Stress

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16 Reasons We Should Have Another Civil War in the U.S.

Over a year ago, I wrote an essay: “Red States versus Blue States: Who Would Win a Civil War in the U.S?” It didn’t get many views. This is a small, personal blog. Sometimes things I write here get shared on social media and are read more, but for the most part that doesn’t happen.

Something interesting happened with this one. It was fairly dormant for a year, then in late May 2020 (coinciding with the George Floyd protests) people started to read it again. As far as I can tell, most of these views have been in the US. And most have been organic, with people finding it individually via search engines, not via social media. I don’t know their motivations for searching for something like this. It could be curiosity, maybe fear. Others may be genuinely enthusiastic about the prospect of a civil war and a chance to kill people they dislike. Some already have killed people. Maybe the people in the pro-war group are on to something, so I started thinking of some reasons that another civil war in the US might be worth considering.  

(Updated graph. The October 2020 stats are projected)

16. You have a lot of extra cash you need to dump

Wars are notoriously expensive and a great way of dumping any excess cash you have. For example, the first (only?) Civil War in the U.S. cost an estimated $23 billion and $68 billion for the Confederacy and Union, respectively, in 2019 dollars. That may sound like a pretty good way to spend a lot of money very quickly, but the news gets better because modern wars are even costlier. The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University calculated that the U.S. federal price-tag for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria was close to $6 trillion. Granted, a civil war in the US has the advantage of not having to travel very far, which would reduce transportation costs (you could have a front-row seat from your own home!). Still, modern weaponry would be much costlier than days of yore.

An added bonus is the opportunity costs of war. Eisenhower knew that money poured into war cannot be spent on frivolous things like education, health, science, food, housing, roads, etc. Who needs those things, anyway?

 

15. You Have an Affinity for Apocalyptic Scenery

If you like the scenery in sci-fi movies like “The Terminator” or “The Book of Eli,” then you can make that fantasy come to life by starting an actual war. Art and reality really can mirror each other.

  • Destruction of Dresden, 1945

14. You Don’t Like Thinking Too Much…

Adrienne Rich once wrote that “War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political.” If there are people you don’t like because their values seem to be all cockeyed, weird, or deviant, it can be hard to think of solutions to bridging those gaps. So maybe it’s better to not try. Just skip all that mental effort at compromise and go straight to the only logical conclusion – some people need to be wiped out. Maybe a lot of people. History shows that people never change anyway, which is why Samurai warriors, Vikings, and the Spanish Inquisition still exist, most people still believe the earth is the center of the universe, and stone tools are all the rage. And, once people are enemies, they stay that way forever. Reconciliation is a fantasy, which is why most Americans started speaking French after the Revolutionary War, just to spite the British.

13. … But You Do Like Taking Chances

If you’ve ever placed a bet on a Super Bowl or World Series, you probably know there are few guarantees in sports. Predicting the future is not easy. And that’s for sports, where the rules of engagement fall within a confined range, with referees to ensure that everyone is playing fair. The rules in war often go out the window, adding an exciting air of unpredictability. Who knows what will happen?!?! As Clausewitz once wrote: “although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.” Betting on unpredictable, low-stake sports is one thing. How much more fascinating it would be to bet on our lives and homes? What an adventure!  

12. Environmental Destruction Doesn’t Bother You

We can’t afford to worry about trivial things like the environment during periods of war. Speed is of the essence, and we can’t delay by taking out all chemical and radioactive contamination from weaponry. For example, naval and aerial bombardment of the island of Vieques left marine vegetation high in concentrations of things like lead, copper, nickel, and cobalt (Massol-Deyá et al. 2005). And that wasn’t even during an emergency. That was just target practice.

Sometimes these things can last quite a while. Long after the Battle of Verdun in WW1, the surrounding area (known as Place-à-Gaz) is still contaminated with lead, arsenic, copper, and mercury as a result of massive artillery shelling and later disposal of ordnance (Thouin et al. 2016). Some plant species still have a hard time growing there, a century later. And in Laos, massive aerial bombardment has left parts of the country contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO), 47 years after they were dropped. Up to 20,000 people have been injured or killed after the war ended, and 1600 km2 of the country still cannot be farmed. But fear not. Laos is a small country. We can farm in Alaska when the war is over.

11. You Think Food is Overrated

“Scorched earth” campaigns in war have existed for millennia, leading to food insecurity, even famine. Some people got pretty upset when toilet paper and meat were hard to find early in the coronavirus pandemic. That’s nothing. Wait until people run out of chocolate, pasta, and coffee. In the meantime, we can sustain ourselves on rage.

