that all analyses of adaptation within human systems must include a chronological dimension (see especially Edinete and Tudge 2013). By the time of Bronfenbrenner’s emphasis on this analytical imperative, anthropologist Roy Rappaport, Jesuit theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Montessory teacher and psychoanalytic practitioner Erik Erikson had already implemented specific planes of chronological consideration within their respective systems analyses. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [59] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 2.6 Ethical Considerations I have not directly interviewed informants nor have I included specific data from informants in the construction of my descriptions of events. I do not provide details of my interactions with any identifiable individuals. I instead recount routine and typical, curricular training events that I have experienced or facilitated. For these reasons, there are no potential ethical conflicts with regards to my research process nor are there issues that could arise in terms of my ethical comportment with patients or clientele as a licensed social worker and regulated health care professional pertaining to this description, methodology or analysis. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [60] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 3 Literature Review This chapter reviews the literature relevant to the ritual situation, ordering, inscription and maintenance of martial meaning within the adaptive worldviews of Canadian soldiers. This review is divided into six sections; 1) Literature addressing ritual, liturgical, developmental and ecological processes of military entrainment, 2) Cognitive, bodily and symbolic aspects of culture or enculturated worldviews, 3) Ritual processes of primary socialisation and ethology, 4) Perfected performance, embodied ritual practice and techniques of the body, 5) Ritual features of authority, responsibility, canon and sanctity 6) Ritual and ceremonial processes of symbolic projection. 3.1 Literature Addressing Ritual, Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Processes of Martial Entrainment My treatment of the ritual entrainment rite of Canadian soldiers is limited to the most fundamental ritual, developmental, ecological and symbolic processes that soldiers experience in the first few months of military service. These processes are foundational to all subsequent development soldiers will experience in the course their specific occupational training and in later unit or regimental affiliations. The ordered liturgical processes of soldiers and especially the ritual dynamics pertaining to the hierarchy of canonical meaning and authority performed and conveyed within the martial entrainment processes such as I examine are unelaborated in the scholarly literature. I develop my analysis of Canadian martial entrainment as an inductive developmental © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [61] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation process beginning with a ritual juncture of movement away from national or patriotic ideals and imperatives. This process comes to emphasise identification with collective martial, not national, symbols and meanings—a movement congruent with some other accounts of martial entrainment within American (Dievendorf 1996, Bornmann 2009, Stacey 2018) and British military systems (Burchill 2011). While I frame my analysis of the martial entrainment rite as a linear and inductive developmental challenge in keeping with Erikson’s life-crisis theory (1968, 1980, 1982), there are alternative, comparable and recent scholarly treatments of American basic recruit training carried out with emphasis on van Gennep’s (1960 [1908]) and Turner’s (1967, 1969) rite of passage framework (Dievendorf 1996, Bornmann 2009) or within clearly demarcated phases that resemble Turner’s processual format (Bourne 1967). Bornmann was a participant observer who underwent basic training while surreptitiously collecting field notes on his informants and experiences. He attributes major importance to the role of the drill sergeant, incorporating the imagery of danger that the drill sergeant provides into his discussion of critical features of the ritual passage at various places. The central, iconic role and looming oppressive presence of the drill instructor and his enactment of the rival or paternal persona is not an ensconced feature of the Canadian recruit experience and is not taken up within my description (although Canadian drill NCOs do sometimes manifest as punctiliar, elemental forces of articulated rage in the trials and nightmares of recruits). Similarly, Bornmann emphasises the traditional maternal and paternal roles martial instructors formally personify throughout recruit training and the replication or modeling of a family dynamic within which recruits establish and enact bonded sibling-like relationships in keeping with their place within their new martial family during basic entrainment. This structuration of the platoon training dynamic is also foreign to Canadian martial entrainment culture. It is also not in keeping © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [62] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation with the usual human developmental trajectory and the primary psychosocial quest for social identity when individuals tend to distance themselves from nascent family affiliation, previous familiar roles, responsibilities and parental influence. Jeffrey Dievendorf’s (1996) and Philip Gibson’s (2012) treatments of recruits’ initial entrainment processes are nested within psychoanalytic models of analysis that rely heavily on the Freudian father imagery supplied by the drill sergeant as the prime transformational mover and object of focus or fixation for young male recruits within the American military training system. Various accounts of military training also describe mimetic or shamanic considerations or highlight heroic, oedipal and animus dynamics or other repressed motivations of the personal unconscious playing out within the psyches of neophyte soldiers. These considerations are fascinating and will be noted where appropriate. They are reliant on classic psychoanalytic models of individual human motivation featuring archetypal dynamics and primal human imperatives to psychic discharge and inhibition (see especially the depth psychology analysis of Gibson 2012). These individual psychic dynamics are collateral to the normative Eriksonian psychosocial developmental impulses and competencies I wish to highlight within this analysis that are ritually exploited within the Canadian martial entrainment processes. Dievendorf also attributes considerable significance to the death and rebirth symbolism often emphasized in classic accounts of traditional rites of passage, as well as to the recruit’s ultimate identification with mythic or divine heroes or to the mourning process thought to accompany the symbolic death experienced by all initiates within ritual passages as highlighted by Mircea Eliade (1957 in Dievendorf 1996 p.5). I do not endorse the centrality of this symbolism, the mythic construction of identity or the profound sense of loss portrayed by Dievendorf (1996 p.10) as being significant features of Canadian martial entrainment. Stephen Stacey (2018) has © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [63] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation highlighted the pervasive disconfirmation of civilian worldview and habitus among American Marine recruits that I think is similar to the type of comprehensive dismissal and devalorisation of civilian culture experienced by Canadian recruit soldiers in the course of their early enculturation into martial society (see also John Whelan 2018, 2017). As mentioned, many recruits do retrospectively describe their experience of basic entrainment as a rite of passage. Canadian martial entrainment is not necessarily a passage in the same way that, for example, a coming-of-age ritual might be in a traditional culture. As Bornmann concedes, the recruit experience does not fully meet van Gennep’s criteria as a ritual passage. Recruits are not fully considered soldiers at the conclusion of basic training, and, furthermore, some officer candidates are not commissioned until long after basic training. In both the American and Canadian systems, despite the profound changes or developments ritually established in martial neophytes, full martial identity and status are deferred until completion of military occupation training which might be months or years after the completion of basic training. Canadian recruits are generally not subsequently reincorporated back into their original communities of origin prior to enrollment. Bornmann nevertheless maintains the “separation, transition, reincorporation” phases of the recruit basic training experience and highlights the “liminality” aspects of the process which were critically emphasised in van Gennep and also Turner’s1 treatment of ritual passage. Bornmann also frames the recruit training process as an opportunity to negotiate and assert individual identity through acts of existential resistance to the forces and rules bearing down on the 1 Mathieu Deflem describes the socio-political orientation of Turner’s processual/dialectical analyses of ritual and the strong influence that Max Gluckman, historical dialectical materialism and the neomarxist ideology of the RhodesLivingston Institute (which supported Turner during some of his fieldwork in Africa) likely exerted over all subsequent scholarly analyses of rites of passage (1991 pp. 1 ff.). Bernhard Leistle similarly notes a Marxist (hermeneutic) tendency permeating Bloch’s ritual analyses (Köpping, Leisle, Rudolph [eds.] 2006 p.39). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [64] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation neophyte trainee. Active individual resistance by recruits was not a pattern of behaviour I observed in my two first-hand experiences undergoing basic training. I will describe the basic training process generally as one of total compliance and subjugation of body, time and prerogative to the schedule, the direction of course directing staff (DS) and to the overwhelming tasks at hand. I do consider Bornmann’s analysis at several points throughout my discussion, especially insofar as there are episodes of liminality and antistructure which I will recount and develop in a different way than Bornmann, Turner and van Gennep. I especially agree with Bornmann that basic entrainment primarily offers an opportunity for recruits to embark on a process of establishing a martial identity and that the basic entrainment process results in critical foundational dispositions, orientations and components of a martial identity that will only fully congeal for soldiers at a much later stage of their military formation. I describe the process within Erikson’s schema as a developmental crisis to be traversed within points of accord and approval among peers and not primarily in individual differentiation from the military peer group as framed within Bornmann’s analysis (see also Nürnberger 2013). As I will explain, the two approaches are not altogether divergent and our analyses intersect substantially, most particularly with regards to the developmental aspects of the broader construct of martial identity which was the primary focus of Bornmann’s analysis. Bornmann explores the bonded relations that emerge between (exclusively male) American recruit soldiers within the “fictive kinship” theory of anthropologist David Schneider (1965, 1984) and describes martial bondedness as a kind of exclusive and “sacrosanct” loyalty to the primary group. As mentioned, Bornmann describes this type of bondedness as germinating in basic training but not fully emerging in American soldiers until later in the martial career when such relations are conceived of in terms of committed “brotherhood,” “fraternity,” or kinship. Bornmann reviews © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [65] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation kinship theory at some length in support of his position that the strength of martial bonds can in fact equal those of consanguineal relations and that such valencies meet the definition of “kinship” under any number of anthropological or tacit senses of the term (Bornmann 2009 pp. 353–389). I find Bornmann’s analysis insightful; I have observed that Canadian members of elite Special Operations Forces (SOF) units or close comrades who have endured the hardships of war together do refer to one another as brothers. In contrast with Bornmann’s analysis of American basic entrainment, the concept of bonded kinship or brotherhood (siblinghood?) does not really emerge between Canadian recruits during their initial entrainment processes and I find that this motif is not a primary metaphor reflected in Canadian martial consciousness or the martial worldview for most soldiers. More helpful is Bornmann’s observation that the type of bondedness that emerges between recruit soldiers formally resembles E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s description of Nuer segmented kinship – a kind of “enduring diffuse solidarity” (2009 p.354). Within segmented kinship, individuals’ loyalties extend to broader tribal dimensions or social structures but with bonded valencies being more densely constructed within increasingly smaller and closer social groupings of Nuer society not necessarily determined by blood relations. This quite closely parallels the adaptive fluid solidarity that emerges among Canadian soldiers who are posted or deployed frequently and who are disposed to spontaneously enact bonds sustaining mutual accountability, commitment and interreliance within small groups of comrades who may be virtual strangers. I do address the corporate morality of Canadian soldiers as a concept of “translocal sociality” subsequent to Bloch’s (2008) articulation of the concept of “transcendent sociality” as best described within Durkheim’s (1997 [1893], 1995 [1912]) propositions about mechanical solidarity, moral unity and collective consciousness or Mary Douglas’s remarks about exemplary mutual accountability (1999). At a certain juncture within the entrainment process recruits experience a type of embodied and symbolic epiphany that imparts a tangible degree of corporate consciousness, awareness, © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [66] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation committed belongingness, cohesion, identification, communitas or intercorporeality between Canadian military members that equates to, or resembles in some measure, a kind of exclusive or projected clan identity within the martial worldview of recruits. I develop this experiential generation of corporate unity among Canadian recruits, in contrast to Bornmann’s analysis, as a product of perfected embodied ritual practice and as a hybrid phenomenal/symbolic experiential realisation, in some cases involving or incorporating a modulated state of consciousness. There has been some previous scholarly consideration of the ritual and psychological aspects of training soldiers for killing in war (Grossman 2009 [1995, 1996], Shay 1994, 2002, Dyer 1985, Irwin 2008, Moon 2016, Beneda 2017). These sources primarily consider the psychological aspects of conflicted or pathologised martial identities in fully trained soldiers or veterans. These sources do not fully consider the range of adaptive human ritual, developmental and psychosocial dynamics of group cohension operant within the entrainment process I specifically examine within this project. Those sources that examine the adaptive developmental processes of soldiers in any connection with ritual tend to restrict their considerations to the construct of “masculinity” or to processes catalysing masculinity more specifically as the primary feature of martial social “identity” (Arkin 1971, Gilmore 1990, Dievendorff 1996, Hale 2007, Bornmann 2009, Burchell 2011, Stacey 2018). Peter Haldén (2016) considers the ritual and symbolic construction of warriors and the martial ethos within various historical or traditional warrior societies that are generally beyond the scope of this analysis of the initial entrainment processes of modern era Canadian soldiers. His sociological perspective does not address the embodied ethological and psychosocial developmental aspects of ritual entrainment I examine within my project. His analysis of the projected moral and symbolic aspects of martial oaths and social contract is taken up along with Burkert’s (2006) contribution on this specific ritual mechanism within my examination. Similarly, © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [67] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Keegan (1976, 1993) and Ehrenreich (1997) have explored psychological and cultural considerations relative to soldiers’ entrainment for war from a historical perspective but do not treat the innate embodied or ethological dynamics of entrainment or the developmental considerations relative to enculturating soldiers to function within martial environments. Other sources consider various ritual or symbolic aspects of martial identity but focus their analyses at various later stages of the military career or in pathologised post-career transition to civilian life (Rose 2015, Moon 2016, Beneda 2017, Whelan 2018, 2017). Aaron Jackson (2013), Richard Preston and Ian Wards (1987) have analysed military doctrine and argued that the military, political, economic and social histories of Australia and New Zealand, including their shared commonwealth origins and self-identities maintained in distinction to American and British national and military agendas, render the militaries of those countries usefully comparable to the Canadian military establishment in terms of social, structural and cultural features. My experience and interactions with soldiers and officers from a range of foreign militaries leads me to believe that the entrainment rituals, national and martial history, ethos, culture and disposition of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand are strikingly similar to that of Canadian soldiers. Scholarly literature from those countries regarding the entrainment rituals of their troops could be especially useful sources for my analysis within this project. The literature search and review of sources from those countries regarding their basic entrainment and most especially the ritual, cultural, developmental and ecological aspects of their early entrainment processes revealed no pertinent scholarship applicable to my analysis. Canadian sources written in English from the last fifty years from any scholarly field that examine the primary features and processes of the initial training and enculturation of soldiers almost exclusively consider only the organizational, curricular, ethical, psychological and only © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [68] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation occasionally the developmental or psychosocial aspects of basic military entrainment. There is current Canadian scholarship on the development of military ethics in soldiers and officers (Lepine 2003, Bentley 2005, Coombs 2016, O’Keefe, Catano, Kellaway, Charbonneau et al 2016) only remotely pertinent to this work insofar as martial “ethos” and morality come into play for Canadian recruits and officer cadets within my analysis. Lepine (2003), Bentley (2005) and Coombs (2016) are primarily occupied with the Canadian military organisational culture specific to operational leadership development after entrainment and with broader conceptual issues of operational ethics and doctrine. Follwell (2009) considers transformational ethical leadership development requirements of the Canadian Armed Forces from an organisational perspective while O’Keefe (2016) addresses qualities predictive of ethical leadership as would be beneficial to the recruitment process prior to enrolment and basic training. None of these treatments examines the connection of ethics or morality with the ritual, sociostructural, developmental or ethological dynamics of adaptive collective solidarity such as I develop within my analysis. Many scholarly works include descriptions or analyses of the initial phase of military training but within military organisations that, unlike Canada, segregate male or female candidates into separate platoons and maintain divergent performance standards for male and female recruit soldiers and officers. Other analyses address the initial phase of entrainment as part of more comprehensively combat oriented martial cultures (Dievendorf 1996, Ricks 1997, Bornmann 2009, Woulfe 2009, Burchell 2011, Stacey 2018). Such analyses highlight ritual features and cultural themes foreign to the martial ethos and dispositions of Canadian recruit soldiers and may not correspond extensively to the Canadian martial system I examine. Syed-Mohamed (2016) describes the initial training phases of military officers within an university settings in the UK unlike that of the Canadian officer cadets I describe. Da Cruz (1987), Ricks (1997), Woulf (2009) © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [69] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation have written non-academic accounts of American Marine Corps basic training. Mann’s (2002) nonacademic work recounts his basic training experiences in becoming an officer in the American Army National Guard. These are accounts that address the initial training processes within martial cultures significantly different than that of the Canadian Armed Forces and, again, do so without analysis of the liturgical, developmental, and ecological dynamics or processes I examine. In my review of relevant literature I located no sources highlighting ecological considerations relative to military training or any sources that examined the liturgical features of martial entrainment. 3.2 Cognitive, Symbolic and Embodied Aspects of Culture or Individually Enculturated Worldviews Berger’s general theory about the social construction of human worldviews adaptively ordering human experience and meanings is found within The Sacred Canopy (1967 [1969, 1990]) and, in a much more detailed format, within Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1966 [1967]). His overall theory explores the symbolic interactionist approach to human knowledge and meaning influenced by George Herbert Mead and the school of American sociology (Berger and Luckmann 1966 [1967] p.17). Berger, Luckmann and the symbolic interactionist school understand meaning and reality as socially constructed and residing only in symbolic social phenomena.2 As Berger and Luckmann explain, human actions and intentions are symbolically generated, expressed and regulated within all human systems. Actions and signals are important insofar as they can be cognitively understood to represent some intended propositional social meaning or imperative by others (see Berger and Luckmann 1966 [1967] pp. 19–46). My own 2 See also Berger 1967 for his contention that the symbolically constructed worldview is not essentially resilient and enduring but requires constant revisiting and maintenance (p. 32), contra Geertz’s ideas about symbolic religious constructions creating “powerful, pervasive and long lasting moods and motivations” (1973 p.90). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [70] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation stance differs. I maintain that pre-reflective non-symbolic signals, impulses, meanings and motivations that are not socially constructed or encoded by the performers permeate human interactions and circulate within human social systems. Such pre-cognitive signals and embodied agency compel human social behaviours and tacitly undergird representational knowledge in ways which are not always realised or symbolically encoded.3 These innate and invariant ethological signals, impulses or motivations regulate human environments and social structures and contribute profoundly to the construction of a range of higher collective symbolic constructions which also animate the adaptive martial worldview of Canadian soldiers.4 3 Charles Taylor, following Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, describes a requirement to clarify or resituate the prevailing representational construal of knowledge or epistemological approach that does not give priority to the primacy of engaged pre-reflective embodied agency of the self within spatial, as opposed to disembodied moral or ontological space (Taylor 2016 p.16, see also Lakoff 2012 and especially Ruth Abbey’s section “Overcoming Epistemology” for a detailed overview of Taylor’s efforts against this “epistemological legacy of the scientific revolution 2000 pp. 178 ff.”). This type of embodied, pre-reflective and pragmatic knowledge corresponds in important ways with Husserl and Habermas’s subsequent employment of the concept of lifeworld described later within this chapter. 4 My position on the human constitution—my “anthropology” proper—is in keeping with the classical Durkheimian theory of human operation in the world as homo duplex. Durkheim maintained that the human operates simultaneously within both a “lower” physical, embodied spectrum of meaning, innate impulse and motivation as well as within a “higher” symbolic register of meanings and associations (see Elwell 2013 pp.294-295). Durkheim also maintained the simultaneous operation of an external control mechanism that operated on the human subject by means of an internalisation by the subject of the broader external matrix of social regulation as an additional component of human nature – the socially derived “collective conscience” or possibly “collective consciousness” (the translation from the French term “conscience collective” as employed by Durkheim is ambiguous – see Collins and Makowsky 1989 p. 105 in Elwell 2013 p 363). Durkheim theorised this collectively derived cognitive component of human nature as the moral conscience of individuals (Durkheim 1970 [1897] pp. 208ff.) and maintained that this second component of one’s hypostasised human nature was derived through our interaction and primary socialisation and bonding with others. This set of socialised meanings becomes internalised within the human subject and in some way function to moderate the exercise of individual primal motivations and actions of the egoistic, self-oriented, non-symbolic dimension of our human nature. Victor Turner described the neurobiological dynamics and ritual implications of the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [71] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Anthropologist Clifford Geertz has written extensively on culture, religion and ritual. In a way similar to Berger, Geertz defined culture as: “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men (sic) communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about their attitudes towards life” (1973 p.89 italics mine). Geertz described human meaning as being conveyed or stored in symbols (1957a p.623). He articulated culture as falling roughly into two realms: the moral, aesthetic and emotive dimensions of a people that he called the “ethos” (their consciousness); and the realm of cognitive ideas a people hold about the world and how it is ordered, which he called their “worldview”: A people’s ethos is the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood; it is the underlying attitude toward themselves and their world that life reflects. Their world-view is their picture of the way things in sheer actuality are, their concept of nature, of self, of society. It contains their most comprehensive ideas of order (1957 pp.421– 422). Geertz’s definition of culture as a complex of inherited (that is pre-encoded) moods and ideas has been widely taken up within anthropology. He described “religion” as those specific symbolic products of culture that generated the prevailing moods of a people and their “worldview” was their idea of the way the world is ordered (for Geertz and Berger then, worldview is a concept almost identical to Rappaport’s idea of cognised model introduced in the previous chapter). For Geertz religion, specifically rituals, were the symbolic, communicative means by which all cultures established and maintained agreement between their ethos and worldview (see Geertz 1957a pp. interreliance and “symbiotic coadaptation” between the “archaic” and the more recently evolved physical structures of the human brain that process stress and integrate sensory and symbolic meanings (Turner 1983 pp. 224-228). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [72] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 421–437, 1973 p.90 and Geertz in Micheelsen 2002 pp.2–20).5 Geertz’s symbolic analyses of ritual and culture were reliant on the foundational work and classifications of Milton Singer (1955) who considered multivocalic performative rituals, not the underlying range of pre-encoded actions or impulses comprising or animating performative rituals, to be the most basic units for the analysis of cultural phenomena (Grimes in Antes, Geertz and Warne 2004 pp.110–111). Broadly speaking, worldview means something like a body of cognitively integrated constructs about reality or a body of beliefs about how the world and the cosmos operate and the laws of causality that may operate within it as it is manifested within the consciousness of individuals within society (see Berger and Luckmann 1966 p.79). As Talal Asad has argued, a symbolic analysis of culture as a body of cognitive meanings may not provide a compelling explanation of how symbols, that is, communicated discursive information, could act to order and compel the moods or motivate the actions of a people (Asad 1983 pp. 238–239). Asad has further argued for the requirement that any explanation of religion or culturally specific ritual action maintain an analysis of its exercise of compulsive physical power to socially subordinate and regulate the human body (Asad 1983, 1993, 2008). This emphasis on human symbolic meaning, and human existence within webs of cognitive meanings does not take into account a broader range of embodied, non symbolic mechanisms of adaptation circulating within human systems. A fuller and more integrated understanding of the term worldview that includes conditioned embodied competencies and pre-reflective or innate dispositions is required (Asad 1988 pp.78–79). Jürgen Habermas, building upon phenomenologist Edmund Husserl’s understanding of the fundamental 5 Geertz famously defined religion as “a system of symbols which act to establish powerful, pervasive and long lasting moods and motivations in men (sic) by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (Geertz 1973 p.90). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [73] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation biological orientation and pragmatic embodied competence of all humans within the world, recognised a “background of implicit, pre-reflective knowledge…consisting of individual skills, the intuitive knowledge of how one deals with a situation” and “socially acquired practices, the intuitive knowledge of what one can rely on in a situation, not less than, in a trivial sense, the underlying convictions” – the phenomenological concept of lifeworld. Habermas maintains a restrictive analysis of ritual within his theory. I will make very limited use of his work6 within this project, except to note that this notion of embodied competence and his recognition that humans participate in a broader range of tacit social understandings and embodied meanings or skills within a focused range of perception is more appropriate to my project than the more restrictive inventory of symbolic meanings generally associated with the notion of worldview that technically emphasises only symbolically constituted human meanings (see Habermas 1987 [1981 German] p.135 cited by Alain Ross and Mike Chiasson 2011 p. 127. See also Geertz in Arun Micheelson 2002 p.5, Costelloe 1996, Harrington 2000, 2006). As mentioned, I construct the term worldview as an amalgam of collective, developmentally dependent cultural meanings, structural hierarchies, embodied impulses, dispositions and pre-verbal, pre-reflective physical competencies. This idea includes the expected “reality taken for granted when acting pragmatically” within which humans exercise a range of representational meanings and embodied non-symbolic and pre-reflective competencies (see Alfred Schütz and Luckmann 1994 in Köpping, Leistle, Rudolph [eds.] 2006 p.10, Asad 1997 p.44 and 1988 pp.78–79). Anthony Wallace did not explore religion primarily as the adaptive regulatory symbolic mediating mechanism operating between the two realms (ethos and worldview) of a specific 6 Despite the more comprehensive embodied concept of lifeworld conveyed within Habermas’s work, he strictly limits his consideration of ritual to “…practices facing, encountering and mastering forces of salvation and calamity” (Habermas 2011). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [74] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation culture. Rather, Wallace, like Habermas and the phenomenologists, described human culture as a “way,” or “mazeway” of strategies and competencies for acting within the world that are culturally endowed, that is, acquired in community. Society’s physical features and living agents (nature, material, people in one’s community) are the maze. The “way” or “mazeway” is a way of being or behaving in the world in order to maximize rewards within the matrix of the maze (see also Wallace 1956, 1957). Wallace also articulated that the subject imbues the mazeway with a degree of emotive investment. All humans relate emotionally to their culturally specific ways of life in a process previously referred to by Freud as cathexis (see Wallace 1957 p.25). Wallace described the mazeway as an adaptive living system and discussed it in terms of systemic concepts such as field, function and homeostasis (see Wallace 1956, 1957). The mazeway was a synonym for one’s embodied culture or cultural competence and encompassed the dialectic, adaptive and causative interactions between all of the agents and objects within the maze. The mazeway therefore played an existential and emotional role for the subject, who regulated her or his behaviour within the maze in order to minimise stress. Wallace described the relationships between subject and mazeway as mediated by transference, displacement and sublimation (1957 p.25). The mazeway for Wallace was culture, understood as an integrated set of adaptive strategies for managing adversity and going about life, and, in that capacity, the mazeway was the foundation of individual identity. When culture is lost, that is, when features of the mazeway are degraded or destroyed, the human subject experiences loss of meaning and overwhelming calamity that can convey a range of psychosocial pathology. This explains Wallace’s emphasis on “stress,”7 and its 7 Throughout both Wallace and Rappaports’ work there is an emphasis on “adaptiveness” within living systems. The broadest meaning of the term “adaptiveness” implied throughout Rappaport’s earliest work on trophic exchanges within the Tsembaga ecology refers, as with Wallace’s analyses of a mazeway experiencing acculturative pressure, to an entity’s complex physiological response or change in response to “stress” which Rappaport described as a © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [75] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation association with anomie when cultural systems are damaged or dismantled. Wallace highlighted the need to understand the dynamics of organic ritual, religious and cultural innovations within social systems to restore mazeways. Such phenomena are known as “revitalisation movements” and were often accompanied by performative ritual innovations (Merton 1949 [1938,1957] in Wallace 1985 [1972] pp. 319–324). Like Wallace, anthropologist Tim Ingold picks up the concept of culturally conveyed “ways” of living and acting along a path or interconnected web of paths or traces within a broader field. Ingold also employs the “maze” concept and adopts the ecological, organic analogy which he calls the “anatomical gaze” (Ingold 2010). Ingold argues that cultural meanings involve culturally specific and habituated practices of moving through the world, and interacting with animate and inanimate, as well as material and immaterial, entities. Culturally-acquired strategies and habituated bodily routines are not only appropriated by the subject but are also marked upon the social environment. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu developed the concept of habitus to refer to the embodied “products” of enculturation. The term habitus was borrowed from Marcel Mauss (who credits Aristotle) to denote the biological, sociological and psychological regulations pertaining to combination of “misfortune and emergency.” Borrowing from other current scholarly sources from that era, Rappaport further described such physiological stress reactions as those which could be induced by disease, traumatisation, rage, fear and prolonged anxiety (see Houssay et al. 1955 p.1096 and National Research Council 1963 p.53 in Rappaport 1979 p.33). While the argument undertaken within this investigation examines the adaptiveness of soldiers within their own systems throughout a harsh and protracted period of entrainment which was unconsidered by Rappaport and Wallace at the time of their analyses, it is clear that the psychophysiological and structural stress endured by Canadian recruit soldiers is experienced as an extended odyssey of minor misfortunes and emergencies to which they must adapt. The ritual and sociodynamic competence generated in recruits is ordered to prepare them as soldiers to adapt within the range of prolonged anxiety, repeated traumatisation, fear and rage experienced in the course of serial deployments to theatres of war such as described in the prologue to this analysis. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [76] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation collective and individual practical reason and practiced bodily habit (Mauss 1973 [1934] pp. 73– 74). For Mauss, habitus pertained to skilled physical patterns of bodily movement as well as to rudimentary discriminations within classes of society about education, propriety, fashion and prestige. Bourdieu developed this concept further to encompass the full range of dispositions that reflect social class, taste, and value. He argued that these embodied meanings, and the social distinctions they maintained, perpetuated differential access to resources within the “field” (see Silva 2016 pp.166–183). Indeed, habitus came to signify the full range of cognitive structures, mental and psychic schemes, dispositions and embodied prioritisations structurally embossed upon a subject. Within Bourdieu’s system cultural capital—the recognition by others of the status of one’s embodied valuations and maintained distinctions—was amassed like currency, to be used for the subject’s benefit. This concept of cultural capital is taken up by Bornmann (2009) in his description of American martial entrainment. I too see cultural capital as comprising one component of martial identity formation. Contra Bourdieu and Bornmann, I construct such socially bestowed capital more as a commodity sought in the approval of peers at a specific developmental juncture. This capital has capacity to ensure secure solidarity, personal acceptance and integration within a group. It is centred around a performatively embodied martial identity and experiential unity within the group, not primarily as a way of amassing higher status and individual differentiation or prerogative within that group. The developmental emphasis on the requirement for the approval of peers and common identification with them in the development of identity was a critical feature of Erikson’s analysis – a feature not fully emphasised on this point by Bornmann (see also Nürnberger 2013 pp. 41–42). Unlike Berger, Bourdieu did not hold that culture simply produces a set of cognitive or symbolic constructions that individuals absorb. Like Wallace and Ingold, he argued that culture provides individuals with an adaptive and strategic way of integrating the meanings—including © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [77] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation social hierarchies—encountered in the broader field (or ecosystem or web or maze) within which they live. The subjective embodied “lived” activity of the subject was referred to by Bourdieu as “practice.” The analysis of the embodied, but always ongoing and recursive, production of cultural content and meaning was, for Bourdieu, primarily then a “theory of practice” (Bourdieu 1977).8 Like Bourdieu and Mauss, Catherine Bell has also described an approach to ritual by means of a theory of embodied “practice.” In keeping with Mauss, Wallace, Bourdieu and Ingold, Bell has observed that ritually derived meanings accommodating humans to their specific social environments are deeply and permanently “inscribed” upon and embodied by ritual participants (see especially Bell 1992 pp.98–101 and Taylor 2016 pp.41–44). Ingold, Wallace and Bourdieus’ constructions privilege the non-cognitive concepts of embodied “practice” and “habit” as adaptive cultural endowments alongside the “ethos and cognitive worldview” inventory of meanings that have predominated in ethnographic and anthropological discussions of culture to date (see also the extensive discussions by Catherine Bell 1992, 2009). This approach appears to be positioned to more fully consider the range of noncognitive meanings and embodied competencies constituting culture (and Maurice Bloch directly equates culture, habitus, structure and a broad range of embodied ritual “deference” 2004 p.128). McNeill (1995) explores the sociostructural aspects of rhythm, embodied movement and ritual bonding of recruits in basic training which are important to my larger analysis. Newlands (2014) has studied historical British military training methods that subjugate soldiers’ bodies during the initial transactions between recruits and their training system. The specific practices she describes are no longer tolerated within the Canadian military training system. While not to the degree of severity that Newlands describes, Canadian soldiers undergo similar bodily subjugations 8 See Köpping, Leistle and Rudolph [eds.] who refer to Bourdieu’s work as dialectical structuralism 2006 p.21. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [78] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation in the course of their training that are sufficient to catalyse the socio-structural and developmental processes I will describe. Like Bornmann, Newlands describes basic entrainment as the opportunity for various degrees of resistance which I do not recognise or recount in my analysis as a prominent feature of Canadian recruits’ experience. The Second World War inductees described in Newlands’s account actively employed their bodies as weapons of resistance against entrainment, the system, discipline, leadership and probably the war itself. Matti Friedmann (2016) describes similar resistance among Israeli recruit conscripts (not volunteer recruits as in my analysis) in the early 1990’s though his main focus is the deep and enduring friendships among a stable group of soldiers that developed over a long period of service. Kenneth MacLeish (2012) employs Susan Buck-Morss’s (1992) phenomenological analysis of American society’s commodification of soldiers’ bodies. MacLeish highlights the complex interrelationships between the structural conditions of martial production, the various planes of power to which soldiers are subjected, and the ambivalent subjective relationship of American soldiers to bodily harm and technologies of bodily protection. MacLeish describes the martially entrained embodied experience as a state of valorised anesthesia or invulnerability to pain cultivated in soldiers by the state to facilitate the instrumental expenditure of soldiers bodies in war. The valuation of embodied discipline evoked in juxtaposition with practices of imposed discomfort in MacLeish’s analysis is not without parallels in the complex combination of collective orientation and excruciating physical performance employed to catalyse stoic dispositions and identity in Canadian soldiers I describe within my analysis. MacLeish (2015) subsequently highlighted the comprehensive ownership exerted over American soldiers’ broken and pathologised bodies throughout successive deployment cycles and the diminished agency soldiers retained in the control of their own bodies and health within an overarching and oppressive American military structure. This too has parallels with Canadian martial entrainment and I highlight the volitional nature of Canadian recruits’ © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [79] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation expenditure of bodily effort as a developmentally necessary means to maintaining solidarity and establishing identity among peers within an embryonic martial social structure at a critical ontogenetic juncture not explored by MacLeish. 3.3 Ritual Processes of Ethology and Primary Socialisation In this section of the project I rely heavily upon the work of ethologist Konrad Lorenz, who studied the role of innate signals, gestures and ritualised movement in establishing cohesion and hierarchy in social animals. Lorenz’s work demonstrates, perhaps counterintuitively, that innate ritualised ethological signals constitute the cohesion and hierarchies within animal groups (1966a, 1966b pp. 276–278), and as such they are the necessary foundation upon which further human symbolic constructions are built. I draw on Lorenz’s ethological theory primarily to establish the connection between invariant animal signals (impulsive postures, behaviours, calls, smells, chemical signals, habits and migratory or seasonal patterns) and Rappaport’s propositions about the ecological regulating functions of communications within living systems. Such signals are “obvious” indexical displays of social hierarchy manifested in any ritual performance. Lorenz stood squarely in the tradition of earlier ethologists (Darwin, Whitman, Heinroth, Huxley, and Selous) and his research, theories and subsequent collaboration with Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt undergird the modern study of human ethology and the biological basis for social behaviour. Lorenz argued that human ritual processes developed from the biological signals that had evolved over time, and that such processes correspond to ritualised signals in other animal species he studied. In animals, such signals can communicate states of readiness to mate, fight or defend territory, and for that reasons, they help to regulate the density and distribution of a population within a particular ecosystem. Such signals make it possible for animals to persist in the face of competition and environmental challenges, and they function in the same way for humans, © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [80] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation including soldiers, who must maintain robust solidarity in order to defend or occupy territory against opposing groups. Lorenz’s analysis coheres with Rappaport’s theory that signals regulate all living systems and that rituals entail atavistic social structuring qualities – that is they maintain and reproduce relations of social structure, dominance and subordination in the same way as invariant, non-symbolic impulses do among other social animals (Leach 1965 [1954] in Rappaport 1979 OAR p.179). In his later work, Lorenz introduced the concept of adaptive analogy (Lorenz 1974) to explain how human and other same-species groups perpetuate adaptive and competitive functions such as bonding or pseudospecific exclusion. Animals perform competitive functions instinctually and reproduce such abilities within successive generations phyletically (through biological reproduction) or through ritualisations which become instinctual over successive generations. Human beings also perpetuate ritualised functions culturally. The cultural acquisition of these functions permits humans to deploy competitive attributes against other human groups much more rapidly than would be possible through physical reproduction or close proximal colonisation over successive generations. In this thesis I argue that the ritual inscription process instills bonds among soldiers that mimic those of an exclusive colony of animals. I describe the ritual inscription of such cultural adaptations with respect to intraspecies killing, bonded solidarity and self-sacrificial behaviour. While these specific tendencies and valencies prevail through biological processes in animals, they are especially critical and uniquely prominent within martial ritual entrainment processes9 and the foundational martial worldview. As I will explain, they are also critical to the 9 Lorenz also maintained the connection between animal ritualisations and the analogous human construct of liturgical orders which culturally reproduced the ecological ordering (regulating) functions of phyletic ritualisations within human cultures; “ …..the Catholic priest’s chanting during mass is strictly regulated in pitch and rhythm by liturgical rules. The riot of form and colour accompanying human ceremonial, all its pomp and pageantry are developed, in © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [81] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation enterprise of war, the activity for which the martial worldview of soldiers is uniquely adaptive. They are generated in soldiers via ritual and cultural processes which can best be understood in light of the tremendous explanatory power of Lorenz’s concept of cultural analogy. Lorenz’s work is problematic on several grounds. Ethology and sociobiology have moved away from the idea that animal behavior, including the use of invariant signals and impulses, is geared towards the persistence of a given species as was emphasized by Lorenz. Rather, animal behaviours are now thought to promote adaptive persistence of individual genes (Dawkins 2006 [1989]) or some combination of kin or group survival or multi-level selection within a species (D. S. Wilson 1997, 2011, E.O. Wilson 1978, D.S.Wilson and E.O.Wilson 2008 in Sapolsky 06 July 2014) – not the persistence of the species itself. These newer perspectives do not undermine my use of Lorenz’s theories to argue that animals comprehensively employ ritualised indexical signals as adaptive, ecological regulating strategies within their range of territory (as Rappaport would argue are common to organisms within any living system 1979 pp. 54ff.). More devastating criticisms of Lorenz’s work centred on his activities during the Third Reich, his famous “hydraulic” theory of aggression, his orientation towards the objective pursuit of science, and his personal integrity. After the Second World War there emerged evidence that Lorenz had obscured or distorted the nature of his German military war service. Lorenz’s personal correspondence from the years leading up to the Second World War leaves little doubt about his personal ambitions as a young scientist within the National Socialist establishment in Germany and about his willingness to conduct—or at least orient—his ethological research in the service of the cultural history, in the service of the same functions and along the lines astonishingly parallel, to those seen in phylogenetic ritualization” (1966a pp.71ff., 1966b p.281). See also Victor Turner’s comments on ritualisation and analogy (1983 pp. 221-245). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [82] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation emerging nationalistic ideological agenda. Klopfer suggests that Lorenz’s theories about innate animal impulses may have been developed in support of the German National Socialists’ eugenic agenda (Klopfer 1994 pp. 202–208). Lorenz later maintained that he joined the German military medical corps and had been directly dispatched to the Eastern front where he was captured and interned for the remainder of the war. Research has established, however, that Lorenz first served as a psychologist with the SS in a prison camp at Posen conducting research on “racial hybridisation” of Polish-German human subjects before being sent off to the Eastern front. All this was taking place while his future Nobel co-laureates Nikolaas Tinbergen was imprisoned by the Gestapo for serving with the Dutch resistance and while Karl von Frisch had been pressed into wartime scientific servitude for the Nazis, researching viruses affecting honeybee populations (Klopfer 1994).10 The “hydraulic aggression” or “drive-discharge” theory, the centrepiece of Lorenz’s legacy, was appropriated widely within other specialisations. The theory was based on the earlier aggression catharsis theory of Freud, and understood human aggression as continuously building to a critical point where violent, unregulated or aggressive catharsis was required to dissipate destructive impulses. This was a compelling and broadly influential theory but was eventually superseded by subsequent ethologists who were able to demonstrate that aggression and collateral violence do not build and are not dissipated by catharsis in the manner described by Lorenz (Geen and Donnerstein 1998). 10 By 2015 the weight of evidence stacking up against Lorenz resulted in the University of Salzburg stripping him, posthumously, of an honourary PhD awarded to him in 1983. At the time of this dissertation submission in 2018, the Nobel Foundation official website still indicates Lorenz (along with Tinbergen and von Frisch) as holding the 1973 Nobel Prize. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1973/ © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [83] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Lorenz’s main finding regarding the signals that regulate animal distribution and social structure within ecosystems has not been affected by the discoveries about his Nazi affiliations or by the challenge to his hydraulic aggression theory. His research, theories and subsequent collaboration with Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt provided the basis for the modern study of human ethology and the biological basis for human social behaviour. Much of his work is still included in introductory psychology textbooks to this day (Klein 2000 [1996] p. 477, Haggbloom, Warnick, Warnick, Jones, Yarbrough, Russell, Borecky, Mcgahhey, Powell, Beavers, Monte, and Salovey 2002 pp.139–152, Burkhardt 2008 p.17). His work is also foundational to the discipline of ritual theory and provides the background for some of the critical elaborations of René Girard and Walter Burkert that will be considered within this analysis. Lorenz’s ethology was foundational for psychologist Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman whose 1995 [1996, 2009] publication On Killing11 has been taken up broadly among military leadership (although not among military clinical personnel and psychosocial practice leaders) for its insights into the psychological costs to soldiers for involvement in killing in war and for being operantly conditioned to do so within the course of entrainment. Grossman’s work is of great interest here because preliminary features of his primary thesis are situated upon eco-ethological regulating signals and response mechanisms described by Lorenz and other ethologists. Grossman, an American combat veteran, does not consider the further ethological analyses provided by Lorenz regarding adaptive animal dynamics which enable the very acts of intraspecific (same species) killing that Grossman maintains are so destructive and psychologically costly to soldiers. Lorenz’s 11 Grossman’s work On Killing (1995 [1996, 2009]) is highly reliant on Lorenz’s work. Even the title is derivative of Lorenz’s most famous work On Aggression (1966a.) Grossman appears to downplay such reliance and cites Lorenz only twice, making little reference to animal ethology in the book. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [84] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation (and also Erik Erikson’s) critical ethological elaborations about the existence of the adaptive social mechanism of pseudospeciation (Lorenz 1970) enabling intraspecific killing is taken up to some extent within this analysis and argues against Grossman’s major thesis. Grossman’s conclusions do not accord with my own observations from hundreds of clinical and therapeutic interactions I have conducted with Canadian soldiers and war veterans in both Canada and Afghanistan from 2002 to 2013. Neither do they accord with my more limited clinical interactions with serving American soldiers during my operational deployment as a mental health clinician at the American Combat Hospital (Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit) at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan in 2010. Contra Grossman, I do not find that soldiers are troubled by their involvement in killing human enemies except where such activity involves breaches of martial morality, extreme traumatisation to the soldier, martial comrades or civilians, undue compulsion by superiors or the witnessing of human atrocity.12 Within this analysis then, I describe at some length the genesis of an adaptive 12 There is a current trend in trauma research and clinical practice on “moral injury” within Canadian and international military and veteran health care entities such that the topic was the focus of the recent Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR) Forum in Toronto in September 2017 and the NATO Lecture Series held in Ottawa in late November 2017. Moral injury is taken up almost exclusively by the researchers as an injury resulting from a transgression of deeply held moral belief or expectation (Litz, Stein, Delaney, Lebowitz, Nash, Silva and Maguen 2009, Nash, Merino-Carper, Mills, Au, Goldsmith and Litz 2013, Moon 2016, Beneda 2017) or more specifically within Jonathan Shay’s definition as something that happens when soldiers act unethically or are the recipients of the unethical acts of superiors, “…a betrayal of what’s right by someone who holds legitimate authority (eg. in the military — a leader) in a high stakes situation (all three)” (Shay 2014). Unfortunately, the current clinical definition of the term and general thrust of research and interventions to this type of moral injury neglect the “other” type of moral injury which has not yet been articulated within the canons of military or clinical trauma research or diagnostic classification – specifically, a soldier’s alienation or diminished involvement in adaptive, collective communion, identification and shared morality and meaning with other soldiers – an injury resulting from degraded interaction with moral collectivity and meaning. I observe that a sense of moral collectivity develops among recruits and is maintained among soldiers through the ritualised processes I will describe. I have noted that alienation and this “other” type of moral injury equates phenomenologically to classical constructions of anomie described in the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [85] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation pseudospecific disposition and social dynamic within the worldview or cognised model of Canadian soldiers initiated within the ritual processes of martial entrainment. This disposition to specific adaptive and protective meanings and values supports, in soldiers, the identification, stigmatisation, exclusion and killing of other humans within legitimate martial parameters. John Bornmann (2009) also employed Lorenz’s work indirectly in his analysis of the ritual dimensions of American recruits’ emerging martial identity, consciousness and dispositions. He specifically explored the manner in which the loss of personal distinctions within the training platoon precipitates a cycle of conflict and escalating violence that demands a ritual victim to assuage spiraling social tensions. This emphasis on loss of distinction, rising social tension and introductory chapter. Canadian Forces clinical leadership has expressed concerns about “stigma” and persistent rates of (anomie-like) psychosocial pathology among its soldiers (Bernier – Surgeon General Mental Health Strategy Report 2014, Zamorski, Bennett, Rusu, Weeks et.al. 2016) but has not yet “connected the dots” between “stigma,” “anomie,” and this “other” type of moral injury—alienation or disrupted communion or interaction with the moral collectivity as I have come to describe it within this project. In light of this observation, further consideration among military researchers into the need for focused research exploring moral injury in the classically-constructed sense—alienation or degraded inclusive interactions in the ritual structures and protective meanings of the moral collectivity (rather than as a result of specific ethical transgression) is long overdue. This is most especially the case in light of the evolving realisation among clinicians and researchers that non-violent or non life-threatening events can result in a range of pathology that substantially emulate the symptoms of PTSD (Bryan, Bryan, Anestis, Anestis, Green, Etienne, Morrow and Ray-Sannerud 2016, Moon 2016, Beneda 2017). Despite the progress that has been accomplished that recognises the pathological effects of moral injury as a result of one’s own or another’s moral transgression, there is very little scholarly or therapeutic elaboration of a separate class of moral injury pertaining to soldiers’ dysfunction resulting from “stigma,” estrangement or alienation from ritual practices maintaining moral collectivity and meaning that does not have its genesis specifically in moral transgression (John Whelan 2018, 2017 may be a notable exception in this regard but nevertheless still focusses primarily on ex-soldiers’ distress associated with organizational rejection or betrayal by the military system and the subsequent involuntary transition or adaptation to a much-devalorised civilian lifestyle). Again, this is a treatise on ritual adaptation, not anomie. Nevertheless, an understanding of how collective moral adaptation and solidarity are ritually established and structurally maintained among Canadian soldiers will be critical to addressing individual clinical presentations of debilitating health pathology associated with stigma or alienation in soldiers and to staging future research into macrostructural sources of this type of distress. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [86] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation violent cathartic sacrifice, release and social restoration directly implicates René Girard’s social violence equilibrium theory. Girard’s work was itself heavily dependent upon Lorenzian ethological theory (Galyona 2011 p.156). According to Bornmann, American Drill Sergeants at times precipitate a Girardian sacrificial event by identifying and then facilitating the alienation, collective contempt and punishment of a recruit scapegoat. I have not encountered clear examples of this type of “sacrificial” social regulating practice during Canadian recruit training or in my subsequent interactions with Canadian or American soldiers. In my analysis I describe the imposition of group punishment for individual shortcomings among Canadian recruits by course training NCOs as a decisive, instrumental strategy to orient and cohere the efforts of a group in order to address the performative shortcomings of one of its members in order to avoid group correction or punishment. As mentioned, the Lorenzian hydraulic social aggression or cathartic release theory based on the work of Freud has not been widely supported by researchers subsequent to Lorenz and does not then support the effectiveness of the Girardian scapegoat victim/social restoration mechanism as described by Bornmann. Deliberate efforts by training NCOs to recreate a restorative Girardian event by endorsing the sacrifice of problematic recruits would likely fail to restore social equilibrium. Bornmann also maintained that within sociological deviance theory, the attribution of deviance to a recruit scapegoat could function to reinforce the moral solidarity of the larger group at the expense a “sacrificial” or disposable underachiever (2009 pp.199ff.). Scapegoating and blackballing undoubtedly occur in the American military training system just as Bornmann described in his account. I suggest that it is more reasonable to understand such examples as operating primarily as precautionary lessons to the majority of recruits with the loss of the few stigmatised and problematic individuals being “the cost of doing business” rather than ritual pharmakoi in Girard’s sense of the term. In my experience this practice would not be tolerated within the Canadian military training system and the deliberate inscription of dispositions or © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [87] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation meanings supporting these dimensions of sacrificial practice or ritual consciousness within the worldviews of Canadian recruits does not occur. Bornmann elsewhere explores the sacrificial selfawareness of soldiers as they construct their individual “sacrifice” of time and autonomy in service to their country in the process of seeking a military identity. This secondary construction of sacrificial self-awareness in Bornmann’s analysis seems to equate to Canadian recruits’ emerging sense of obligated commitment and dedication to close comrades as I will describe in my analysis. I also describe the emergence of an awareness or sense of confident expectation among individual Canadian recruit soldiers that they can fully presume upon the costly or “self-sacrificial” dispositions and orientations of all other martial comrades on their behalf as needed. I explore this dimensions of the self-sacrificial disposition and expectation of it among martial comrades under the heading “One Man, One Kit” in Chapter 4 of this analysis. 3.4 Perfected or Invariant Performance, Embodied Ritual Practice and Techniques of the Body The first month or so of the training syllabus is devoted to the abject subjugation of recruits’ bodies and the comprehensive conditioning of the adaptive social, spatial and defensive impulses common to social animals. After that initial period, focus shifts to the perfected or invariant performance of prescribed actions. Often these actions, and the standards imposed upon recruits for their performance, do not relate to actions or standards that would ever be performed again throughout the course of a military career. Furthermore, by the end of this second portion of their basic entrainment recruits spontaneously begin to evince symbolic conceptions of the broader military society and organisational structure that they have not yet experienced. This includes substantially elaborated martial identities, motivations, obligations and impulses to solidarity, in fact extending much more broadly than to the other members of their immediate recruit course society. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [88] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation I draw on the work of several ritual scholars in addressing this phase of the martial inscription process; Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw (1994, 2007) and Frits Staal (1979, 1984, 1987, 1995, 2007) contribute critical insights into the human mechanisms of demotivated, rote, perfected performance and the significance of ritual performance of actions not encoded by performers. This of course coincides with the practice of recruits and, I propose, has much to contribute in terms of explaining the level of gravity accorded invariant performance in the various military and ceremonial practices of martial neophytes. Such invariant practices are correlated to human developmental impulses oriented to the imperative function of regeneration present within any human ecosystem, integrated worldview or cultural system. Rote practices such as those I will describe of Canadian military recruits are sometimes associated with states of moderated consciousness or ecstasy in ritual performers within other milieus. The existence and importance of ritual practices of altered consciousness among soldiers are ambiguous, not well documented in the scholarly literature, and probably not absolutely necessary to Canadian military service. Such practices can be induced by means of rote, rhythmic repetition of bodily movement in groups or individually. Dievendorf (1996) explores liminality and altered states of consciousness in recruit soldiers but primarily develops the military use of cadences sung during collective marches in formation as a type of “mantra” which, as an adjunct to moderated consciousness in soldiers, is used to integrate and mourn the loss of childhood. Dievendorf’s constructions will be considered to some extent within my analysis, especially insofar as they touch upon the connections between liminality, altered states of consciousness, minor degrees of dissociation and the production of symbolic projections. Descriptions and analyses of such bodily practices appear elsewhere in the anthropological and religious literature and I refer briefly to the classic works of Mauss (1973 [1935]), Schechner (1993) Laughlin (1997), Turner (1983, 1982, 1969, 1967), the more recent work of Tim Olaveson (2011 [2004], 2001) and © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [89] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation phenomenological researcher Shogo Tanaka (2013, 2015, 2017) in exploring connections between ritual techniques of the body, practices of altered consciousness or metaconsciousness and the inculcation and projection of a sense of an enhanced, embodied corporate unity or solidarity among soldiers (McNeill 1995, Dievendorf 1996). 3.5 Ritual Features of Authority, Responsibility, Canon and Sanctity Rappaport’s ritual theory concerning the dynamics of authority, the situation and hierarchical ordering of meaning and value within living human systems and cognised models is fundamental to this project. I draw primarily upon Rappaport’s theoretical consideration of the role of ritual form developed within the two versions of his essay The Obvious Aspects of Ritual (1974, 1979) published during the time period between the first and second editions of Pigs for the Ancestors (1968, 1984).13 His ritual theory evolved out of his analysis of his Tsembaga Maring informants’ worldview and ecology into a type of semiotic project that considered the role of the formal aspects of ritual in ordering meaning within human cognised models by means of invariant practices (and Berger’s concurrent propositions about nomoi or orders of meaning within worldviews are directly pertinent). Rappaport’s theory described the relationship between ritual invariance and authority, sanctity, gravity, canon and inviolable postulates within worldviews (cognised models) in ways that are fruitful for an analysis of the ways that military culture is inscribed upon neophyte soldiers. All aspects of soldiers’ entrainment and subsequent service are infused with ritual and primarily articulate critical martial hierarchies and degrees of canonical and 13 It appears that Rappaport’s thought and his functional and structural systems analyses matured considerably in the time period between the submission of his doctoral dissertation in 1966 and the publication of the second edition of Pigs for the Ancestors in 1984 as he responded to scholarly criticism and clarified various shortcomings within his earlier work – shortcomings which he acknowledged frequently throughout. This theoretical refinement within Rappaport’s work means that his dissertation and first edition of Pigs for the Ancestors are not really “stand alone” documents and must be read in light of his later clarifications. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [90] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation social authority, gravity, possibly even sanctity – the very considerations of Rappaport’s ritual theory. In Canadian military culture, the performance of ritual is crucial to the maintenance of an adaptive and resilient martial ethos. Military service emphasises the continual ritualised expression, performance and maintenance of an organisational hierarchy of authority and the continual ritual elaboration of a body of robustly held views, priorities, obligations, meanings, values and inviolable postulates. In describing the process of basic entrainment of Canadian soldiers, I draw primarily upon Rappaport’s ritual and ecological theory as described within his collected essays in Ecology, Meaning and Religion (1979). Some aspects of Rappaport’s semiotic theory were more fully developed in his latter work Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (1999)14 but in the main substantiate my thesis that embodied developmental adaptation—in this case martial entrainment—is accomplished through signals, as it is in all living systems, and by the regulating 14 Robert Innis expresses significant concerns about Rappaport’s incorporation of C.S. Peirce’s three-category semiotic schema (index, icon, symbol) into his ritual analyses (Innis 2004 pp. 202-203). Conversely, el-Sayed el-Aswad, citing Stanley Tambiah, employs the Peircian schema to hierarchically order meaning according to the degree of participatory relation or unification a performative ritual action establishes between performers and a ritual referent. Following elAswad’s cues in light of Rappaport’s latter ritual theory (Rappaport 1999) one could understand the higher order meanings conveyed by ritual performance to be those that establish or maintain unification or embodied contiguity (indexicality) of the performers with the highest (grave) meanings being communicated or ritually performed (see Stanley Tambiah [1990 pp. 96-108] in el-Aswad 1999 p.433 and Rappaport 1999 in el-Aswad 2010 pp. 443-444). The participatory embodiment of grave martial meaning by recruit soldiers and their performative experiential realisation of embodied unification within the corporate translocal martial body, as understood within the hierarchical performative/participatory ritual schema described by el-Aswad (2010) will become an important consideration in light of the concept of exemplary mutual (performative) accountability (Mary Douglas 1999) developed within the penultimate chapter of this analysis. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [91] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation action or the entailed properties of invariant actions, impulses or utterances not encoded by performers. I use concepts from Rappaport’s theory to describe how ritual processes, actions or impulses not encoded by performers undergird martial social orders, sources of authority and solidarity that are critical components of the Canadian martial worldview. I then describe the operation of perfected or invariant ritual performance in the Canadian martial entrainment processes and the manner in which the structure of Canadian martial social order comes to be projected by recruits upon reality as representative and constitutive of the broader, geographically dispersed military organisation. 3.6 Ritual and Ceremonial Processes of Symbolic Projection and Collective Consciousness My primary objective is to describe the ritual process and human dynamics implicit in the ritual inscription of a martial worldview upon Canadian military recruits throughout the entrainment rite of basic training. Within this analysis I describe the establishment of the martial identity that comes to be inscribed upon recruit soldiers as a developmental challenge within the inductive ontogenetic theory of Erik Erikson (1968, 1980, 1982). I also describe the ritual and symbolic processes by which the acquired martial identity is catalysed in neophyte soldiers throughout the various phases of the entrainment process culminating in the decorous ceremonial performances near the end of the training agenda. I then turn to the adaptive phylogenetic processes by which the critical symbolic facility or capacity in humans may have emerged and the role of ritual practice within that process. Here I rely primarily on the work of the late sociologist Robert Bellah. Bellah’s posthumously published work Religion in Human Evolution (2011), like his earlier work on the role of ritual in the recent emergence of modern humanity (2003, 2006), portrays symbolic competence in humans as a practice evolved from indexical ritualisation. This process is presented by Bellah in clear adaptive © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [92] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation continuity with the indexical animal (particularly primate) signals articulated by ethologists. Bellah compellingly describes the phylogenetic and ontogenetic processes by which invariant protohuman acts or utterances could have catalysed the emergence of innovative symbolic means to articulate and obligate social expectations, roles and imperatives. Such obligations, structures and imperatives come to constitute critical foundational nomoi within the martial worldviews of soldiers. Finally, I draw again upon Peter Berger’s cogent proposition that a worldview includes critical ordered and projected symbolic constructions about the broader world or the cosmos (1967 [1969, 1990]). Berger describes this process to be a comprehensively cognitive process, without an analysis of the necessity of ritual performance and primal indexical signals structuring social dynamics as prior and critical to any subsequent human symbolic meanings or projections. I also refer to the work of Maurice Bloch (2008) specifically in the explanation that human worldviews typically include conceptions or elaborate transcendent constructions that mirror, expand and cosmically project the embodied social structures of a specific society. Bloch’s work is helpful in that such an account accords tightly with the conceptions of recruits near the end of their basic training process but only once they have engaged in ritual performances sufficient to trigger a sort of symbolic epiphany also described by Bellah and his scholarly references to accompany collective ritual practices. This also accords to some extent with the theoretical propositions of Émile Durkheim (1995 [1912]) who is cited extensively throughout. Bloch does not pursue the implications of the ritual performances he mentions and does not relate such performances to the production of the transcendental representations within the worldviews of his informants within his 2008 analysis. Nevertheless, the presence of unelaborated ethnographic detail concerning ritual © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [93] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation performance contained within Bloch’s 2008 account and those of his sources furnishes an important theoretical piece of my overall argument. I last consider Durkheim’s portrayal of ritually induced collective symbolic projections as occurring concurrently with, and also as bolstering, unified collective consciousness, solidarity, accountability, symbolic production and identity among the performers. This corresponds squarely with my portrayal of collective dispositions and projected structural affiliations that emerge in recruits’ concurrently with their participation in decorous collective ceremonial performances near the end of the entrainment process. The works of Olaveson (2011 [2004], 2001), Bjørn Schiermer (2014) and Mary Douglas (1999, 1996) contribute significantly to my explanation of how this homogeneous collective state of ritually invoked embodied consciousness could be understood to emerge among contemporary recruits from diverse pluralistic communities and, even more importantly, how the maintenance of such a homogeneous state of consciousness is adaptive and protective within a martial environment. Throughout this project I situate my analysis within the context of developmental and ritual theory that could explicate the role of ritual processes in the construction and maintenance of social hierarchies, ordered priorities and invariant practices comprising an adaptive martial worldview. This work provides an explanation for the role of ritual processes in Canadian military basic training but will also contribute to the refinement of the theoretical understanding of ongoing ritual and developmental dynamics of adaptation (or pathology or anomie) within the broader Canadian martial ecosystem. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [94] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Section II Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – Correlated Features, Mechanisms and Dynamics II.1 Introduction to Section II – Overview, Critical Concepts and Tensions The purpose of this section is to describe and analyse the ritual processes and the range of human dynamics and mechanisms implicit in the initial weeks of the basic training of Canadian soldiers. The chapters describe the manner in which the prioritised meanings and dispositions situating soldiers within the martial ecosystem first come to be inscribed and ordered primarily through physical, social and developmental processes. The inscription process transpires for soldiers and officers during the initial three to four months of basic recruit or officer candidate training. It consists of a formulaic, standardised and highly evolved set of experiences that induct neophyte military members into the Canadian martial worldview. Basic training entails an extended process of privation where solitude and personal privacy are severely restricted. It involves continuous minor humiliations, ongoing personal discomfort and considerable physical exertion. Instructors purposefully subordinate and impose heightened degrees of physical and mental stress upon recruits throughout every aspect of the process. This training prepares recruits for the even more challenging phases of subsequent training and operational deployment that they will experience throughout their careers. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [95] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation II.2 Ritual Processes of Socialisation or Re-Socialisation Earlier I observed that the martial entrainment processes inculcate social tendencies to cooperate, tolerate aggression, endure discomfort, bond and identify with the group; to identify and exclude non-group members; to observe specific taboos; to defend one’s group; and to persist in self-sacrificial activities that could result in harm or death. Most of these social tendencies are unremarkable and are found to various degrees among non-human social animals. This combination of specific tendencies are valorised and specifically adaptive within human societies or traditions that prepare soldiers for the collective enterprise of war. This section of the project is an examination of the ritual processes of martial entrainment specifically relative to the accomplishment of these adaptive social tendencies in Canadian soldiers. II.3 Rituals and Rites Although basic training follows a ritualised process, it is not a ritual. Rather, it is an ordered series of smaller discrete and sequential ritual processes or events that function inductively to achieve a stipulated end. Basic military training then constitutes a rite. On the basis of my experience and my subsequent analysis, I argue that individual rituals within this entrainment rite serve specific purposes within the overall entrainment process and respond to or resonate with specific human impulses, faculties or developmental drives of neophyte soldiers. II.4 Critical Theoretical Concepts about Worldviews and Liturgical Orders of Rites Peter Berger did not maintain a clear distinction between the concept of worldview and the concept of religion. For Berger, religion was a species of worldview. It was the construction and projection of the cosmos in a sacred mode (Berger 1967 p.25). I propose that any distinction between a “secular” worldview and a religious worldview is artificial given that most any society collectively maintains a general idea of the cosmos and a spectrum of shared priorities and values for human participation within it that it considers to be grave or inviolable—that is sacred. Again, © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [96] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Rappaport referred to such collectively maintained constructions as cognised models (Rappaport 1979 p.98). All societies display and perpetuate a range of values and priorities that individuals are compelled to acknowledge and observe. This is a social fact and the overarching influence of society in ordering the consciousness of individuals within it is a rather undisputed proposition (Durkheim 1997 [1873] in Schiermer 2014 p.67, Berger 1967 p.21, Douglas 1996 p. 85). Societies and religious traditions with worldviews that display highly stable cosmologies and sacred priorities over long periods of time also exercise a comprehensive and homogeneous coercive force of compliance over all individuals. Such compliance extends to subordinated acknowledgement of the society’s sacred meanings, its specific social roles and to the boundaries of groups enacting such roles within the society.15 Such societies perpetuate these constructions, priorities, social roles and boundaries by means of an elaborated arrangement of rituals that order the various features of life. 15 Mary Douglas has described a matrix by which societies can be classified according to the control they exert over social grouping and boundaries and the degree to which such societies coerce compliance with society’s primary values or social ritual practices (1996 [1978, 1973, 1970]). Douglas clearly acknowledged the influence of Durkheim’s social theory within her work; specifically regarding the predominating influence of society over the conscious thought and volition of every individual. Douglas also acknowledged, to a lesser extent, the influence of Sigmund Freud and his concept of the regulating superego as society’s primary mechanism of control or influence over individuals. Douglas’s analysis is most useful within this project insofar as her work describes exactly “how” society comes to control the directed intentions and practices of individuals and to perpetuate the critical values and structures of a society. As Douglas explains, this is accomplished in many cases by means of ritual practices, starting with the abject imposition of the social order and its structures upon the bodies of individuals throughout the developmental processes from the very first interactions between infants and their mothers. This process, argued Douglas, imparts an embodied symbolic cosmology specific to any society – what the structuralists might call a “superstructure,” or a “curriculum” (Bernstein 1971 in Douglas 1996 p.ix), or essentially what I have described as an ordered worldview (Douglas 1996 [1978, 1973, 1970] pp. ix, 70). The implications of Douglas’s propositions for my analysis come more fully to light in Section III of this analysis. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [97] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Roy Rappaport calls this effectual or purposeful arrangement of rituals a liturgical order. The concept of “liturgy” was employed by Rappaport to highlight the fact that rituals are performed according to pre-established patterns not contrived or encoded by the performer. Rappaport argued that liturgical orders regulate more than the fixed sequence of words or actions within a ritual process. Liturgical orders determine the fixed sequence of rituals which lead humans around the circles of seasons, along the straight routes leading from birth to death, through times of war and peace or along the trajectories of spiritual quests and pilgrimages (Rappaport OAR 1979 p.176). This raises fundamental questions: to what ends and by what order or principles are rituals within rites arranged, ordered, regulated and performed? How do rituals perpetuate living worldviews comprised of grave values and even symbolic priorities that a society may instill in its members and cause to be recreated in successive generations? Rappaport made the fundamental point that liturgical orders establish that which they order within a given society, culture or traditional religious system. This means that within any society or tradition with a ritually perpetuated worldview, the various meanings and priorities of that worldview are stable, publicly available and acknowledged by all. Societies with highly stable priorities or values often ensconce such constructs within invariant regulations, enduring scriptural formats or performative ritual forms which are accorded “canonical” authority. This is to say that the liturgical order “establishes” among the constituents of society that such regulations or performances are to be maintained in a form which does not vary from performer to performer or from one generation of performers to the next. All the other valuations and priorities within the broader matrix of features that constitute the specific worldview reinforce the authority accorded to the invariant perpetuation of that canonical feature. This then is a fairly straightforward way for a living worldview or cultural ecology to ensure the faithful reproduction of its features, priorities and structures within an enduring society over time (see Stanley Tambiah 1979 pp.122 ff.). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [98] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Similarly, liturgical orders are concerned with ordering or regulating the physical and embodied social relations of the ritual performers to that of other performers involved in any ritual action.16 Sometimes the ritual status of a performer acting within a certain performative role will be established and invariant. The role and authority of both a priest and a soldier holding specific ranks might also be canonically established and invariantly perpetuated by means of scriptural or military regulation. This is pertinent here most especially because within liturgically ordered rites, ritually conveyed meanings may depend in part upon the “performative utterance” of their efficacy or a declaration of their successful completion by a ritual specialist who bears socially recognised authority by virtue of his or her established role within that society to conduct such rituals (“your sins are forgiven,” “you are promoted,” “you are now husband and wife”). This is pertinent to collective rituals wherein there are performers of differing social status or rank and competencies with differing but established roles to play within a given performance.17 A ritual does not succeed, 16 Rappaport cites Edmond Leach (1954) to the effect that there is always an expression of an individual performer’s social position relative to other performers in any ritual action (1979 p. 179, see also Catherine Bell 1992 pp. 99-101). This accords very tightly with Erving Goffman’s (1956) observation that all social interactions are fundamentally governed by patterns of expressed social demeanor and deference which I equate directly with the ethological observation that indexical or atavistic – that is non-symbolic – expressions of dominance and submission extensively regulate social space within animal and human ecosystems – whether that space be the boardroom, the savannah or the training environment of recruit soldiers. This is also an argument substantiating my assertion that there is a range of non-symbolic embodied meanings undergirding symbolic meanings within human social interactions, communicative actions (including ritual performance), liturgical orders and worldviews although Goffman did not emphasise this conclusion or highlight the analysis of non-symbolic meaning (see especially his 1956 work The Nature of Deference and Demeanor pp. 473-502 wherein all actions, human interactions and meanings are explicitly deemed to be symbolic). 17 Lorenz also drew the connection between phyletic ritualisations ordering ecological and competitive social dynamics between animals and the analogous ordering functions of liturgy which have come to be culturally perpetuated, and which now order meaning within human ritual processes (1966a pp.71ff., 1966b p.281, see also Victor Turner’s considerations of this proposition 1983 pp. 223-225). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [99] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation for instance, if a neophyte within a rite attempts to assume and perform the role of the priest at a public performance of a ritual. The socially pre-determined liturgical “orders” of the ritual would be disrupted and the established, that is the pre-existent, meanings which are intended to be conveyed by the ritual (which might exceed the ritual authority of the neophyte) would not be communicated. The neophyte’s performative utterance or pronouncement of the ritual completion, contrary to the liturgical order, would not carry public acceptance or ritual efficacy (Rappaport OAR 1979 pp.189ff.). Liturgical orders also sequentially and inductively order the various rituals, and the features of those rituals, within a rite. This is to say that the earlier rituals in a liturgical order tend to convey a heavy weighting of more direct, non-symbolic, immediate sensory, bodily or social dispositions and hierarchical relations that are atavistically clear in their meanings to the performers or to outside observers with subsequent symbolic meanings building upon these preliminary nonsymbolic bodily or social meanings. Within culturally ordered liturgical processes, the latter, more indirect or symbolic meanings of the subsequent and culminating rituals within a rite are often less obvious – they may convey abstract meanings that are not observable, “obvious” or physically tangible. Alternatively, several levels of embodied, social and symbolic meaning might be conveyed simultaneously by the variety of elements or features displayed or enacted within a given ritual. The full significance of that ritual then might only dawn on the observant performer at a given developmental stage, as one gains ritual competence, inductively after many years, or after many performances. Again, the initial ritualised actions within the liturgical order of any rite tend to convey performative non-symbolic sensory, bodily and social meanings or signals ordering the relations © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [100] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation of the performers to each other and lead sequentially to more abstract conceptual or symbolic significations. This is also to say that within human liturgical orders, the more abstract significations of rituals are likely contingent upon non-abstract, physically or socially-ordered ritual significations conveyed within that liturgical order. An example of both the inductive and the sequential dynamics operating within a liturgical order can be detected in the performance of ritual sacrifice within traditional Jewish and Christian rites of atonement. Historically, both traditions practiced an orderly ritualised approach to the sacrifice as a means of effecting atonement, through prescribed processes of bodily abasement, degrees of fasting or physical hardship, bodily purification, social reorientation (confession, repentance, reconciliation), the sacrifice and finally an illocutionary act declaring absolution. In these liturgies of sacrifice for example, complex symbolic concepts such as cyclical redemption, re-ratification of covenantal status (for Jews), or the realisation of forensic righteousness (for Christians) would not make sense without the prior ritual establishment of more fundamental obvious embodied meanings such as the indexical or hierarchical structural orientation of performers (abasement, privation, social solidarity, subordination, humility, contrition, repentance, purification, forgiveness and so on) performatively represented at various points within the liturgical cycle. Interestingly, both religious traditions at some point came to overlay a physical religious action—the sacrifice of a lamb (or a human facsimile thereof)—with subsequent abstract meaning and, in some cases, projection or cosmisation of the abstract meaning of the ritual to pan-Jewish, pan-Christian or ultimate degrees of global or cosmic universality. Within this analysis human rituals are also ordered and structured in specific ways and must convey meanings in specific ways that correspond to the predetermined human developmental schedules and learning capacities of ritual performers at various life stages. In the ritualised martial inscription processes which I will examine in my analysis, recruits come to adopt subordinated © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [101] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation bodily, then hierarchically ordered social dispositions, then conceptual/symbolic, and panorganisational dispositions or orientations throughout the various liturgically ordered stages of training. As I will explain, the pattern for the development of human psychosocial competence is, similarly, for individuals to inductively gain sensory, bodily, social and finally symbolic mastery or integration throughout successive stages of the life cycle. Some of the symbolic collective meanings conveyed in martial entrainment only occur after recruits have developed foundational embodied competencies and social dispositions in the microcosmic crucible of a sequestered resocialisation processes where they are physically confined and subordinated in the early phase of the training course. Each of the realms of competency builds upon and integrates the previous psychosocial competencies. This process is adaptive—that is it functions to accommodate humans to their specific physical, social and cultural environments in accordance with their developmental capacity to do so. The rituals of martial entrainment inculcate the priorities and dispositions needed by recruits to begin to assume the role and symbolic, psychosocial identity of a soldier within the Canadian military environment and eventually to ritually reproduce and train others in the mastery of the same adaptive competencies. II.5 Other Ritual Features of Inscribed Meaning Recruit training is like many other training or educational processes in that, in addition to resocialisation and enculturation, certain skills must be mastered in order to progress to the next phase of military occupational training. The process is unlike many educational processes in that it includes ritual features and agendas that extend beyond, or perhaps more deeply, than typical and objective technical competence. Like many ritual processes, military entrainment requires mastery of rudimentary ritual techniques, impulses and dispositions that convey martial meanings, values and priorities—martial nomoi in Berger’s sense of the term. Course instructors and senior leaders model the martial ideals or inviolable imperatives that order many demands made upon recruits © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [102] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation throughout their entrainment process. The basic training experience culminates in the display of these values and competencies in the ceremonial ritual event of the graduation parade for which the candidates prepare from the first moments of their arrival. The form and agenda of the Canadian basic military training course have remained essentially unchanged for many years. All training and performance imperatives are stipulated by the structured hierarchy of a highly-integrated matrix of constitutional mandate, legislation, policy, regulation, directive and specific order. This structured authority is accompanied by a corresponding distribution of powers vested across the various ranks of military leaders. Some performative competencies come to be inscribed upon the bodies and dispositions of recruits and correspond generally to Rappaport’s concept of non-symbolic indexical embodied meaning that circulates within any ritual phenomenon (OAR 1979 p.179). There are also many military standards and practices that are stipulated by older military traditions. These training objectives and performance standards are maintained within stable and virtually unchanging training syllabi and standardised task performance documents, drill and weapons manuals. These “pragmatically invariant” qualities of the recruit entrainment process accord roughly to Rappaport’s category of canonical—that is pre-existent and authoritative—ritual features (OAR 1979 p.179). Within Section II of this project I will describe the intersection of ritualised embodied submission to authority and the ritual inscription of canonical imperatives within the worldview of Canadian recruits. Rappaport has noted that the performance of a ritual always involves communication (OAR 1979), even when a ritual is performed in solitude. In adopting certain bodily postures or in performing a known prayer or ritual action one is at all times communicating at least to oneself the recognition of, and subordination to, a higher and pre-existent authority. As Rappaport has argued, participation in collective rituals also demonstrates to others that one acknowledges the pre-existent authority portrayed in the rituals and that one accepts the obligations © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [103] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation entailed in the ritual. Such participation then constitutes a social contract whether one “means it” or not (Rappaport 1979 pp.191ff). This has important implications for the establishment of collective solidarity among soldiers. II.6 Rite of Passage or Human Developmental Process – An Enduring Tension As I have mentioned, many soldiers and scholars consider the basic training process to be a rite of passage. This is reasonable in light of the many features of the ritual process I will be describing. However, consideration of the martial entrainment process as a rite of passage invokes orthodox presuppositions that may not be pertinent to the analysis of the specific observed ritual process I will present in this section. The term “rite of passage” was highlighted by Arnold van Gennep over a century ago. His work was famously elaborated half a century later by Victor Turner. Since then, many discussions of ritual passage have elaborated van Gennep’s three-phased processual trajectory – separation, transition and reincorporation – as the necessary and natural underlying order or structure of all such passages. A careful reading of van Gennep’s work shows that he did not view this three-phase model as a rigid and inviolable structure; rather, he argued that rituals made inconsistent use of these separation, transition or reincorporation processes. Nevertheless, in his introduction to the 1960 English translation of van Gennep’s work, Solon T. Kimbal described van Gennep’s theory as generally adopting of Western positivist and ethnographic tendencies of his time, which tended towards systematic classificatory descriptions of all human processes. Such descriptive tendencies highlighted the orderliness of natural universal processes such as death, rebirth, renewal and regeneration as overarching patterns animating all aspects of life—including all social or cultural phenomena (in van Gennep 1960 pp. v–xix). Van Gennep was also aware that the transitional phases within ritual passages might become highly elaborated in themselves, including their own ritual subprocesses of separation, © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [104] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation transition and reincorporation (Kimbal in van Gennep 1960 p. 11). This point was taken up by Turner whose ritual analyses emphasised van Gennep’s concept of “liminality” but as a more active, energised and generative process within the three-phased dialectical ritual process and not just as a moment demarcating or differentiating two more important linear ritual phases. One important consideration about employing Van Gennep or Turner’s theoretical orthodoxies in this analysis is that the processual passage/dynamic liminality model may not reliably correspond to the normative linear human developmental life cycle of modern Canadian recruit soldiers. Caroline Bynum thought that Turner’s models may correspond only to male transitions and only within the societies where he had done intensive field work. Furthermore, Bynum thought that Turner’s analyses do not correspond to the generally-linear developmental life trajectory and ritualised transition processes of women anywhere (1984 in Grimes 1996 pp. 74). These points are important for the present study because women have not been extensively considered in the scholarly literature on ritual processes of martial entrainment. Women are a wellestablished and growing demographic component of the Canadian Forces. Even at the time of my initial recruit training course in 1980, there was a sister platoon of equal numbers of women who, though separately quartered and socially segregated from my platoon, followed the same training syllabus and course schedule as the male platoons and met the same performance standards for virtually all tasks. Ten years later when I was undergoing basic officer training, women were fully incorporated into all officer basic training course platoons and quarters. Although separate sleeping and washroom facilities were maintained within each course barracks, there were no social restrictions in the course of training events or after training hours. 1990 seems to have been an important transitional year for the Canadian Forces and indeed one female officer cadet from my basic officer course successfully completed the first Canadian Combat Arms training course to qualify female Artillery Officers in 1991. Within the Canadian Forces, women are defining their © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [105] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation identity in terms of their military vocation. This runs contrary to some aspects of developmental theory within the Eriksonian tradition that viewed female identity as orbiting around role as spouse and mother (see also Carol Gilligan 2003 [1982, 1983] in Nürnberger 2013 pp. 36–49). Nevertheless, it is clear that Canadian women recruits of recent years are substantially motivated by developmental dynamics and occupational ambitions that are the same as those of male recruits at the time of entrainment. My observation is that the normative developmental trajectory for both male and female recruits entering the Canadian Forces is more in line with Erikson’s classical linear life crisis schema than with van Gennep and Turner’s three-phased (dialectic, processual) ritual passage process. Women succeed in forging a professional martial identity within the Canadian Forces by conforming and adapting to a very old and traditional martial ritual formula that originally evolved to address the linear developmental dynamics of male recruits based around social and occupational role identity. Women do so because the process also meets their developmental needs and allows them to achieve their professional goals.18 For this reason, I do not offer separate analyses for the human dynamics and developmental processes of ritual entrainment of male and female military recruits. I do not maintain the idea that human rites of developmental passage, for either male or female soldiers, are unequivocally dialectical processes emphasising generative phases of liminality and antistructure. Again, within my analysis, men and women follow the same linear ritual entrainment process and are primarily motivated within this process to establish a professional martial identity and interdependent, mutually accountable bonds with martial comrades of both sexes. 18 Lynne Gouliquer 2011 has highlighted that the Canadian Forces still perpetuates a number of structural inequalities and career barriers for women soldiers despite institutional reforms aimed at addressing such inequalities. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [106] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation As already stated, Canadian recruit soldiers have not fully forged a new social role or status at the end of their basic entrainment. They have not completed a ritual passage in the classic van Gennepian or Turnerian sense; rather, they have progressed along a series of challenges and developmental processes of tremendous significance in an ongoing, longer socio-professional process. Further, most ethnographic descriptions of ritual passage assume that ritual candidates are reincorporated into their native communities of origin with new identities and changed social status. This is not the case for Canadian soldiers at the end of basic training. Yes, soldiers remain Canadian citizens, but they are typically relocated thousands of miles from their home communities and they live within a distinct martial society that maintains a subculture and worldview that is distinct from that of most Canadians. Finally, there are periods of identifiable liminality within the recruit entrainment process that play a rather minor role in comparison to the redressive and generative anti-structural, quasipolitical role described by Turner among his informants. As we will see, the role of liminality during the Canadian martial entrainment ritual is a moment of cathartic levity, cognitive integration or possibly symbolic consolidation or epiphany—a punctiliar transitional demarcation within larger linear ritualised developmental and liturgical processes. Van Gennep paid special attention to various “disturbances” catalysed within individual humans’ lives at the moment of various identifiable ritual transitions along more linear individual life transitions. These linear individual dynamics were taken up as “life crises” by Eliot D. Chappel and Carleton S. Coon in their 1942 work Principles of Anthropology (Kimbal in van Gennep 1960 pp. xii–xiii). This “rediscovery” of a rather neglected element of van Gennep’s thought is especially compelling in light of Erik Erikson’s subsequent development of an integrated theory of human psychosocial developmental stages as sequential life crises. As part of his analysis, Erikson examined the ritualised features of the linear and predictable ontogenetic crises experienced by all © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [107] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation humans throughout the various stages of their life trajectories. I will describe how the martial entrainment process precipitates a series of swift and inductive developmental crises for recruits as it radically re-socialises them within an unnaturally truncated period of time. II.7 Martial Entrainment as a Synergy of Ritualised Developmental, Liturgical, Symbolic and Ecological Processes Martial training processes abruptly accommodate recruits to an austere social order that must be negotiated in the first several weeks of basic training. The process exploits the native developmental processes and drives common to all humans and most social animals – processes that are dependent upon innate pre-determined impulses and invariant gestures or utterances in keeping Rappaport’s definition of ritual (1979 p.175).19 In what follows, I describe the martial entrainment rite that initially leads recruits through a sequentially ordered series of ritual processes of embodied submission to canonical and social authority. I will then examine how the latter abstract conceptual features of the martial worldview are contingent upon the former inscribed bodily and sociostructural meanings and dispositions conveyed by means of the ritual training processes. The primary inscribed meanings and embodied dispositions foundational to subsequent abstract cultural meanings of the martial worldview correspond closely to the Eriksonian schema of human development, the initial stages of which recruits are forced to rapidly re-traverse in the first several weeks of the basic entrainment process. Humans reach their final state of psychosocial 19 “I take ritual to be a form or structure, defining it as the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not encoded by the performers. I shall be concerned to unpack the implications of this definition, noting first that no single feature of ritual is peculiar to it. It is in the conjunction of its features that it is unique. It is nevertheless, convenient to consider its simple features at the beginning. The unique implications of their concatenation will emerge later” (Rappaport – ‘Obvious Aspects of Ritual’ in Ecology, Meaning and Religion 1979 p.175). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [108] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation development and elaboration when they have integrated all prior foundational developmental meanings of the psychosocial stages of life. This process and the inductive manner of our ordered integration of meaning is rooted within our human phylogenetic and ontogenetic fabric. For Erikson, human psychosocial development follows a prescribed and highly ritualised sequence of individual social challenges and acquired competencies that essentially constitute a psychosocial liturgical order. Abstract religious concepts within a rite do not catalyse or make sense apart from the foundational embodied and social meanings upon which they depend. In the same way, symbolic meanings such as the abstract concept of social role or psychosocial identity cannot develop in the worldviews of recruits before they have negotiated the foundational stages of embodied trust, autonomy, initiative and competency.20 Again, martial identity development is not complete at the conclusion of basic training but continues in the subsequent military training and professional phases of soldiers’ careers. One aspect of collective ritual performance not fully considered in the literature is the fact that entire social groups often participate in seasonal or calendric ritual cycles and also in various punctiliar ritual observances necessitated by unscheduled events such as death, war, famine and catastrophe. Ritual performances typically entail a range of tangible elements or media (blood, wine, incense, embodied postures, words) that simultaneously refer to multiple significations (Rappaport OAR 1979); these elements are interpreted and experienced differently by those at different stages of psycho-social development (children, teens, adults) or according to different life experiences. Within any ritual performance conveying multiple levels of meaning or signification children (or those new to a cultural environment such as converts to a given religion) may respond 20 Erikson implied but did not explicitly state that “…ritual skill cannot exceed the stage of human development on which it is based…” (Ronald Grimes 1996 p. 201). Grimes’s critical observation is fundamental to my analysis of martial entrainment as an inductive liturgico-developmental phenomenon. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [109] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation more directly to fundamental sensory, physical or social significations while adults may detect and respond to more nuanced abstract or symbolic meanings. Furthermore, as performers of a given rite progress through the stages of life and re-experience ritual performances periodically, the significations are inductively apprehended and the conveyed meanings are broadened in keeping with the iterative dynamics of repetition, developmental readiness and socialised intersubjective reflection over a performer’s lifespan.21 Often, rituals must be repeated numerous times, such as the Plains sun dance ritual, for some performers to experience the full ecstatic symbolico-visionary meanings the rite is meant to convey (Laughlin 1997). Sometimes, by analogy with Maslow’s famous hierarchy, only a very small percentage of a congregation will “actualise” or apprehend the full profundity and range of meanings potentially conveyed by a rite. There is much more to be said but it is clear that the ritual features and the social milieu pervading the Canadian basic entrainment rite are primarily addressed and adapted to the developmental needs and receptive capacity pertaining to the specific life stage of martial performers addressing the ontogenetic challenges of identity formation and generativity such as I explore in Chapter 5 of this analysis. I have observed that human developmental and ritual processes tend to correspond with the fixed and inductive structure of liturgical rites (Lorenz 1966a pp.71ff., 1966b p.281). When I refer to human developmental processes I refer not only to ontogenetic processes such as those so insightfully described by Erikson, but also to the human phylogenetic processes wherein homo sapiens emerged from pre-symbolic proto-human forebears through the use of ritual mechanisms. It should come as no surprise then that ritual and liturgical dynamics and structure have come to 21 This is a critical point seldom mentioned in scholarly treatments of ritual practice, and I find little elaboration of it within Durkheim’s considerations of “elementary” religious practices. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [110] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation pervade and energise human developmental processes and should in some way regulate adaptive meaning within human ecosystems.22 Rituals in the martial environment relate equally to motivations of culture, religion and innate human psychosocial developmental impulses. Van Gennep equated ritual not only with seasonal cycles of religious meaning but also with human social developmental stages or crises common to all humans. These processes synergistically catalyse an array of more abstract symbolic conceptions and projections that come to animate the martial worldview. Human liturgical orders are arranged to direct both abstract cultural and religious meanings as well as linear sociodevelopmental life processes. These are the dynamics that are not considered or elaborated in many analyses from the scholarly literature on ritual theory or ethnography. I note that these processes are inextricably linked and inter-reliant in ways which will be described. They constitute the condition of culture and the “laws of human thought and action” (Tylor 1920 [1871]) that will be explored in this major section of the thesis. Within this analysis I develop the argument that abstract martial, cultural and religious concepts from the basic training environment of recruits build upon and interact freely with innate human socio-developmental impulses throughout all the inductively ordered stages of the training process. II.8 Refining and More Precisely Situating the Target of Analysis In light of the forgoing discussion, it is now possible to more precisely situate this project and propose a more refined definition of “worldview” within the broad corpus of theory and scholarship pertaining to the study of ritual. 22 In light of Lorenz’s observations about liturgical orders being analogues or culturally perpetuated sequential orders of embodied ecological and social structuring impulses, it is reasonable to view the ontogenetic processes of modern humans as coevolved hybrid sociodevelopmental/liturgical ordering processes. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [111] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation J.Z. Smith, following Mircea Eliade, situated his ritual analysis within the understanding that ritual phenomena were best approached as questions of “emplacement” occurring within a specific ritual “space.” By contrast, Ronald Grimes, Catherine Bell, Roy Rappaport and other ritual specialists understood and analysed ritual phenomena as specific types of performative “action” (Grimes 1999 p. 261). This project draws on those insights but posits that martial ritual must be understood as the integrative performance of inductively ordered adaptive meanings, dispositions and competencies acquired within a specific “developmental space,” or human ontogenetic juncture of developmental impulse, capacity or competency nested within even broader ecological and phylogenetic dynamics and processes. I observe that the ritual processes of military entrainment catalyse, install and moderate such adaptive meanings, dispositions and competencies according to the soldiers’ developmental needs and capacities. These meanings, dispositions and competencies constitute important features of the foundational martial worldview. Ritual competence and appropriation of ritually conveyed dispositions, values or meanings cannot exceed an individual’s developmental readiness to acquire or receive them (Grimes 1996 p. 201). All societies encompass individuals of every developmental stage. It is uncertain then that there is a single worldview of any “people” or even one single shared value that is shared by all individuals in any modern society. This means simply that only under specific conditions can worldview relate to a people’s picture of the way things in sheer actuality are or their most comprehensive collective ideas of order (Geertz 1957a. pp.421–422). The totalising objective of Canadian martial entrainment is to catalyse a body of critical dispositions, values and meanings homogeneously within the foundational worldviews of all recruits. The objective is achieved through a process by which recruits are induced to collectively re-traverse the formative human developmental stages within a predetermined agenda of ritual and culminating ceremonial © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [112] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation performances. I will examine the circumstances and possibilities of this proposition within the following chapters of my analysis. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [113] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [114] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 4 Ritual Processes of Transition, Stratification, Primal Socialisation, Foundational Developmental Processes, Group Solidarity and Martial Morality 4.1 Critical Distinctions In this chapter I describe the initial mechanisms of entrainment and the invariant adaptive ritual enactment and response processes first experienced by new recruits and officer candidates. Rappaport distinguished between the “obvious aspects of ritual” (those features of ritual practice, form, structure or performance that can be observed, demonstrated, described or emulated and can model specific qualities to be emulated by others) and those symbolic meanings inferred, implied or entailed within a ritual performance that can only be elucidated by exegetes and specific cultural insiders or informants (Rappaport 1979 p.175). Here I focus primarily on the non-symbolic embodied practices that are first imposed upon all new military members. These are processes of primal socialisation that facilitate the establishment of social order, cohesion, hierarchy and collective dispositions among Canadian military recruits. The ritual mechanisms by which these meanings and social structures are communicated, inculcated and perpetuated are important insofar as they maintain and undergird the further symbolically elaborated imperatives of the martial worldview and perpetuate the martial ecosystem. Rappaport’s insights into the structural © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [115] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation but non-symbolic meanings conveyed in ritual performance which he articulates at various places within the corpus of his work will be examined at some length in the course of this chapter. There are important distinctions between CF members who are non-commissioned members and those who train to become officers holding the Queen’s commission. The difference is analogous to the difference between employees and executives in the corporate sector of the civilian economy. Since the early 1990s it has become mandatory for officers to hold an academic degree as a condition of holding a commission in the Canadian military. Prior to the early nineties a degree was not required unless the officer’s specific military occupation required such education or training. There remain many officers still in service today who began their careers and earned their commissions without or before earning degrees. Aside from any class distinction which might be imprecisely associated with educational background, the Canadian military of former years maintained rigid social distinctions between troops and officers evident in the disparities between the housing, dining and other services maintained on behalf of the several strata of officers and noncommissioned members. Such distinctions are rapidly disappearing in practice but continue to be perpetuated structurally and ritually in a variety of ways. Officer candidates (cadets) embarking on their entrainment are treated in the same manner as non-commissioned recruits (with a few significant exceptions) and are ruthlessly corrected and humbled by non-commissioned Directing Staff (DS) at every opportunity. There is some urgency to this structural levelling process for the officer candidates as their basic training must include all aspects of the noncommissioned recruits’ curriculum but must also incorporate, within only a slightly longer period of time, a full range of leadership, technical and ethical training to prepare them to handle matters such as military law, rules of armed conflict as well as ceremonial and administrative operations. During this phase of their training officers are held to rigid ethical © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [116] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation standards and are required to demonstrate exemplary judgement and responsibility for the health, wellbeing and efficient management of their course mates who act as subordinates, each in turn, through all assessed leadership phases of the training. In effect, this means that officer candidates must oversee the functioning of about thirty of their course mates concurrently performing a range of increasingly complex and meticulously evaluated manual leadership tasks in smaller, separate and locally dispersed groups, in all weather and environmental conditions around the clock over the course of four or five days in inhospitable mountainous or forested terrain. The candidates repeat this cycle of increasingly challenging assessment over five or six evaluated exercise-weeks which are spaced out over the second and third months of the three-month officer basic training course. The pressure to perform and to successfully enact a persona of leader-like qualities which can in fact command a bonded cohesion and motivated compliance in subordinates to persevere is overwhelming. This aspect of officer cadets’ formation and the manner in which it inscribes various leadership dispositions will be explored at some length in the Section III of this project. Non-commissioned members do not face the challenge of enacting a formal leadership role during their basic training course. Eventually, the leadership demands made upon noncommissioned members will be identical; such demands, however, are made incrementally over the course of several leadership and rank qualification courses over thirty or more years of a noncommissioned soldier’s career. Success in commanding the obedience of subordinates to persevere through harsh conditions would not be possible for either officers or non-commissioned soldiers without first undergoing the identical decisive, ruthless structural levelling and ordering as has always been imposed within the Canadian martial system. It is important then to note that the resocialisation and developmental processes described in this chapter are generally experienced © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [117] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation by all new members of the CF. For this reason, except where noted, I refer to “recruits” and “basic training courses” in describing processes common to all enrollees.1 4.2 Transition Between Ritual Domains and Cultures – Symbols, Oaths and Putative Options – Deferred Affiliations The martial training process formally begins when potential civilian applicants initiate communication with Canadian Forces recruitment personnel and present themselves at a recruiting centre. There they speak briefly with military recruiting personnel and view videos and/or printed materials regarding occupational vacancies. Those who decide to pursue enrolment undergo a battery of aptitude, background and medical tests along with a formal interview, after which they may be offered career opportunities and entrance plans in keeping with their assessed potential to succeed and the current requirements of the service. An important aspect of martial commitment is conveyed in the oath that is taken by all enrollees. The oath is administered shortly prior to basic training by an officer holding a Queen’s commission. The recruits are briefed on the terms of their employment contract which includes the period of obligatory service, and a commitment to be bound by a separate set of laws, regulations and requirements in addition to those pertaining to all Canadian civilians. Prior to taking the oath, potential recruits are advised that their terms of service entail “unlimited liability” to serve the Queen and her heirs and representatives. “Unlimited liability” is an alien technical term for most 1 Until very recently candidates who had completed specific professional qualifications prior to enrollment in the Canadian Forces for commissioning as medical doctors, lawyers or chaplains were entrained under highly sheltered conditions. Basic training did not take place on the same military base as per all other officer indoctrination courses and such specialist trainees were commissioned at the rank of Captain upon the completion of their basic training. Successful completion of basic training for such officers was virtually a foregone conclusion as such officers were hired for their specific civilian professional skills and the range of military skills required for the spectrum of duties specific to these officers’ subsequent specialised military employment was extremely limited. The intensity and profundity of these specialist officers’ levelling process and training ordeal was correspondingly limited. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [118] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation recruits. Only later do they realize that this includes an obligation to follow orders that may result in one’s death. One taking such an oath is fully obligated to obey such orders. Those undaunted by these stipulations swear their true allegiance to the Queen and her heirs and their obligation to be subjugated to a complex web of regulations. The commitment is made in a formal ceremony involving the symbols and trappings of sovereign royal authority and nationally endorsed service, including bibles, flags, formal dress, ceremonial orders of uniform, medals and official certificates. The authority of the Almighty and the delegated, descending echelons of sovereign, governmental and military authority (rank) are invoked, often in the presence of the recruit’s invited family members or honoured guests. New recruits may not recognize that most of these trappings are not uniquely military symbols but pertain to the government and the constitutional monarchy in all its physical and cosmological dimensions.2 The requirement of unlimited liability is grounded in the belief in an ultimate authority. Before atheism was acknowledged as a legitimate stance,3 an accountability to God was considered essential before entering into treaties or warfare.4 As with any ritual process, the presence of witnesses adds a degree of obligation and gravity to the oath by ensuring a common mental world among all in attendance. The inclusion of supra-empirical and invisible witnesses extends the jurisdiction of such obligations to a universal and cosmic dimension. Such oaths, at least since the ancient world, have come to provide a necessary function within all transactions and traditionally 2 Robert Bellah makes the point that such symbols (and supposedly ritually constituted impulses to national, regnal or deistic obedience) constitute a national or civil religion – Bellah 1967, 1988, 2005. 3 Charles Taylor 2007, as cited by Talal Asad 2008 discusses the ubiquity of belief in God and the impossibility of a public debate about the possibility of atheism (and the implicit efficacy of oaths) until the Enlightenment. 4 Walter Burkert quotes John Locke’s 1689 Letter on Toleration; “Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist” (Burkert in Stavrianopoulou [ed.] 2006 pp.23-25). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [119] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation were, in a very real sense, the nexus of morality, religion and law (Burkert in Eftychia Stavrianopoulou [ed.] 2006 pp 23–25).5 In recent decades it has been possible for recruits to replace the oath with a “solemn affirmation” confirming recruits’ readiness to submit to the authority structures of the government of Canada and to take upon themselves the obligation to unlimited liability to serve. Similar options exist in Canadian juridical and governmental domains, which, like the military, are extensively ritualised systems of meaning, subordinated authority and order. Regardless of a recruit’s actual belief in gods or kings (or the Queen and her minions or even the Almighty God), all recruits are held liable to the higher military domains that have authority over a soldier’s life. The solemn affirmation establishes that a recruit recognises and willingly takes on this liability to the point of life and death, thereby forgoing his or her own autonomy over his or her life. The solemn affirmation simply establishes that a recruit recognises and agrees that the ultimate authority over one’s volition and impulses to preserve one’s own life have now come to reside with a higher authority within broader national and military systems of authority. The oath or affirmation and the association with the forfeiture of life—the control of life being generally sanctified within Western society—therefore subordinates and transfers the prerogative of the one making the commitment to the authority of the entity to whom one swears or affirms such a commitment. Similarly, the sanctity attributed to the mastery of one’s life is now, in a moment of ritual process, fused with and superimposed upon the obligation to fulfil such sworn duty. It is now a sacred 5 Peter Haldén (2016) maintains that the efficacy of oaths is not situated within the public jurisdiction of the commitment and social contract or within the extended jurisdiction achieved by inculcating the Almighty and expanding the commitment to cosmic dimensions. Rather, Haldén argues that the efficacy of the inclusion of the Almighty or a deistic dimension into the oath ritual is to ensure that there is an added, and final dimension of eternal punishment or consequence, in addition to the forfeiture of one’s life, for those who break their oaths. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [120] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation obligation. One freely decides to swear or not swear one’s oath or affirm one’s commitment; the common mental environment provided by the witnesses ensures that there is also no ambiguity regarding the public commitment one has undertaken, regardless of whether one actually believes in gods or the divine right of sovereigns or the degree to which one personally holds that oath to be sacred. This commitment ritually spoken into existence is now only a legal obligation but will soon become a powerful moral reality and social contract regardless of any recruit’s ambiguous initial intention or inclination to be bound by it (Rappaport 1979 OAR pp. 190–191). The “swearing in” ceremony marks the last formal contact a recruit will have with the military recruiting system. Candidates leave with the paperwork needed to procure their flights to the airport nearest the training base where their recruit course will take place. Recruits must report for training with the requisite personal possessions, clothing and funds sufficient to support their first few days of training before they can access the military supply and pay system. Although new recruits may not fully grasp the significance of the ceremony they have just participated in, its meanings become important developmentally at later stages of martial life. Such meanings are also critical with regards to the specific martial value of “sacrifice” or “selfsacrifice.” I will describe the developmental and existential significance of the concept of sacrifice and these national symbols in the final chapter of this analysis. 4.3 Sifted, Sorted, Ordered and Leveled – Dominance, Aggression and Submission Each basic training course is comprised of a platoon of about thirty trainees at the start and may dwindle down by 25–35 percent through attrition over the course of the training. Courses are formally designated by training company and platoon number (example C Company 7 Platoon) or by the year and order of the course. Course 8041 for example, was the forty-first recruit © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [121] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation indoctrination course to commence during 1980. In military parlance that would be “Serial 8041” or simply “8041.” Course Directing Staff (DS) and recruits generally refer to their platoon or their collective as their “serial.” New recruits are met at the airport near their training base by a senior non-commissioned officer (NCOs) and two or three junior NCOs. These leaders have been assigned specifically to each course serial and will remain with it for the duration of the training. Course DS are invariably fit, assertive and highly motivated professionals. They have been specifically selected for their assignment in light of their competence, morale and positive orientation to their work. Such personal qualities are associated with leadership within the military environment and relate to the idea that good leaders inspire loyalty, obedience and emulation by setting an example personifying the highest martial standards. Such standards are conspicuously modelled throughout all interactions with trainees. DS are intentionally imposing. They portray and personify authority. In their interactions with recruits they present themselves impeccable in dress and deportment. Uniforms are immaculately pressed and smartly fitted, boots impossibly shone at all times to a mirror finish so that one can count one’s teeth in the reflection. In former times, the most charismatic and imposing DS were from the combat arms trades and had, by virtue of such a background, the privilege of having their parade boots double soled with the addition of thick metal plates attached to the heels and toes. The ultimate effect is that recruits were afforded a dramatic, ominous forewarning of approach at whatever unexpected hour of the day or night DS might materialise. This serves as an impulsively sobering portent of gravity, an authoritative intention and mood telegraphed by the cadence and sharpness of the sound of the arriving presence. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [122] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation A ritual device centering recruits’ attention and collective focus on the short, curt words of direction or command that invariably follow all such appearances.6 The DS’s first address to the course takes place in the common area of their assigned quarters and it is formal, direct and always authoritarian in tone. No time is wasted in establishing the chain of authority for the duration of the course and candidates are quickly advised to be silent, to remain still, and to pay attention. This initial meeting and the subsequent interactions between DS and recruits aim to establish the recruits’ utter subordination and their forfeiture of control over their time, attention, energy, bodily movement, comfort and expression. Recruits’ luggage is searched for contraband. In former times, even prescription medication was confiscated to be replaced only upon examination and agreement of a military physician. Recruits are informed that individual or collective insubordination under the National Defence Act (NDA) can result in punishments such as extra drill and training, fines, confinement to quarters or base, administrative or career action or even jail detention. The DS then hold the power of success and failure for any recruit who does not get on board with the social facts of military existence. The DS are generally comfortable with confrontation, indeed, many are unreservedly enthusiastic about confrontation and take every opportunity to engage in it. Recruits comply readily or are sent home unceremoniously. 6 This ritual device employs classic ethological mechanisms to convey and display authority through the ritual and liturgical exploitation of redundancy, typical interval, measured speed and modified amplitude described in a classic passage repeated by, among others, ritual specialists David Kertzer (1988), d’Aquili and Newberg (1999); “The deans walk into the aula of the university with measured step; the Catholic priest’s chanting during mass is strictly regulated in pitch and rhythm by liturgical rules….” This passage was also mentioned by Konrad Lorenz who cited zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris for discovering this atavistic mechanism of authority and ecological regulation in animals (Morris 1957 in Lorenz 1966a pp.63ff., 1966b p.281). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [123] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation After the initial introductions and general briefings, recruits are collectively marched around base for the first few scheduled days of the course as they complete some preliminary administrative tasks. They draw personal uniforms and military equipment or “kit,” receive severe haircuts to military standard (in former times the removal of all facial hair), lock away their civilian clothing and personal effects, and undergo an extensive course of immunisations, fingerprinting and security briefings. For the first few weeks of the recruit course, the DS oversees every scheduled task of the training schedule and monopolises every moment between scheduled tasks. The point is to condition recruits to respond immediately, without question or resistance, to the direction of the DS, including when to shut up, where to stand, when to move, where to look. The DS mode of engagement with recruits during these early weeks of the schedule is abrupt and always directive. Recruits are trained to respond to each command or correction with “yes, Master Corporal”, “yes, Sergeant”, “yes, Warrant” and so on, accompanied by a formal action: coming promptly to the position of attention, heels together, upright, shoulders pulled back, arms correctly at one’s side, fists clenched correctly with thumbs touching the second knuckles. Recruits are to look directly ahead, chins up, eyes at eye level. Recruits must never respond verbally while looking into the eyes of the DS unless that DS should position him or herself directly in front of a recruit in order to direct or correct an action or to make a point with intimidating emphasis. The atavistic dynamics of aggression, dominance, submission, territoriality, threat and control that pervade the immediate social structure actively constrain the bodies and movements of recruits from the first moments of the entrainment process. Formerly maximum enrolment age was limited to 26 years of age as was common worldwide in military organisations. This accords with many ethnographic accounts of traditional © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [124] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation rites of passage. On my initial basic training course in 1980 most recruits were younger than twenty years of age. This is most significant in that this age bracket corresponds tightly with the well recognised human developmental stage wherein social identity is normally sought and catalysed and when peer approval is a critical factor within this developmental process (Erikson, 1980, 1982, Nürnberger 2013 pp. 41–42). More will be said of this in the course of the analysis section of this chapter.7 The training process intentionally imposes cognitive, geographical and social disorientation on all recruits. Restriction of movement, free time and easy contact or communication with families of origin and previous support systems precipitate recruits’ complete reliance upon course mates for all social needs. This process of forceful disconnection of recruits from previous social ties while simultaneously enforcing social proximity, discomfort and subordination within a controlled environment amounts to a type of primary re-socialisation. This unnatural process abruptly revisits earlier human developmental stages wherein primary socialisation typically occurs for infants within the family or immediate social group. More will be said of these human developmental processes later in this chapter. The first few weeks of the course require recruits to be awake at 0500 hours to attend to personal hygiene, grooming and shaving and then get themselves across the base to eat and back to quarters in time to prepare their boots, uniforms, personal bed space, locker, and the common areas of the quarters for inspection by DS. This routine is repeated each day – all before the course must depart to march or double time (running in coordinated step), in formation, to the first training venue scheduled to start about 0800 hours each day. No allowance is made for weather conditions. 7 Maximum enrolment age in the Canadian military now is virtually unrestricted, limited only to the requirement to be able to complete the required training and contracted period of service before mandatory retirement age of sixty. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [125] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation This is a considerable demand given the degree of cooperation needed to coordinate and complete these tasks within the limited time available. The demand entails the immaculate cleaning of showers, sinks, toilets, mirrors, windows, waxed floors and the specified arrangements of uniforms, lockers and bed spaces of some 30 recruits with the limited number of brooms, mops, rags and cleaning supplies provided. Pragmatically, this means that only one bank of mirrors, sinks, showers and toilets in the quarters is actively utilised by the course members.8 The rest remain unused and off limits for the duration of the course so that they can be maintained at a high standard of cleanliness and readiness for inspection at all times. As the course progresses the DS demands for standards of cleanliness escalate. Young recruits’ ever-present fatigue, temper, impatience and frustration work against the smooth and deliberate coordination of collective tasks and the sharing of common resources. Inevitably, rudimentary cleaning and grooming tasks are never completed to the satisfaction of DS. This is because the performance standards are unusually high and also because it takes some time to completely break the individual orientation of most recruits and to establish the realisation in them that coordinated effort will allow completion of overwhelming tasks within the energy and time constraints imposed. These early, foundational lessons in collective effort are driven home as the inevitable failures to meet standards are rewarded with the imposition of additional corrective inspections throughout the day, evening or weekend. Such corrections occur outside of scheduled 8 The reader will appreciate that there is even a high degree of regulation being imposed over the bodily functions of the recruits and their requirement to adapt their personal elimination and hygiene schedules in compliance with the requirement to maintain immaculate washroom fixtures for morning inspection. This degree of bodily regulation in compliance with overarching agendas about control, privacy, cleanliness and the requirement to sequester personal bodily functions from social consideration corresponds closely to the imposition of the social regimen and its mores upon the bodies of humans by their first caretakers throughout the primary developmental stages of life (Douglas 1996 [1978, 1973, 1970], Homburger [Erikson] 1937). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [126] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation training hours when recruits may have otherwise anticipated a few moments of time to themselves to relax or to think their own thoughts. As described, these initial weeks of training are intended to accommodate recruits to a new social dynamic. DS and course instructors exert dominance and absolute control over every aspect of the course’s non-scheduled time, the candidate’s physical conditions, safety and, in a very real sense, over each recruit’s security, health and successful passage through this phase of training. Recruits are purposely kept exhausted and exasperated by their constant failure to meet escalating standards but quickly absorb the lesson that failure results in extra demands upon themselves, or worse, upon the entire course. At this stage the training is intended simply to inculcate the spontaneous impulse to submit and comply with the demands of the DS and to internalise the orientation to collective rather than individual identification and action. Martial entrainment exploits a time-tested formula to facilitate ritualised primary sociostructural re-orientation. To be sure, technical skills such as drill, first aid, land navigation with maps and compass, and the employment of gas masks and protective clothing as counter measures against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are also introduced in these early weeks. These technical skills are of secondary importance to the need to level, subordinate and bond the recruits. The martial dispositions toward group cohesion and unconditional obedience to authority are forged into recruits’ psyches through the relentless imposition of overwhelming demands on their time, energy and resources. In the final analysis, the process amounts to a struggle between the will of the DS (with the prerogatives conveyed by the military legal and training systems) and the will of recruits. The latter is inevitably overcome by harnessing the innate developmental human dynamics and impulses of recruits, by exhausting their physical stamina, and depleting their motivation to resist the collective subordination and levelling processes. The process reorders © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [127] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation recruits’ sense of accomplishment and security based on coordinated collective, not individual action. The initial lessons are reinforced periodically over the first few months of military life. Such reinforcement increasingly takes the form of extra collective physical conditioning such as corrective rounds of pushups for minor individual shortcomings. Often this is carried out with the offending individual being made to stand and watch while the remainder of the course is disciplined. More serious infractions can result in loss of privileges for the entire group such as time off on weekends or restriction of freedom of movement within the confines of the base. This conditioning takes place within a broader atmosphere of overwhelmingly strenuous physical activity, tight timelines, restricted sleep and enforced proximity and cooperation with other recruits in the platoon. This has the effect of steeling and conditioning recruits to aggression and disappointment. On the other hand, constant and explicit verbal and non-verbal cues remind the recruit that those who endure these ordeals and support their course mates under all circumstances will merit a place within the martial community and will successfully integrate into the Canadian Forces. The martial entrainment agenda is imposed through all structural features of the training milieu – its schedules, laws, regulations, rules, demands and values. Each directive communicated to recruits by a DS is conveyed in in the form of clipped, assertive, almost barked and seldom elaborated imperative. The modes of delivery, although unique to each DS, can be described as dialects of larger occupational, regional and regimental communities. These directives employ a limited range of words, with minimal syllables and inflection. 9 The timing and cadence of words 9 Maurice Bloch describes the ritual deployment of traditional authority through rhetorical devices employing restricted vocabulary, curt or modified verbal cadence or constrained sentence structure (Bloch 1974 pp.54-71). This © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [128] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation and emphases within sentences are distinct, and distinctly imprinted collectively upon individual serials of recruits who know their keeper’s voice as well as one another’s, in distinction to all others – even those of DS and recruits in the next barracks over. It is not long before recruits’ own expressions, vocal tone, cadence and mannerisms take on the idiosyncratic characteristics of their DS and of their own unique course culture.10 After the first month or so of recruit training, a rudimentary but increasingly robust martial social structure has begun to catalyse. The recruits have also by this time internalised the ability to signal their absolute and unhesitating obedience to hundreds of daily commands. Each impulsive response entails a recognition and re-inscription of the hierarchy of authority implied by the military chain of command. The individual recruit’s ultimate liability to be bound to this social structure has, to this point, only partially been established. 4.4 “One Man One Kit” and Related Moral Imperatives to Radical Equality and Responsibility – Ritual Qualities of the First Inviolable Postulate Very early in the entrainment process recruits are introduced to the phrase “one man one kit.” This phrase is used at most every juncture of the training process: when receiving one’s allotment of issued equipment and uniforms, when drawing rations, when waiting in line for a benefit or to perform a duty. The most straightforward meaning is that each soldier is entitled to the same physical provisions and equipment as any other soldier; no individual soldier being corresponds directly to the alien yet authoritative martial syntax and dialect that functions within the Canadian Forces training system and later within the organisational command structure to compel obedience and the confidence of subordinates. 10 See Charles Taylor 2016 on idiolects pp. 59-61. It appears that even minor differences to speech, style or habitus are sufficient enough signals within human societies to support differentiated identity, prejudice, taboo and, as I will presently explain, dynamics of pseudospeciation. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [129] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation entitled to special consideration. It also means that no recruit is exempt from the most menial, dangerous or unsanitary tasks. Additionally, the expression comes to mean that one must take complete responsibility for one’s kit – its carriage and care, its maintenance and absolute serviceability at all times under all conditions. This pertains equally to its cleanliness and proper storage or display when not in use and for a recruit’s knowledge of its whereabouts at all times. One should not expect others to care for or carry one’s kit at any time. The term “one man one kit” takes on a range of additional dimensions which are equally important or “grave” within the martial subculture and pertain to one’s fundamental orientation to one’s group and one’s assigned duties. The concept carries the imperative that one must remain vigilant in completing one’s duties insofar as this has important implications for the collective ability of others to complete their jobs in cooperative fulfilment of the broader mission. Very quickly the expression comes to be associated with character, morality and one’s worthiness to wear the uniform and be a trusted member of the group. It is then a moral shortcoming if a recruit should willingly or selfishly jeopardise or undermine another individual or the group’s collective comfort, wellbeing or ability to complete their duties. An example of such a shortcoming would occur, for instance, if an individual recruit misplaced one of his or her gloves prior to an outdoor drill practice in February and, as a consequence, all the other recruits on the serial had to remove their gloves for the duration of the training day in order that course uniformity be maintained. One who commits such infractions comes to be referred to as a “blade.” It is a term of disdain and frequently a signal of immanent ostracism if the offender does not make sufficient adjustment to attitude and behaviour quickly enough. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [130] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Despite soldiers’ responsibility to carry and care for their own kit and duties, the reality is that individuals are frequently tasked beyond personal ability. In such cases there is an additional martial imperative that one has a responsibility to all other members of one’s group and must go to all lengths to carry the burdens of others who are overwhelmed, so long as they are “in,” that is “in solidarity” with the group. This imperative means, paradoxically, that an individual soldier can presume upon his or her peers so long as he or she is in good standing with the group and is perceived to be working at capacity. A related martial moral concept developed early in service life is that one must not be selfishly preoccupied with one’s own load or duties such that one is finished one’s work and relaxing while others are still working on their part of collective or individual tasks. Those who display noticeable self-interest, ambition or energy in impressing superiors are subject to serious collective disdain. I have even witnessed a kind of spontaneous group aggression or collective resentment focus upon those who allowed their morning display of personal weapons and kit to noticeably exceed the standard of their peers. Such occurrences are seen to represent an improper attitude and are equally likely to result in the offender being labelled a “blade” and to be excluded from the protective dimensions of group affiliation. 4.5 Bonding, Stigma, Exile and Extinction The intense supervision during initial entrainment can be overbearing and not every recruit measures up. Some will choose to withdraw voluntarily from training. Others will be identified as unsatisfactory for retention. Those who fail once but who are thought to have potential may be sent to a less advanced platoon for retraining. In rare cases, a recruit will not be accepted by the group and will be singled out for group ostracism. That candidate’s eventual failure becomes a foregone conclusion. Once it has been determined that a recruit will not be continuing he or she is © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [131] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation removed from the quarters immediately and quickly returned to the original place of enrolment. Many lifelong friendships begin in basic training but I know of no examples where successful military members have maintained close friendships or even ongoing contact with former course mates who have failed or been removed from recruit training. Despite the intensity and camaraderie of the recruit training experience, recruits who are marked are instinctually avoided by others, as if they are stigmatised as with the “mark of Cain” that prevents any further interaction with that member. Once gone, that former recruit is quickly forgotten. In short, ongoing knowledge of military life and close affiliation with soldiers are withheld from outsiders. Those who disrupt another’s kit or work, or in rare cases are found to have stolen another’s possessions, are quickly and decisively punished and then rejected by the group. The stigma pertaining to theft and thieves is insurmountable once collectively attributed and I do not know of a single case where a known thief has gone on to complete recruit training among his or her peers. Bornmann notes the collective disdain for thieves within American martial culture but limits the stigma as pertaining only to members of one’s own unit, connecting the boundaries of inclusive unit membership with an imputed sense of pseudo kinship (see Schneider 1965, 1984 in Bornmann 2009 p. 355). As I have described, the concepts of radical equality and individual responsibility for group success are inscribed by the ruthless deployment of group pressure and collective punishment. These are primal, precultural tendencies—akin to atavistic animal impulses—to group cohesion and security. As noted, there is also some primordial, collective impulse to leave behind or exclude those who do not or cannot act in close accord with the group at all times. This is a primary feature of martial morality—individual security contingent upon collective accord and expectations— even if such understandings are, at this stage of training, vaguely specified. One is reminded of a © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [132] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation column of migrating wildebeest on the savannah and the implicit protection individuals derive through close incorporation with the horde. Those excluded, or differentiated in some way fall outside of the march and are left to the swift and inevitable predations that relentlessly dog the migrating herd of animals. Such impulses are not necessarily rationalised – they are spontaneous, visceral motivations or dispositions of inclusion and exclusion pervading all collective interactions. The concept of “one man one kit” and the related moral imperatives described constitute much of the complex of primary, inviolable and prioritised values or nomoi among soldiers which, once inscribed, will persist throughout one’s career whenever interacting with martial comrades. They also constitute specific foundational martial values upon which subsequent martial meanings will be built. 4.6 Mentorship and Fortification of Martial Bearing and Morality During the first few weeks of the course DS routinely appear in the barracks for a short time early each evening before the recruits are left to their own devices to complete the necessary personal kit preparations and collective cleaning operations in preparation for next day’s inspection. Such visits allow the DS to maintain a reasonable degree of supervision and guidance over their charges. In truth these routine visits are anticipated by recruits who are shown, through the personal demonstration of their DS, the finer points of every action they will be asked to perform over the course of their training. Dozens of mundane acts are demonstrated in exquisite, meticulous, narrated detail; how to make a bed and to starch and iron its measured, hospital corners properly, how to sew a name tag onto a collar or sock, how to custom form a beret to CF standards with scalding and then ice cold water, how to wax a floor to a glass shine, how to polish a boot to a mirror finish and correctly tie its laces for display. It is in fact a fundamental principle of martial culture that leaders take personal responsibility for providing sufficient training for every task or © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [133] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation skill they demand of their subordinates. The motivations for this orientation among military leaders are explored at some length in the following chapter of this analysis. It is also expected that all leaders will have personally mastered every skill they demand and will personally demonstrate and mentor their subordinates in such skills to a high degree of proficiency. Discipline and boundaries are rigidly maintained throughout these paedagogic interactions but the dialogue accompanying each session exemplifies many undocumented qualities of the martial worldview and culture—unique figures of speech, acronyms, profanities and practiced dispositions which are immediately recognisable and clear to insiders but which remain unfathomable to all outsiders. Recruits soon come to emulate this martial dialect and the predominating attitude or habitus modelled for them by DS – a distinctive and enduring subcultural affect they will refine and enhance with every subsequent posting. Each new unit or regiment will add its own peculiarities throughout a soldier’s career. Over a very short period of time distinctive recruit platoon dialects can come to incorporate the regional slang of a particular DS’s place of origin. Such was the case where some of those from my recruit serial who hailed from western Canada were noted to be using the same swear idioms and alien sentence structure, verbal tone and rhythm as two DS who were from the south shore of Nova Scotia. Verbal expressions, regional turns of phrase and faint hints of ethnic accent that echoed the Gaelic, British and even Bostonian lilts one overhears in the tavern conversations of Canadian lobster fishing communities. These verbal nuances faintly but recognisably reproduced among martial apprentices through the influence of DS mentors who were themselves first fishermen and shipwrights’ sons. These constitute clear signals of commonality and affiliation among close course mates but distinctive boundaries of difference, exclusion and solidarity against outsiders from other platoons and “civvies” who become more estranged and othered as the course continues. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [134] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Humour and mannerisms too are transmitted by example and absorbed by recruits—that sarcastic, aggressive, cutting but highly cultivated wit and comedic timing held in reserve by most soldiers to lacerate comrades in front of the group at the first moment of weakness, indecision or emotion.11 And with humour comes prejudice such as, in my time, a contempt for soldiers of Cold War Communist Bloc countries with whom we were sure to be at war at any moment. As a basic recruit training course platoon commander, I later noted similar transference of prejudice onto my recruits from my own young subordinate course instructors, some of whom were already war or peacekeeping veterans who had experienced violence and witnessed various human atrocities in Africa. Such transference and absorption of prejudice still occurs with more recent generations of recruits who have been trained by soldiers who have themselves developed a visceral distrust and contempt for Afghans, Muslims or similarly dressed civilians through their own firsthand experiences of war and betrayal when daytime farmers and aid recipients routinely transformed into nighttime insurgents. It is primarily after training hours during casual, unscripted “backstage”12 interactions in the barracks that loyalty, cohesion and a sense of mutual obligation emerges between DS leaders and their recruits. It is during these interactions that the finer points of martial morality are delineated in discourse and reflection upon each day’s events and shortcomings. Each infraction 11 I have previously noted a characteristic “code” or verbal style of interaction within other demographic groups that is similarly reliant primarily upon aggression, dominance, ruthless sarcasm and humiliation (see Nṻrnberger and Robichaud-Smith 2004). I had developed no clear analysis of this phenomenon at the time of my first observation of it among informants within a clinical therapeutic setting in 2002-2003. I describe this mode of interaction as an adaptive device in terms of its critical aggression moderating and group cohesion functions later within this chapter. 12 Goffman highlighted the more authentic tenor of interactions between “insiders” within any sequestered microcultural setting he referred to as the “backstage” (1959). That this type of dynamic begins to emerge between DS and recruits after the first month or so of training is indicative of recruits’ successful entry into the martial subculture. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [135] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation is deconstructed within the martial canons of right and wrong, obligation and priority.13 All are expounded by DS to their platoons and set within broader milieus of current geopolitical and organisational developments, personal reflections on service life and DS recollection of wartime adventure, trial, hardship or loss. Such careful paedagogical efforts are made by dutiful martial mentors in the afterhours of the training day. All delivered within the larger context of physical exhaustion and bodily subordination and clothed within an aromatic ambience of shoe polish, freshly ironed cotton, starch, laundry soap, floor wax, human sweat and pheromones. Soldiers recall these sessions and smells for decades and associate them emotively with whatever popular tunes of the day were broadcast in every recruit barracks, during every unscheduled minute, through the best stereo to be found among course members. In this way martial mentors faithfully fill in the missing blanks for recruits who begin to piece together their own new and emerging understandings of the martial cosmos, of how it works and of their place within it. 4.7 Junctures of Transition, Liminality, Corrective Ritual Regulation Recruits are always confined to their barracks (CB) for the first few weeks of their course when not explicitly undergoing training. The only exceptions are to attend meals or the local military medical clinic at prescheduled times or, within strictly enforced hours after the day’s scheduled events, in order to march formally in groups to the local Canex, the military store where personal grooming and cleaning supplies can be bought. In light of the forgoing description of the entrainment process it seems clear that this initial period of confinement serves to expedite the re- 13 The point being made here is that there is always a public moral obligation, that is a social contract, implied within any human ritual performance or exchange of pseudospecific signals. Rappaport made the important point that a liturgical order – that is a ritual system of ordered meanings and values such as the martial process of this analysis – always establish conventions to which its members assent by virtue of their subordinated acceptance or physical participation within it. This carries coercive public expectations of compliance. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [136] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation socialisation process and to add an element of intensity to the human processes at play. It also maximises the opportunity for the DSs’ to observe the recruits and ensures their control in establishing the broader social mechanisms that are being imposed. This initial confinement coincides with the emergence of a state of unprecedented physical fitness and personal confidence on the part of the recruits. There is also by this time a very tangible awareness of cohesion emerging among peers as I have described. My experience is also that, depending on the esprit and martial charisma evinced by the various course DS, recruits will also find themselves in a state of high morale and pent up exuberance such that the decision will be made to lift the confinement order and to allow recruits to experience various privileges they have now earned. This typically happens after the first five or six weeks unless, for disciplinary reasons, recruits are not seen to be working together and progressing adequately at this time. The process of lifting a serial’s CB on the first weekend after an interim period of intensively enforced re-socialisation and training constitutes the first systemic expression of trust in a recruit’s judgement and the protective factors conveyed by the nascent martial social structure. At the recruit school at Cornwallis in 1980 the first tangible privilege earned by recruits was the freedom to attend the recruit Junior Ranks mess on base. This was a club maintained explicitly for recruits where alcohol could be purchased and consumed by any service member authorised to attend, regardless of age, so long as they had signed on the dotted line to die for Queen and country. Alcohol was purchased at a substantially subsidised price, which was at the time approved in keeping with Defence and Treasury Board policy applicable to all ships and bases in the Canadian Forces. This has changed and now only those of legal drinking age are permitted to purchase or consume alcohol at military mess facilities. Nevertheless, for the majority of recruits © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [137] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation attendance at such a facility, at this juncture of the training process, continues to be a notable milestone. Typically, after collectively attending the mess, recruits may break off into smaller groups and travel to the nearest substantial town or city by taxi in order to attend drinking or dancing establishments. Course members may also over indulge in alcohol and simply return to their barracks to order food, play loud music, socialise and fall asleep. In such cases the first weekend after the lifting of CB results in a welcome period of rest and diminished formality. Attributions of liminality and communitas to this juncture are apt. Predictably at this notable transitional point some recruits will engage in reckless, disorderly, hazardous or illegal activities. Such activities sometimes result in civilian complaints that register with military or civilian police authorities or may simply be observed by other service members and be reported to the military chain of command which will direct course DS to take decisive corrective action. Frequently fights with civilians or recruits of other platoons occur or recruits will rampage and engage in rough horseplay in their quarters and cause damage or injury as a result of inebriation, high morale, exuberance and the abrupt elimination of socially imposed restraints. In cases of fighting it is not uncommon for larger groups of recruits from a given serial, now conditioned to impulsive collective action, to spontaneously and cohesively oppose and engage groups from other serials (or groups of civilians) should a dispute or confrontation occur involving one of its members. This behaviour comes to take on more defined dimensions of antistructure as recruits collectively act in flagrant opposition to the discipline and military regulations that have been comprehensively imposed throughout the basic training process. In the case of minor disruptive activities which do not formally contravene specific military regulations contained in the Queen’s Regulations and Orders (QR&O) or some other directive, the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [138] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation recruits will simply be plunged back onto CB for an indeterminate period of time. This typically results in untold rounds of extra inspections and the monopolisation of every minute of a course’s time between wake up and lights out for several weeks until decorum, discipline and morale improve. This is considered a positive learning experience for the serial – a sort of abrupt introduction to the military processes of social control. As mentioned, minor disruptive activities by recruits at this juncture are generally anticipated by the DS. In the event that police are involved, or if any recruits are found to have committed criminal activity, contravened serious military regulations or have misbehaved in public,14 a formal charge may be laid against the accused and a summary trial will be scheduled with the accused sometimes being held in custody pending trial. Escorts will also be designated from the recruit course to attend and witness the trial. This is a military tradition of ritualised justice that serves to ensure the accused has reliable witnesses to the details of the trial and sentence. I say “sentence” and not “sentence or discharge” because a guilty outcome is generally predetermined. The accused is also assigned an assisting officer, generally a junior commissioned officer or senior NCO who will explain the accused’s situation and options and will help to plan any statement of defence the accused might naively hope to make. Typically, the accused has been discovered or observed in some type of minor misbehavior and is brought before a presiding officer – that is a Commanding Officer or his Delegated Officer to be dealt with swiftly and decisively. This is so that a lesson can be learned by the accused, a token punishment can be imposed and, most importantly, so that a 14 In the Canadian military there is a frequently used provision within the QR&O that allows a Commanding or Delegated Officer to hold a subordinate service member liable for any notable breach of decorum that is not specified elsewhere in regulations – conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline (QR&O 129 (1)); Any act, conduct, disorder or neglect to the prejudice of good order and discipline is an offence and every person convicted thereof is liable to dismissal with disgrace from Her Majesty’s service or to less punishment. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [139] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation modicum of discipline and subordination among troops is maintained and can be seen by all to be maintained. For minor infractions personnel may be punished with confinement to barracks, extra work and drill or minor fines. More serious matters can be dealt with at summary trials, sometimes matters sufficiently grave to warrant incarceration at a dedicated military detention barracks or formal career action (including reduction in rank if applicable). The powers of punishment – that is the severity of punishment an officer or commander can determine and impose for the specific offence – are in fact incrementally stipulated within the various canons of military law and regulation. The important thing to remember is that for some stipulated offences, or where the powers of punishment are extensive, the regulations may afford the accused the right to elect trial by court martial which are then dealt with according to a different set of military legal procedures and rules of evidence. Very serious or criminal infractions may simply be turned over to civilian police authorities and civil courts at which point an accused’s life becomes more difficult and his military career may be jeopardised. In any event, the accused knows beforehand the degree of minor punishment that the CO or his delegated presiding officer can mete out at a summary trial. The accused also knows that if a court martial is elected, the powers of punishment at a formal service tribunal will be much more severe. At the summary trial the accused will be marched, without his beret, before the CO and made to mark time. To mark time is to march on the spot bringing the knees up, thighs parallel to the ground, eyes directly forward, fists at the side until being brought to a halt to be addressed by the CO. The pace two or three times faster than any recruit would normally march is called out loudly by the Sergeant Major – a senior NCO holding a pace stick or ceremonial mace indicative of his station. A range of formalities rapidly transpire involving oaths, the reading of charges, the admission or denial of charges by the accused and the calling of witnesses or evidence according © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [140] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation to legal procedural regulations applicable to the process. Typically a winded, gasping accused will then be excoriated loudly by the CO, pronounced guilty and fined a paltry sum of money or assigned extra drill and duties. This system of military discipline and ritual justice is an evolved artifice of martial jurisprudence appropriate for the nuanced but rapid and direct deployment of canonical authority throughout the various strata of the martial ecosystem. It is a mechanism of domination and enforced subordination. The absence of the accused’s headdress, the presentation of the accused to his superiors in a state of physical discomfort, exertion and vulnerability—sometimes without clear explanation of charges—has deep roots in martial tradition and ethology. The point being made, that is the liturgico-ritual principle being asserted by means of the martial justice system, is that the embodied meanings of submission to canonical authority are maintained as absolutely prior to all subsequent martial meanings and training that must come to be inscribed upon recruits throughout the entrainment process. This fundamental lesson of bodily subordination prior to all subsequent martial meaning and discipline is repeated as required whenever it is forgotten. This is in keeping with my argument that within liturgical orders, higher social and symbolic meanings are always contingent upon fundamental embodied meanings conveyed within a given rite. Mary Douglas (1996 [1978, 1973, 1970]) has also described the variety of corporal mechanisms of society to regulate and correct any deviance from acceptable standards of behaviour. In this case and within other similar ritually-regulated societies that maintain strong social boundaries, very little deviance—that is antistructural activity—is tolerated. 4.8 Undifferentiated Cohesion as a Definitive Martial Ideal Throughout the basic training ordeal, various mandatory military performance standards are checked off the long list of qualifications that will be recorded in the member’s file to follow © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [141] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation him or her throughout their career. What is not always recorded, but is always considered carefully by DS, is whether a recruit has “adapted adequately to the military environment.” This is the code phrase that stipulates that a recruit has not been identified an “individual” or as someone who “doesn’t know his or her place” within the rudimentary military social structure and dominance hierarchy. Whether or not the code phrase is recorded it is the primary criterion for assessing each recruit’s worthiness for passage into the martial organisation. It also demonstrates that a primary aim of the training process is indeed the inscription of primal socio-structural impulses to collective solidarity and subordination – a priority which would seem to be maintained by patterns of dominance, aggression and submission in ways comparable to those maintaining rudimentary social structure among non-human species of social animals. More will be said on this account in the analysis section of this chapter which is to follow. 4.9 Supporting Theory and Analysis – Human Dynamics of Dominance, Social Hierarchy, Structure, Solidarity and Stigma To this point I have described the initial ceremonial, levelling and socialisation processes that define the initial weeks of entrainment for both recruits and officer candidates. Officer candidates engage in an additional range of academic and symbolic formation at this time but such training, nevertheless, progresses against a background of compliance, subordination and levelling that is essentially undifferentiated from that of non-commissioned recruits. The entrainment process has evolved to reliably produce recruits who will function within the Canadian martial environment to cooperate, tolerate aggression, endure discomfort, bond, identify with the group, identify and exclude non-group members; observe specific taboos; defend one’s group; and persist in self-sacrificial activities that could result in harm or death. Like many elaborate rites, the origins are obscured by hundreds of years of history and many generations of martial candidates. The features of the process have no doubt evolved over time in keeping with © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [142] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation what worked to produce soldiers who would perform their duties within the martial environments of successive eras. The features appear invariant because the innate human impulses and social dynamics required to bond humans in collective efforts to fight and kill other humans remain unchanged over time and are differentiated only by technical innovation. This section of the chapter proposes to explain the ritual process by which these basic social dynamics are initiated and by which specific martial qualities and priorities are inscribed upon neophyte soldiers. Within this analysis of the various human mechanisms and dynamics pervading the martial entrainment process it is necessary to bear in mind that several axes of inscription, entrainment and human development are being ritually accessed or activated simultaneously in recruits. I do not claim that these processes are necessarily conceptualised by recruits or their DS keepers or that they have been purposefully considered in the design of the recruit training syllabus. Within my analysis, what is happening within these initial processes is that recruits are being forced into a state of submission within a new field of meanings and a provisional, transitory social hierarchy and are then being re-socialised within this highly controlled and restrictive social order and environment over a tightly condensed period of time. 4.10 Decorous Ceremonial Performance and Ritual Dynamics of the National and Martial Cultus Given the ritualised nature of martial life and the formal process that initiates it, it is no surprise that national symbols, meanings, values and authority are first invoked ceremonially in the enrolment ritual. The deistic, sovereign and national symbols are prominently displayed upon enrolment because the enrolment marks a recruit’s formal removal from the immediate ritual realm of national public authority and values and entry into the sequestered and relatively self-contained subculture of the martial cultus which has been set apart for the management of violence on behalf of the state (Haldén 2016). The enrolment ceremony then formally constitutes a form of transition © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [143] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation from the civil to the martial domain. While eluding exact correspondence with van Gennep’s elaborate classification scheme, it is reasonable to consider the enrolment ceremony as a territorial passage ritual, a pre-liminal separation ritual or as a ritual portal or threshold (van Gennep 1960 pp.15–25).15 Decorous symbolic ritual display often accompanies transitions from one ritual realm to another.16 The national symbols asserting themselves ritually as if to signify that the nation is temporarily relinquishing direct communion with this citizen who is now entering into a hidden realm of martial values and priorities which will now order that soldier’s world with its own primary symbols until retirement, injury or death. National symbols are displayed upon enrolment and periodically at ceremonial displays throughout military service primarily when they will also be observed by those from outside the military system. Thus the display of national symbols within military ritual performances serve the broader ritual requirements of those outside of the military cult. The question naturally arises as to the extent to which the rich array of national symbols come to animate the actual martial worldview that will be inscribed upon soldiers. The symbolic dimensions of soldiers’ actual worldviews eventually cohere in more specific and articulated sets of martial symbols and constructions to be developed more thoroughly at individual units or regimental “communities” after subsequent and more intensive stages of training and 15 Rappaport described some ceremonial rituals as providing sudden discrete digital signals within liturgically ordered systems to publically catalyse changes of ritual state or status that arise as a result of slow, imperceptible analogic developments in regulated variables of cultural systems – for example the sudden change of status that ceremonially culminates long periods of time within which Canadian civilians may have been imperceptively contemplating and forming the decision to enjoin the Canadian Forces (Rappaport 1979 p.184, see also the processual, transtheoretical model of human change of Prochaska and DiClamente [1984], Prochaska, DiClamente and Norcross [1992]). 16 Victor Turner parses the distinction between ritual and decorous ceremony as the difference between liminal generative processes of transition and the conservative, condensing processes of social state (Turner 1983 p. 223). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [144] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation enculturation. Those subsequent communal symbolic constructions are only infrequently displayed to the public and are seldom comprehended by those outside the specific martial community to which they pertain. Such symbols will come to animate the various regimental cults of the broader martial religion. Once soldiers are foundationally socialised – that is once recruits’ social structure and their awareness of its dimensions and their place within it are galvanised – the “national” inventory of symbols will continue to function for soldiers only as a vestigial or dormant set of referents or as a secondary symbolic refuge for former soldiers once they are broken, injured, retired or otherwise alienated from participation in their specific martial communities. These former soldiers must then seek reintegration and communion within civilian society away from the protection and security of their former specific martial communities (see Nürnberger 2013). These foundational national and regnal symbols do not strongly pertain to or predominate the worldviews of soldiers during their course of military service. I will return to the developmental implications of this repertoire of symbols and meanings briefly in the final chapter of this analysis. I have already made the point that the martial realm is a cultural domain unto itself and adaptation to its meanings and values will be the primary challenge to which recruits must rise. It is important to remember that the more formal rituals within a liturgical order often occur in the passage from one ritual realm to another. The ritual mechanism for conveying sanctity or gravity of a value is invariant formality. This is to say that the critical rituals are performed in a way that tolerates little variance and which recognizes the pre-existent authority of the received form of a ritual action. In ritual language, formality equates to gravity and gravity equates to invariance. Because the form of a given ritual action is held to be important and normative, there accretes an understanding that it should be performed invariantly. This common understanding of the importance of invariant performance, that is its normativity (that is its authority) is referred to by © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [145] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Rappaport as performative canonicity. Within Rappaport’s schema he demonstrates this ritual principle with reference to the Shema17– a Jewish affirmation of highest authority, gravity and invariant form. Despite the broad range of Jewish belief and practice, Rappaport maintained that there is virtually no variance in the manner of the Shema’s recitation among Jews. The point I wish to emphasise here is that at ritual passages, there are specific rites that convey the most critical meanings of both the losing and receiving ritual domains. In terms of recruits taking the oath, the public or national ritual domain is highlighting, through formal ceremonial performance, that the neophytes are embarking upon a transition into a different domain. The receiving domain is highlighting the gravity of the meanings it attaches to the value of unlimited liability by imposing an invariant commitment and statement in the presence of witnesses. The recruits, in performing the oath or affirmation in the company of witnesses, subordinate themselves to compliance with the received, invariant form and meanings entailed and affirmed by all in attendance. It is a public performance of a social contract that will come to entail a compelling degree of moral potency. Something more could be said here about the need for a formal ceremony for the taking of an oath and the requirement for the oath or affirmation to be administered by an officer holding the Queen’s commission.18 A simple affirmation is clearly sufficient to constitute a legal contract 17 Rappaport’s example of the invariant formal recitation of the Shema may not pertain strictly to junctures of transition, nevertheless the example does illustrate the connection between invariance, normativity of pre-existent form, and therefore the recognition of authority – that is “canonicity” within the any given liturgical order. 18 Similarly grave declarations are sometimes made in the presence of non-commissioned members such as when trainees must affirm to Junior NCOs that they have not retained any ammunition in their possession subsequent to firing their weapons on a range. The affirmation includes the solemn, formal declaration performed by soldiers standing at attention; “I have no live rounds or empty casings in my possession Sir.” Junior non-commissioned DS receiving the declaration are never otherwise addressed as Sir. In such cases of gravity where an officer is not present, the grave authority of the Queen (and by implication, the Divine) is invoked by proxy. This practice has all but © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [146] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation and the binding obligation that a soldier must obey lawful commands in the performance of duties which could result in death. This affirmation parallels the traditional Abrahamic association of oaths, and divine judgement, including the prerogative over the sanctity of life and the forfeiture of life in the breaking of an oath; the requirement that such authority be mediated through the sovereign (Elizabeth by the grace of God Queen) and her minions is also clear. Such deistic meanings are a vestigial holdover from former times and no longer prevail comprehensively within the martial realm. They are still conveyed formally within the martial cult and liturgical order despite the fact that the legal authority to compel unlimited liability of soldiers no longer requires divine endorsement. 4.11 Proto Ritual – Atavistic Dynamics of Territoriality, Dominance, Submission, Aggression and Cohesive Bonding within the Ritual Entrainment Process – Ecological Motivations to Territoriality and Dominance Earlier in this chapter I described the process in which new recruits and officer cadets are received upon arrival at their place of basic training. DS waste no time in achieving complete control over candidates’ bodies, movements and all aspects of the daily routine. Most would describe the mannerisms and interpersonal approach of DS as being direct, even coarse or condescending towards those undertaking the training. This abrupt and unpleasant reception process is primarily oriented to the necessity for the recruits to recognise their subordinate status with regards to their DS keepers and to impulsively respond to the signals of dominance and disappeared of late in light of the fact that the military and civil authority and powers of punishment are pragmatically sufficient to extract the declaration and enforce corporal regulations concerning any breach. There are also elements of transition in the movement from the “grave” atmosphere maintained at all times on the firing range to the “mundane” training environment of the training base. The extended powers and prerogatives allocated to the Range Conducting Officers and Range Safety Officers and the dire consequences and punishments that accrue to breeches of decorum, or invariant weapons handling, loading, unloading, clearing and firing procedures to be observed throughout, are considerable. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [147] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation territoriality pervading all dimensions of the recruit course world. The reception process and the pervasive atmosphere of DS dominance and candidate submission also establishes the native equality of all candidates to one another. Owing to the diversity of the social and cultural backgrounds of recruits the process of this initial submission and collective levelling can take some time. Natural biological processes and human limitations are harnessed to speed up this phase of the entrainment process. In the early weeks of the entrainment process levelling and conformity are accomplished through the shrewd and merciless exploitation of human frailty including physical exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and collective group pressure. These factors break the will of any individual recruit who would hold onto his or her own autonomy or previous privilege. Some of the human mechanisms that are triggered in the course of this re-socialisation process are pre-cultural, non-cognitive mechanisms common to many animals. These mechanisms have been extensively described within the field of ethology – a discipline primarily focused on the biological determinants of behaviour. The critical planes of human operation which I will describe are triggered simultaneously or in tight sequence. They build towards specific ends in keeping with the psychosocial liturgical order of inscribed human bodily and conceptual meanings which are phylogenetically coordinated and integrated into human developmental processes.19 While the primal adaptive, ecological and socio-developmental structural processes I will describe can be distinguished conceptually, they do overlap temporally and appear to transpire simultaneously. Nevertheless, they must be described separately for analytic clarity. 19 I explore this evolved phylogenetic phenomenon at greater length within its own excursus at the end of Chapter 5 of this analysis. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [148] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Why should it be necessary to dominate and level young men and women who have freely volunteered to undergo this arduous process and who have been selected from a much broader pool of applicants? In this section I will describe the innate principles by which animals enact dominance and offer an ecological explanation as to why this happens in nature. Following this I will offer an explanation as to why this should happen at the beginning of the liturgically ordered socialisation and entrainment processes of the Canadian martial entrainment rite. Konrad Lorenz was preoccupied with intraspecific (same species) behaviours clustered around aggression and specifically pertaining to a range of instinctual drives such as dominance, competition for resources and territoriality. His 1966 work On Aggression has been cited by many significant late-twentieth century scholars of ritual. Such behaviours are “pre-programmed” (encoded) into animals (Alcock 2003 p.7 and Klein 2000 p.478) and regulate ecological variables within specific environments. Within the field of ethology, such invariant behaviours and impulses constitute a group of fixed action patterns (FAPs) and innate releasing mechanisms (IRMs). In animals, these impulses correspond to innate motivations to act and to innate impulses to respond to intraspecific signals from other animals.20 20 Shogo Tanaka (2015) unpacks Merleau-Ponty’s formulation of “intercorporeality” which is undoubtedly a given, if unexamined, dynamic at play throughout all human interactions as understood within the discipline of phenomenology. Tanaka articulates the primary ethological dynamics of embodied social reciprocations which mutually compel intersubjective human actions (through feedback loops of spontaneous behaviour matching/primordial empathy and impulses toward interactional synchrony). The phenomenological analysis is largely beyond the strict parameters of this project but the concept of intercorporeality appears to be well established in current cognitive science and establishes the existence of a range of embodied ethological dynamics undergirding and mutually-compelling individual behaviours, social actions and collective social relations within human ecologies (see Tanaka 2015, 2017). In light of the current theory explored by Tanaka, such pre-encoded dynamics are also at work within the the full spectrum of social and ritual processes experienced by soldiers during basic training. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [149] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The purpose of dominance and aggression among animals is primarily to regulate the spacing of organisms within an ecosystem. Animals in close proximity contend for territory, food and mates. The specific factors by which dominant authority are established in the animal world are size, strength or biological fitness. These factors telegraph contending animals’ indexical intent and physical capacity to successfully contend for a recognised area of territory or for specific resources within that territory. Displays of dominance within a stipulated territory often equate to threats of confrontation, violence, injury or death. They may also equate to competitive advantage by way of conspicuous display of biological and reproductive fitness (see Zahavi and Zahavi 1997). Such displays are almost ubiquitously conveyed with a high degree of emotive aggression (Lorenz 1966a, Darwin 1872). Animals have evolved a common complex of signals specifically oriented to distribute a population of animals throughout a range of territory (Lorenz 1966a p.40). A dominant animal in any intraspecific altercation is motivated only to drive the other away from the epicentre of its own domain and does not pursue a retreating conspecific for any great distance. A challenging animal, if unable to contend successfully, will signal its submission by various gestures and will slowly withdraw. Animals chased back to their own territory of dominance tend to defend that area against all challengers with renewed vigour and aggression relative the animal’s proximity to the epicentre of its home territory (later observation has also established that duration of local occupation is also a critical motivation for territorial defence; see also Alcock 2001 p.15). A broad range of relatively invariant secondary signals (impulsive postures, behaviours, calls, smells) accompany these aggression and dominance dynamics in regulating territoriality (see also Zahavi and Zahavi 1997 and Robert Sapolsky 2004, 2005, 2010, 2016 passim). Certain “tournament” species of animals contend for mates by fighting in a ritualised, non-lethal manner using non-lethal body parts such © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [150] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation as elaborate antlers or horns. Such physical adaptations are usually not used for defence against other species of predators and are specifically evolved strictly for ritualised intraspecific territorial or resource competition. They are direct, unmoderated acts and displays of biological dominance or indexical capacity to control or outcompete the bodies of other animals within a given territory. Humans also employ a considerable range of non-verbal communication signals (HNCs) to assert dominance or express social hierarchy within any social group.21 The field of human ethology categorises these signals in terms of space behaviour (an elaboration of territoriality), posturology, angle/frontal planes of address, facial expression (especially the presence of grimace), gaze (direction and length), gesticulation, and touching. Klein (2000 pp. 478–479) also identified culturally specific HNC signals such as body colouring/mutilation, decoration and clothing. Some of these features factor into the fundamental dynamics of primal dominance within the initial reception process and the ongoing interactions between DS and recruits. One can discern clear signals of dominance and biological fitness in the immaculate presentation and imposing martial bearing that is maintained at all times by DS who have been specifically selected in view of such traits. Lorenz’s research also highlighted the presence of various intraspecific aggression inhibiting impulses and behaviours in animals which function to preserve the lives of animals of a given species. Such inhibitions generally consist of instinctual impulses to avoid physical proximity or to attack vital bodily structures of same species animals, even when contending ritually for mates or resources. Lorenz described such preservative impulses in crows that will not attack the eyes of other crows under any circumstances but do attack and kill prey creatures or 21 This insight is microsociologist Erving Goffman’s main contribution to my argument within this project although he described signals of dominance and subordination within his terms demeanor and deference (1956). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [151] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation competitors of other species in exactly this manner. Such aggression-inhibiting impulses in animals are accompanied by appeasement and submissive impulses and ritualised actions aimed to communicate differential fitness or submission. These intraspecific tendencies operate as adaptive ecosytemic regulating mechanisms and enhance the survival of animal groups by limiting same species violence while maintaining the fighting ability and persistence of the group (Lorenz 1966a). To this point I have highlighted Lorenz’s contention that same-species animals are not motivated to aggress each other. According to Lorenz’s ethological theory, animals naturally avoid intraspecific aggression and killing such as would occur if they are situated too closely in physical proximity. The concentrated congregation of conspecific animals is a common phenomenon in nature and has required the evolution in social animal species of a critical organisational principle without which subsequent social structure could not emerge and persist – the rule of the ranking order. This ranking order ensures that every individual animal is aware of its status or strength relative to every other animal in the group. This awareness is due to the fact that they innately recognise and impulsively respond to the ritualised communicative signals pervading all animal interactions: A principle of organization without which a more advanced social life cannot develop in higher vertebrates is the so-called ranking order. Under this rule every individual in the society knows which one is stronger and which weaker than itself, so that everyone can retreat from the stronger and expect submission from the weaker….(I)ts wide distribution speaks for its great survival value… it limits fighting between the members of a society; but… would it not have been better if aggression among members of a society were utterly inhibited? First,… society, for example a wolf pack or monkey herd, urgently needs aggression against other societies of the same species, therefore aggression should be inhibited only inside the horde. Secondly, a society may derive a beneficial firmness of structure from the state of tension arising inside the community from the aggression drive and its result, ranking order… (Lorenz 1966a. pp. 35–36 italics mine). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [152] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The principle of ranking order is so broadly distributed that its value for adaptation and survival is undisputable. Lorenz argued that this principle is foundational to all advanced social development. Dominance awareness works itself out in heightened tension between animals of immediately higher or lower echelons of strength, dominance or social status. This tension is diminished among animals of equal status or social strata, thereby limiting the degree of aggression between animals of same status even if in close proximity. This tension maintains adaptive pressure to produce competitive offspring who can successfully challenge dominant animals in adjacent strata and protect members of the colony from the predation of different species of animals (Lorenz 1966a. pp. 40 ff). The rank order, rudimentary social strata and patterns of domination are recognized by all members, and in this way enhance the stability and lend security to the group. This egalitarian grouping of subordinated animals within a bounded territory is an example of proto-socialisation or rudimentary stratification. Rank ordering and rudimentary social structure then provide an initial degree of security within the platoon environment. Recruits cannot remove themselves or retreat spatially from the dominating presence of DS or from other recruits. The process of subordination and levelling magnifies the tension between DS and recruits but it also inhibits violence between recruits who, like the animals described in Lorenz’s study, do not aggress each other despite the tight confines of their quarters. I will describe how this process sets the stage for the subsequent development of more elaborate social structures and a range of psychosocial re-socialisation processes within the next section of this chapter.22 22 Individual security is also a critical psychosocial developmental challenge for humans. Security is also conveyed in part through another feature of the martial entrainment ritual – specifically through exclusive bonding and an attribution of stigma against the “other” which will be examined in a subsequent section of this chapter. I will describe © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [153] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation René Girard proposed that aggression constitutionally undergirds all human social existence and is always poised and building up, hidden, in human society waiting for cathartic release. Girard’s thesis resonates with and extends Lorenzian theory, by arguing that the breaking down of social distinctions and hierarchy is the ultimate catalyst for the full range of human atrocity and violence (Girard 1977 pp. 61 ff.).23 This point supports Lorenz’s critical observation that it is by virtue of the primal social order of animal society, defended by dominance, aggression and emotive tensions (Wallace’s term cathexis comes to mind 1957 p.25) between conspecific animals of different strata, that individuals come to know their place and to find their security, begin to trust in society’s stability and to anticipate protections from higher status animals of other social strata. In both the animal world and in martial ecosystems social stability and security is based on systems of signals and ritualised communication of hierarchy, inclusion in and exclusion from that hierarchy . Recruits arrive at their basic training course with the innate ability to understand the displayed atavistic and invariant (pre-encoded) signals of primal dominance and aggression being directed at them and being imposed upon them by the DS. The recruits also arrive with innate how the initial reception process of recruits with its emphasis on their subordination to dominating DS works in conjunction with ethological principles that moderate, channel and harmlessly release aggression between recruits within the same platoon and which quickly begins to establish an exclusive bond among them. This is a rather critical factor within a process that is preparing young men and women to work cohesively in order to kill other humans counter to their innate tendencies to avoid intraspecific killing by geographical redistribution which Lorenz highlighted in his work. I mention these subsequent phenomena here only in order to reinforce my premise that higher elaborations within human worldviews are always contingent upon prior indexical, or bodily, meanings and in order to somehow anchor the ritually inscribed dimensions of security, solidarity and stigma in the worldviews of soldiers as originating at the point of their initial subordination and stratal equalisation within the recruit ranking order. 23 René Girard relied extensively on Lorenz’s work and, as observed by Eugene Galyona, “…(f)rom an ethological point of view, the theory of culture proposed by Girard is nothing but the transfer of the ritualisation process found by Lorenz in animals onto the human community” (Galyona 2011 p.156). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [154] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation biological response impulses to submit to or contend against the signals of aggression and dominance exhibited by other members of the recruit course. The natural adaptive impulse to disperse geographically in the face of dominant DS or contending coursemates is thwarted due to the physical confines of the entrainment process. Recruits submit to DS and adopt non-aggressive interactions with coursemates facilitated by the equalising and security-inducing dynamics of the stratified ranking order dynamic. These invariant impulses (reflexes) are adaptive ecosystemic regulating mechanisms common to all social “human and non-human animals alike.”24 The imposed dynamics of dominance within the martial entrainment rite are therefore ordered to establish the equality of all recruits or officer cadets undergoing basic training, and to minimize aggression among conspecifics of equal status within the platoon. Secondarily, this imposed dynamic of domination by signals of biological fitness establishes a unique tension between recruits and their DS keepers and, more importantly, imparts a degree of security to the microsystem of the specific recruit course sufficient to support the subsequent set of sociostructurating entrainment processes which will be described in the next major section of this chapter. Initially this process imparts a degree of security among peers and expectation of support as well as a rudimentary sense of group affiliation. The expectation of collective consequence for individual failing and a growing tolerance for corrective group consequences imparts a martial bearing and a stoic, reflexive compliance with DS direction. As the physical and mental demands increase, recruits develop a high degree of physical prowess, endurance and confidence, expressed in the uniformity of appearance and movement including immaculately ironed uniforms, polished boots and martial accoutrements. Coursemates develop tolerance for aggression and a reflexive 24 Dr. Anne Vallely – critical comment 08 April 2018. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [155] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation tendency to withstand confrontation and corrective demands from DS. This entire levelling process corresponds to ethological observations of rote performance and collective physical posturing behaviour among social mammals in the face of aggression.25 The initial levelling phase of the ritualised entrainment processes of Canadian soldiers is generally similar to that of other modern western military systems. Adolescents are levelled in closed, segregated groups and are made to complete in increasingly demanding physical and mental tasks under increasingly demanding conditions and timelines. Directing staff maintain a confrontational and threatening attitude by ensuring that the course cannot succeed unless each recruit cooperates in the completion of common tasks and prioritises the success of the group over one’s own interests. This stance leverages group pressure (including physical violence and social ostracism) against each individual. Recruits initially fulfill such demands; later, they cooperate, or even collaborate in enforcing them; eventually, they come to value and identify personally with them, enact them spontaneously, and reproduce them in subsequent generations of recruits. Similar impulses and conditioned postures have been cultivated by traditional martial cultures through ritual passages into adulthood or warrior strata, or martial sodality (see specifically Lowie 1954, Ritter 1980 in Meadows 1999 pp. 1–15). Traditional cultures do not always engage in a subsequent degree of specialised martial entrainment. The rudimentary ritual passage ordeals impart the martial bearing, cohesion, identity and ritual accoutrements required in the subsequent performance of a convincing collective posture in the face of the enemy (see Lowie 1954 in Meadows 1999 pp.1–15). Some ritualised martial passages, as described in ethnographic accounts, prepare aspirants to engage in highly ritualised corporate ceremonial performances in the face of the enemy and to engage in performative combat that is satisfied with first blood, minor 25 See Grossman 2009 pp.5ff. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [156] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation injury, retreat or token submission to the enemy.26 Seldom is there a further attempt to pursue or annihilate enemy forces or non-combatants. This aligns with the ethology-based “fight-fleeposture-submit” model of human response to intraspecific aggression explored by psychologist Dave Grossman in his influential 1995 work On Killing. 4.12 Martial Re-Socialisation and Eriksonian Developmental Principles Once the basic dominance and submission dynamics and hierarchical mechanisms are imposed and the basic DS/recruit ranking order has been established, the training process focuses on the more specific developmental dynamics of recruit re-socialisation upon which even further elaborated sociosymbolic competencies can be built. As I have emphasized, when recruits arrive at basic training, they are thrown together into a non-structured group within an austere and restrictive training environment. Most will successfully transit the entrainment process together but in order to do so they must collectively negotiate a rough and rapid re-socialisation process and establish a new social structure. In contrast to civilian society, in which individual newcomers are socialised into an established social structure, in recruit training all group members are newcomers and arrive without social connections, peer affiliations or any type of negative carryover “baggage” from a recruit’s personal, social or employment history. For this reason, the training environment is at the outset devoid of critical features of almost every other human social group or structure: individual advantage or disadvantage. The military social system and structure must be abruptly adapted to by all and it is generally an egalitarian process. 26 Ethnographic accounts documenting these practices are extensive but are typified by North American Plains native coup rituals, Australian aboriginal skirmish practices and the well documented ritual combat practices of the Dugum Dani as portrayed in the Robert Gardner documentary film Dead Birds (2014) (see also Homburger [Erikson] 1937, Meadows 1999, and Roscoe 2011). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [157] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The re-socialisation process is unusual among human social groups in another way. Primary socialisation takes place in the very early years of life and generally within a receptive and fully articulated social system. This is to say that human young are nurtured by those with ties of consanguineal kinship who are committed to their survival and success. Most young children also have access to a broader social system consisting of peers, parents, leaders, rivals, elders, near and distant kin and so on. Lessons about social distance and axes of dominance, submission, familiarity, privilege and stigma specific to that group and cultural ecosystem are introduced slowly, inductively and at the developmental pace of the maturing child. Even within other cultures that practice ritualised transitional processes into warrior status, the adult mentors are from the same communities and cultures as the neophytes and are often related to them and to each other by comprehensively shared cultural meanings and known priorities as well as close degrees of kinship.27 In comparison, the re-socialisation process of Canadian recruit course mates is artificial, insofar as it is imposed, or rather re-imposed, upon recruits in a manner that is out of sequence with the usual order of human psychosocial developmental stages. 27 Victor Turner indicated that in the tribal rites of passage of his informants, initiates continue to have exposure and community interaction with the full spectrum of society members and the various alternating degrees of structure, communitas, status and transition embodied in the full range of developmental stages of those members. This is an important point for Turner who wanted to argue that the initiation process is primarily dialectical (not primarily linear and inductive as I describe it) and was driven by alternating exposure to the elements of a society’s structure and antistructure that somehow generate these states in initiates (Turner 2008 [1969] p.97). This will become an important consideration in the penultimate chapter of this analysis because, as I will highlight, the sequestered segregation of recruits from the full diversity of martial society during the initial phase of basic training followed by the abrupt, dramatic ceremonial exposure to the full range of martial society in microcosm at the graduation parade or mess dinner in the latter phases of entrainment precipitates a type of symbolic epiphany of the full martial cosmos within the recruits’ consciousness and worldview. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [158] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Despite the artificiality of the situation, recruits’ innate impulses and psycho-social constitutions are governed by the normal range of human ethological and developmental motivations, imperatives and dynamics. These dynamics, along with the virtually invariant format of the Canadian martial entrainment process, ensure that recruits traverse a common and predictable set of adaptations to the alien training milieu and the psychosocial developmental challenges it presents. In the following section of this chapter I describe recruits’ adaptations to the new social environment through a rapid series of recapitulated human psychosocial developmental stages. 4.13 Inductive Challenges and Competencies within Erikson’s Developmental Life Crisis Theory This section focuses on the aspects of Erikson’s schema that allow us to understand the importance of the initial portions of the entrainment process to the eventual features and meanings which will catalyse within the inscribed martial worldview of Canadian soldiers. Erikson saw the human developmental process as a totalising developmental life project. This is to say that each stage of psychosocial development in turn centres itself as a critical and overarching challenge that demands to be addressed within the developing human subject within a specific society and its range of culturally specific meanings and priorities. Each developmental challenge martials all of an individual’s resources and faculties, to the neglect of all other human operations. Each subsequent developmental challenge is equally demanding but primarily relies upon the achieved developmental competencies from the prior life stages in addressing the current developmental agenda. These sequential life challenges then inductively build psychosocial competence. Erikson’s model of inductive human development maintains an ongoing process of integration of all previous competencies as critical to any subsequent stage of development. Those who traverse the ordered developmental stages successfully acquire “ego strength” or resilient © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [159] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation ability to direct themselves within their psychosocial environment or cultural ecosystem and in doing so acquire a robust worldview. Because these are stages of inductive psychosocial development, one cannot progress in terms of development to a subsequent stage if one is disrupted at any prior developmental stage.28 Disrupted individuals are highly preoccupied and motivated to the developmental task at which they were disrupted. Their innate human drives to develop martials all resources in this cause. Such drives are relentless and those who cannot develop in accordance with this psychosocial developmental order and time frame become fixated or tortured and cease to “fit” within the broader expectations of society or of their peers. The abrupt geographical and social dislocation of martial entrainment presents recruits with serious developmental challenges. Recruits are thrown collectively into a group without elaborated social structure, comprehensively agreed cultural meanings, priorities or established hierarchy other than a rudimentary ranking order. They must re-traverse the foundational developmental challenges in cooperation with others from different social backgrounds in order to re-develop their foundational psychosocial developmental competencies within a new martial ecosystem of alien meanings and values. They must do so without the support of caring and committed mentors, elders and family members typically available to humans throughout all developmental stages. This abrupt displacement into a new martial cultural system of alien meanings and imperatives requires recruits to re-accomplish the primary human developmental competencies they had acquired in the earliest years of life. The training milieu and ritual training process uniquely forces 28 One can only address neglected or thwarted developmental processes at a later stage in life with great effort. This is a primary focus of modern therapeutic practice. When performed skillfully, thwarted or frustrated individuals can be enabled or assisted to address necessary developmental challenges or traumatic life events that had not been successfully negotiated or integrated in typical developmental order and only then, relatively quickly, to retraverse subsequent psychosocial stages of life while integrating the necessary developmental processes and competencies. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [160] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation recruits to engage in this re-socialisation at the same time as they flesh out and integrate a provisional social structure and embryonic martial worldview in the first few weeks or months of basic training without aggressing each other in the process. The martial entrainment agenda of imposed, rapid re-socialisation that I have described corresponds generally Erikson’s developmental schema. 4.14 Articulating the Foundational Eriksonian Psychosocial Developmental Challenges and Competencies The foundational psychosocial challenges faced by all humans within their specific society include, in developmental order: 1) Identification with and acquisition of a degree of trust, security and identification with our primary social group. The negotiation of this specific challenge depends on the quality of bonding and care that we receive in the earliest stages of our socialisation, which allows us to master our innate mistrust of others; 2) The acquisition of a fundamental competency to assert autonomy and volition within our environment. Competency in this developmental challenge is developed as we exercise the capacity to control our own bodies and bodily processes, and to manipulate objects without assistance; 3) The acquisition of the skills required to take initiative in interactions with others rather than simply to respond to the stimulation and overtures of others. Failure to meet this challenge results in a pervasive sense of guilt about social interactions which can limit our ability to meet subsequent developmental challenges; 4) The acquisition of the ability to apply formal reasoning and rule-directed behaviour to complete tasks with which we identify and that we are proud of. Achieving this disposition to personal industry depends upon first acquiring a competency to undertake operations for which one receives praise rather than derogation. In Erikson’s schema, these four sequential developmental challenges © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [161] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation provide the foundation for the next challenge of establishing psychosocial identity (see also Elkind 1970). I earlier posed the question of why recruits must be so decisively subjugated and levelled by dominating DS at the commencement of a complex socio-structural and cultural entrainment rite. This question is germane to this analysis because recruits are already poised and innately motivated, from a psychosocial perspective, to engage wholeheartedly in the developmental challenge of establishing their role-based identity when they first enjoin the CF. Neophyte soldiers first require a foundational sociodevelopmental orientation to this new and alien martial ecosystem of meanings and priorities before the more complex and inductive life challenge of identity can be negotiated. The subjugation and tight confinement of recruits conveys critical ethological and structural benefits enabling the subsequent resocialisation processes I have described. The imposed ranking order minimises aggression among recruits and imparts sufficient security for the initial developmental competencies to be rapidly and efficiently reacquired within the new martial sociocultural milieu. This efficiency is ensured by virtue of the intensity maintained through the rapid precipitation of sequential, foundational developmental crises or tasks which I have briefly described—each of which is dependent upon the prior successful completion of previous developmental tasks in correct order. Recruits establish robust trust and security related to their social group, and they develop autonomy over their actions and a competency to initiate interactions with their peers. Upon these developmental competencies recruits build a strong sense of industry as they begin to take pride in new skills and the ability to project a rudimentary military competence and martial bearing. This rapid resocialisation process transpires within a spartan, highly controlled physical environment including only those social features that will enhance or precipitate the desired and © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [162] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation correctly ordered spectrum of psychosocial challenges and developments. This includes intensive, inescapable exposure to a limited number of peers with whom the recruits must negotiate their new social structure and its limited repertoire of social relations and obligations. The routinised process renders successful candidates fully aware of their hierarchical status, role, behavioural obligations and collective responsibility at every moment. It is only because the ritual entrainment process has incorporated the primal social structurating and ethological principles of the ranking order enacted within an atmosphere of pervasive stratified subordination that martial enculturation and re-socialisation can take place. Rapid re-socialisation would not be possible without the inter-stratal tension and aggressionmoderating and security dynamics conveyed by the ranking order mechanism described by Lorenz. The ranking order dynamics in turn could not be precipitated without the imposition of the artificial confines of the training environment and the harsh subordination of recruits by their DS keepers.29 Even though most recruits are not familiar with the higher and more complex military (and political) authority structure of the Canadian Forces beyond that of their immediate DS keepers, they are being fashioned to integrate into the multidimensional martial social structure they will encounter at their next training experience or regimental posting. 