10. You Don’t Mind Murder and Atrocity

The WW1 veteran Harry Patch once said that “war is organised murder, and nothing else.” If your conscience is intact, then you may need to work on that. You could be at risk for some emotional devastation at taking another human being’s life, something known as “moral injuries.” If you’ve somehow convinced yourself that the people you hate are not really fully human, then you may not have much to worry about. But beware. There have been cases of people who at first convinced themselves that their killings were justified. Some of them, like Anwar Congo below, can build up a pretty sturdy mental wall to keep out any thoughts that might contradict the view of themselves as heroic, only to have that entire edifice come crashing down years later when they accidentally dredged up their buried humanity.

In the 2012 documentary, “The Act of Killing,” Anwar Congo re-enacted a scene of people he had killed years earlier in Indonesia. Though he was considered a hero by many for killing enemies of the state (mostly people suspected of being communists), his illusions were later shattered when he became aware of the emotions that his victims likely felt before they were executed.

9. You Think Civilians Are Fair Game in War

Speaking of murder… Many people think of war primarily as a competition between two military forces. History buffs often discuss the tactics and strategies of past wars, and the decisions made by leaders. Sometimes they’ll talk about the fallen soldiers and officers who were killed and maimed. Deaths of combatants are to be expected in war. After all, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, or even tens of millions of eggs. However, statistics show that civilians are not just occasional “collateral damage” in war, due to an accidental misfire. Rather, civilians often comprise the majority of casualties, ranging between 40% in the case of Bosnia to 90% in the case of Cambodia and Rwanda (Roberts 2010).

8. You Like Traveling and Moving Around a Lot

People have a tendency to move around a lot during war, and they get to see many new places. In fact, 1% of the world’s population (about 80 million people) was displaced by the end of 2019. Being displaced is sort of like a vacation only without money, food, freedom, or the ability to really do many things that are traditionally considered “fun.” Instead of seeing beautiful scenery or new cities, people tend to end up in camps. Some of these camps are huge tent cities, with the chance to meet new neighbors living right next to you. It’s kind of like a summer camp, only you can’t really leave when you want. So let that be a fair warning: sometimes these camps are final destinations, your ability to travel after that may be severely curtailed with authorities keeping an eye on you, indefinitely in some cases. But, hey, it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. Some lucky Americans will really get to travel by being resettled in other countries (maybe; we haven’t been very open to accepting refugees lately, so it’s not clear how open other nations might be toward us).

7. You’re OK with Trading Mental Health for “Character”

As everyone knows, suffering builds character. For the fortunate people who survive the war, they can expect to have a lot of character-building experiences, and these can last for the rest of their lives. In a review of refugee populations, Bogic et al 2015 found that rates of depression, PTSD, and anxiety were as high as 80 to 88% in some groups, years after resettling in other countries. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” become a little more difficult under conditions of war, but if you’re one of the lucky few people to get there, I bet the payoff would be pretty sweet.

6. You Want Your Children to Be Shorter and Developmentally Delayed

With food shortages, unclean water, increased infection, and psychological stress, kids who grow up under war conditions tend to be malnourished and shorter, sometimes by a huge amount. This is a very consistent pattern, and these effects are usually permanent since you can’t get those years of growth back. That’s fine. Although height seems to be correlated with earning potential in adulthood, shorter kids (and adults) can save money by living in smaller homes and driving smaller cars. See? It all evens out.

Countries where studies show child growth has been negatively affected by war. This is probably an incomplete list, however (studies came from I review I did last year; Clarkin 2019).

5. Sexual Violence Doesn’t Bother You That Much

If the idea of a civil war sounds exciting to you, the prospect of being a victim of sexual violence may not have crossed your mind. Yet, history shows that this is fairly common across wars once social controls have weakened or as a deliberate method of terrorizing a population. In a review, it was found that victims of sexual violence often experience pregnancy, traumatic genital injuries, fistulae, sexual dysfunction, STDs, anxiety, PTSD, depression, social rejection, and spousal abandonment (Ba and Bhopal, 2017). This may not affect you directly, but maybe the people you hate. I’m sure everyone you know and love will be fine. Only other people are victims.

4. You Think Trust Is for Losers

Pierluigi Conzo and Francesco Salustri found that European who were exposed to World War 2 before age 6 had lower levels of trust in adulthood. In their review of background literature, the authors noted that trust is considered almost like a social “lubricant” in helping a society run more efficiently; it is an important factor in economic development, the quality of institutions, and subjective well-being. Once it is lost, it takes a long time to rebuild trust and survivors can view each other with suspicion for decades.

On the other hand, if people had been less trusting before WW2, they would have been better prepared for the coming chaos. Think about it.

3. We Don’t Need No Education

War-affected children often don’t have access to a lot of basic things that we take for granted, including school.  In 2017, 61% of refugee children attended primary school, compared to 92% of children globally. Those numbers dropped to 23% and 84%, respectively, for secondary school. Education is great and all, but no one will really have time for it after the war because the survivors will be too busy doing other important things, like clearing rubble.

2. You’re OK with Chronic Diseases

Wars have a tendency to “get under the skin.” Researchers who study things like the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) idea have found that early adversity in life, including in war, can lead to long-term increased risks for chronic diseases like diabetes, schizophrenia, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity (Clarkin 2019). They can even affect your genes and possibly be passed down to the next generation. Some of these maladies can cut off years of your life, but they tend to be the years that are considered expendable anyway.

1. You Like Fairness and Sharing Power

Infighting in civil wars tend to leave countries weakened. How could it not? The good news is that in our compromised state, power abhors a vacuum, giving other countries a turn at being global leaders. I’m sure whichever nations step forward, they will be willing to give up the stage after they’ve had their turn.

 

References

Ba I, Bhopal RS. Physical, mental and social consequences in civilians who have experienced war-related sexual violence: a systematic review (1981–2014). Public Health. 2017 Jan 1;142:121-35.

Bogic M, Njoku A, Priebe S. Long-term mental health of war-refugees: a systematic literature review. BMC international health and human rights. 2015 Dec 1;15(1):29.

Clarkin PF. The Embodiment of War: Growth, Development, and Armed Conflict. Annual Review of Anthropology. 2019 Oct 21;48:423-42.

Massol-Deyá A, Pérez D, Pérez E, Berrios M, Diaz E. Trace elements analysis in forage samples from a US Navy bombing range (Vieques, Puerto Rico). Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2005 2(2):263–66

Roberts A. Lives and Statistics: Are 90% of War Victims Civilians? Surviv. Glob. Polit. Strateg. 2010 52(3):115–36

Thouin H, Le Forestier L, Gautret P, Hube D, Laperche V, et al. Characterization and mobility of arsenic and heavy metals in soils polluted by the destruction of arsenic-containing shells from the Great War. Sci. Total Environ. 2016. 550:658–69

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Collateral Damage and the Coming Immigration Raids

A report from the San Francisco Gate indicates that immigration officials may soon try to arrest up to 1,500 undocumented people in the Bay Area of California (“Feds planning massive Northern California immigration sweep to strike against sanctuary laws”). If true, it is likely to have an effect on the wider community.

A 2017 study by Nicole Novak and colleagues looked at the effects of a major government raid against migrant workers in Postville, Iowa — most of whom were Latino — who were suspected of being undocumented (Novak et al 2017). In May of 2008, nearly 400 workers were arrested at a meat-processing plant in Postville by 900 ICE agents in a surprise raid that used military tactics, including a Black Hawk helicopter. Two hundred and ninety-seven people were eventually deported after a five month prison sentence. However, even those who were not deported (or even arrested) were affected.

From fairimmigration.org.

Novak et al. looked beyond Postville for their sample, including 52,344 births across Iowa from 2007 to 2009. Infants who were born in the 37 weeks following the raid were classified as being prenatally “exposed” to the raid’s effects. The results showed that for White and Latina mothers, rates of low birth weight (LBW) were steady before the raid. However, after the events at Postville, LBW rates increased by 24%, though only among Latina mothers. This was true for both foreign-born and U.S. born Latinas and their infants, showing a widespread effect that was due to ethnicity, rather than immigration status. The effect appeared to be greatest among those mothers who were exposed to the raid in the first trimester.

From Novak et al. 2017. Rates of LBW in three groups of mothers/infants in Iowa: Whites, U.S. born Latinas, and foreign-born Latinas.

Because data were only available at the state rather than local level, Novak et al. were unable to determine if rates of LBW were even higher among Latina mothers who lived closer to Postville than those in more distant parts of the state. However, the authors reasoned that Latina mothers throughout Iowa (and possibly outside of the state as well) were likely aware of the raid, either through following the news or direct communications with friends and relatives. Given that rates increased among U.S. born and foreign-born Latinas, it is certainly possible that Latina mothers felt vulnerable or anxious about raids targeting them for their ethnicity, and that the stress from this could trickle down to their infants.