4.15 Concurrent Inscription of Foundational Impulses of Martial Identity Belligerence and Cooperative Intraspecific Killing – The Concept of Pseudospeciation Most critically, recruits must develop the ability to engage in war and to engage in acts of intraspecific (same species) killing. The enterprise of war cannot be carried out competitively 29 Again, within my analysis, sequestered recruits are not continually exposed to the full range of Canadian or martial society and do not actively interact with the florid antistructural elements circulating within the social/cultural environment as in Turner’s analysis of the dynamic human mechanisms at work in the tribal initiation processes of his informants (2008 [1969] p.97). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [163] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation without the evolution of a social mechanism allowing members of martial society to cooperate in enacting collective aggression against other human groups. Lorenz observed that animals naturally avoid conflict and aggression against conspecific (same species) animals but that groups or colonies of social animals must sometimes compete with conspecific groups for territory or resources. This ecological reality has necessitated the evolution of a constellation of ethological dynamics which Lorenz described as pseudospeciation.30 The ritual inscription of this martial quality includes the proclivity to bond cohesively with group members, to identify and exclude non-group members, to observe and perpetuate specific stigmas or taboos, and to persist in selfsacrificial behavior. Unlike the previously described tendencies to intra-stratal non-aggression, group security, personal autonomy and initiative, martial tendencies to cooperative intraspecific killing are conveyed by features of ritual involvement that begin to emerge concurrently with recruits’ resocialisation processes. Erik Erikson described the emergence of human discriminatory and exclusive bonding tendencies as occurring concurrently with the primary developmental life stages in the first few years of life. It should then come as no surprise that such qualities specific to the military culture or ecosystem should begin to emerge in recruits concurrently with the abrupt resocialisation processes I have already described. 4.16 Animal and Human Pseudospeciation – A Constellation of Ethological Dynamics; Group Specific Ritualisation of Indexical Signals of Aggression, Redirection, Harmless Discharge of Aggression and Bonded Group Cohesion, Stigma 4.16.a. Animal (Phyletic) Pseudospeciation 30 Lorenz attributed the invention of the term to Erik Erikson himself (Lorenz 1966a p.67). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [164] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Technically stated, the precipitation in animals of the ability to stigmatise, exclude or kill other conspecifics of other groups and to override intraspecific aggression avoiding tendencies requires the operation of a specific mechanism or a constellation of ethological dynamics that permit animals to treat other groups of conspecific animals as members of another species. This mechanism, referred to as pseudospeciation, does emerge within animal colonies and functions to ensure passivity among conspecific animals within a single colony while simultaneously maintaining a discriminating belligerence against conspecific animals of any other colony. Without engaging in an extensive ethological explanation of this complex dynamic it is sufficient here to say that typical instinctual threat or courtship signals between animals of a group are changed and enhanced for specific communicative purposes.31 Such emergent signals commence to serve a new, threefold function; that of disambiguating an animal’s status and intent to others (ie. communication), that of canalising, redirecting and harmlessly dissipating aggression between individual animals of a group, and that effecting a cohesion or resilient bond among those sharing signals while excluding conspecifics of all other colonies. Lorenz noted a broad range of such enhanced bodily movements, gestures and signals among animals, typically featuring mimic exaggeration of movement, redundancy, atypical intensity/exaggerated speed and colour among other qualities. What is most interesting is that such signals, once modified, are recognised only within specific colonies or groupings of animals and are not recognised by conspecific animals of any other colony or group. He noted that such signals evolve and become fixed and inherited as instinctual impulses within a specific colony over the 31 Julian Huxley (1914, 1966) coined the technical term ritualisation for the process by which innate animal impulses or gestures rapidly become adapted and enhanced over very short periods of time for use as communicative signals conveying colony-specific meanings altogether different than those conveyed by the original, unenhanced gestures across a given species of animal. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [165] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation course of only a very few generations. Lorenz went further to describe shared ritualised signals as the phenomena that actually constituted and maintained the bonds between animals (1966a. pp. 67–69, 1966b. pp. 278–284).32 Such signals then come to establish something of a recognised convention between conspecific animals within a specific colony that becomes instinctually entrenched within a colony over a very short term. Lorenz also noted the extreme violence that colonising animals of certain species perpetrate instinctively upon same species animals of any other colony which do not display the same signals. 4.16.b. Human (Cultural) Pseudospeciation Pseudospeciation also occurs in humans, similarly creating close bonds and the capacity for intraspecific killing by means of shared signals and social dynamics that function to differentiate human groups against those of all other human groups. Whereas animal pseudospeciation occurs phylogenetically and becomes entrenched or instinctual within animal groups over a relatively short period of time, human pseudospeciation is perpetuated through cultural processes over an even shorter period of time and becomes more entrenched over generations in what come to be human traditions. As with animal pseudospeciation, sociosyncratic actions and discriminations come to be inscribed through familiarity and habit and generate the same degrees of anxiety and innate subjective reluctance to discontinuation that accompany phyletically transmitted animal ritualisations (1966a. pp. 67–69, 1966b. pp.181ff.).33 32 This observation addresses an ongoing debate within the field of ritual studies and may support the argument that ritual practice and impulse are prior and constitutive of society rather than originating in already-established social bonds and structures within society such as might be inferred from reading Durkheim’s formulations (see discussion in Stephenson 2015 pp. 51-53). 33 See Mary Douglas (1966, 1996 [1978, 1973, 1970]) to the effect that elaborate human schedules of ritualised inclusion and exclusion (typically cognised as degrees of uncleanliness, danger or “taboo”) are essentially culturally elaborated systems for ordering, sorting, or in and out grouping identifiable social or ethnic groups and of maintaining © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [166] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Lorenz described the emergence of local manners as little more than pseudospecifically enhanced or modified complexes of submissive signals or gestures. The failure to observe even seemingly minor stipulations of social polity within a group can incite rage or aggressive retaliatory social responses among human conspecifics and lead to the stigmatisation and collective exclusion of non-conformists. Such energetic enforcement of pseudospecific signals and compliance is conveyed to children in the earliest developmental periods and are imbued with an emotive, non-rational force. This early and seemingly “natural” establishment of group specific pseudospecific discriminations within children accounts for the emotive loyalty and commitment that humans reserve for their own traditions and the nostalgia associated with the earliest social connections. As mentioned, such meanings conveyed in the foundational developmental stages of life are transmitted as “right” or “wrong” and are not often subject to further conscious reflection. They are “obviously true” and taken for granted within each bonded pseudospecific group and lend a high degree of identity and security. While some degree of pseudospecific discrimination is no doubt present in any human society, the principle of bonded and exclusive solidarity is an especially critical quality within the martial ecosystem where solidarity enables the very enterprise of warfare. Although analogous phenomena, both animal and human pseudospeciation employ ritual mechanisms and invariant features in their processes. Ritualised actions, within both phylogeny and cultural evolution, perform functions of communication, redirection and harmless discharge of aggression as well as cohesion, violent exclusion, and stigmatisation of non-conformists. This social or ethnic identity or distance in contrast to such groups — ie. ways of perceiving and articulating difference which are conveyed by ritual processes or mechanisms within traditions or liturgical orders (see especially Lorenz 1966b. pp. 181 ff.). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [167] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation explains the prominence of ritual processes and of shared signals and group dynamics that identify and exclude non-conforming group members or all members of other conspecific groups within martial societies that specifically prepare their citizens to engage in warfare (Lorenz 1966a. pp.67– 69). Nevertheless, pseudospecific rituals may also constitute a range of common, everyday acts that pervade social interactions in all human groups (Goffman 1959, 1967). As noted, pseudospecific martial qualities begin to emerge within the first few weeks or months of entrainment, in the time period concurrent with the resocialisation process I have described. This is seen in development of group specific gestures, verbal expressions and even embryonic martial dialects among coursemates sufficiently stable to allow them to identify and differentiate non-conformists within a given group as well as those of other groups encountered in social interactions. These gestures include the use of sarcasm and aggressive, cutting humour, which serves to redirect and harmlessly discharge aggression within the group while stabilising exclusive bonds among fellow group members (Lorenz 1966a. pp. 67–69, 1966b. pp. 279–284). Erikson tied the formation of various discriminations to the human developmental processes wherein foundational maternal/child communications included an array of determinations and proscriptions about what is clean, unclean, acceptable, wrong, and forbidden. Because some pseudospecific discriminatory dynamics emerge within the early developmental processes of humans and consist in signals and impulses, as has been broadly documented by Lorenz and Erikson, these features are also not rationally perpetuated. This gives pseudospeciated signals and prejudices a highly intractable quality and would explain the insoluble nature of a broad range of human ethnic, cultural or even religious conflict. In light of these qualities it is not surprising that pseudospeciation undergirds the broad range of propaganda and ideology that has typically accompanied the enterprise of war. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [168] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation On a darker note, various discriminating features of human pseudospeciation also emerge and have come to be perpetuated subtly within the ritual training processes of Canadian recruits. When unconsciously inscribed and perpetuated over the course of soldiers’ careers such impulses, gestures and discriminations take on unmistakeable dimensions of ritual vagueness and mythical justification. Such pseudospecific dynamics foster spontaneous discriminations and give rise to a range of phenomena wherein outsiders come to be “othered,” mistrusted or considered as a different species. Lorenz notes that such impulsive discriminations also tend to be accompanied by a sense of superiority among group members and a corresponding attribution of sub-humanness to all other groups (1970 pp. 55). As I have described, such discriminations enable the enterprise of war but may come to be connected with intuitive impulses, imperatives and stigmas deployed against specific ethnic groups with whom Canada is no longer at war. In light of the ethological sources cited, it is the dynamics of human pseudospeciation that override the intraspecific aggression inhibitions normally present within animal species and which allow for the expression of human violence against other human groups. Such dynamics have permitted humanity to develop the range of belligerent skills and enabling techniques allowing for the collaborative extermination of competing societies within limited ecosystems or territories. Clearly it is the dynamics of pseudospeciation which inscribe the martial tendencies to bond and identify with comrades and to exclude outsiders and kill those of other human groups. It follows that the dynamics of pseudospeciation should come to be ritually implemented within the martial entrainment processes of Canadian soldiers. Dave Grossman suggests that such martial imperatives to human killing are in fact so disruptive and abhorrent to soldiers that they have become unconsciously perpetuated and are ritually masked or concealed within the martial worldview. I agree that such tendencies to intraspecific killing are perpetuated and held © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [169] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation unconsciously but disagree strongly with Grossman (2009 [1995, 1996]) regarding his thesis that covert perpetuation is an adaptive function to insulate soldiers from the horror of killing others. The pseudospecific mechanism and its implicit “taken-for-grantedness” or “rightness” of a specific group’s values and exclusions is sufficient to ensure, contra Grossman, that soldiers are not inherently troubled by their actions in killing other human beings in war. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [170] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 5 Ecological Implications of Perfected Performance Developmental Processes of Martial Identity and Generativity Perfected Performance and Moderated Consciousness In this chapter I describe the ritual and performative processes of the second phase of the basic training process that take place for both recruits and officer candidates after the first four to six weeks of training. Now, a much higher standard of personal technical competence and coordinated collective performance is imposed, no longer preoccupied only with cleaning and presentation of personal kit and quarters. This second phase of basic training concentrates on the perfected performance of invariant ritual actions. The significance of rote repetition of invariant, complex bodily movements or utterances among soldiers is sparsely elaborated within literature. Such invariant practices are considered here because they are a primary feature of martial entrainment and are employed throughout a spectrum of observed ritual, ceremonial and liturgical processes. Such performances reproduce the Canadian military system and worldview. Such reproductive or regenerative performances then come to fulfil ecological functions within the military system. These performative functions operate and are critical in two ways; Firstly, by ensuring that recruits develop a martial identity © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [171] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation and set of embodied dispositions that are primarily based on mastered competency in performing these invariant martial actions. Secondly by the paedagogic actions of more senior soldiers – the DS facilitating the entrainment of recruits – who are oriented and primarily motivated to ensuring that the recruits come to adaptively master their performance of invariant martial actions and roles and in so doing perpetuate the martial system and worldview. Such ecological motivations to identity and generativity also happen to correspond to Erik Erikson’s schema of ordered human developmental competencies. The martial training system and its ritual processes is uniquely adapted to the human developmental motivations and the capacities of its performers in the perpetuation of martial structures and worldview. Such regenerative capacities are critical to any living system. I also describe the manner in which adaptive bodily competencies and perfected bodily movements of recruits come to support adaptive corporate or collective dimension of martial identity—a possibility that is not normally conceiveable in pluralistic societies. In the latter analysis of this chapter, I describe the manner in which such a possibility does become plausible given the constellation of ethological and performative factors that coalesce in the highly perfected performative martial practices of recruits in the secondary phase of their entrainment. This was an aspect of identity not explored within Erikson’s work but was addressed by Durkheim as a phenomenon emergent in the ritual practices of “elementary” societies such as the aboriginal Australian clans and tribal groups that served as the basis for the development of his religious theory. As I will explain, this collective dimension of recruits’ consciousness initially emerges as a result of embodied feedback in the course of mastered collective and ritualised drill movements. I will later explore this emergent collective consciousness and orientation in terms of its symbolic corporate dimensions within Section III of this project. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [172] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 5.1 The Secondary Phase of Ritual Entrainment, Embodied Individual Practices of Perfection and Embodied Collective Practices of Perfected Synchronised Performance Abruptly, at the first sign that recruits are beginning to cohesively work together, DS sharpen demands upon the platoon for more detailed and complex displays and arrangements of kit and quarters during morning inspections. Whereas requirements were initially limited to uniformly arranged boots, beds spaces and quarters according to a posted standard, demand now shifts to elaborately measured, folded, and ironed uniform shirts, pants, underwear, socks and towels starched to cardboard stiffness, stacked and laid out in lockers to specific dimensions. There is also a heightened concentration on development of military bearing as demonstrated in the stylised display of meticulously maintained and polished uniforms and accoutrements used in the ceremonies that will be performed at the graduation parade. Boots are now shone to impossible standards, accomplished with the mastery of polish techniques that take weeks to develop and involve hours daily of concentrated, focused movement and attention. Creases on all orders of uniform must now be razor sharp, hangers must be uniformly spaced on the locker rail without variance from recruit to recruit throughout the barracks. About the fifth week of training each recruit is issued a personal weapon1 – an eleven pound token of one’s martial responsibilities and identity that must be carried, secured and guarded throughout all training activities. Formal inspections focus increasingly on advanced and detailed arrangement and display of weapons. Personal weapons are cleaned, disassembled, oiled and laid out each day on beds for inspection. Weapons take on an iconic meaning for recruits; their care and maintenance comes to mirror their own self-care. The DS’s opinion of a recruit is closely tied 1 Officer candidates are issued and incorporate the display of personal weapons into their kit layout for daily inspection earlier in the basic training process but otherwise maintain the same general sequence of ritualised individual and collective display and performance requirements as described of recruits within this chapter. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [173] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation to the apparent state of a recruit’s weapon. Weapons found to be dirty, out of arrangement, improperly oiled or rusted merit corrective measures corresponding to various circles of recruit hell that underscore the gravity of such shortcomings. Weapons arranged and displayed on beds each morning for inspection must correspond exactly to measurements and arrangements stipulated in photographs or diagrams. Measurements within such arrangements must orient with lines and folds on coarse wool fire blankets which are in turn pulled tightly over cotton bedsheets on beds which must maintain hospital folds with corner angles of exact dimensions that must be restored each day. Those who would attempt to lessen their daily attention to this detail of their routine by sleeping on the cold barracks floor will eventually find their bed and blankets rearranged for them by duty personnel who patrol the barracks at night. Critical to the recruits’ repertoire of martial skills is confident proficiency in the operation of personal weapons. During my recruit training at Canadian Forces Recruit School Cornwallis in Nova Scotia, all recruits were required to demonstrate confident functional mastery of four weapons; the standard and automatic service rifles, automatic pistol and the submachine gun. Each weapon had its own invariant operating procedures for loading, unloading, securing, and firing. Each sequence required the recruit to demonstrate complex load, unload, function, immediate action and stoppage procedures in the event of a weapons malfunction or misfire. Such sequences are not simply memorised but are practiced relentlessly to perfection in scheduled and impromptu practice sessions. Such practice requires technical understanding, a high degree of dexterity, and an enhanced level of concentration and physical conditioning. It takes six to eight weeks to master the weapons drills to the standards and testing applied to such essential martial skills. Corresponding degrees of training and individual evaluations are also conducted in the areas of physical fitness, the individual mastery of detailed first aid and casualty evacuation sequences and © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [174] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation techniques, and in nuclear, biological, chemical defense, gas mask and decontamination procedures. Those who do not master these invariant patterns do not continue the training process. In conducting morning inspections, the DS is accompanied by a course “senior” who assumes personal accountability for satisfactory completion of tasks and for the recruits’ collective turn out in time for inspection and all other requirements of their training schedule. The course senior must record the shortcomings of course mates’ individual turn outs. He or she must give an account of substandard group performance; uniforms, the contents of lockers and rows of boots that do not meet the extremely high levels of perfection are thrown onto the immaculately waxed floors in front of recruits’ bed spaces. These items become unsalvageable for tomorrow’s inspection, or tonight’s corrective inspection, unless they are rewashed, re-ironed, re-polished, rewaxed and rearranged, requiring hours of painstaking toil, personal fatigue, concentration and discomfort. Individually then, enhanced performative demands relate to the heightened requirement for recruits to master more complex displays of weapons and rise to heightened standards for daily kit and quarters inspections. They must also master complex sequential drills – invariant canonical bodily movements – involving a range of weapons and including a range of invariant first aid and specialized technical competencies. Collectively, recruits march around the base on the way to and from various training venues in collective formation. This is typically done in combat or parade boots with weapons with all soldiers moving in strictly regulated step, both in quick time and in double time—walking and running pace. Recruits also run for miles in step and engage in synchronised physical exercise during formal physical training sessions which last for at least an hour each day. As the weeks pass, recruits learn to tolerate long training days without fatigue, having acquired physical © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [175] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation confidence of motion and bearing. Even those who were not previously athletic find that they can run three, then five and up to seven or more miles in boots with weapons in formation or march under loads surpassing half their body weight (see also McNeill 1995, Dievendorf 1996). Recruits have gained physical stamina and a degree of cooperative performative mastery and by this phase of training no longer have to think about coordinating their pace and movements with those of comrades—this has become an unconscious embodied reflex. Recruits also learn to perfect complex collective ceremonial movements in arduous curricular drill periods at least once per day. The focus here is the perfection of decisive, coordinated, detailed and strenuous bodily movement, acquired through long hours on the parade square, or in vast, echoing drill halls. These stylised movements must be undertaken with strict, upright posture, muscular control and endurance. Short, sharp, invariant words of command and correction pervade drill practice—commands to which recruits must respond precisely, in perfect unison response according to an invariant cadence prescribed, chanted and demonstrated hundreds of times by relentless drill instructors. The timing “One….TwoThree….One” is inscribed forever upon the consciousness and nervous systems of all soldiers. The demand for extended periods of concentration and perfection of movement in response to words of command also increases relentlessly. Drill has become a choreographed martial performance that has no tactical value for soldiers on the battlefield and is now officially practiced solely for the martial dispositions it develops. Nevertheless, the discipline, bodily dispositions and impulses developed during the practice and performance of drill contribute critical and foundational dimensions to the structural integrity of the martial social order and come to pervade the martial worldview. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [176] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 5.2 Supporting Theory and Analysis Martial Identity – Ecosystemic Dimensions of an Enduring Martial Role By now all recruits have been foundationally re-socialised and have rapidly caught up developmentally, within the martial cultural milieu, to the psychosocial stage of competence and challenge they were negotiating within their social groups of origin at the time of enrollment. Most have adapted, learning to trust their immediate group, to act autonomously within its meanings, to initiate interactions with others within their group, and to display a sense of industry and pride in their constructive actions in behalf of the collective. The structural features of the training process and the daily challenges of the training agenda have provided the correct conditions for the acquisition of these competencies. The developmental challenge now at hand for recruits at this juncture of the process, within the Eriksonian schema, is the acquisition of psychosocial identity.2 This is elsewhere described by Erikson within his various works as the elimination of role confusion within a specific social system. The most obvious competencies developed through the relentless demands for perfection relate to individual and pragmatic martial skills. The ability to perform martial operations without 2 There is considerable ambiguity and a range of specific meanings attaching to the term “identity” within Erikson’s work. Similarly, the term is taken up in different ways within the various disciplines that work with the concept – most especially sociology, psychology and anthropology. Erikson’s psychosocial schema most obviously addresses the individual psychological and collective sociological dimensions of identity but was also influenced by cultural analyses of identity from the field of anthropology (Erikson participated in anthropological field work under his original name Erik Homburger with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead among the Oglala Sioux and later with Alfred Kroeber among the California Yurok – see Elkind 1970 p.207, Homburger (Erikson) 1937 pp.101 ff.). I note here Köpping, Leistle and Rudolphs’s (eds.) remarks that the term “identity” when examined in conjunction with “ritual” constitutes a “conceptual nightmare” (2006 p.9). While I cannot hope to unravel such complexity within my analysis I address the concept of martial identity generally in terms of the formal “role” or social function soldiers are being conditioned to enact and perpetuate within the martial ecosystem, emphasising the establishment of a conscious and collective solidarity as the most prominent component or feature of the martial identity and worldview of soldiers. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [177] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation thinking consciously about them or while exhausted and stressed is necessary for success as a soldier and develops a soldier’s confidence and self-identification with the martial profession. It also cements a recruit’s identification with DS mentors and exemplars. As mentioned earlier, recruits have embarked on the ritual process of entrainment as a gateway to a new and maturing professional identity at a specific point of ontogenetic readiness to do so. The ability to perform a range of martial tasks reinforces this identity and the developmental competency of recruits in a profound way. In a sense such competencies confer a sense of identity, as does the acquisition of technical competency in any other profession. No system is primarily structured to address the idiosyncratic psychological concerns of any of its individual constituents. Rather, it is primarily oriented to ensure that sufficient individuals within the system fulfil a preestablished role or function on behalf of the system and in this way perpetuate and reproduce its structures invariantly. Within this project, I focus primarily on the sociological implications3 of Erikson’s work—that is social identity—and the primary developmental challenge that recruits face in finding their place and performing their specific role While this project considers the social identity of soldiers it must be recognised that Erikson also took up the concept 3 of psychological identity within his work – that is the idiosyncratic aspects of self-identity, self-image, self-esteem and personality that collectively constitute one’s individual self-construal. Current scholarship is taken up with a variety of contended individual psychological concepts of identity specifically regarding the development of personality, sexual orientation and gender identification which are related concepts to social identity but which are largely beyond the scope of this project. Psychological aspects of self-identity certainly present themselves and are explored concurrently with sociological imperatives by recruits undergoing military entrainment. My clinical experience with fully trained soldiers exploring aspects of their sexual orientation and gender identity leads me to maintain that the prior successful establishment of sociological identity and the approval of martial society and peers regarding one’s assumed “role” within the military ecosystem provides the degree of security necessary for individuals then to effectively explore and resolve psychological dimensions of their individual identity. It must be remembered that one can still fulfill ecosystemic and structural functions within a given system by fulfilling a given “role” that is necessary to the integrity of that system before fully resolving the psychological, that is the individual, aspects of one’s identity. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [178] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation as soldiers within the martial ecosystem. I am primarily then examining the ecological aspects of identity and neophyte recruits’ formation, through ritual processes, to perform the standardised role of soldier (or leader in the case of officers) within a broader martial system evolved to support humans in the collective enterprise of war. But the concept of identity also refers to the enduring status or the idealised role one adopts within society. Martial identity in this sociological sense refers to one’s sense of one’s place within martial society. The degree of responsibility, obligation, recognition or entitlement resulting from one’s status as a soldier or officer in a specific position or rank endures beyond the time period it is occupied. This forward-facing aspect of martial identity transforms and expands upon a straightforward indexical awareness of a recruit’s immediate place and professional competence within an immediate social group and projects it symbolically to enduring and future dimensions of dependable obligation for future actions, expectations and protections within martial society. Recruits form symbolic ideas about their relationship and obligations to others that have implications for their views of how the world works. The concept of identity is then inextricably intertwined with any broader discussion of worldview. Identity then is primarily a symbolic construct because it refers to an abstract, conceptual role or to future obligations within one’s society. Scholars describe the adaptive emergence of the symbolic facility within protohumanity as having occurred by means of ritual processes.4 Martial 4 An explanation of the emergence of the symbolic facility within protohumanity and its function in generating adaptive social identity (roles) through collective ritual mechanisms is beyond the strict parameters of my argument. Such an exploration here would distract from my primary argument about the ritually ordered entrainment of recruits into martial society at specific developmental states of readiness and their subsequent perpetuation of martial social structures, priorities and symbolic constructions through ongoing ritual performance. Nevertheless, such an explanation would be essential to a fulsome understanding of the rationale for the selection and articulation of my hypothesis. It could explain why the establishment of “identity” as the assumption of a predetermined, enduring © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [179] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation ecosystems ritually catalyse abstract identities in order to reproduce and perpetuate martial social structures and worldviews. In the analysis section of this chapter I will explore the manner in which ritual processes have come to permeate both the individual and collective martial identities of recruits. I will also explore the implications of collective performative mastery with regards to the increasingly collective martial identity and orientation of each recruit. 5.3 Generativity and Invariance in Martial Ecosystems - A Subsequent Developmental Challenge I next examine the importance of perfected ritual performance to the developmental stage that Erikson refers to as generativity. Within the Eriksonian schema, the developmental challenge of generativity emerges only once humans have negotiated the primal life stages, the subsequent stage of establishing identity and the following developmental stage Erikson referred to as intimacy versus isolation.5 The developmental stage of intimacy is less relevant to martial society because conceptual or representational symbolic role within society is an adaptive ecological capacity or orientation in humans and how this human capacity came to be perpetuated within human phylogenetic processes through a mechanism originally catalysed by collective indexical ritual performance in protohuman societies. It could explain why the achievement of such a capacity now presents itself in ritually moderated states of consciousness and as an acute, liturgically ordered developmental challenge and impulse at critical ontogenetic junctures in human societies – most obviously for recruits within martial society. Such an explanation then would also justify my use of Erikson’s epigenetic developmental schema of inductive sensory, bodily, social and finally symbolic competency – the validity of which to this point has merely been asserted and assumed within my argument. I have, as such, included a separate excursus explaining the emergence of the human symbolic capacity at the end of this chapter. The explanation is based on the work of various scholars of ritual, ethology and human social processes who are cited throughout. It also happens to coincide in significant ways with those descriptions of collective ritual practice and symbolic representations offered by Émile Durkheim in his examination of the collective ritual processes and sacred meanings within societies maintaining mechanical solidarity – the very state of consciousness that I will describe as pervading the worldview of Canadian martial society. 5 The life challenge of establishing intimacy or of facing a life in isolation presents itself in classical Eriksonian theory once one has first established one’s psychosocial identity. This is due to the close association of identity with societal role or occupation and the requirement to secure a means of supporting offspring (by means of a socially recognised © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [180] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation soldiers generally seek intimate partners and spouses outside the military population and martial ritual processes for doing so.6 Erikson described the human imperative to generativity as emerging in mature adults and as experienced as a developmental preoccupation with ensuring the continuity of one’s own community, social group, family or profession – that is social structures, roles and systems. At this developmental juncture, usually emergent in middle adulthood or at the point of professional mastery, there is a renewed focus upon ensuring the success of offspring or protégés and the correct orientation of successive generations to the world and to the continuation of one’s society. It is a developmental period then concerned with posterity and ensuring the successful reproduction of one’s current worldview, dispositions, communal structures, roles and valencies within subsequent generations. This is role being played out by adaptive analogy by DS within the martial ecosystem strategy) before one can attract an intimate partner with whom to procreate and rear offspring. This explains the frequent timing of marriage within traditional cultures following rites of passage into stratified degrees of conferred identity or adulthood. As Canadian military traditions evolved before women were broadly incorporated into martial society and soldiers therefore necessarily sought mates outside of martial society, the Canadian military cultural system has not incorporated formal structural processes or ritual mechanisms to address this particular developmental challenge of soldiers. 6 The traditional proscription of marriage during the initial military contractual engagement while soldiers are building their martial identity is still maintained within some military establishments (an example being the French Foreign Legion), a stipulation that clearly and pragmatically recognises the challenges involved in negotiating more than one developmental stage at the same time or out of typical ontogenetic order. This proscription was also maintained in Canada within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (originally a military establishment) that, until the early nineteen sixties, permitted marriage only after five years of service. Proscription of marriage among neophyte soldiers is no longer maintained in Canada but is still observed ritually in the continuing tradition that soldiers who wish to marry are expected to extend a formal invitation to their Commanding Officers – a vestigial nod to former times when formal permission to marry was required and was contingent upon higher structural and canonical authority residing with the military chain of command and the Queen’s Regulations and Orders (QR&O). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [181] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation as they direct the entrainment of new recruits to invariantly reproduce the rituals, structures and orders of the martial worldview. Canadian military DS are selected on the basis of their organisational loyalty and professional accomplishments. Another way to say this is that potential DS candidates are seen to be fully entrained and indoctrinated in terms of both organisational competency and ideology. They are seen by their own superiors within the martial ecosystem to be reproducing its competencies and meanings or its ordered features—its nomoi—in their personal commitment and actions. The involvement of DS in imposing and ensuring the perfected collective performative mastery of a range of martial standards has important ecological implications within the military system insofar as such performative imperatives ensure the long term perpetuation of martial society. All systems evince an impulse to perpetuate themselves—a function technically referred to as autopoiesis. These processes are best understood within human systems as cultural analogies to the generative imperatives and functions operating in individual animals and within biological ecologies, as both Lorenz and Rappaport have observed, by invariant impulses and utterances not encoded by the performers. These activities take the form of ritual processes because, as noted by Rappaport, ritual activities always entail qualities of prior form or authority (canonicity) in their performance and in this way tend to inscribe imperatives to invariant performance onto the dispositions of the performers. An ethnographic example of ecosystemic generativity through invariant ritual performance has been documented by Robert Gardner and Frits Staal in the film Altar of Fire (2014 [1976]). This documentary film and Staal’s subsequent analyses explore the exacting and disciplined (and highly autopoietic) ritual tradition and performance of the Agnicayana sacrifice and accompanying © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [182] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Vedic recitations of the Nambudiri Brahmins (1995, 1987, 1984 [1983]).7 The documentary portrays the Brahmin tradition, like the Canadian military tradition, as imposing invariant bodily movements upon initiates. The bodies of young performers are decisively posed and manipulated by older teachers who impose mechanical postures and head movements in association with chanted sequences of Vedic scripture and ritual sequences, possibly as an adjunct to the memorisation of long canonical scriptural passages which will come to be flawlessly recited and performed by the young Brahmins being entrained. The perfected, virtually invariant ritual performances of Nambudiri Brahmins ensure a high degree of fidelity in the transmission of ritual systems, practices and teachings over very long periods of time. The Brahmin ritual enactments observed by Staal and Gardner also reproduce the established and invariant social orders of the tradition. Staal later called this the perpetuation of the thought patterns of the ritual tradition, meaning the structure or syntax of a ritual system of symbols without reference to its meaning or discursive content.8 This may not only explain the typically conservative nature of observed ritual practice but also suggest that the performance and 7 Staal had at one time maintained an emphasis on the meaninglessness of ritual performance. The question of “meaninglessness” as articulated by Staal represents a red herring within the field requiring explanation within any treatment of questions pertaining to ritual in the Vedic traditions such as my considerations here regarding the performance of Agnicayana by the Nambudiri Brahmins or subsequently to questions of demotivated practice of puja within the Jain tradition. In reading Rappaport’s work, it appears that questions of meaninglessness are taken up within information theory in terms of “difference.” This, following Gregory Bateson’s observation that information is that “difference which makes a difference” ie. one “bit” being the smallest possible increment of informational meaning differentiating an act or utterance. In terms of Staal’s portrayal of Nambudiri Brahmin recitation or performance as unchanged and invariant, such performances could then be considered “meaningless” within Rappaport and Bateson’s semiotic schema. Staal clarified his use of meaningless to refer to the idea that the ritual utterances of the Brahmins conveyed only syntax or the thought patterns or structure of the tradition, not some degree of discursive meaning (Staal 1985, 2007). Humphrey and Laidlaw refer to discursive meaning as propositional or locutionary meaning (1994 p. 91). 8 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [183] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation exchange of invariant impulses, gestures and vocalisations’ enacts and maintains bonded social cohesion and organisational structures, and as argued by Rappaport, the liturgical orders of meaning and inviolable postulates within those structures. For the Nambudiri Brahmins, such practices reproduce the structure of the very cosmos. Such orderings constitute the nomoi or primal orders maintaining and stabilising identifiable societies and staving off the onset of chaos or anomie which lurks at the thresholds whenever social order dissolves (Berger 1967 p. 21, Girard 1977 pp. 61ff.). These ordered structures and the ritual performances which perpetuate them offer stability to a given living cultural system, worldview or society over time, without which no higher social development could occur (Lorenz 1966a). The concept of goal demotion in performative ritual may be relevant to this argument (see Leistle in Köpping, Leistle and Rudolph 2006, Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994). Goal demotion in ritual practice occurs when ordinary actions are undertaken in ways that are divorced from the usual goal or purpose of that action in everyday life. Such de-motivated practice is referred to as ritual commitment or appropriate ritual stance in Humphrey and Laidlaws’ language (Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994, 2004). Within this theoretical articulation of ritual performance, what is important in the performance of any ritual is not that performer’s understanding of a ritual’s meaning. Rather, the critical aspect of any performative act is only the performer’s commitment to simply give oneself over to the ritual performance for its own sake: The subjective intentions of participants simply don’t matter when it comes to defining ritual. While performing ritual actions you can think about something completely unrelated without jeopardising the status of your action as ritual action. What counts is your “ritual commitment,” the deliberate decision to perform the ritual action in the first place. Taking such an attitude, a “ritual stance” as Laidlaw/Humphrey call it, implies that you delegate the authorship of your actions to ritual prescription. The performed action itself is already pre-established by rules; what you do is re-enact this archetype. For Humphrey/Laidlaw acting ritually means to intentionally act non-intentional (Leistle 2006 p.39 emphasis mine). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [184] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The idea of goal demotion is also applicable to the extended repetition of menial but highly prescribed, coordinated and often scrutinised tasks that occupy recruits’ every waking hour. Menial martial performative tasks demand mastery of sequences of actions that often have no purpose in equipping recruits for war. The idea of goal demotion may be more helpful in explaining how the recruit, at a certain point of entrainment, has lost any impulse to deviate from ritual norms and standards that have been relentlessly imposed from the beginning of the basic entrainment process. From both objective observance and the subjective performer’s experience, ritual performance closely emulates the stipulated canonical archetype by the time a soldier has mastered a performance.9 The ritually performative example of the military recruit is similar to the Nambudiri Agnicayana ritual and the Jain puja performance insofar as the acts themselves are stripped of any idiosyncratic or intended content from the performer and closely reproduce the archetypal form of the rituals enacted. Such adaptive practices fulfil at least one primary and socially necessary operation within any living human system—the re-generation of its own formal structures and expression over time—autopoiesis or systemic self-reproduction. 9 Canadian martial ritual performance and Jain ritual performance of puja both entail goal demotion. Canadian martial performance differs in at least one significant way from the Jain practice as described by Humphrey and Laidlaw who have outlined the self-directed process by which a Jain performer breaks down the ritual act into discrete steps according to one’s own cognitive organisational sensibilities and then encodes such steps into a learned pattern which one will perform invariantly from within a demotivated ritual stance (Gatewood 1985 in Humphrey and Laidlaw p.139). Canadian recruits master drill movements and weapons sequences using invariant but canonically predetermined steps in encoding their movements. While both military and Jaina performances may subsequently enact a ritual stance, and perform a ritual in a way that coheres with the archetype that has been inscribed on the performer that is devoid of subsequent idiosyncratic input of the performer, only the martial ritual is being performed in an invariant manner not encoded by the performer as per Rappaport’s definition. It may be possible that such differentiations regarding the encoding of movements could have implications for the fidelity and invariant production and perpetuation of adaptive worldviews and performative ritual form over extended periods of time. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [185] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Those traditions that are primarily defined by their rituals find a means to actively eliminate subjective and idiosyncratic expressions of ritual impulse within their practice in order to maintain the prescribed formal archetypal gestures and impulses of the tradition (see Tambiah 1979 pp. 124 ff., Bloch 2004 pp.124 ff.). This is the strategy by means of which the Canadian military and the Nambudiri Brahmins fulfil, by perfected performance, the adaptive ecological imperative of any living system to ensure its faithful reproduction and continuity. One then sees the importance of ensconcing the task of entrainment within these traditions within relatively invariant ritual processes as a means of ensuring the continuity of these ecosystems and of perpetuating the worldviews corresponding to these environments. It follows then that responsibility for maintaining and policing such processes within living cultures and ritual processes should fall to those who are primarily oriented, from a developmental perspective, to the challenge of ensuring the continuation of the very ecosystems within which they reside – in our examples, those DS and more advanced Brahmins who are developmentally motivated to instruct and mentor the progress and performance of neophytes. 5.4 Practices of Liminality, Dissociation, Altered Consciousness and Collective Identity Following the initial social levelling stage of training, the recruits’ accommodation to the monotonous regimen of the training process coupled with their increasing mastery of countless tasks and performances routinely induces a familiar, conditioned (in the Pavlovian sense) anticipation of collective harmonious movement and activity at a number of predictable junctures throughout the training day. Along with an increased ability to run or march in step with peers at increased speeds and distance, recruits experience a state of increased tranquility accompanied by regulated breathing and heartbeat even during extreme physical exertion (Dievendorf 1996 p.12, see also Laughlin 1997). As mentioned, this experience, the growing awareness of the ability to enter into it and to anticipate it, as well as soldiers’ meta awareness of it (that is to be able to know © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [186] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation when one has entered this state and to consciously reflect upon and consider one’s thinking about this state while experiencing it) begins to permeate not only the excruciating physical activities but also a broader range of mundane, tedious, repetitive martial demands. This includes long hours spent in the rhythmic, regulated meditative activity polishing boots, ironing garments, mopping, waxing then buffing floors, as well as time spent meticulously arranging lockers and kit (see Dievendorf 1996 p.8). This seems especially to be the case when, as I have described, such repetitive stipulated actions take place within common areas of collective industry where music is playing. Dievendorf also associated his informants’ collective experiences closely with their bonded identification with the group and with their role and obligations within that group—ie. the primary social identity of the ritual performer (Dievendorf 1996 p.12). The collective benefits of coordinated martial physical activity by recruit soldiers is approached tangentially as collective “muscular bonding” by McNeill (1995) but is developed by him primarily as a euphoric sense of perceived communal unity—a collective phenomenon that can emotionally galvanise a course of recruits together tightly in a unified pursuit and which has application within military entrainment insofar as group cohesion equates directly to an enhanced ability to maintain solidarity, and to collectively dominate other human groups on the battlefield (McNeill 1995 pp.1–9, 19–20). This type of perfected embodied collective performance recalls Turner’s descriptions of liminality and communitas (Turner 2008 [1969] pp. 94 ff.). 10 My experience accords tightly with that reported by Dievendorf and McNeill’s informants, but I find that the induction of a collective shift in consciousness through rhythmic marching in step may 10 I am mindful of the previous work of Tim Olaveson who has clearly established the “functional equality” of Durkheim’s term “effervescence” and Turner’s term “communitas” – terms that describe states of consciousness that both theorists associated with corporate symbolic constructions (2013 [2004] pp. 250 ff., 2001 p.89 ff.). This will be a subject of analysis in Chapter 6 of this treatise. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [187] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation function in adaptive ways beyond simply assisting soldiers in bonding or in enduring arduous exercise and tedious duties. While I concede McNeill’s point about the euphoric emotive bonding features of moving together in dance or drill movements, I note that he does not further explore or develop this practice of collective synchronised embodied movement as one which can also generate collective metaphoric perceptions of corporate unity or symbolic constructions and projections connected with collective identity such as I will develop later within my analysis. There is also a corresponding but rarely-articulated deliberate practice of altered or moderated/modulated consciousness among Canadian soldiers. Soldiers are sometimes collectively encouraged by seasoned leaders and physical training instructors to “put the mind in(to) neutral and the body in(to) gear” in anticipation of excruciating collective runs or upon seeing signs of exhaustion or disorder among troops in marching formation. This practice, which I have experienced, appears to function as deliberate type of quasi-dissociative technique or mechanism. This mechanism is sometimes also exploited by individual soldiers in order to withstand prolonged physical or mental challenges. I have engaged such practice at various times throughout my military career and have employed it periodically during protracted bridging exercises and in order to persevere through and recover from arduous specialised training processes and operational missions. I doubt that these techniques of moderated consciousness are necessary to martial formation or that they should count as required competencies within the general repertoire of the Canadian Forces training system. These techniques may be adaptive on an individual basis but the Canadian martial training system does not formally conceptualise or articulate the deliberate intention to teach or routinise the employment of such practices within its training curriculum. I also do not construct this practiced liminal competency in soldiers as socially redressive, antistructural action as explored by Victor Turner. Rather, my experience of this type © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [188] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation of liminality through performance within martial settings is that such practices provide windows of temporary physical or mental reprieve or of existential solitude for reflection, mental and physical restoration or integration of skills, learning or meaning. For my analysis here, what is important to note is that any degree of communitas involves a high degree of “enfleshment” or “embodiment” as well as volitional, communal or collective reorientation and, frequently, group focus or commitment (Olaveson 2013 [2004] pp. 250 ff.). There is a paucity of language to describe the range of states of “trance,” “effervescence,” “altered consciousness,” “communitas,” and “liminality” identified in the literature. The state of consciousness I wish to describe of neophyte Canadian soldiers within this analysis is not the profound, florid state of dissociated trance or ecstasy sometimes described in scholarly accounts of ritual activity.11 Canadian recruits are being enculturated into a rigidly defined, stratified and constraining society that exercises an extreme degree of control, by means of a ritually enforced curriculum of powers, over the consciousness, activities and morality of its members. In keeping with Mary Douglas’s “group and grid” analysis (1996 [1978, 1973. 1970] p. 104), societies structured in ways similar to the Canadian Forces allow very little room for uncontrolled or creative behaviours, values, shared conceptions and states of consciousness that fall outside the sanctioned spectrum. For recruits, the opportunity for movement into modulated realms of consciousness are limited to the predictable periods of “slack” that occur during rhythmic activities such as long marches, protracted drill practices, lengthy runs and periods of contemplation while arranging personal kit and weapons. Throughout, the Canadian Forces social structure polices the degree of behavioural, affective and dispositional liminality that is tolerated and, as with the 11 Profoundly altered states of consciousness such as trance and ecstasy as experienced by contemporary rave performers have been explored at length by Tim Olaveson (2013 [2004]). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [189] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation structural disciplinary measures subsequent to breaches of acceptable martial demeanour described in Chapter 4, the system takes decisive ritually encoded steps to correct any degree of antistructural activity and to communicate correct standards of behavior and affect (Douglas 1996 [1970, 1973] pp. 54ff). It is clear that the sense of proficiency in one’s concerted step and communication with others on the march or run and one’s own bioneurological self-communication conveys a unifying sensory feedback as one engages in these collective activities (Laughlin 1997 p.475). The literature situates this phenomenon in the interaction of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems that function in tandem with rhythmic movements of the human body that can produce, by performative ritual activity, a spontaneous somatic response rendering a conscious but ineffable awareness of pleasure (Turner 1983, Schechner 1993, McNeill 1995 p.6, Laughlin 1997). The coordination of countless bioneurological cues and bodily affirmations of performative success, that is a stream of auto-communicated feedback regarding one’s compliance with stipulated preexistent standards imposed within the training environment, coupled with the freedom from cognitive demand borne of effortless performative bodily mastery, allows performers’ thoughts to stray from purposeful concentration on the invariant task to the state of “flow” or moderated performative consciousness that is described by the various scholars of ritual practices who have observed such phenomena in non-martial settings.12 In the literature, states of flow are also generated through a broad spectrum of “techniques of the body” (Mauss 1973 [1934], Asad 1983, 1993, Schechner 1993), or the use of repetitive rhythmic sounds, actions, music, syntax, intonations or incantations (Bloch 1974, Bellah 2003, 2011, Blacking 1976, Staal 1979) and may 12 “Flow,” in Schechner’s account of ritual states of cognitive affect, seems also to carry connotations of meta- awareness and, as such, would dictate its consideration as a phenomenon emergent within humanity subsequent to the time of proto humanity’s shift from indexical/periodic cognition into the symbolic realm of thought and meaning. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [190] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation frequently employ additional techniques such as fasting, the purposeful introduction of ritual drivers or rhythmic stimulus, the use of hallucinogens, meditation, excruciation, or monotonous physical or insoluble mental tasks that tune or thwart the rational thought process in initiates (Gill 1987, Bloch 1974, Turner 1983 pp. 228 ff., Laughlin and McManus 1979 in Schechner 1993 pp.144–145, d’Aquili and Newberg 1993 pp. 94–97, Laughlin 1997, Olaveson 2013 [2004], 2001). Perhaps most importantly, entry into this state of collective and highly synchronised or harmonised coordination of biophysical and neurocognitive processes, especially through the use of bilateral stimulation enhances the adaptive processing and integration of metabolic, emotional or cognitive challenges, psychic stress, agony, or trauma and the somatic restoration of biological processes in human subjects (Turner 1983 pp. 228 ff., Laughlin 1997). I suspect that the intensive alternating (bilateral) left, right, left, right movements that characterise collective coordinated marching and running are the primary catalysts of innate adaptive, integrative, processing and restorative somatopsychic processes transpiring for recruits in the course of prolonged states of flow.13 Rote, 13 The application of “bilateral stimulation” as a psychotherapeutic technique within clinical settings in the course of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is now a broadly established, evidence based practice to assist clinical subjects in processing or integrating traumatic injuries (de Bont, Van Den Berg, Van Der Vleugel, De Roos, Je Jongh, Van Der Gaag, Van Minnen 2016). The technique has demonstrated efficacy and is broadly employed in the treatment of PTSD within military settings (Verstrael, van der Wurff, Vermetten 2013) and Canadian Forces clinical personnel, including the author of this analysis, are trained in the application of this technique. What is most interesting about the development of the EMDR therapeutic protocol is that its inventor and developer Francine Shapiro claims to have “discovered” the technique of bilateral stimulation in the course of her clinical practice in 1989 (Shapiro 2001 [1995]). Astonishingly, at the time of her “discovery,” Shapiro associated the effectual mechanism of her technique with eye movements associated with walking and motion but developed no scientific or bioneurological analysis of the psychic mechanisms by which her process was effectual. Such mechanisms have since been investigated scientifically within medical and psychological literature. Nevertheless, I find no mention in this literature that the bioneurological processes of bilateral exchange of sensory stimulus between the lateral cortical structures and more archaic systems of the brain, as activated within ritual performance, that function to adaptively process lived experience, trauma or meaning had already been implicated within the scholarly © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [191] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation invariant performance, and most specifically bilateral stimulation in collective performance, in the literature then, is associated with and may induce a range of altered states of consciousness, various degrees of dissociation, trance or synchronised collective embodied metacommunications which should be understood as adaptive and integrative human techniques, practices, gadgets or mechanisms (see Bellah 2004, Boyer 2001, Laughlin 1997, McNeill 1995). 5.5 The Question of Responsive Performative Cadence Dievendorf (1996), Bornmann (2009) and Gibson (2012) have explored the deliberate and routinised use of sung cadences to synchronise or integrate the consciousness of American soldiers undergoing excruciating degrees of collective physical exercise and explores their widespread use in American recruit entrainment. Dievendorf’s analysis of basic entrainment is primarily situated around van Gennep’s classical rites of passage model but highlights the similarities between the employment of responsive cadences in American recruit training with eastern practices of mantra. He argues that such practice produces a state of “zen mindedness” in which soldiers collectively learn how to manage physical discomfort and to slip themselves into a state of hypnotic synchronisation in which there is an integration of physical and mental processes “…a state of..…dissociative, meditative…spiritual…altered consciousness” (Dievendorf 1996 p.12).14 This appears to correspond to the collective somatic experience achieved without the use of responsive literature on ritual studies as early as the early 1980’s long before Shapiro’s work in this area (see pioneer research of Paul MacLean beginning as early as 1949 as documented by Victor Turner in 1983 pp. 224 ff.). 14 Dievendorf’s use of the term dissociation is particularly apt given the adaptive human ability to dissociate from one’s body during episodes of pain or trauma. Indeed, this is a frequently observed phenomenon in clinical practice settings, most especially in cases of sexual or physical abuse, torture, or chronic somatic pain. Clinical informants describe their individual development of practices to distance themselves from their bodies undergoing pain or abuse and may even report their own detached observation of the body from a remote exterior vantage point. This would equate in some ways to the same practice I have recounted among soldiers undergoing extreme physical exertion and also as tangentially described by Dievendorf (1996 pp.10-12). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [192] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation cadence by some Canadian recruits as described in the previous paragraphs and to the experience of ritual performers in numerous other cultures, contexts and time periods as reported within the literature (Laughlin 1997, Schechner 1993, Turner 1983). This practiced facility, thought Dievendorf, allows the soldier to experience a sense of identification or unification with the collective identity and morality of the group. Bornmann sees the performance of cadence as a mechanism that serves to align recruits’ emerging ethos and identity with that of all American soldiers past and present, as a physiopsychic mechanism which can act to control the chatter, behavior and thoughts of recruits while marching, to express recruits temporarily-repressed sexuality through the institutionally sanctioned outlet of profane and misogynistic language as well as a medium for the expression and measurement of a recruit course’s martial pride and respect for its DS leaders. Gibson approaches cadence primarily through the lens of depth psychology and the range of archetypal themes and deep subconscious mechanisms that are invoked through the use of responsive cadence within the American basic entrainment process. Dievendorf (1996), Bornmann (2009) and Gibson (2012) approach cadence from theoretical stances that differ considerably from the developmental perspective I apply within my analysis. These scholars emphasise the multi-facetted importance of cadence within the American model of basic military entrainment whereas I note that Canadian recruit entrainment employs the use of sung cadence only sparingly, irregularly and largely at the discretion of individual DS who may have had more extensive exposure to its use as a motivational or bonding adjunct during later combat or specialist training. Such was my own experience and I did not encounter the use of responsive sung cadence until well after basic entrainment in later specialist phases of combat arms training during arduous collective runs throughout the training schedule, most intensively during the military parachute qualification course at the Canadian Airborne Centre in Edmonton 1981 © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [193] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation when the practice was deliberately imposed by elite soldiers as a motivational device and sometimes as a punishment. The vast range of ritual mechanisms and structural functions attributed to the performance of cadence within American accounts of basic entrainment then are not broadly or regularly present within Canadian martial basic training processes. I note here that while Dievendorf, Bornmann or Gibson clearly articulate the role of cadence in the modulation of consciousness and the deepening of group solidarity and ethos, they do not account for the fact that the American use of cadence is always accompanied by rhythmic embodied collective movement on the march or run (that is synchronized bilateral stimulation). This simply means that these scholars have not isolated, for the purpose of their analyses, the practice of cadence from the practice of embodied rhythmic movement which always accompanies responsive cadence in their scholarly accounts. My point is that the consciousness altering and adaptive psychic processing or integrating benefits attributed to cadence by American scholars may properly reside in the (bilateral stimulation) dynamics of embodied collective march or drill as explored previously within this chapter. As I consider the practice of responsive cadence apart from its accompaniment by rhythmic movement I would highlight the rather unavoidable and critical developmental overtones of cadence reminiscent of the foundational mood and anxiety moderating call and response interaction ritual that routinely takes place between a mother and child in the foundational ontogenetic and socialisation stages of development—primary and necessary ontogenetic mechanisms which Dievendorf, Bornmann and Gibson do not highlight and which may be fundamental to bonding, social identity and language acquisition (Erikson 1968).15 Similar and 15 Charles Taylor describes the foundational processes of language aquistion and identity formation which transpire between a mother and child in the call and response rituals of the earliest ontogenetic phases of life. What is interesting is that the language acquisition process follows a standardised trajectory of intense joint attention and unified © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [194] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation parallel developmental mechanisms are clearly being invoked in the earliest martial inscription processes whenever martial mentors call a cadence to martial neophytes who responsively emulate and concurrently integrate the martial meanings that are being modelled and are beginning to coalesce within recruits’ emerging martial worldview and which will come to support higher symbolic martial meanings and expressions. 5.6 Practices of Parabolic Corporality – Embodied Roots of Collective Martial Consciousness Effortless coordination and synchronised embodied performance is only achieved in the advanced stages of basic entrainment as recruits master their bodies and dispositions. At this stage of collective ritual competency each sharp, distinct movement a recruit makes in applying the body to a drill movement reaps a highly magnified degree of sensory feedback which is registered indexically within the recruit’s nervous system. This kind of feedback primarily occurs on long marches, runs and drill practices where coordination and the unmuddled, perfectly synchronised feedback of the collective actually becomes an adjunct to a state of flow, cognitive liminality or reprieve that should be understood as a modulated state of consciousness. Clear feedback does not occur if there are members of a formation who cannot synchronise their movement in time with consciousness/identification or “communion” between mother/child followed only then by a process of differential identification and language development (a process which corresponds neatly with Lakoff’s 2012 proposition that language is predicated upon prior (embodied) differentiation of the subject from others before symbolic construction). The upshot is that in American martial entrainment, and Canadian basic entrainment where cadence is employed, it is possible that neophytes and DS are engaging in some type of fundamental developmental process associated with collective consciousness foundational to subsequent embodied and then symbolic processes associated with identity formation when first engaging in responsive chants. As I have already described of the martial resocialisation process, recruits are initially levelled and collectively stratified and bonded with course mates early in the entrainment process (a process in some ways like conscious identification, unification or communion), and only then begin to establish a sense of autonomy, that is a sense of existential differentiation. This seems parallel in some ways to the second stage of the ontogenetic process described by Taylor (2016 pp.54ff., 89ff.). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [195] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation the others. Such asynchronous distortions would effectively cancel the effect by muddling the flow and clarity of feedback. In performing a coordinated, highly synchronised collective movement on a parade square—for example the coordination of a pace at a fixed chronological frequency and linear distance—one employs, coordinates and conditions one’s body to execute the movement and simultaneously receives a parabolic degree of sensory feedback regarding this movement. This is to say that when one executes a pace (or slaps the forestock of a rifle in executing a salute, or slams one’s booted heel sharply onto the parade square in coming to attention) one hears, feels and senses in one’s body the perfectly synchronised affirmative feedback of thirty other coordinated bodily movements of the entire platoon in each movement. Existentially, each recruit experiences the sensation that one’s steps are powerful and expansive—like that of a bull elephant or a mythical giant thundering over the landscape. The ethological impact of this parabolic feedback effect as one moves through the ritual space in formation is the magnified existential sensation in each recruit’s own person and consciousness of the unified, collective biological strength and dimensions of the entire platoon. It is a heightened and intercorporeally iterated, reciprocal and amplified embodied perception or consciousness of the collective performative phenomena by each recruit.16 The effect is all the more amplified in the echoed reverberation of cavernous drill halls. 16 Shogo Tanaka (2013, 2015, 2017) working within the phenomenological tradition of Merleau-Ponty describes the emerging movement within cognitive science called “embodied cognition” (2013 p. 51). This is an updated iteration of the standard phenomenological insight that the mind is actually embodied but with the additional proposition that the constitutional dimensions of the mind might actually reside or extend beyond the strict physical boundaries of the subject’s own body, and could be projected or distributed to objects within the outer world such as through computers, cameras or tools which extend ones embodied perception of the world. A useful example of this extended constitutional phenomenon of perception would include the situation where one drives a large, massive, imposing vehicle through heavy traffic after normally driving a small sub-compact vehicle through similar conditions. The © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [196] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation In terms of ritually competent recruits performing within a state of flow on the march or parade square, proficient, coordinated, collective ritual performance undoubtedly sensitises soldiers’ individual nervous systems and “tunes” the synchronisation and interplay of signals between the cortical hemispheres and the more archaic structures of performing soldiers’ brains. These processes in turn result in states of moderated consciousness and can give rise to ineffable affective states – most specifically states reflecting an awareness of profound unification— couched within narrative frameworks within which soldiers will make sense of their experiences in just the way described in the literature (d’Aquili and Laughlin 1979 in Schechner 1993 pp.239– 240). Recruits so attenuated each simultaneously register or consciously experience the magnified indexical feedback of the entire collective formation within their individual performative bodies. How does this relate to social identity within the martial ecosystem? I refer again to the concept of “rank ordering” and Lorenz’s assertion that every animal monitors and is aware of its driver, now in the larger vehicle, experiences a radically different and extended embodied perception of indexical or ethological presence within the field of perception. This example corresponds in important ways with my own experience as described above of highly coordinated collective drill movements performed within a body (and I use this term deliberately) of thirty or more subordinated and regulated, highly disciplined and comprehensively moderated individual performative bodies. One experiences or perceives a kind of conscious unity and shared consciousness with the collective totality of the performers’ bodies and moves through the ritual space with a muchbroadened sensory awareness of the extended external limits of embodied perception, and an expanded degree of existential presence. This extended embodied cognition phenomenon could be documented in some depth in the course of qualitative phenomenological research surveying the experiences of neophyte soldiers which is beyond the scope of this analysis but which certainly corresponds with my own perceptions of collective movement in dance or drill movements. My objective here is simply to apply a range of relevant existing theory which might highlight, suggest or explain the range of embodied ritual dynamics animating the routine processes of collective martial entrainment experienced by all neophyte Canadian soldiers. This ability to broaden one’s phenomenal experience of the world within a collective, synchronised body of ritual performers may represent the genesis or phenomenological locus of the type of collective consciousness and symbolic generativity described among ritual performers in “elementary” societies by Émile Durkheim. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [197] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation own indexical status, location and communicated disposition relative to every other member of its species within the environment (Lorenz 1966a. pp. 35–36, see also Bloch 2008). This is clearly an adaptive ability in social animals that allows them to sense and determine their biological strength and social standing relative to others and to know when to contend or cede territory or resources. This ability operates in animals on a continuous basis as they receive feedback from conspecifics in the environment which are themselves responding to the signals of biological strength, size, dominance or intention each animal displays.17 Large, dominant animals, for example, receive constant feedback from conspecifics affirming their comparative indexical status and biosocial prerogative within the social structure and this mechanism regulates the behavior of each animal according to their perceived indexical status relative to every other – their unique identity within the local ecology and social order. Given the magnitude of the feedback each recruit will assimilate relative to the signals that each recruit individually displays or transmits in perfected drill movement, it is not surprising that soldiers attain an expanded sense of indexical potency, cohesive unity and realised corporality that is wholly out of proportion to their objective individual indexical status.18 We have then, in each ritually proficient recruit, the emergence of a collective bodily awareness or group 17 Bloch (2008) describes in some detail the constant indexical monitoring process in higher primate societies – he later elaborates on both the (separate) indexical and symbolic registers of human meaning. 18 In light of the current theory of intercorporeality described in Chapter 4 (Tanaka 2015, 2017), such embodied, pre- conceptual dynamics undergird the full spectrum of social and ritual processes experienced by soldiers during basic training. Such a proposition also suggest the possibility that, in light of the comprehensive range of embodied interactions collectively endured in exactly the same way by martial neophytes and the shared experience of collectively retraversing the foundational developmental stages simultaneously within the martial resocialisation agenda, there is likely an enhanced degree of homogeneous perception and uniformity of intercorporeally and hyperrealised bodily proficiency, corporate awareness or collective consciousness among Canadian martial neophytes. This could contribute to or explain the enhanced and adaptive degree of unambiguous certainty of social role and embodied meaning (read as adaptive collective social identity and security) among soldiers within a regulated martial ecosystem. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [198] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation consciousness—a tangible state of corporate being, commitment or identity. I add briefly here that such magnified degrees of atavistic feedback, when coupled with collective entry into a state of flow or communitas such as suggested by Dievendorf’s martial informants, provides the necessary conditions for the production of symbolic projections of social structure or corporate solidarity and consciousness which will be explored in Chapter 6 of this analysis. This is a perspective primarily borne of the adaptive biopsychosocial processes that emerge in the interactions between ritual performance, ecological feedback of the social structure and recruits’ ontogenetic drive towards the construction of a symbolic social identity. At this juncture of my analysis I wish primarily to establish that the recruit entrainment rite affords neophyte ritual adepts the opportunity to experience a collective state of flow, a state of enhanced and embodied collective identification or awareness, obligation and solidarity with comrades and in some individual soldiers, a fluid (perhaps conscious or purposeful) ability to invoke this state of modulated consciousness as required throughout the military career and in life generally. I have described how rhythmic, repetitive, collective performance, such as that experienced by all Canadian recruits participating in collective drill practice and marching (at times accompanied by sung cadence) could provide the foundation for the production of a kind of conscious corporate identification or collective awareness in soldiers. The parabolic feedback mechanism as described pertains, as it might with any social species of animal, to a common orientation, bonded group integration or shared consciousness among group members that is indexically monitored and affirmed through ongoing ritualised performance—an ethological mechanism that has clear implications for the type of exclusive morality and cohesion I maintain is adaptive within a collective worldview corresponding to the enterprise of war. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [199] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 5.7 Excursus — Ritual, the Human Symbolic Facility, its Phylogenetic Emergence and the Possibility of Martial Identity and Ontogenetic Exploitation of Ritual Processes Human social “identity” is an abstract construction. It is reliant on the operation of the symbolic facility within various operations perpetuating human social structures and worldviews. But to say that identity is an abstract or symbolic concept correlated closely with worldview does not explain its dependence upon ritual and the role of collective perfected or synchronised performance in its acquisition or its emergence within critical phylogenetic and ontogenetic planes of human development. Adaptive human capacities for conceptual thought, verbal speech, the emergence of culture, and the possibility of stable and enduring traditions or social structures, are dependent upon the evolved ability to employ symbols (Lorenz 1966b. p.279). Prior to the development of this uniquely human symbolic facility, protohumans undoubtedly interacted with their ecosystems and with other organisms within their territory in ways undistinguished from the manner in which all other animals do. Proto humans like all other species have selectively adapted, within the course of their evolving phylogenetic trajectory, a specific capacity and repertoire of methods to signal or communicate their indexical state and readiness to mate, fight, feed, nest, submit, or cede ground or resources to other organisms within their vicinity. The question of whether proto humanity developed symbolic capacity before evolving into a social animal—whether human symbolic constitution is foundational to human evolution into a social animal—is not widely articulated by the sources consulted. Rather, it seems that most sources postulate a sort of co-evolution of symbolic/linguistic capacity and biological adaptations within increasingly differentiated social structures (Turner 1983, Schechner 1993). The need to represent something symbolically presumes stable social relations with others to whom one would represent such things and with whom one would share a worldview. This is not to argue that proto © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [200] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation humans did not communicate with other proto humans prior to language—it is simply that primal proto human communications must have been indexical and episodic—that is to say they were existential statements of present fact or immediate state of physical or emotional being. Such communications pertained to basic territoriality and reproductive motivations or states of being. Such signals then conveyed and fulfilled ecosystemic agendas and had to do with the efficient distribution of proto human organisms throughout the range of their biological territory. These were essentially adaptive, ecologically motivated signals. As they represent protohuman interactions within hierarchies of competition and domination of resources, they were essentially signals that maintained or established sociostructural arrangements, primal (immediate/indexical) existential meanings or motivations. Durkheim saw fundamental or “elementary” human social life as enacted between mundane times of dispersed hunting and gathering within small family groups and exciting, intensive junctures of more densely congregated ceremonial participation of those dispersed groups into larger gatherings at specified times throughout the seasonal cycles (Bellah and Tipton 2006 pp. 50ff, Durkheim 1995 [1912]). During these congregated times, in Durkheim’s schema based substantially on Australian ethnographic accounts, the performance of ritual was the primary communal activity that involved collective rhythmic performance focused on symbolic representations of the various clans composing the gathering. Collins (in Bellah 2003) highlights some features of the communal scene such as those depicted by Durkheim and stipulated a formula or mechanistic definitional recipe for ritual. The necessary components for a ritual phenomenon, in Collin’s view, are the presence of a group of people focussed on the same action or object being aware that others are similarly focused and sharing a common mood or emotion (in Bellah 2003 p. 32). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [201] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Collins’s argues that the common experience and emotion of ritual performance along with the exuberant awareness of what the others are experiencing constitutes a kind of mutuality that supports the construction of common concepts, collective representations and totemic identities. He describes the emergence of human ritual performance in concert with more elaborated human social structures. This is altogether in keeping with my argument that views ritualised communications as adaptive mechanisms rooted in our phylogenetic heritage that enable the communication of primal indexical episodic meanings and, on that basis, the development of cohesive bonds upon which collective symbolic meanings depend. Bellah notes that propositions about the origin of symbols (and the closely related question of shared conventional meanings ie. language – especially the origin of language in ritual) have been only minimally explored in scholarship. Bellah notes the foundational work of Merlin Donald (1991) and introduces the work of Terrence Deacon (1997) into the discussion, scholarship which Bellah argues is bolstered by more recent advances in neurophysiology and paleolithic archaeology. Deacon’s work with primates leads him to propose a theory about the co-evolution of the human social brain and language. He thought that it was the proto human employment of ritual that provided the link between early hominid brains (such as could be studied today among non-human primates) and symbolic communication. Building on his work with primates Deacon thinks that ritual became and remains a critical (but widely unrecognised) component of the process by which humans are taught to shift their attention from the concrete physical and indexical awareness to abstract symbolic conceptions – or as Bellah put it “from separate indexical links between signs and objects to an organised set of relations between signs” (Bellah 2003 p.33). This evolved capacity in humans and routinised habit or facility for shifting attention has since become uniformly woven into the fabric of all human © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [202] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation societies and is developmentally precipitated and facilitated pan-culturally through critical human ontogenetic patterns of ritualised vocal communication between mothers and their offspring. This has been described by Erik Erikson (in Bellah 2003 p.33, Rappaport 1979 pp. 212, see also Charles Taylor 2016 pp. 54ff., 89ff.). Deacon’s experimental work found that repetition and the requirement to master flawless and rote patterns of embodied or vocalised actions or utterances functions to build the type of effortless competence in rhythmic collective performance requiring a minimum of conscious attention. This unthinking ritual fluency enhances the emotional intensity of communal group activity and by means of this rudimentary ritual mechanism, ritual performers experience some sort of a heightened mutually interactive social experience (Bellah notes the extensive use of the earlier work of Durkheim, Collins and Goffman in Deacon’s analysis – see Bella 2003 p.33 and also McNeill 1995 pp. 13–35). According to Deacons’s research the archaeological record indicates a co-evolution of human social structures or systems with a near comprehensive shift to non-indexical (symbolic) thinking. Coincident with more routinised methods of socialised activity employing repetition and redundancy, there also seems to be a confluence of interdependent hominid biological/sociological and technical developments. Deacon articulates relatively concurrent increase in brain size, the appearance of stone tools and a decrease in sexual dimorphism—all symptomatic of adaptation, improved feeding ecology and increasingly complex social structures (Deacon 1997 in Bellah 2003 p. 33). The adaptational or evolutionary possibilities presented by these factors and the new relational circumstances of increasingly complex, evolving social structures would have provided a very fertile adaptational opportunity for the development of symbolic ways by which the social structure could be represented so as to maximise the potential for human exploitation of the environment. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [203] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation In the prior stage of human evolution hominids could signal basic biological (indexical) states of readiness to mate or to defend territory or resources by means of repetitive non-symbolic ritualised actions or displays. Now, the newly emergent adaptive possibility of maximising success presented by the bioevolutionary factors described enabled hominids to signal future possibilities—promises of future actions, expectations or relational structures such as cross gender pair bonding, and the division of labour between parents for the provision of food or care of infants. These were human possibilities not afforded and not imaginable or negotiable through indexical episodic signaling alone. In fact, says Deacon, the new symbolic facility, as an advancement on animal and proto human indexical monitoring or rudimentary collective activity, made a system of social relationships into something more than simple ad hoc arrangements:19 Ritualized support is also essential to ensure that all members of the group understand the newly established contract and will behave accordingly. As in peacemaking, demonstrating that these relationships exist and providing some way of marking them for future reference so that they can be invoked and enforced demand the explicit presentation of supportive indices, not just from reproductive partners but from all significant kin and group members....Marriage and puberty rituals serve this function in most human societies....The symbol construction that occurs in these ceremonies is not just a matter of demonstrating certain symbolic relationships, but actually involves the use of individuals and actions as symbol tokens. Social roles are redefined and individuals are explicitly assigned to them. A wife, a husband, a warrior, a father-in-law, an elder – all are symbolic roles, not reproductive roles, and as such are defined with respect to a complete system of alternative or complementary symbolic roles. Unlike social status in other species, which is a moreor-less relationship in potential flux, symbolic status is categorical. As with all symbolic relationships, social roles are defined in the context of a logically complete system of potential transformations; and because of this, all members of a social group (as well as any potential others from the outside) are assigned an implicit symbolic relationship when any one member changes status (Deacon 1997 p.406 in Bellah 2003 p. 34). 19 Bloch describes this moment in human evolution as the “upper paleolithic revolution.” This “moment” is best summarised as the acquired human ability to “imagine other worlds” in addition to the facility among humans to relate to each other in terms of essentialized roles, identities or offices within society that exist apart from the individuals that might temporarily inhabit them (Bloch 2008). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [204] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The establishment of rudimentary social contracts that were enabled by the emergence of symbolic thought presented a unique human evolutionary solution to the emerging bioevolutionary factors and challenges articulated by Deacon. The social contract implied in this sort of formulation would probably include something like rudimentary routinised social arrangements facilitating a division of roles and labour whereby offspring could be nurtured and fed and could begin to expect, in a future imagined time, to be nurtured and fed by a pair of parents according to relationships that would exhibit differentiated responsibilities and routinised stable structures – that is enduring social roles or specific identities.20 Rappaport theorised that in the course of human evolution the symbolic facility for nonindexical cognition came to be incorporated into human linguistic, communal and ritual processes (Rappaport 1999 pp. 9–11, 449–451). Theoretically, the symbolic capacity would have continued under selective pressure resulting in a responsive, mutual co-evolution of phyletic and ontogenetic adaptations manifesting in a broad spectrum of ordered and ritualised human capacities, motivations, social structures and psychosocial developmental processes (Lorenz 1966b. pp. 180ff. 20 For Bloch (2008), this extends to affiliations with transcendent social groups that are understood to have some ontological existence and stability beyond the local, living membership of one’s immediate community. This is directly pertinent to my thesis about cosmised symbolic projections and collective martial identity which will be explored further in Chapter 6. It is also pertinent to my earlier observation that in the culminating rituals of liturgical orders, complex local symbolic meanings come to be projected to global significance or even transcendent or universal dimensions. Bloch’s 2008 description of imagined worlds and committed identification with conceptualised communities resembles that of Collins and Deacon in Bellah (2011) and of Durkheim (1995 [1912]) in important ways but without the theorised requirement for embodied ritual activity to catalyse such cosmised social structures in the minds of ritual performers. This is of some interest here as Bloch’s 2008 explanation anchors the emergence of human religion to the same evolutionary moment described by Bellah and his sources (2003, 2011) and provides an interesting link between the symbolic facility in humans and the associated obligations to transcendent social ecosystem of dead elders and unseen affines. These were obligations of sanctity explored by Rappaport and Durkheim distinctly as products of ritual dynamics and practices. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [205] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation and Victor Turner 1983). Durkheim recognised the fact that modern humans employ two registers of meaning in the world and employ both indexical and symbolic modes of operation, interaction and communication. He referred to modern hominids as homo duplex (Elwell 2009, 2013), a concept well in keeping with the thrust of this analysis. Erikson has written extensively about human ritual and the establishment of identity. He was familiar with the ethological work of previous and contemporary scientists and researchers up to the time of his most salient statements on human ontogeny and ritual in 1968. He was clear that he did not wish to take up the examination of ritual in the way that he said anthropologists had typically done—that is in the examination of ceremonial practices of groups of primarily adult participants that may have only been observed or marginally participated in by children and adolescents (Durkheim seems to have avoided any significant ontogenetic analysis regarding ritual practice). Erikson rather focused his attention on the ontogenetic aspects of ritual—ie. how ritual manifests itself in the predictable, inductive and observable developmental process of successive individual competencies over the course of the life cycle. Erikson’s work addresses and highlights very clearly some critical ideas about the significance of ritual within the individual developmental processes (and therefore at various levels of individual development of cognitive and symbolic thought processes). It is worth re mentioning here that Canadian soldiers have typically arrived at their place of basic training at the ontogenetic (individual developmental) stage wherein the predominating life challenge and overarching impulse is the establishment of identity and where the role and esteem of peers is paramount. The successful negotiation of the basic training process would certainly implicate a broad range of social and ontogenetic, that is to say psychosocial developmental, dynamics including those identified by Erikson (1968) and Deacon (1997 in Bellah © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [206] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 2003 pp. 31ff.) wherein the facility for language and symbolic thought is ritually emphasised and exploited in the negotiation of specific enduring social roles and structures. As highlighted within this excursus and the main body of my analysis, the human cognitive symbolic shift described by Deacon can be induced by means of rote, rhythmic repetition in groups or individually and appears elsewhere in the anthropological and religious literature. Within this project, this mechanism is examined specifically with regards to the possibility of its appearance or exploitation of it within the basic training process as a means of inculcating group consciousness, identity, religioideological assent or possibly in the generation of symbolic cognitive “cosmised” projections of martial social structures and bonded relations or affiliations beyond the confines of the recruit social system. What is not always highlighted in the literature beyond Deacon (1997 in Bellah 2003 pp.31ff.), Bloch (2008) and Rappaport (1999 pp. 9–11, 449– 451) is that this ability to construct cognised symbolic social structures, or the exploitation of ritualised means to do so, actually represents the critical adaptive morphological stage between proto humanity and sociosymbolic (modern) humanity. If one considers the Lorenzian proposition that it is the performance of ritualisations between conspecifics that bond groups of performers in light of Deacon’s proposition that such performances enable the shift from episodic to adaptive symbolic structural innovations based on enduring social roles and specified future communal obligations, the adaptive ritual mechanism pertaining to this ability to shift from indexical episodic thought to the symbolic association of symbols with other symbols and representations of roles, cosmised social structures and future or remembered chronicities becomes the definitive and formative “moment” in the evolution of modern humanity. It is also the adaptive capacity by means of which humans can be entrained to identify and participate collectively as soldiers in the enterprise of war. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [207] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [208] Section III Enacted and Reproduced Authority and Ceremonial Performance Cosmised Martial Meaning, Relations and Ultimate Obligation III.1 Introduction to Section III This section of the project will focus on the leadership and ceremonial performances of the latter stages of basic training and the ordered hierarchies of authority, the cosmised social constructions, and the unified states of consciousness that are established in the worldviews of recruits. In this latter stage of the entrainment rite, ritual performers must display and enact a fuller inventory of meanings in specific martial performances. Beyond primal human indexical social awareness and heightened bodily proficiency, a rudimentary range of projected collective symbolic elaborations, dispositions and motivations will also certainly crystallise for recruits. This includes an enhanced consciousness in soldiers of their relationship to every other Canadian soldier and their sanctified role on behalf of all Canadians—a role which indeed might even be thought to be endorsed by a sovereign monarch or the Almighty God. The performative displays that punctuate © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [209] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation this latter stage also reproduce and project the ordered martial ecosystem. Ritual processes instill critical and ordered symbolic meanings that come to animate the martial worldviews of the recruits. But how would collective ritual proficiency and martial competencies, moods, motivations come to be built upon or to be associated in any way with the rudimentary foundation established by means of innate indexical signals of dominance, subordination, aggression or territoriality established within the first few weeks of the recruit course? Clearly there are critical intermediate steps, processes or plateaus of inscription of specific types of meaning that must be accomplished within the initial martial formation processes. These degrees of inscription occur somewhere between the initial rough sociostructural levelling of recruits into a homogeneous social order of subordinated neophytes and the eventual class of ritually competent basic military trainees on graduation parade. In this section I wish to emphasise the importance of Canadian martial ceremonial performance and collective symbolic processes that are not fully described elsewhere in the scholarly literature. I first develop the concept of collectively held representations of cosmised social structure and affiliation. I cite scholars who maintain that under certain conditions ritual performance facilitates a human capacity for predictable shifts into symbolic thought or meta awareness. I have also observed that under certain formalised conditions basic cognitive elaborations of immediate social structure catalyse within recruit performers’ minds that subsequently acquire cosmological dimensions and a degree of ontological stability when enacted in association with a decisive ritual stance, repetition of canonical or archetypal gestures, sounds, movements or the application of a range of rhythmic “drivers” (see also Laughlin 1997, Liénard and Boyer 2006, Staal 1979). This phenomenon also happens to correspond closely with Durkheim’s portrayal of collective ritual practice that he associated with the formation and adoption of collective totemic identifications and representations of social structure which I will © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [210] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation explore at greater length in this analysis (see Bellah and Tipton 2006 pp.151ff. and Durkheim 1995 [1912]). I finally consider theory that pertains to these events and describe the manner in which the performance of inscribed dispositions, the enactment and reproduction of canonical orders of authority, and participation in rich multivocal ceremonial performances can catalyse the inscription of symbolic elaborations, imperatives, cognised projections and collective emotive states or tangible indexical valencies that emerge dramatically in the worldviews of recruits in the final ritual performances of the basic training. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [211] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [212] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 6 Ritual Processes of Enacted Authority, Symbolic Projection and Elaborated Sociality Military training is a routinised process that aims to manufacture a homogeneous product in successive generations of recruits and officers. The process depends upon what Rappaport has described as the essential formal qualities of ritual practice or form; the expression and reproduction of authority, degrees of invariance and gravity (or sanctity). These concepts are inextricably implicated and correlated in any ritual. This is most certainly the case with the Canadian basic training process. Within this chapter of my analysis I examine the enactment of more symbolic martial rituals and the collective embodied reiteration and projection of symbolic constructions by increasingly competent ritual adepts as they proceed towards the latter stages of their entrainment. Recruits and young officers now enact ritual competencies by participating communally in performative acts that now model and project martial meanings, values and structures to themselves and others. Like the Nambudiri Brahmins who reproduce and perpetuate the Vedic cosmos in their invariant performance of the Agnicayana sacrifice, martial performers come to reproduce the martial cosmos and its ordered nomoi in their own enactment of invariant martial actions and performances. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [213] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 6.1 The Moment of Acquired Individual Ritual Competence By the latter stage of martial enculturation recruits have adapted to an alien environment and have been herded through a range of ritual processes. At a certain point in the process, the martial ritual practices, signals and dispositions that have at first been imposed to assist recruits in adapting to their new milieu become incorporated into the soldiers’ martial impulses and worldview. At this point recruits evince a critical mass of inscribed competencies and begin to spontaneously act, adapt and think according to the norms of their new milieu. This accords to some degree with Claude Levi-Strauss’s observation that elements of “native” worldviews begin to “think” within the minds of anthropologists after a time of sufficient cross-cultural interaction and saturation with the local meanings and logic of their informants. Eventually then the anthropologists begin to spontaneously reproduce and inhabit these new cultural meanings in their own actions and descriptive interpretations of their informants lives (see Matti Bunzl’s interview of Marshall Sahlins 2014). Recruits also experience the critical degree of cultural saturation as a certain “moment” of acquired individual ritual competency after which point all actions, motivations and thoughts come to occur in negotiation with the ambient meanings, valuations and imperatives pervading the martial ecosystem. Rappaport’s grand ritual and religious project postulated a parallel but more primordial historical “moment” after which point human thought and action came to comprehensively employ the symbolic facility within all subsequent adaptive human operations. What followed was a process of co-evolution between protohumanity and an emerging cognitive facility to adaptively exploit language or symbols within human collective interactions (Rappaport 1999 pp. 9–11, 449–451, see also Victor Turner 1983 and Richard Schechner 1993 on phyletic and cultural co-evolution). Rappaport’s insight is relevant to my project in light of my argument that the martial ritual practices and the psychosocial development © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [214] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation of neophyte soldiers I describe, which exploit the symbolic facility, are nested within much broader phylogenetic and ecological processes. 