If the raids in the U.S. continue, like the one apparently planned in California, there will likely be more collateral damage in terms of the health of Latina mothers and the development of their future infants, including those who are U.S. citizens. Furthermore, there is evidence that poor early development in life can have lasting health deficits. Somewhere in the debates about undocumented immigration, that should be factored into the equation of things to weigh. 

 

Reference

Novak NL, Geronimus AT, Martinez-Cardoso AM. 2017. Change in birth outcomes among infants born to Latina mothers after a major immigration raid. International Journal of Epidemiology. 46(3): 839-49. Link

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Prenatal “Shocks” and Birth Outcomes

Birth weight is often used as a rough gauge for the quality of the prenatal environment. A newborn who weighs 2500g or less (about 5.5 pounds) is considered to be “low birth weight” (LBW). At the individual level, weight alone is an imperfect measure because of confounders such as gestational length (it’s axiomatic that the less time spent in the womb, the less time there is to grow). However, at the population level, if average birth weight fluctuates, then it is an indication that something in the environment probably has changed.

Sometimes, stressful changes can be low-intensity and chronic; at other times, they can be abrupt and dramatic. Biologists, psychologists, and bioanthropologists might call these changes “stressors” or “insults.” Economists might use the term “shocks.” They’re both getting at the same idea: to what extent can harmful environmental factors affect growth and health outcomes? 

In the case of a natural disaster, the harm done can be substantial. Florencia Torche (2011) found that rates of LBW increased following the 2005 Tarapaca earthquake in northern Chile. Despite the magnitude of the earthquake (7.9 on the Richter scale), the amount of destruction was relatively limited: eleven people died, and 0.035% of the population had to temporarily relocate to shelters. This was attributed to the low population density of the region as well as Chilean preparedness and building codes to withstand earthquakes. Although the damage was not as severe as it could have been, Torche reasoned that the earthquake likely caused acute maternal stress, which in turn could affect prenatal development. 

Looking at over half a million births, Torche used maternal county of residence as an estimate of the earthquake’s intensity across different trimesters of exposure. She found that mothers who were lived in the most intensely affected regions during the first trimester were the most affected. The probability of LBW increased from 4.7% to 6.5%, while rates of pre-term births also increased from 5.2% to 8.0%. Later periods of gestation were not substantially affected, and for infants who were conceived after the earthquake, the probability of LBW returned to baseline.

Again, these outcomes seemed to result primarily from acute psychological stress stemming from the earthquake. Torche reasoned that – given the relatively low amount of damage to infrastructure – the increases in LBW and pre-term births were unlikely to have resulted from other factors such as malnutrition, infection, stress resulting from deprivation, strenuous workloads, or exposure to environmental toxins. In reality, it’s not possible to control for all of these variables entirely, but overall it seems plausible that maternal psychological stress played a substantial role in birth outcomes.

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Why Mice Don’t Get Ulcers

In his 1994 book “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” Robert Sapolsky described the difference between the types of stress that people often experience and the ones that other animal species do. In his titular example, if you were a zebra, you’d most likely face acute physical stress – the lion about to eat you – which requires immediate physiological adaptations (the fight-or-flight response). A second type of stress might be chronic and physical (drought, famine, parasites, etc.).

However, the third type of stress on Sapolsky’s list – the type most prominent in an industrialized human’s life – was social and psychological. While our species certainly benefited from expanding brain size over the last few million years, it too came with trade-offs, including the ability to overthink and worry about things to come down the road. This type of stress would not have featured too prominently into the mental lives of other species. As Sapolsky wrote:

“How many hippos worry about whether Social Security is going to last as long as they will, or what they are going to say on a first date? …

For the vast majority of beasts on this planet, stress is about a short-term crisis, after which it’s either over with or you’re over with. When we sit around and worry about stressful things, we turn on the same physiological responses – but they are potentially a disaster when provoked chronically. A large body of evidence suggests that stress-related disease emerges, predominantly, out of the fact that we so often activate a physiological system that has evolved for responding to acute physical emergencies, but we turn it on for months on end, worrying about mortgages, relationships and promotions” (p. 5 – 6).

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Syria, After the War

“Conscience cannot stand much violence. Once thoroughly broken down, who is he that can repair the damage?” – Frederick Douglass, “My Bondage and My Freedom” (1855, Chapter XI)

The war in Syria has to end, eventually. However, the tragic reality is that the damage is likely to last for decades.

TOPSHOTS-SYRIA-CONFLICT-DAILY LIFE

Woman and child in Douma, Syria in Dec 2014. (AFP Photo/ Abd Doumany)

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that in the past few days “tens of thousands of civilians” have fled the city of Aleppo as the Syrian military, aided by Russian jets, have tried to reclaim the area. This is only the latest wave of civilians being forcibly displaced by the war. Altogether, the UN estimates that more than half of Syrians have been displaced from their homes at least once. Some of these have crossed into other countries, while the rest remain internally displaced.

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Forgiveness in Boston

Boston-Magazine Shoes http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/04/25/behind-our-may-boston-marathon-cover/

Cover of ‘Boston Magazine,’ by Mitch Feinberg

Less than a week after the Boston Marathon bombings, which left 3 people dead and over 280 injured, Cardinal Sean O’Malley emphasized the importance of forgiveness during Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. According to the Boston Globe, Cardinal O’Malley gave the congregation  two reasons to consider forgiveness. The first was  to avoid the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth mentality.” In that way, forgiveness offered a potential means to avoid further hostilities between groups. In fact, local tensions seemed to be simmering. O’Malley was likely cognizant of this, hoping to help defuse things before they progressed any further.  

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Inequality, Health Disparities, & Obesity

An October poll of 1,000 likely voters found that Americans are increasingly concerned about income inequality. When asked: “How Big a Problem is Income Inequality in the US?,” the majority (74%) replied that it was either a big problem or somewhat of a problem. Predictably, there were differences in opinion by political ideology, but a majority of liberals (94%), moderates (81%), and conservatives (55%) answered that inequality was at least somewhat problematic. However, as is true of many polls, it was not specified exactly what people found unsettling about it. I suppose there are many reasons that people might find increasing inequality (and climbing rates of poverty) to be troubling, but I wanted to focus here on inequality and health, particularly on obesity.

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First, what do we mean by poverty? I remember watching an interview on PBS with the economist Jeffrey Sachs years ago (transcript here – thank you, Google), where he distinguished between two types of poverty. The first was an extreme form, which he called the type of “poverty that kills.” The other type was more of a poverty of inconvenience or jealousy. I don’t want to over-interpret Sachs’ meaning. It was a passing phrase in an interview from ten years ago, and his primary focus was on alleviating the extreme poverty faced by more than a billion people in the world living on $1 per day (see Sachs 2005). Elsewhere, Sachs has lamented that the media have ignored poverty in the United States at a time when “the U.S. has the greatest income inequality, highest per capita prison population and worst health conditions of all high-income countries.” His credentials in fighting poverty are unassailable. But I cite the old interview here because I think his descriptions (‘poverty that kills’ vs. ‘poverty of jealousy’) might resonate with many people today, and not necessarily in a good way.

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Extreme poverty: scavenging at a garbage dump in Phnom Penh (abcnews)

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A Human Biology of War: The Proximate and the Ultimate

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On the surface, it may not be so clear where war, health, and evolution intersect. From the perspective of biological anthropology, many have called for a holistic, transdisciplinary approach to human biology and health which considers the environment as the totality of its evolutionary, ecological, and social components, including social inequality (Little and Haas 1989; Thomas et al. 1989; Wiley 2004).

Girl in Darfur refugee camp (source: Colin Finlay)

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More than a decade ago, Leatherman and Goodman (1998) suggested that biological anthropologists put more effort toward better understanding what they termed the ‘biology of poverty.’ In this sense, poverty is an ‘environment’ that may induce consistent, but obviously varying, biological responses depending upon local circumstances. Similarly, war can be conceived as a biological environment. At least in the short term from an evolutionary point of view, wartime conditions may be as biologically challenging as some of the classic ecologically extreme environments faced by humans (circumpolar, tropical, high-altitude, desert, etc.) (Clarkin 2010).

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The Power of Love

Infant rhesus monkey with terrycloth ‘mother’

As social animals, we need to be around others. Virtually everything we do is social – trade, eating meals, watching sports in stadiums or movies in theaters, religious services, education, the internet, etc. Even war is a social activity. No human being on the planet is completely self-sufficient. Being social is more than utilitarian, however; it is also biologically and psychologically necessary. For example, one of the most severe forms of punishment in prisons is solitary confinement.

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