6.2 Distributed and Ultimate Authority, Invariance and Gravity within the Martial Ecosystem I first consider the ritual enactment and perpetuation of canonical authority by neophyte military leaders. If one is overseeing or exercising authority in a ritual performance (such as in pronouncing that a soldier is now promoted to the next rank or in declaring a soldier to be guilty of a military service offence) one is performing a technical and efficacious action for symbolic ends. As with other non-martial rituals, this type of action accomplishes its ends by means of “communication” or “information” rather than by the physical means of directly moving matter and energy. Ritual actions of martial entrainment then are in many cases symbolic and go beyond the mastery of technical skills soldiers will later employ in the course of their careers. They are regulated within canons of authority for symbolic purposes in ways that accommodate performers to, and reproduce orders of meaning within, the martial ecosystem. All officer candidates receive training in a spectrum of subject matter that could be considered to fall within the broad range of “ritual” curriculum. This includes a wide range of academic and ceremonial formation where the various hierarchies of authority and regulation are explained, practiced and symbolically portrayed. There is a heavy curricular emphasis on military law and its administration by officers in garrison and operation as well as on supranational regulations and ethics governing the conduct of war and compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Such formation effectively expands the ritual domain and range of authority and symbolic competency an officer must comprehend, personify and at times exercise over others. The level of ritual competence that must be demonstrated by officer candidates far exceeds the degree and breadth of ritual facility that must be inscribed upon non-commissioned recruits at © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [215] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation this point in their careers. This is quite simply because officer cadets are expected to enact the role of leaders within the martial system immediately upon completion of basic training in a way that non-commissioned members will not be expected to emulate for several years or decades into their careers. All leaders must eventually personify, project and perpetuate canonical martial authority and discipline within appropriate degrees of priority, gravity and judgment. A commissioned officer is primarily required to enact, within his or her span of command, the Queen’s Regulations and Orders (QR&O). This is a relatively stable – that is invariant – four volume body of regulations issued under the authority of the National Defense Act (NDA) section 12 (1950) having the force of law for the regulation of the Canadian Forces. This relatively small body of authoritative legislation is in turn interpreted and elaborated by the Canadian Forces Administrative Orders (CFAO) – an expansive collection of less authoritative regulations which provides a more accessible guide for leaders on day to day decisions regarding the administration of military affairs. Of late the CFAO has been superceded by the Defense Administrative Orders and Directives (DAOD), an ever-growing body of guidance and working regulation collated within the subject headings and categories of the CFAO which is frequently updated in keeping with the (variant) emergent needs and contingencies of the Canadian martial environment.1 1 The structure of the canon of military regulations maintains gravity and authority through increased degrees of invariance. The martial liturgical order maintains the more invariant orders and regulations (the QR&O) and practices connected with higher (even deistic or regnal) authority as I have described are entailed in the enrolment oath. Conversely, there is an expansive and ever-evolving range of less authoritative working interpretation of the QR&O for application within the mundane domains of everyday martial existence. We see clear parallels with Jewish canonical regulation and its finite but invariant and gravely authoritative corpus of primary scriptural legislation which is in turn elaborated through several more expansive but less authoritative types of interpretive textual commentary that exhibit variable opinion on any given higher canonical statute. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [216] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 6.3 Another Point about Liturgical Order In terms of military leadership, the martial liturgical order “orders” the exercise or ritual performance of military authority in at least one important way beyond the inductive and sequential manners described in the introduction to Section II of this project. This is in the manner in which liturgical orders “order” or stipulate the proportion of canonical to non-canonical information communicated within any ritual performance. Within Rappaport’s schema, ritual performances are comprised of only two kinds of information; Canonical, that is invariant pre-encoded meaning that refers to realities or authorities that are not immediately present but that are nevertheless taken to be true, authoritative and unchanging. Rappaport argued that canonical realities can only be represented symbolically (God is One, Elizabeth is by grace of God Queen, God and the ordained sovereign authority of the monarch presides over Canadian martial authority and Canadian soldiers). Ritual performances also include non-canonical—that is self-referential or indexical meaning—that is obvious or embodied information, referring to the mutable social state of a performer in relation to others or in relation to the invariant authority portrayed in a ritual performance at any given moment. In Rappaport’s language liturgical orders and the individual rituals within them also establish and maintain the order of that which they regulate (1979 OAR). They do this by stipulating the correct proportions of invariant canonical meaning (form or authority) and non-canonical (self-referential or indexical, embodied expression) within each ritual performance within a rite. What has all this to do with the martial entrainment of officers and why is it important? The simple answer is that officer candidates (and eventually all non-commissioned officers) are entrained to convey ritual efficacy and to project pre-existent martial authority over subordinates through their embodied portrayal of correctly proportioned or “ordered” ritual actions. Officers must demonstrate a degree of performative ritual competency in combining the correct degrees of © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [217] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation invariant symbolic martial authority with variant degrees of indexical expression of immediate physical status in relation to subordinates and variables within the martial environment. An officer’s ability to enact an effective “command presence” in the performance of any ritual action directing subordinates amounts to the effective communication of the effectual invariant and variant components of any performative, instrumental action that Rappaport observed to collaborate in and constitute any successful ritual performance. 6.4 Ritual Competence in the Projection of Martial Authority — The Performative Leadership Assessment Ritual of Officer Candidates At some point in the latter phase of entrainment an officer candidate must pass a comprehensive and demanding military leadership assessment. He or she does so by effectively leading others in the completion of a number of military tasks. The candidate must deftly articulate to a section of subordinates a process to be followed in the completion of this task and must then supervise them in its completion. The process of articulation is invariant and must be completed flawlessly while observing a hierarchy of martial authority and priorities within which this task must be completed by the team. This activity is a microcosmic portrayal of the values, role and persona that an officer must evince on a daily basis for the rest of her or his military service. The candidate must perform the task successfully at least twice over the four or five weeks of field exercises and will be given only four attempts, that is two assessed failures, to do so. Attrition is high and those who succeed are the ones who can successfully integrate eight to ten weeks of intensive military environmental enculturation and technical training with sufficient physical and mental stamina to command their assigned tasks to completion within the constraints described. To be more conceptual about the assessment process, one might say that the candidate is assessed as to suitability for employment within a stratified organisation with highly prescribed parameters of volition, motivation and expectation of behavioural compliance and ritual © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [218] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation performance. While this may sound nebulous, it is well in keeping with the description of cultural imperatives and the corresponding ecosystemic nomoi or ordered meanings, valuations and priorities described in the introductory chapter of this project as uniquely prevailing within every human society. As such, these meanings are adaptive and the successful performance of them “fits” or accommodates performers of them within the specific social ecosystem. Authority is perpetuated within ritual systems by the degree of recognition among performers of the need to reproduce a ritual in a way that does not depart from its prescribed form. The highest values within a ritual economy are also the most invariant. Such invariant imperatives are referred to as having canonical authority. Although authoritative and sacred, such values are, counterintuitively, the least precisely articulated. All simply acknowledge the moral authority of unquestioned postulates and perform them invariantly. This is the case within the ritual processes that transform Canadian recruits into soldiers and leaders.2 This leadership task assessment process then is a performative ritual action. As noted, ritual actions work through the transmission of information in the form of invariant and ordered authority and regulation rather than simply through the manipulation of matter and energy (Rappaport 1979 p.179). The correct proportions of invariant martial authority and embodied indexical expression displayed by a military leader in the exercise of authority over subordinates constitutes an elusive quality known as command presence. The effective command presence of a military leader is understood by all soldiers to convey a range of compulsive or persuasive powers – a kind of elusive embodied charisma that inexplicably but reliably invokes loyalty and obedience. The invocation 2 Contra the constructions of Victor Turner that frame rituals as also being revolutionary, redressive and generative, not strictly conservative entities. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [219] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation of martial authority over troops by ritually proficient leaders then begins to approach something more formally meeting Mary Douglas’s definition of a ritual.3 The candidate under assessment—the Task Commander—has charge of a team of six to eight course mates and will be held to account for everything that transpires for the duration of the assigned leadership task. He or she will also be held accountable for the care, safety, actions and decisions of subordinates, all of whom are aspiring leaders who have similarly volunteered to undergo an intensive selection process to determine and confirm their personal merit to hold Her Majesty’s commission. The commission is the license to exercise control and judgment within the mandate, orders and regulations of the Canadian Forces. My course officer referred to the job title as “manager of violence.” One exercises the delegated martial authority of a higher entity in the use of violence against others. One also exercises a degree of authority in the expenditure of certain resources – one’s life and the lives of one’s subordinates. A commission also bestows a specified and regulated space within the social, organisational and legal hierarchy of the Canadian martial ecosystem. 3 Mary Douglas (1996 [1978, 1973, 1970] p.150) defined ritual as “…fixed forms of communication which acquire magical efficacy” in her description of how magic functions within groups that display both highly controlled value classifications and highly controlled group boundaries (such as the Canadian Forces). Here I suggest that there is a similar function in military “command presence” that functions as a sort of elusive magical quality that exercises authority over troops by a sort of reciprocal coercion. This is to say that military authority is a product of social control in that a leader exercises authority within the system by virtue of his socially constructed symbolic right to exercise such authority but only so long as the followers within the system continue to invest its institutions with legitimacy. “As consent withdraws from the system of control, leaders lose their credibility, and so does their magic” (Douglas 1996 p.150 but see also Rappaport 1999 on “the cybernetics of the holy” pp. 429 ff). I would suggest that “command presence” is that intangible magical quality competent leaders possess or are endowed with by the constituents of the martial ecology in the effective motivation of troops under their command. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [220] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation The martial hierarchy is much more extensively articulated than the binary DS/recruit or supervisor/subordinate structural arrangement that was described in the previous chapters. Officer candidates must demonstrate ritual competency spanning several levels of authority and a realistic, sensitive appreciation for the plight of subordinates who must physically enact the commands of leaders within the military hierarchy. This is one primary reason why officer candidates are at first fully leveled with each other and deliberately subordinated to their DS throughout their training. Officer candidates will in a few short weeks, if successful in their task assessments, technically outrank their non-commissioned DS assessors who may already have twenty-five years of service and experience. In light of this fact the DS assessors take their duty to detect careless or ineffectual leaders seriously and may, with complete impunity, allow substandard candidates to founder and fail any given tasking. The task to be completed is generally quite simple and will typically require some creative improvisation for the completion of a generic military procedure using supplied but very limited equipment and personnel within strict time limits. Examples include a mock ground search for downed pilots, recovery and interment of “enemy dead bodies” within Geneva Conventions protocols, construction of an observation tower from barrels, large logs and rope, a night compass march through forested mountains to a specific grid reference on a topographical map, or the performance of a reconnaissance on a possible river ford site at a washed-out bridge. The task takes place in any season at any hour of the day or night in hostile terrain and weather conditions, often near the end of an already exhausting work week. The candidate is technically constrained only by his or her own ingenuity in completing the task and the mental and physical stamina and technical experience of the assigned subordinates. Pragmatically, the determining factor for success is the degree of bonded determination, loyalty and willing persistence a leader can inspire in an exhausted © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [221] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation team of peers. This is then a ritual invocation of moral authority and the inscribed dispositions of subordinates to disciplined compliance. A few hours before the assessment begins, the candidate is informed by the DS assessor of the upcoming task and the section members assigned as subordinates. The assignment itself is delivered to the candidate by way of a formal “warning orders” process, in a format that is structurally invariant throughout the Canadian Forces and most NATO countries. From this moment until the completion or termination of the task, the candidate’s every movement and decision are scrutinised. The candidate immediately gathers his or her section of subordinates, and issues their own warning order along with preparatory directions, locations and timings for the formal delivery of final task orders at an “orders group” a few hours hence. The candidate then assigns concurrent activity for the section members to accomplish while he or she sequesters him/herself to draft the orders in the correct format for delivery in the formal orders group at the specified time. This activity may include formal preparations for the specific task as well as forced rest, consultations, reconnaissance or specific assigned duties for his personnel. The candidate then further organises his or her own process and time by means of another complicated set of task procedures and planning techniques that have been painstakingly taught in the initial weeks of officer training. This process is aimed at the efficient estimation and management of time and resources and to the clear direction and supervision of subordinates throughout the ritual performance that is to follow. Throughout the candidate’s planning process, he or she may update the preliminary timings, direction and assignments to his subordinates and is expected to provide or delegate reasonable supervision and care over the section members’ health, safety and preparations. This usually takes every minute of the one to two hours of planning time typically allotted to each candidate. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [222] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation At the designated hour and location the Task Commander meets the section of subordinates assigned to the task in preparation for the formal delivery of the orders that have been meticulously prepared. The orders group that ensues is a ritual invocation in every sense. Just as the Task Commander will now make a range of demands upon the subordinate section members in attendance, he or she will also ritually endow them with the necessary degree of authority to enact their roles in the completion of this ritual performance. The format, in keeping with the ritual characteristics of this invocation, is invariant. It always begins when the Task Commander steps forth and says the word “Orders.” As surely as if a priest were to utter the phrase “Dearly Beloved,” all in attendance become aware that a grave ritual event has commenced. The invocation always continues without deviation; the Task Commander articulating in exquisite detail the task to be accomplished and the specific role of each subordinate in its successful completion. This explanation always falling under predetermined headings: Situation, Mission, Execution, Service Support, Command and Signals. The concepts and details inductively build in the minds of wet, shivering, sleep deprived section members who will enact this plan. The process is invariant not only because it is a time tested prescription for the conveyance of all required information and assignment of duties in the completion of any martial task. The more important reason for invariance in this ritual act is that the subordinates have become accustomed to receiving and mentally structuring the information and of inductively ordering the conceptual plan of the project and its method of execution within this specific format. All soldiers have come to do this in exactly this way and the format is shared among Canada’s allied countries. Soldiers receiving orders in this format then are homogeneously indoctrinated into its use. Task Commanders, even when exhausted or demoralised, can potentially evince a motivational command presence during the assessment simply by invoking invariant form in the delivery of their orders to subordinates. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [223] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation According to Rappaport’s performative ritual schema, there is a direct relationship between the authority or gravity of values and meanings portrayed in any ritual event, and the demand for formal compliance with the invariant received forms of the ritual. Successful military leaders exploit both authority and prerogative as appropriate to both the invariant and variable dynamics at play within any act of military performance. I highlight here the correlation between leadership as a performative ritual act and the form or archetypal structure of the command persona, including the vocal tenor, rhythm, cadence and truncated lexicon of terms that ritual leaders adopt to accomplish their ends. Bloch (1974) has described the traditional forms of authority within tribal cultures and the broad reliance upon a very narrow range of terms, tempos and forms of ritualised expression to compel obedience to authority (see also Mary Douglas 1996 [1978, 1973, 1970]). This clearly has parallels not only with the martial command persona but with ancient practice disciplines of rhetoric, drama and oration that share critical features with ritual (especially performativity and formality – see Rappaport OAR 1979). This explains why, within the martial ritual economy, the evolved command “archetype” or “persona” has a truncated and rigidly demarcated spectrum of features. Leaders’ martial bearing and the performative conveyance of authority and meaning within pre-established forms is constructed as a ritual strategy.4 4 It is clear from a review of Rappaport’s comments within the original 1974 (Cambridge Anthropology) version of Obvious Aspects of Ritual and Bloch’s (1974) seminal article on traditional authority that the two ritual theorists were in active correspondence and were developing their ideas about tribal ritual authority and the illocutionary efficacy of ritual pronouncements in a kind of responsive collaboration. Durkheim himself had made similar observations about the military conveyance of authority some sixty years prior (original French publication date of The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life was 1912) but, unlike Rappaport and Bloch, saw the power of curt, decisive command presence ritually enacted by a leader to be the product of the moral authority and group solidarity conveyed in a performative act, not by the obvious formal, rhetorical or semantic aspects of the pronouncement itself: “….command generally takes on short, sharp forms of address that leave no room for hesitation. It is also why, to the extent that command is command and works by its own strength, it precludes any idea of deliberation or calculation, but instead is made © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [224] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation In the real world outside of the basic officer assessment process the act of military leadership must do something more than technically stipulate what is to be done and then go through the archetypal and rudimentary motions of command. Military leaders must primarily evince an authentic unity or indexical mutuality with a community of peers and subordinates. Conversely, martial leaders must, at times, decisively enact a convincing display of embodied canonical authority (read as dominance) to displace non-compliant subordinates from ongoing communion with others within the immediate range of communal “territory” of the martial ecosystem. Both strategies are at times sufficient to inspire others to want to follow and to commit to the mission at all costs on behalf of the commander. There are always a few candidates that get through the officer assessment process by skillfully enacting military authority but who are lacking fundamental concern or connection with peers or subordinates. Such candidates are sufficiently skilled and socially competent so as not to have come to the attention of DS during the initial levelling processes but are not fully bonded or levelled with colleagues and not fully committed to others’ success and that of the broader mission. These types are usually identified in the infamous “peer assessment” process which is completed as one of the last administrative tasks of the officer basic training course in the final week of the schedule. Self-centred or aloof officers, if unheedful of their peers’ observations, are invariably eliminated in more arduous subsequent phases of training where all leaders must authentically and selflessly give of themselves over longer periods of time to be accepted and to effectively command troops within specific occupational or regimental communities. Again, the ritual competence of a martial leader as evinced in the effective by the very intensity of the mental state in which it is given. That intensity is what we call moral influence” (Durkheim 1995[1912 French] p.209). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [225] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation command presence includes the correct proportion of projected canonical authority and verified indexical unity or bondedness. Within the task assessment there comes a point where the ritual process spirals out of the exclusive control of the “priest” and into the biopsychic enthusiasm and effervescent performative domain of the “congregation.” If the task has been carefully and competently described the subordinates will generally, with little further direction, be successful in bringing the task to completion. These dramatic enactments would be better described as improvisational performances by method actors given the stipulated repertoire of actions and the unseen variables that could present themselves—not to mention the wrenches that could be thrown into the mix by the DS assessor to test the resilience, resourcefulness and creative spontaneity of the Task Commander. The spectrum of regulations, procedures, orders and challenges constraining each task and role are daunting and non-negotiable but generally achievable. The plan and execution need not be elegant but must meet every invariant formal requirement and observe every domain of authority constraining the various aspects of the task. If a correctly directed and executed task is also completed on time the task commander will be accorded a pass. 6.5 Ceremonial Performances and Projected Social Structure Like many accounts of ritual passage from the ethnographic records, the Canadian recruit indoctrination course syllabus includes collective ceremonial ritual performances in addition to the less decorous (to use Rappaport’s term) routinised and possibly mundane training processes that have been described to this point. There is little point in belabouring any definition of “ceremonial” rituals beyond the rather obvious point that ceremonies are discrete “bracketing” events at the cusps of any ritual transition.5 Ceremonial displays frequently recognize important degrees of 5 Turner maintains a slightly different analytical distinction between ritual and ceremonial performance (1983 p.223). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [226] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation accomplishment and are usually intended, or at least make allowance, for outside audiences. Most importantly, ceremonial ritual events are not intended to develop or discipline participants, but only to display, intensify, condense or more fully actualise the higher meanings within a liturgical order. The initial level of martial training described to this point is only the first step of the inscription process of all soldiers. Soldiers will eventually complete basic training and then embark upon further combat or specialist training to better prepare to engage and kill the enemy within formal state sanctioned warfare. This further entrainment will take place at various units and training bases within the broader Canadian military organisation where soldiers will be tested and pushed to extremes of physical endurance and mental capacity. There the foundational structural tenets of the martial worldview—that is the entrenched social order and the primary orientation of each soldier to every other within the group—will be even more deeply inscribed and come to be relied upon to sustain each soldier through stress, challenge and privation. Each subsequent military training establishment, unit or regiment6 will also contribute its own symbolic ceremonial embellishments to the foundational worldview that is inscribed upon all newly graduated recruits. Each regiment has its own glorious battle narratives and storied history, by now enhanced by hagiographic portrayals of heroes and valorous exploits. Most fighting units also have unique uniform accoutrements and elaborately embroidered standards or “guidons” – stylised flags or banners upon which are sewn specific battle honours conferred upon a unit 6 There is a distinction to be made between “units” and “regiments” where soldiers and officers will be posted throughout their careers. The term “unit” is generic and simply refers to stable organisations established within the CF. The term “regiment” refers to larger organisations of specific combat military occupations – engineers, infantry, artillery or armour – often comprised of several smaller units disbursed geographically within a specific area of the country. Regiments generally have extensive histories and ceremonial traditions and soldiers may serve their entire careers within a single regiment. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [227] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation throughout its history. Some units have totemic animals, special rites of passage into specific qualifications or assignments, or even hazing rituals.7 These provide further enculturation into specific martial subgroups, memberships and meanings unrecognisable to most outside the specific subcommunity but are nevertheless based upon the basic martial ethos and structural meanings inscribed upon all recruits from the earliest months of military service. Ceremonial performance often entails elements of collective autocommunication (see Rappaport 1979, Wallace 1966) and it is reasonable to propose that ceremonies may be primarily ordered to catalyse or intensify some collectively-generated state of consciousness or symbolic realisation in performers8 rather than to demonstrate or confirm some level of competence or status to the viewing audience. Durkheim maintained a church/congregation distinction within which collective symbolic meanings were ritually, but differentially, generated. I find such a distinction both useful and restrictive. Some military ceremonies come in both a generic and a more specialised version such as would be practiced within the official centralised church and differentially in some distant congregations (or unit or regiment) of that church. In a departure from Durkheim’s schema, the final recruit ceremonies demonstrate or display symbolic martial meaning to civilian audiences from outside the martial church just as with the swearing in ceremony upon enrolment. 7 See for example Donna Winslow (1999) for an outsider’s account of martial hazing and ritual passage among paratroopers in the Canadian Airborne Regiment. 8 See Sam Gill regarding the generation of spontaneous symbolic religious realisations within ritual performance by means of a disrupted or incongruous intellectual, emotive, impulsive and reflective process first described by Charles Sanders Peirce as “abduction” (Gill 1987 pp. 3-16). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [228] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 6.6 Mess Tradition and Ceremonial Entrainment Once officer candidates have successfully completed the final phase of leadership assessment all that is really left on the training agenda are a series of ceremonial ritual performances which are not assessed. These are followed by the illocutionary ritual actions of higher ranking officers and sovereign designates acting within their own roles and orders of authority within much broader martial, national, and even sovereign ritual fields. Within such ritual domains speech acts transform officer candidates into commissioned officers, ritual adepts and sovereign proxies in their own right. Formal entrainment in the traditions and etiquette of the mess dinner commences for all officer candidates early in the basic training process. The concept of “mess” traditions within the Canadian Forces, following the traditions of the British military services and somewhat comparable to the American military services (which may claim a common history with the British military traditions and ethos), is an integrated and stratified system of quarters, dining, drinking, entertaining and hospitality traditions that until recently structured the social life of all members of the Canadian Forces and, more specifically, the social life of soldiers within individual regiments or units at any particular base. Generally, a “mess” is an affiliation of one social caste or strata of military society as defined by rank and commission within which members communally dine, socialise informally when not on duty or where soldiers and officers may both dine and socialise formally within their own social strata. Mixed mess activities may also occur involving multiple military and civilian social strata on more formal or auspicious occasions within stylised, decorous and strictly observed mess protocols or traditions. The traditions of each mess hearken back to a time when military garrison life was not so integrated with the general Canadian population as it has come to be in the last few decades and when there would be little else in the way of social outlet for military members. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [229] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Mess functions generally take place within segregated facilities or buildings – a tradition still maintained as junior ranked soldiers, senior non-commissioned officers and officers may still be quartered and served rations in separate accommodations and eating messes and will still socialise in garrison within separate drinking facilities on some bases. Such strict segregation has eased somewhat of late and there is a trend towards the more economical amalgamation of facilities with an increasingly diminished segregation of martial social strata, level of service and prerogative maintained within common mess facilities. Officer mess facilities have typically maintained a decor and sometimes a decorum of Edwardian era English clubs—including strictly enforced dress codes, bar etiquette, scale of membership dues and tone of service by civilian staff and military stewards. While the junior rank and senior non-commissioned officer mess establishments may maintain their own social activities and formal functions, the ceremonial features of non-commissioned soldiers’ “mess life” tend to increase in formality and socioprofessional importance as the military member gains rank throughout the career. Neophyte officers, as a matter of formal entrainment during their basic training course, are educated on the rules and traditions of mess life and their expected comportment throughout mess functions. The formal entrainment course addresses a range of performative objectives from table manners and dining etiquette, proper use of cutlery and table service (and the variety of formal place settings and range of china, crystal and silverware is quite extensive). The numerous orders of uniform dress and procedural stipulations for entrance, the saying of grace, various speeches and toasts as well as meal and after meal activities is quite extensive. Attendance at formal mess functions typically includes stylised uniform dress requirements including, as a minimum for new officers, the wearing of normal service tunic with civilian patterned tuxedo shirts with collar and cuff links, cummerbund and bow tie with the equivalent © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [230] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation articles of dress for female officers. Once posted to their unit or regiment upon completion of training, all officers are expected to acquire, at their own expense, a personally tailored mess uniform or “mess kit,” and accoutrements specific to their branch of service and further speciated in accordance with regimental traditions and standing orders. Such uniforms are bespoke and are generally crafted of heavy doeskin (densely constructed wool felt) with rich gold piping by specialist civilian tailors affiliated with various units. Mess kit uniforms are generally retained by officers for use throughout their career. Such uniforms represent a formidable expense for young officers and were at one time the justification for a standardised military loan of several thousand dollars to all young officers, with monthly pay deductions to recoup the cost, with which such a uniform and a ceremonial service sword could be purchased. Such was the imputed importance of officers’ performative involvement in the ritualised ceremonial proceedings of martial life. For officers of any rank, “mess life” and expectations have important implications once posted to their units or regiments. From the very start of the career an officer’s involvement and deportment at mess functions are crucial for successful enculturation and integration into unit or regimental hierarchy, identification with one’s regimental ethos and history, and one’s standing within the social hierarchy of that unit. Just as the specific military skills and ethos of all soldiers will develop distinctive subcultural characteristics at their subsequent units and regiments, so will the formal and ceremonial traditions, battle honours, collective (and sometimes totemic) identity, accoutrements and hagiography of those units and regiments be revisited and enacted in mess traditions that are celebrated at auspicious junctures within the annual training cycles. It is no stretch to say that for most soldiers, their subsequent martial and social identity and primary affiliation tends to coalesce around their unit of regimental affiliation, especially in cases where such a regiment or unit has a long and august, ritually elaborated history and set of traditions and retains its soldiers for the duration of their career. This primary conscious identification and loyalty © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [231] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation to regiment and regimental affines may come to rival or supersede, in the serving soldier or officer’s mind anyway, that member’s sense of loyalty even to national or regnal powers to which he or she had first sworn allegiance upon enrolment.9 Such loyalties may endure long after a soldier’s uniformed service and may take on additional dimensions for the former soldier at that time. This will be examined in a subsequent chapter of this analysis. 6.7 Ceremonial Display of The Martial Cosmos – The Officer Cadet Mess Dinner Near the end of the Officer Basic Training course, once most of the formal course requirements and evaluations have been negotiated successfully, the cadets finally attend the mess dinner. This will be the first time most cadets will have attended such an event. Attendance at mess dinners is a primary ceremonial duty officers will enact many times throughout their career at their home unit or regiment. This performative event for officer candidates differs from other mess dinners because it takes place at the national recruit school and it includes a very broad representation of junior and senior officers from most every branch and unit or regiment within the Canadian Forces. This breadth is due to the fact that such training establishments draw subject matter experts and instructors from a broad range of Canadian Forces units. This practice ensures a degree of universality of military perspective and experience for a broad-based training program. Subsequent mess dinners throughout and officer’s career will typically transpire under the decentralised authority of regimental commanding officers and unit adjutants within the unique and often venerable historical traditions and ritual trappings of specific units. On the evening of the mess dinner officer cadets, for the first time, mingle with the various commissioned instructors and leaders from the school. The “cocktail hour” is the time period 9 Gwynne Dyer (1985) and Richard Gabriel (1990) in Dave Grossman (2009 [1996, 1995] pp.149-151) highlight the reality that soldiers are willing and oriented to fight, kill and die primarily for closely bonded comrades in arms and not for higher military, national or ideological objectives as might be generally imagined. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [232] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation formally allotted for socialising. Light conversation and drinks continue until a signal calls all members into the great dining hall for the more formalised portion of the dinner agenda. As cadets mingle for the first time with instructors and officers of superior rank, distinctions and boundaries are somewhat relaxed. Cadets circulate freely among the invited guests and may initiate conversations and solicit stories from instructors who, until now, remained distant, remote and stern and who were required, at all times, to be addressed formally and only on matters related to the course. As the majority of course requirements have now been met and as the atmosphere has become distinctly social with the addition of cocktails and formal dining apparel, a palpable sense of liberation, enthusiasm, even liminality descends on cadets who may begin to consciously experience feelings of accomplishment, hope and enthusiasm. Once beckoned into the great dining hall by a bell, bugle or bagpipe as per tradition, guests have a few minutes to finish their drinks and to heed nature’s call before the formalities begin. Once begun, no one may exit the dining hall without permission until the meal and dinner programme are completed – possibly three or more hours hence. Cadets and officers are seated according to a seating plan, which distributes military occupation, rank and experience throughout the room. The guests of the head table are generally piped to their seats and arranged in order of importance on the Commandant’s right hand. Guests of honour and guest speakers or dignitaries from the civilian sector are introduced. Important announcements are made regarding the schedule of events for the evening. The hall is bedecked with silverware, national awards, martial symbols, unit, command or branch flags, statues, crests or carvings. There are always regnal pictures and accoutrements in positions of honour throughout the hall. Before a cup or fork is lifted grace will be said by a chaplain—an ordained military clergy member often referred to as a padre, typically affiliated with one of the Abrahamic traditions—who will invoke the mercy, grace, protection and blessing of the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [233] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Almighty God on the dinner and guests in attendance and who will beseech God’s blessing on the Queen and her heirs, as well as upon her loyal forces so represented this evening. Not since the swearing in ceremony some months prior have God and the anointed sovereign been situated within such a grand cosmic panoply of powers and stratified attendants. Such is the triumphal and enthused tenor of the setting for the meal which unfolds in successive courses and settings of rare and exquisitely prepared food and drink. There comes a moment in the course of events, once all settings, vessels and utensils have been removed except the port crystal, when again, the sovereign is honoured, this time with a formal toast—proclaimed by an official called the President of the Mess Committee (PMC)—in either English or French and answered by the Vice President of the Mess Committee (VPMC) in the other official language. This is followed by a stanza of the royal anthem “God Save the Queen” to which all will stand and lift a glass, even if one insists on drinking only water. This collective ritual is generally accompanied as well by bagpipes or brass band, if in attendance, and is undertaken with an attitude of celebratory gravity. The demonstrative portrayal of the deistic and regnal powers which brackets the meal, before and aft, creates the atmosphere of a sanctified communal feast among heavenly fixtures and cosmic trappings. Comparisons with Valhalla or the biblical portrayal of an ultimate heavenly banquet of the elect in special garments, or perhaps even with a Christian communion service or European coronation ritual enacted within a masse within an elaborate basilica, are not far fetched. I doubt that such associations resonate immediately or are so decisively catalysed in most performers’ conscious minds at first exposure. Emotively, I suspect that few escape a shiver or chill down the spine10 or perhaps even a swell of 10 Walter Burkert (1983) and Konrad Lorenz (1963 German) in Grimes (1996 pp. 62-70) describe the “sacred shiver” of hairs standing on end in moments of profound gravity – a vestigial ethological response still common in humans at significant ritual or religious moments. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [234] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation overwhelming emotion at some point during the most formal observances or invocations of the dinner.11 After the toast the formality of events relaxes and the ritual focus shifts from cosmological and regnal structures and portrayals to the mundane topography and dimensions of the Canadian military organisation. All will attend to the playing of the specific march past melody of each of the units or branches represented by an attending member at the dinner. Marches are played in accordance with martial regulations corresponding to a unit’s precedence or seniority on the official parade order of march. One will stand proudly for one’s own unit, branch or regimental march past melody. Speeches may ensue. Copious amounts of port are served with junior officers shouldering the quasi-official responsibility of staying at table until every drop is consumed. This too is a matter of tradition. All guests will retire again to the lounge where they may be further entertained until all have paid their respect to the Commanding Officer or Commandant, the President and Vice President of the Mess Committee, and the Pipe or Band Major if in attendance. The festivities continue with young officers remaining at the mess for several more hours. Alcohol induced liminality proliferates. Drunkenness is not uncommon and a variety of rough parlour games, most especially a Canadian Forces version of “crud” or “combat crud” have evolved that involves billiard tables, body contact, physical combat, minor injuries and major property damage to mess facilities and the personal mess kit of participating officers. The rules of such traditional military Perhaps here one might posit a sense of “the numinous.” It should not be surprising that such intensity is here 11 experienced in connection with the invocation of the “Ultimate Sacred Postulate,” the undeniable but undemonstrable postulate as described by Rappaport (1979 OAR), catalysed by the very form and obvious features of this sequestered yet camoflaged ritual setting – not unlike the ritual loci of other events where such numinous affective states are generated such as weddings, funerals, “piacular” events, high holidays, and, as described in the prologue to this project, even the ramp ceremonies of fallen Canadian soldiers. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [235] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation games also permit the “limited” use of bodily force by junior officers against more senior officers12 and as such represent elements of role reversal, and therefore ritual liminality or antistructure, within the more formal ceremonial processes of mess tradition.13 6.8 The Graduation Parade By the last few weeks of the basic training process new recruits and officer cadets alike have internalised the rudimentary social meanings of the immediate local environment and have accommodated themselves to the social hierarchies and the inviolable postulates they impose and ritually maintain. It is no stretch to say that all those who have persevered to this point have performed their primary formation, internalised its signals, mastered its gestures and become ritually competent. Once graduated from basic training, all privates and junior officers will evince a confident awareness of their social and hierarchical status, prerogatives and obligations. As the long list of fundamental military technical skills qualifications are completed in these last few arduous weeks of the recruit course attention turns to the intensified rehearsals and preparations for the final ceremonial act of the basic entrainment process which all new soldiers, both non-commissioned members and officer cadets, will perform – the graduation parade. Like the enrolment ceremony and the mess dinner which only the officer cadets have attended, the 12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crud_(game) http://www.aiylc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CRUDRULES- 2014.pdf. 13 Some military regiments have evolved their own liminal quasi-legal rituals involving role reversal and redressive social action reminiscent of those highlighted by Victor Turner. That these are performed in the immediate after hours of the mess dinner, the highest or most intensively symbol-rich ceremonial military event, suggests some liturgical benefit in the juxtaposition of symbolic multivocity and antistructure and it appears that such juxtapositioning of events underscores the advantage of formally providing ritual “space” conducive to the reflexive integration of complex ritual meanings in ritual performers. That such traditions are not comprehensively employed within the traditions of all regiments underscores the proposition that antistructure is not absolutely necessary to symbolic consolidation and integration. See especially the public domain accounts of the “Subalterns’ Court” within the mess traditions of the Royal Canadian Regiment. http://regimentalrogue.com/srsub/subalterns_court.htm. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [236] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation primary symbols of the graduation parade coincide with those of the national sovereign regnal constitutional cultus – the civil religion of Canada.14 There will be a profusion of Protestant and Roman Catholic chaplains (and, in more recent years, also a rabbi and/or mullah commissioned within the Chaplain branch of the Canadian Forces), flags, sovereign symbols, pictures of British royalty, tokens of the regnal presence, a fulsome structural elaboration of Jewish and Christian inspired emanations of cosmic authority from the Almighty down through the Queen and her representatives (the Governor General), and further down through demi-deistic agents at various orders and stations of rank and authority not yet encountered by recruits to this point. These hierarchies, their symbolic meanings, and their enactment recall those displayed before hopeful new recruits when they first swore their oaths at the recruiting office. Graduation parades are excruciating and are conducted with a heightened sense of anticipation and gravity. They are more lengthy than any parade practice the graduates have yet participated in and they demand extended degrees of bodily mastery and focused consciousness. This is the first time such a performance takes place in the highest order of full dress uniform. The parade takes place at the end of an extended and particularly demanding week of culminating events and as a result recruits are in a heightened and extended state of fatigue. Dissociation and physical collapse during the performance of the graduation parade are commonplace. Graduates on parade now collectively engage the cosmos as ritual adepts and not simply as primarily- passive individual observers of a symbolic ritual display as at the mess dinner. Extensively- inscribed martial performers on parade now reproduce and also reiteratively experience, within their collective performance and embodied consciousness, the full range of priorities, competencies and 14 This ceremony portrays multiple features of religion, worldview, cult and even “civil religion” as described by Robert Bellah (1967, 1988, 2005). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [237] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation dispositions of the martial cosmos. This constellation of excruciating factors and grave meanings corresponds in some ways to accounts of pilgrimage, excruciation or spiritual practice from the ethnographic records. The graduation parade then combines a fuller and denser spectrum of multivocalic symbols, sensory, emotive and indexical feedback than graduates have yet experienced in the course of their training. The parade itself transpires in the formal “march on” and assembly of several recruit course platoons or officer cadet courses formed up together on a parade square in the highest order of dress uniform with weapons and bayonets. The courses are under the direct control of the noncommissioned DS or commissioned platoon officers in charge of each course and the Recruit Company Commander who is generally the parade commander over the several courses represented. Civilian provincial and civic dignitaries and family members of the candidates are typically also present. The audience is seated directly opposite and facing the formed platoons of graduating neophytes standing on the parade square, as if in mirror image. The platoons on parade are brought to attention and collectively salute the Commandant of the recruit school who surmounts the main dais surrounded by national flags and emblems. The graduating troops are then inspected by the Commandant who is sometimes accompanied by a civilian or royal dignitary. Throughout the inspection portion of the parade, the platoons and the audience—dear friends and family members—regard each other face to face at a distance, as if separated by an expanse or abyss. This too functions as a ritual device. The inspection is a long and excruciating part of the parade with graduates having to maintain a grave, motionless posture and a state of alert consciousness in formation while the inspecting Commandant and dignitaries chat with random recruit graduates throughout the process. Following the inspection, the Commanding Officer returns to a position in front of the Parade Commander and, with a salute, © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [238] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation hands the parade over formally to the Parade Commander who will march the assembled platoons of recruits past the dais upon which the Commandant and dignitaries will be standing, for review. Once the parade has been handed over to the Parade Commander for march past, the remainder of the ceremony transpires within a dramatic interplay of martial symbols and performative actions. This may be the first time the non-commissioned recruits have heard the voice of their course or company officer. It is certainly the first time they have heard and responded to his or her words of command on formal parade. This will probably be the first time as well that recruits or cadets perform drill movements accompanied by music. The martial rhythm and the sound of horns and drums, even bagpipes, contribute substantially to the sonic tenor of the ritual space and performative atmosphere that will ensue.15 During this final ritual display, enhanced cosmised hierarchical projections and collective symbolic identifications will also dramatically coalesce for the martial performers. Now within the grave ambience of the martial ceremony, perfected drill movements are performed in concert with the displayed martial and regnal symbols to the driving force of drums, pipes, and brass. Within this condensed, multivocalic performative ritual atmosphere a heightened awareness of collective identification and obligation within the martial social structure congeals for the performers – an enhanced awareness of a broader martial cosmos with expansive dimensions populated with kinsmen and keepers one has not yet met. This cosmos reflecting the very stratifications, structures, laws, inviolable postulates, mores and meanings the recruit or cadet has come to embody—and here I mean to emphasise the common subjugation and practiced invariant development of recruits’ bodies throughout the entrainment process—within the ritualised practices and social groupings he 15 See Laughlin 1997 on the range and application of sonic or rhythmic ritual “drivers” and their use, pan-culturally, to inculcate a change in consciousness or to precipitate a shift into symbolic performative awareness. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [239] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation or she has inhabited for the last three months. This cosmos, grave morality, and collective identity adaptively realised among course mates but now also projected (cosmised, in Berger’s sense) to the globally dispersed dimensions of the martial ecosystem. This pertains as well to those young leaders who will presently come to evince profound responsibility to unmet subordinates and future commanders (and missions). As the graduating performers iterate and intensify their collective experience and identity they are faced directly by their audience—juxtaposed directly opposite. In these moments of dramatic hyperbolic realisation of martial identity and collective bonds, neophyte soldiers are now starkly confronted with who they are and how they are united and obligated to Canadian soldiers in the furthest reaches of the organisation. Soldiers also evince a spontaneous sense of who they are now radically and irrevocably differentiated from in the faces of the civilian spectators and family members seated across the void of the open parade square. Many of the soldiers who I know and with whom I have recounted and revisited the graduation parade describe the experience as a decisive and irreversible moment of supreme clarity and exclusive, realised solidarity. 6.9 Analysis and Theory A primary objective of martial society is to maintain a conscious state of bonded readiness and solidarity that is adaptive to the alienating rigours of battle. These bonds catalyse decisively as a result of soldiers’ ceremonial performance and participation near the end of their entrainment. Such bonds have sustained my comrades, subordinates, and myself at times and are, as such, both real and adaptive within a military environment. By the time of the final ceremonial performances of the entrainment process the graduate recruit or officer has a tangible sense that he or she has enjoined a cause much larger than oneself.16 16 Joseph Campbell (1988 p.123). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [240] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation In the pages that follow I explore theory that can explain the ritual emergence of the symbolic projections about the martial cosmos graduating recruits collectively generate—what Berger called cosmisations. I have also observed that graduating soldiers concurrently realise an enhanced, tangible and exclusive bonded unity, reciprocity or sense of mutual obligation extending far beyond those with whom they have been intensively entrained. I explore theory that can explain these performative realisations of bonds, collective dispositions, homogeneous states of consciousness, morality and exclusive obligation projecting to unmet affines with whom graduating martial performers ritually identify. This sense of committed obligation extends to unmet comrades throughout the furthest dimensions of the geographically dispersed military ecosystem. Following graduation, neophyte soldiers will spontaneously interact with new comrades within such meanings and motivations from the first moment they are deployed, assigned or posted into contact with them. These are exclusive performative dispositions adaptively suited to a broader, geographically dispersed martial system only fractionally glimpsed or imagined to this point by new soldiers. Soldiers and martial leaders refer to this palpable sentiment and disposition in soldiers as martial “esprit de corps.” The implications of this term as the common awareness or consciousness of the greater collective body cannot be overstated. I emphasise here that exclusive collective indexical dispositions, valencies and unifying symbolic projections of unseen sociostructural dimensions of martial society crystalise most decisively for graduating recruits and officer cadets in the final ceremonial performances of the graduation parade. Each embodied disposition, bond or cosmised symbolic projection emerges from unique ritual mechanisms or dynamics I have described to this point in the analysis but culminate in a subsequent responsive performative collaboration with each other as I will describe within the following sections. Some of this ground has been trodden by prior theorists but I find that the performative ritual and symbolic dynamics undergirding the latter processes of the martial © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [241] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation inscription process I highlight have not been well-explored elsewhere. Specifically, there has not been a clear articulation of the co-responsive manner in which indexical and symbolic dynamics and ordered performative ritual processes might act in concert with recruits’ parabolic corporate phenomenal performative perceptions to catalyse the final critical (and grave) features and realisations of the Canadian martial worldview. I find that these processes are usefully explored with reference to the latter theory of Mary Douglas (1999, 1996 [1978, 1973, 1970]). I primarily employ Douglas’s theory in concert with Durkheim’s foundational formulations in brief consideration of the final performative establishment of collective identity, consciousness and mechanical solidarity—that is the unified corporate and embodied worldview—of graduating martial ritual adepts. 6.10 Passive Realisation and Symbolic Projection of Martial Social Hierarchy and Structure I have described the officer candidates’ completion of the leadership task assessment as the ordered enactment of authority within the stratified martial ecosystem. This transpires as a confirmatory dress rehearsal allowing candidates to experience and demonstrate the martial hierarchy of authority an officer will inhabit each day for the remainder of her or his military service. Officer candidates also attend a mess dinner which is an evocative and decorous elaboration of the several strata of the martial cosmos. These events primarily confront individuals with the opportunity to experience or passively observe dramatic ritually-elaborated symbolic displays representing the broader dimensions of martial authority and the martial ecosystem. Little analysis or elaboration is required to understand the fundamental ritual phenomenon at play and of passive individual reassembly of the extensive organisational hierarchies and social structures that are being modelled theatrically within these ritual events. Participants and observers will absorb © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [242] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation these representations and cognitively construct or realise the symbolic representations of the martial ecosystem to greater or lesser degrees. 6.11 Ritual Production of Translocal Sociality, Collective Morality and Solidarity – Some Observations and Theory I have also described the graduation parade that both officers and non-commissioned recruits perform. As with the leadership assessment task and the mess dinner, the graduation parade is a portrayal and elaborated display of the fully articulated social hierarchy, cosmos and the invariant meanings pervading the martial ecosystem. The unique features of the graduation parade that surpass the fundamental observational or receptive nature of the cosmic displays and organisational portrayals of the mess dinner (and the swearing in ceremony for which the mess dinner is an enhanced ritual reaffirmation) is that the parade is collectively performed by means of strictly synchronised and conditioned collective bodily movements augmented with the addition of a rich and coordinated array of dramatic sensory ritual drivers and elements. These ritual features or elements include degrees of physical excruciation, dissociation, sonic drivers (brass or bagpipe music, drums), martial tempo/cadence, and the authoritative words of command and illocutionary acts of senior officers. As I will explain, symbolic elements of much broader martial, deistic and regnal authority also coalesce here dramatically in conjunction with the finely conditioned embodied competence and moderated consciousness of graduating recruits—that collective awareness of unified corporality developed through synchronous embodied performance of invariant actions—the parabolic ethological feedback mechanism described at the end of Chapter 5 of this analysis. The concept of imagined social structures such as I have described of martial neophytes is clearly documented elsewhere within the fields of anthropology and religious studies. Maurice Bloch has described how imagined social orders of ancestors come to seem factual and can be © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [243] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation reflected in symbolic understandings of essentialised social structures and social roles. Bloch maintains that such constructions occur among humans pan-culturally and tend to emulate and extend the visible social structures of any given society. For his informants, societal roles and social structures can even transcend a human lifetime and persist within transcendent realms inhabited by now-dead ancestors and elders. He refers to such arrangement of structures as imaginal communities (2008 pp. 2055 - 2061).17 For Bloch, such structures “….have a phenomenological existence that is not based on everyday (indexical) monitoring but on imagined statuses and communities such as clans and nations” (Bloch 2008 p.2055). Insofar as these structures are commonly understood to exist by members of a given society and are not based on (indexical) everyday monitoring or verification, they can be considered collective symbolic constructions within Bloch’s analysis. Bloch argues that the commonplace projection of broader social orders constitutes a key adaptational strategy—the ability to imagine other worlds—emerging within humanity at a critical juncture in human phylogeny (and now playing out individually at a specific stage of ontogenetic development). It is clear that Bloch is talking about the same adaptive moment that scholars I have cited have identified with the emergence of the symbolic facility by means of ritual processes in protohumanity. Humans can actively identify with a broader clan, nation or cultic social structure regardless of ever having contact or engagement with any of the members of that group. To borrow Maurice Bloch’s expression, such communal bonds and identifications entail an ontological status 17 While not the specific focus of my argument here within this section of the analysis, this type of affinal acknowledgement transcending the life/death boundary is not altogether foreign to the Canadian martial and national consciousness. First World War soldier, poet and physician John McCrae (1915) explored this type of relationship in his famous lament In Flanders Fields; “….We are the dead, short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow… If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow. In Flanders Fields.” © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [244] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation or stability (2008). Bloch argued that such transcendental social beliefs and projections of social structure entail a tangible facticity and are the norm among human groups. His 2008 description of these phenomena, however, does not attribute the generation of collective organisational or structural projections to invariant ritual practice and the associations between collective embodied performance and symbolic processes as I have within this analysis.18 19 Bloch’s transcendent social schema also does not explore the extended horizontal sociality or the possibility of bonded commitments and obligations pertaining to unseen geographically dispersed living social groups at any length—a dimension I refer to as emerging in inscribed martial neophytes as translocal sociality. Translocal sociality as I have described it corresponds to numerous examples from the ethnographic record and would apply to the type of bonded solidarity and stratal exclusivity of identity and worldview that some tribal initiates come to share with unseen and unmet tribesmen of the same age cohort or social strata in distant villages. This phenomenon has been described in E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s account of segmented kinship among initiated Nuer men where tribal bonds and loyalties are catalysed with unmet tribal contemporaries 18 Following J.Z. Smith, Bloch’s 2008 account of transcendent sociality attributes projected social structures to the sad, collective memories of conquered civilizations still longing and mourning for the specific type of structural security features first provided and then lost with the eventual demise of earlier conquering and stabilising civilisations. Such projections for Bloch then are simply retrospective cognitions, collective memories conveyed and perpetuated in tribute to more idyllic times – they are not ritually generated projections. In this sense his theory corresponds quite directly with that of Berger who thought that such projections could just emerge symbolically through social interactions. Interestingly, Bloch does not here elaborate on the fact that the human interactions of informants with unseen ancestors he and his sources reported involved ritualised practices of elder or ancestor worship (Fortes, Kopytoff 1971 in Bloch 2008). As such, his 2008 work conveys no explanation for the ubiquity of ritual practices among the informant groups of his sources nor any consideration of the possibility that ritual processes could be at the root of such transcendent projections such as I wish to maintain, following Durkheim, within this project. 19 I am not alone in observing that Bloch at times seems to avoid or downplay the role of ritual processes at certain junctures (see Köpping, Leistle and Rudolph 2006 p. 39). I note that Bloch does subsequently attribute considerable significance to ritual processes in the emergence of transcendent conceptions (see Bloch 2010 and Kallinen 2016). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [245] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation within a ritual initiation process (Evans-Pritchard 1956 pp. 258–262). Bornmann has compared Evans-Pritchard’s account to the type of graduated or segmented kinship that emerges among American soldiers in basic training—an awareness of general loyalty to all soldiers within the broader military organisation but with decidedly stronger and more exclusive valencies of solidarity being more densely constructed within increasingly smaller and closer social groupings, not determined by consanguineal relations, within primary group or unit affiliations (2009 p.254). This is similar in significant ways to segmented translocal awareness and the projection of collective and increasingly sacrosanct degrees of graduated solidarity that I have observed to be ritually generated among Canadian soldiers in the latter ceremonial stages of basic entrainment. This human ability to construct or realise translocal social bonds and structures through ritual processes was explored at greater length in Émile Durkheim’s 1912 work Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, based on ethnographic accounts of “elementary” Australian ritual practices. He described the mechanisms by which such projections were generated in congregated ritual settings by means of the totemic principle, itself a product of the undergirding sociological dynamic he referred to as mechanical solidarity. Durkheim developed this latter concept in his 1893 doctoral dissertation on The Division of Labour in Society and it should be understood to constitute the theoretical background for Elementary Forms of Religious Life (see Schiermer 2014 p.65). The concept of mechanical solidarity is based on the lack of individual distinctions theorised to exist within traditional societies such as those of Durkheim’s Australian ritual performers. The concept pertains to the observation that all members of a clan tend to see, imagine, construct, describe and experience the cosmos and their place within it in virtually identical ways. All members of such groups share a very narrow range of subsistence strategies, language, terms, experiences, symbolic constructions and embodied competencies that render a homogeneous inventory of habits, moods, dispositions and desires. Together, these meanings and dispositions constitute a collective © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [246] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation worldview. This is in large part due to the fact that within such “elementary” societies, the human bodies of constituents are conditioned identically according such few social distinctions that are retained among group members. Neophyte soldiers similarly come to master a narrow, common range of skills over the initial three months of martial entrainment. Each martial body is identically disciplined to standardised degrees of physical condition and all recruit trainees are reliant on peers at the same junctures of embodied experience, (re-experienced) psychosocial development and interdependence to the exclusion of reliance on extramartial social bonds during this time frame. This technically constitutes a state of mechanical solidarity in ways virtually indistinguishable from those of traditional societies described by Durkheim. Durkheim also described collective ritual performance and its ability to generate or impose collective, homogeneously held symbolic images among its individual participants. These symbolic constructions pertain to both collective ideas of the cosmos and to symbolic objects representative of the group which all group members identified as grave or sacred. These collective identifications take on a sense of objective reality or ontological stability in the minds of individuals who perceive their local communion with their ritual co-performers to extend to the broadest extremities of the clan who similarly identify with these images, objects and enduring relations even when dispersed over great distances. For Durkheim, specific symbolic constructions or representations of a clan’s belief system and ritual cultus appeared to demarcate, in the minds of the performers, a line of exclusion or separation between the collective identity of the clan and its members and that of the broader tribe. Such identifications or ritually inscribed totemic identities demarcate strict distinctions or junctures of social avoidance and taboo within the “elementary” clan societies of Durkheim’s informants. I observe that the same junctures, distinctions and exclusions occur within the Canadian martial cultus and that ritual demarcation is maintained © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [247] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation between Canadian soldiers and those of the “other” civilian tribes or clans that inhabit and animate the national ritual domain: ……it is possible for the clan to awaken in its members the idea of forces existing outside them – both dominating and supporting them – in sum religious forces. There is no other social group to which the primitive is more directly or tightly bound. The ties that bind him to the tribe are looser and less strongly felt. Although the tribe is certainly not foreign to him, it is with the people of his clan that he has the most in common, and it is the influence of this group that he feels most immediately, and so it is also this influence, more than any other, that was bound to find expression in religious symbols (Durkheim 1995 [1912] p. 216). Durkheim went further in his social and ritual analyses. He also described the intensive moral valencies and exclusive positioned solidarity that inheres within ritually demarcated groups. He maintained that societies with a high level of mechanical solidarity tolerate very little divergence in terms of behaviours, opinion, dress, and expression. Such regulation results in a ruthless and exclusive emotive response to dissent or deviation (see also Lorenz on pseudospeciation in Chapter 4 and Mary Douglas’s group and grid analysis in Chapter 5). Such groups exercise a formidable degree of moral authority over all members within a very narrow range of social and symbolic elaboration. Durkheim’s concept of mechanical solidarity is helpful in understanding the project of recruit entrainment which also enforces a narrow range of collective proficiencies and dispositions within a rigid, restricted field of acceptable meanings, prerogatives and grave symbols. 6.12 Totemic Objects and the Representational Possibility of the Human Body in Maintaining Collective Solidarity As mentioned, for Durkheim solidarity and homogeneity of worldview are primarily distributed along clan lines within a larger tribe, best described in the collective differentiations articulated by symbolic fixations upon various totemic objects or animals in the environment. Durkheim maintained that beliefs and identities of a group could become galvanised and tightly © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [248] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation fused in the minds and worldviews of its members, with symbolic representations, projections (in the same sense articulated by Berger 1967) and totemic accoutrements utilised in the ceremonial performances of each clan (1995 pp. 207–241). He reasoned that such groups communally participate in cultic ritual practices and share morality – a clan-based collective consciousness – as well as specific group symbols that consolidated and constituted the morality and identity of ritual performers. Symbolic identifications were celebrated ritually when the clan was congregated but the shared priorities and morality of the group were also continuously ideated within the dispersed practices and interactions of the clan members throughout the rest of the year: The totem is the flag of the clan, so it is natural that the impressions of the clan arouses in individual consciousness – impressions of dependence and of heightened energy – should become more closely attached to the idea of the totem than to that of the clan. The clan is too complex a reality for such unformed minds to be able to bring its concrete unity into clear focus. Besides, the primitive does not see that these impressions come to him from the group….All he feels is that he is lifted above himself and that he is participating in a life different from the one he lives ordinarily. He must still connect those experiences to some external object in a causal relation. (Durkheim 1995 [1912] p.222)…(A)ny object can play this role. In principle, none is by nature predestined to it to the exclusion of others, any more than others are necessarily precluded from it. Where religious force becomes objectified depends entirely upon what circumstances cause the feeling that generates religious ideas to settle here or there, in one place rather than another. The sacredness exhibited by the thing is not implicated in the intrinsic properties of the thing; It is added to them. The world of the religious is not a special aspect of empirical nature; it is superimposed upon nature. (Durkheim 1995 [1912] p.30). During their final ceremonial performances Canadian recruits and officer cadets also encounter tangible cultic objects. The Canadian martial ecosystem is littered with totemic animals, evocative uniform accoutrements and martial symbols with which soldiers and regiments variously identify and attach secondary corporate significance. Such significations are of minor importance to soldiers and do not fundamentally define the exclusive, bonded corporate identifications, solidarity and translocally projected unity of martial performers. I argue that the need for an external totemic object within Durkheim’s theory interjects an unnecessary consideration into any © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [249] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation discussion of communally generated, homogeneously held collective projections.20 I maintain that a sufficient and collective object of universal focus and homogeneous emic logic already exists that all recruits experience in ways essentially undifferentiated from one recruit (or generation of recruits) to the next—the unambiguated common experience and homogeneous inscription of the martial social structure and inviolable martial meanings imposed upon the subordinated and comprehensively regulated human body and habitus of every recruit. 6.13 A Neo Durkheimian Theory of Mechanical Solidarity and Collective Consciousness — The Hybrid Symbolic/Indexically-Monitored Worldview of Canadian Neophyte Soldiers Mary Douglas elaborated a range of theory about the collective generation of meanings, values and projections in her various works on natural symbols and the social production of cosmologies (1999, 1996, 1966). Douglas formally placed herself within the structuralist theoretical geneology of Claude Levi-Strauss but referenced the sociological and ritual theory of Durkheim and Mauss throughout her work (see 1996 intro pp. xxx–xxxiv). What is most intriguing is her observation that all societies construct their cosmologies and structure their symbols and 20 Durkheim embarks on a strained discussion of the psychological processes by which his informants’ minds “come outside themselves” to “meet and commune……by means of movement” in collective ritual practice focused on external totemic objects (Durkheim 1995 [1912] p. 232). Both Mary Douglas (1996 p.xv) and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (1965 p.46) have observed that this type of analysis of social facts based upon murky individual psychic or emotional processes contradicts Durkheim’s own sociological method and undermines his argument about the ritual function of totemic objects to galvanise collective conceptions of society. Douglas has argued, most compellingly in my opinion, that individuals in mechanical solidarity and communion already have a bonded and homogeneously constituted collective identification, consciousness and worldview by virtue of the comprehensive array of social processes relentlessly conditioning a society’s structures onto each individual’s body throughout the developmental processes of the life cycle. I maintain that there is no requirement for an external totemic object or a “tortured” explanation of it (Cassell 2015 p.6, n.9, pp. 127–135) to explain collective ritual consciousness, solidarity, identifications, and homogeneous metaphoric constructions or projections of the uniformly conditioned socialised human body. See also Bjørn Thomassen (2016 p.182) regarding Radcliffe-Brown’s formidable critique of Durkheim’s problematic understanding and discussion of the totemic clan-emblem. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [250] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation morality based on their social system, in particular by naturalizing and continually imposing its social boundaries, values, valencies and taboos on each individual’s body by the way it treats individuals and constrains their actions (1996 p.18). This begins at birth starting with the initial treatment of individuals’ bodies and their natural processes or waste products by caregivers. Such passive experiences of the environment from the first social interactions and bodily sensations continue throughout life with society’s overwhelming pressure to comprehensively condition all subsequent embodied experiences in compliance with its social structures, values, categories and priorities. Once situated in individuals’ experience of their body, such overarching structures (or superstructures or curricula) next come to dictate the way each person within society is constrained to understand the world, to order one’s consciousness and conceptions about the world, and also then to inhabit, project and reproduce the overarching metaphors, symbolism and structures of that society. This is how human societies inscribe the symbolic dimensions of worldviews onto constituents and perpetuate the structures, cosmology and priorities of that society. Within Douglas’s thought there is no getting away from the need for a basis in the physical senses of the socially constrained human body for all subsequent human thought, symbolism and social structure.21 21 Douglas’s work (1999, 1996 [1978, 1973, 1970]) counters any argument that meaning, culture and worldviews are conveyed and perpetuated solely by symbolic processes (per Berger and Luckmann 1966, Berger 1967, Geertz 1957a, 1973 and the symbolic-interactionists of the American school of sociology [see Berger and Luckmann 1966 p.17]). This genealogy of theory was formally taken to task by Talal Asad (1983, 1993, 1997, 2008) on this account as symbolic theory provided no compelling explanation of “how” symbolic meanings could actually compel the beliefs, actions or dispositions of anyone without expressing some power over the human body (see also discussion in Paul Cassell 2015 pp. 32 ff.). Douglas explains the manner in which such powers over the body are initially and then comprehensively imposed on all human bodies by society in the process of socialisation (1996 pp.23-35) and provides the most direct scholarly support upon which I have built my analysis of the embodied processes by which martial neophytes are inscribed with a full spectrum of embodied dispositions and symbolic conceptions constituting the martial worldview throughout psychosocial developmental stages. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [251] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Similarly, Canadian soldiers first learn how to inhabit the martial world through the sensory experience of their comprehensively conditioned and subordinated bodies. Within a very short period of time after commencing basic training neophyte soldiers come to acquire a spectrum of dispositions and reflexive impulses socially ordered to spontaneous unified, coordinated action in support of the martial collective. In the case of neophyte soldiers, the range of shared, rigidly enforced dispositions and impulses actually emerge from within the developmental processes of recruits as they are identically resocialised within the meanings, values and constraints of martial society and the ontogenetically regulated priorities and impulses of the martial performers. This analysis has also described the manner in which this ordered regimen of subordinating practices and an invariantly imposed resocialisation process comes to support the subsequent production of contingent symbolic projections and associative metaphors22 of martial identity, affinity, solidarity and cosmised social structure which soldiers will come to exploit and reproduce in adapting to the martial ecology.23 22 See especially James Fernandez and Victor Turner (1973), Mary Douglas and James Fernandez in B.E.F. Beck (1978 pp.88–90), and Mary Douglas (1999 pp. 287 ff.) on symbolic and metaphorical correspondences. 23 While I find Douglas’s point that societies do impose their structures upon the bodies and emic logic of constituents from without by means of its ritual agenda both compelling and undeniable, I draw attention here to the experimental bioneurological work of George Lakoff (1987 in Douglas 1999 p.285 and Lakoff 2012 pp. 773-785) that humans employ a deeper range of embodied kinaesthetic (kinetic-spatial) mechanisms based on the situation and orientation or differentiation of the human body as a pre-requisite to all conceptual thought, emic logic, symbolic production and language. This does not nullify Douglas’s point that various societies exert a range of socioritual mechanisms and impose their structures onto the embodied dispositions and consciousness of constituents differentially from one society to the next, only that there is always a deeper and more primal baseline of fundamental embodied human orientations undergirding, as a pre-requisite, denotative human thought, language and symbolic interaction. Douglas is clear that there is no pan-culturally consistent scheme by which humans or societies orient themselves spatiokinetically and by which a theory of subsequent symbolic projections could be constructed (Douglas 1999 p. 286, see also Douglas in B.E.F. Beck 1978 pp.88-89). © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [252] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation One can understand the adaptive necessity for cosmised translocal sociality and a narrow, undifferentiated range of mechanical, collective dispositions to predominate within worldviews that undergird martial cultures. In martial societies soldiers are routinely posted into established fighting units and deployed into unstable, perilous conditions and must immediately and effectively interact with virtual strangers. In such circumstances, and more importantly when such circumstances can also include the death of one’s closest supportive comrades, the requirement to experience, perceive and exploit unspoken but tangible commitment to the collective and to courageously presume upon the implicit mutual accountability and solidarity of all group members is an inviolable imperative. Only within the experienced assurance of such established mutual meanings, understandings and imperatives can soldiers adaptively persist through the chaos and desolations of war. Douglas was clear that the worldview of any society must “work” to make sense or explain the world and to hold people individually accountable to each other (1999 p.285). This is undoubtedly why martial worldviews are adaptive. But could tangible, robust, reliable and adaptive qualities and assurances be conveyed by mutable, socially constructed meanings, values and symbolic conceptions alone? Is this not to confuse the imaginal with the real? Are not something more substantial than denotational projections required to stabilise and unify fully adaptive societies? This analysis has maintained that martial performers do not simply build and project a metaphoric or symbolic martial cosmology and worldview on collective meanings that Durkheim had theorised to be provided from without and catalysed around a generic external totemic object of collective focus and performative ritual iteration. Such projections would not be sufficiently tangible to assure the mutual accountability of all constituents of martial society. Neophyte ritual adepts must also come to enact, existentially experience, display and continually reproduce the mastered and verifiable embodied exemplar of martial society. As © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [253] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Douglas explains, an exemplar is not a symbolic denotation but a tangible sample of a larger set which can be physically monitored, publicly examined and verified. Such an exemplar performs, typifies and guarantees the qualities and meanings constituting and perpetuating a larger group (1999 pp.287 ff.). Soldiers’ socially-conditioned bodies performing perfected ritual actions become the unifying, proximate and tangible phenomenal focus of collective identity and mutual accountability—an embodied, performatively-enhanced and experientially-iterated indexical assurance of broader martial meaning, solidarity and mutual commitment. This perhaps explains the primary emphasis on embodied perfection in martial performance which is demanded of all martial neophytes. In the the latter curricular and ceremonial performances of entrainment described in this analysis, metaphorical associations and symbolic projections about the martial cosmos coalesce in tandem with the hyperbolic embodied experience of each martial performer. This effectively fuses translocal associations and symbolic conceptions of the corporate martial collective that are generated by the neophytes’ abstract thought processes, with ritually-enhanced embodied and existentially-tangible, undeniable, parabolic phenomenal perceptions of the martial performers’ sentient bodies (contra Bloch’s 2008 description of transcendent sociality as being imaginal, that is non-indexically monitored). This robust and enduring hybrid experiential/symbolic set of embodied pre-reflective competencies, dispositions, perceptions and cosmised projections maintains, constitutes and performs the indexical contiguity or unification of graduating ritual adepts within the corporate martial body and consciousness of ritually competent Canadian soldiers. In this way, the solidarity of martial bodies is reiteratively experienced, intersubjectively verified and inscribed upon the worldviews and consciousness of neophyte soldiers. This performative indexical unification of ritual performers within the translocal martial body comes to constitute the sacrosanct or “higher order” meanings of Rappaport’s latter theoretical schema (see © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [254] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Rappaport 1979 pp. 216–217, and Rappaport 1999 pp.70–73 in el-Aswad 2010 pp. 443–444). Such tangible hybrid indexical/symbolic ritual dispositions and existential assurances corporately (and I use this word deliberately) constitute, perform, and perpetuate the martial cosmos and unify martial performers within its grave and publically verifiable meanings relentlessly. In this way military formation evokes the comprehensive repertoir of inviolable truths, imperatives and valencies of the corporate translocal martial body which come to animate all dimensions of the martial ecology and the adaptive worldview of Canadian soldiers. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [255] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [256] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation Chapter 7 Summary and Concluding Remarks; Gravity and Sanctity in the Martial Worldview – Sacrifice, Solidarity, Transition, and Integrity, Future Research on Soldiers’ Adaptation This final chapter will summarise the highest and most inviolable, adaptive martial values, imperatives, valencies and dispositions ritually inscribed onto Canadian military members during basic training. These inscribed meanings constitute the foundational essence of the martial worldview. There will come a point when even these meanings will cease to retain their adaptive efficacy and when former soldiers must undergo even further processes of ritual and psychosocial passage. 7.1 Ritual Cultus of the National Domain National need has typically equated to political threat, the amelioration of which has been achieved by the public invocation of divine assistance and the subsequent spilling of Canadian soldiers’ blood on foreign battlefields. One can understand why the public understands soldiers to be primarily motivated by the idea of sacrifice in the performance of their martial mission. This is undoubtedly related in part to the fact that soldiers are managers of violence on behalf of the state and have been sequestered conceptually and physically from the public perspective for hazardous employment as required. The ritual associations of ultimate peril with religious sacrifice, the taking of life, the spilling of blood, the entreatment of cosmic powers and the offering of precious gifts in © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [257] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation exchange for divine favour or the turning away of divine wrath are clear. This is the bread and butter of ritual thought and traditional thinking about ultimate causality. Sacrifice has always been central to human social strategies for mitigating cosmic terror. It should come as no surprise then that national mythologies, literature and symbols associated with sacrifice are displayed on national occasions at public venues. Canada has participated unreservedly in the perpetuation of war mythology and the hagiographic portrayal of martial martyrs and sacrifice on behalf of national ideals. This is the primary purpose of the civil religion as described by Robert Bellah (1967, 1988, 2005). The national cult serves not only to perpetuate these meaning but to reassure and galvanise the civilian population – that is to forestall the terror of impending chaos (Berger 1967). Such mythology within the national ethos or the worldviews of Canadians also ensures a steady stream of citizen enlistees at times of national peril. Within my analysis I have maintained throughout that Canadian military personnel undergo a ritual passage away from the national domain of meanings, values and symbols into a sequestered, opaque ritual domain where martial, not national, symbols and meanings predominate. It is within this sequestered domain that recruits undergo ritual and psychosocial developmental processes establishing their primary martial identity. 7.2 Scapegoats, Sacrificial Awareness and Other Fictions About Soldiers The concept of sacrifice within the martial worldview of some Canadian soldiers sometimes includes the “religiously constructed” Abrahamic expiational meanings often associated with the term. This inventory of Judaic and Christian religio-sacral meanings and symbols is still conveyed and referenced within the decorous ceremonial events of the Canadian Forces. Such symbols, when enacted within martial ceremonies, can convey “ultimate cosmic” meanings which may resonate with those soldiers already ascribing to these religious ideals of the civil religion. I have described © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [258] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation my own experience that such symbols, ritually or ceremonially invoked, might precipitate something corresponding to a “numenous” experience. It is reasonable to assume that some participants in martial ceremonies may also glimpse or deepen a sense of the martial responsibility to sacrifice one’s life in national or higher sovereign or deistically endorsed service through the participation in such ceremonies. I did not find that many of the neophyte soldiers with whom I have interacted were strongly motivated by the religiously constructed “Abrahamic” sacrificial or expiational dimensions of martial service on behalf of their country. Soldiers and officer cadets do understand that they are employed by a national organisation on behalf of all Canadian citizens, but they do not actively inhabit a patriotic sacrificial self-identity at the time of graduating basic training. Such traditionally-religious ideals may never coalesce for soldiers during their time of martial service. The adaptive orientation of Canadian soldiers might ultimately go no higher than an inviolable duty to comrades and the immediate obligation to submit to the next hierarchical level of authority within the military chain of command. In fact, it is fairly well established in literature that soldiers in battle fight and die, when the chips are down, for their comrades alone (see Gwynne Dyer (1985) and Richard Gabriel (1990) in Dave Grossman (2009 [1996, 1995] pp.149–151)). 7.3 The Ritualised Emergence and Final Articulation of Sacred Martial Nomoi Subordination to martial authority and the self-sacrificial disposition for one’s martial comrades build in discrete steps. Recruits first arrive at the training base with aspirations and selfcentred motivations oriented towards individual professional identities and goals. They are immediately made to understand that individual drive to self-realisation is intertwined with the ability to effectively follow directions and integrate into a group. The recruit then comes to accept that he or she must work and give sufficiently so that the group avoids collective punishment and © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [259] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation so that he or she can remain in the group. This is not strictly an authentic motivation to obedience and collective self-sacrifice for comrades. Rather, it is still a self-interested realisation that one must subordinate and give of oneself to the imposed demands being made upon the group in order to continue one’s training and attain one’s personal goals. As the basic entrainment process continues, a disposition emerges towards group identification that crystallises in the impulse to reflexively support and protect the group and its members for its own sake – to stand and identify with the collective, to impulsively exclude outsiders and to defend one’s group against non-group members. This impulse takes on much broader dimensions of exclusive communal orientation, prejudice and the prioritisation of the collective over individual need. This is really the point where those who do not recognise the requirement to exclusively support the group and its members sacrificially in following orders or enacting responsibilities, to the neglect of their own agendas, will find themselves alienated by an otherwise bonded group. There is a stage of subordinated, self-sacrificial disposition that emerges after a point of acquired individual ritual competency, when recruits in fact reproduce and reflexively portray the archetypal martial identity or habitus spontaneously. Such performative actions are “demotivated” in the sense described by Humphrey and Laidlaw (1994). Such enactments become, in Rappaport’s language, the rote performance of acts or utterances not encoded by the soldier. Martial dispositions, valencies and meanings more fully and dramatically congeal for young soldiers and officers in concert with the performance of ceremonial activities near the end of the basic entrainment process. At this final stage of entrainment, martial meanings and obligations are constructed and projected as pertaining to all other Canadian martial comrades, superiors and organisational structures – even to those with whom the recruits and officer cadets © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [260] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation have not shared signals, impulses and exclusive ritualised social bonding processes. This is an inscribed, unified corporate perspective. This process epitomises that sense of “becoming part of something bigger than ourselves” that Joseph Campbell (1988 p.123) described as the ultimate goal of the developmental quest he understood humans to undertake in the pursuit of their identity. The projected conceptual dimensions of this corporate perspective clearly implicate the human symbolic facility and, coincidently, utilise the full spectrum of multivocal representations portrayed in the graduating recruits’ ceremonial performances. These latter processes exploit the socially ordered symbolism of the body (Douglas 1996 [1978, 1973, 1970] pp. xxxi–xxxii) and the recruits’ collectively-enhanced sensory feedback of corporate, perfected movement to construct and imagine unseen dimensions of the martial cosmos and populace. I have argued that such motivations, identifications, dispositions and parabolic embodied realisations of corporate solidarity—that is indexically verified unity or unification of recruits with unseen martial comrades within the grave meanings of the martial ecosystem—correspond squarely with Roy Rappaport’s concept of “higher order” meanings conveyed through perfected ritual performance. This disposition to exclusive and subordinated solidarity with comrades is ritually iterated, deepened, socially elaborated and monitored as soldiers mature and negotiate subsequent developmental stages, building affiliations within their unit or regiment of primary identification throughout their careers. This bonded affinity also functions to impart a sense of committed relatedness and impressive moral compulsion. My experience is that such bonds are tangible, that they are consciously experienced by soldiers as “real” and that they extend to female comrades who have undertaken the martial ritual passage alongside male initiates. Concepts of “sacrifice” or “self-sacrifice” in the martial worldview, as developed within the ritual entrainment processes, do not convey the elaborated meanings of the civil cultus or the national hagiography. These concepts © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [261] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation have traction within the worldview of soldiers primarily as qualified to refer to self-costly behaviour for bonded comrades, subordinates, and immediate martial authority. Subordinated obedience to the martial hierarchy of authority, the impulse to identify and bond exclusively with martial comrades, and the comprehensive expectation of self-sacrificial behaviour and motivation on behalf of the corporate martial body then are grave or “sacred” martial values and dispositions and conform to Durkheim’s definition of “religion.” They are indexically inscribed upon soldiers to unite and animate every regimental “congregation” within the entire martial “church”. They are then the foundational nomoi of the Canadian martial worldview. Thoughts of sacrifice, and especially the ritual embellishments of scapegoats, atonement and any national inventory of laudatory attributions to those who serve do not necessarily coalesce in the worldviews of serving soldiers during the course of their careers. Canadian soldiers simply see themselves as constrained in their efforts to give themselves out of a sense of “exclusive bonded solidarity” or “unity” with comrades and subordination to immediate martial authorities within the projected corporate organisation or out of a sense of enacting an archetypal martial identity. The term “exclusive unified solidarity” subsumes any notions of self-sacrifice, subordination and performative commitment to the broadest range of lawful authority and absolute obligation animating the corporate military body – the existentiallyrealised martial esprit des corps of Canadian soldiers. This is in fact the ultimate, invariant and inviolable disposition inscribed upon the worldview and awareness of Canadian soldiers. The martial ecosystem is a totalised environment and the embodied performance and expectation of a collective, exclusive and subordinated orientation and bonded unity among all Canadian soldiers is the primary interpretive principle through which to understand the broader Canadian martial subculture. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [262] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation 7.4 Integrity Versus Despair – A Final Developmental Challenge and Ritual Passage At some point after passing through the developmental stage of generativity the natural trajectory of life has humans next negotiating the process of retirement and the psychosocial developmental challenges of achieving personal integrity. This is the life stage described by Erikson where one finally withdraws from the pursuit of goals and reviews one’s life in a search to find meaning. It is a symbolic integration of past meanings and experience. Looking back over life one discerns or contrives a sense of satisfaction, order and significance, or, conversely, despair. This too is a latter integrative process of world construction and of adaptively revisioning one’s personal mythology. Unless they die during their period of contracted service, all soldiers will at some point cease to belong to the martial system and will eventually undertake a developmental and ritual passage back into civil society. Former soldiers can no longer participate in the martial colloquium and must endure subsequent rituals of developmental passage. For the last decade or so the Canadian Forces has formally enacted ceremonial procedures initiating this ritual passage back into the civil domain of meanings. There former soldiers are confronted with the developmental challenge of addressing a new phase of life while being both alienated from former comrades and remaining disenchanted with the meanings and values of civil society (see Whelan 2018, 2017). Within this new domain former soldiers must establish or renew social connections with nonmartial members of society. Martial ways of understanding the world and of comporting oneself must be adjusted to comply with civilian society which now exerts its own comprehensive range of civil powers, structures and priorities over the bodies and consciousness of all its members. Readaptation to civil society is only successful when an adaptive set of integrated meanings and legitimations come to fully correspond to those of the national ritual milieu. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [263] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation This final developmental life challenge is a ritual passage—the final return to the national domain of symbols and the public discourse that can only perpetuate and support national meanings about soldiers. The meanings circulating within the national domain and its public discourse perpetuate a series of legitimations (Berger 1967 pp. 29–31) about the function of the martial subculture on behalf of the dominant civil culture of Canada. Such legitimations are not meant to sustain soldiers themselves but to offer a running justification in the minds of the civilian population as to the national need of the military and the deistic and sovereign endorsement of the sanctity of the sacrifices soldiers supposedly make on behalf of these higher ideals. These legitimations explain and contextualise loss of life and sustain the public interest in the motivation to maintain a military establishment. They function as myths about soldiers, corresponding to the inventory of ritual trappings specific to the national cult which are maintained and rolled out for public consumption on public occasions and times of national crisis. But this national ritual discourse does not perpetuate the symbols and meanings of soldiers. In fact, the inscribed martial nomoi of former soldiers will not function adaptively outside of the sequestered ritual domain within which such dispositions, motivations and meanings obtain. Former soldiers inhabit martial values now as mere memories, often mythically elaborated out of proportion and context. Such memories exist always as cognitive reconstructions, not as continually revivified adaptive living meanings and connections renewed on regular occasions in martial service and embodied performative communion in collective martial consciousness. This is why former soldiers sometimes experience profound feelings of alienation and despair when attending national celebrations and the perpetuation of mythically elaborated legitimations about soldiers’ service. Ritual communion however can now only be re-experienced by former soldiers © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [264] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation in the completion of this final developmental passage and by adapting the worldview to correspond with those who inhabit the civil domain. 7.5 Future Research Regarding Soldiers’ Adaptivity and Health Pathology Early in the analysis I introduced a secondary proposition that the ritually established worldviews, valencies and collective dispositions inscribed upon Canadian recruits during their basic entrainment remain adaptive throughout the military career insofar as they are collectively maintained and ritually perpetuated. I also suggested a connection between ongoing collective adaptivity and soldiers’ health and have cited sources that directly connect alienation from the adaptive meanings of society—that is “stigmatisation” or exclusion from the constraints of the moral collectivity and its shared embodied practices and meanings—with health pathology. The demonstration of this proposition and the articulation of the ritual determinants of martial health over the course of soldiers’ careers following basic entrainment are well beyond the scope of the present analysis. Sources introduced and the connections implicated in scholarship between ritually maintained solidarity and sustained adaptivity, or highlighting broader ritual dynamics pervading and sustaining robust, cohesive social structures of living human ecosystems, would justify subsequent research that could validate or falsify such connections. Cues to where such future research should begin are to be found within my analysis. I have articulated a range of ritualised practices and dynamics that initially confront recruits and catalyse features of their emerging martial worldview as they approach the martial congregation as neophytes; the daily, collective practice of embodied physical routines of assembly and activity; the sustained practices of living communally in close, stratified proximity with martial affines; and the frequent participation in ceremonial practices within social structures pervaded by martial valuations, canonical meanings, obligations, ritual dynamics and compulsive powers. It follows © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [265] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation that researchers concerned about the health of soldiers and the integrity of the martial ecosystem should examine the degree to which the daily routines and interactions of soldiers, as they are actually practiced, maintain and perpetuate the equilibrium of systemic features that sustain soldiers in collective martial solidarity and meaning. Do soldiers, following their basic entrainment, still parade and engage collectively in embodied activities and exercises each day under the rigourous discipline and direction of their military leaders? Do current government and Treasury Board policies encourage or undermine the corporate proximal habitation of soldiers and their families within integrated military communities with dedicated community services on military bases? Or do such policies increasingly incentivise the domestic situation and integration of soldiers into civilian communities away from military bases and social structures? Have economic considerations influenced the dismantling of the ritualised life activities of military “mess” establishments and inadvertently undermined the continued stratification of martial society that provides features of stability within the organisational social structure? Have the canonical military regulations, directives and orders that pervade and bolster every aspect of the organisational ecosystem of soldiers undergone significant and deliberate modifications of late to more closely align such directives with standards pervading Canadian civil society? Have sovereign and military leaders at the highest levels, scholars, and government policy maintained that the Canadian Forces must exist as a microcosm of Canadian society and accurately reflect its values and meanings (Adrienne Clarkson 2004, see also David Bercuson 1996 in Pinch, MacIntyre, Brown and Okros [eds.] 2004 cited by Hans Jung 2008 p.27)? My analysis has maintained the adaptive existence of Canadian soldiers only within a sequestered ritual cultus and worldview set apart from civil society and its imperatives, values or meanings. The investigation of these questions in research investigating the macrosystemic destabilisation of the Canadian martial ecology and the © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [266] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation perpetuation of soldiers’ adaptive worldviews within it would no doubt be fraught with political and technical challenges. Such questions could address factors that I have argued are directly germane to the ritual perpetuation of adaptative practices, dispositions, valiencies or meanings and the continued health of Canadian soldiers within their martial ecosystem. © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [267] The Ritual Inscription of a Martial Worldview – An Analysis of Liturgical, Developmental and Ecological Dynamics of Adaptation © Robin Nürnberger, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 [268] Bibliography Abbey, Ruth. (2000). Charles Taylor. Philosophy Now. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Alcock, John. "A Textbook History of Animal Behaviour." Animal Behaviour 65, no. 1 (2003): 3– 10. Alcock, John. (2001). Triumph of Sociobiology. New York: Oxford University Press, USA. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders : DSM5. Fifth ed. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 2013. American Psychiatric Association. 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