"The draft is the legitimate child of democracy," as Theodor
Heuss defined it. Obligatory military service was introduced
during one of the first modern revolutions- the French levée en
masse (conscription) of 1793. The citizen-soldier replaced
mercenaries and professional soldiers. The call "Aux armes, mes
citoyens" that became a stanza of the French national anthem,
glorified the expectations of the moment. Prussia followed suit
almost immediately, motivated by economic reasons: cheap
manpower for war. During the prolonged process of becoming an
institution, the military enlisted the support of the state it
defended or of those private establishments (church,
landowners, merchants) that needed its services.
Feeding off the means generated by society, the military
institution integrated the practical experience of the people in
its structure and actively pursued courses of action meant to
increase its efficiency. At every juncture of humankind's
continuous change, the military had to prove levels of
efficiency that justified its own existence as a factor in the
active defense of resources. When it was no longer efficient and
weighed too heavily on the socio-economic foundation, it was
eventually overthrown, or the society supporting it stagnated,
as we see happening time and again in military dictatorships.
As one of the many highly structured environments for human
interaction, the military identified itself, as did all other
social mechanisms, through repetitive actions. Each action could
be further seen as a set of tasks, or orders, connected to
motivations or justifications, which anticipate or follow
practical experiences specific to the military. Some were
connected to life within the organization, such as the
possibility to advance in the hierarchy and affect future
activity. These were internal in the sense that they were
affected by the implicit rules adopted by the institution.
Others were external, expressed in the nature of the relation
between the military and society: symbolic status, participation
in power, expectations of recognition.
Evolution of the military resulted in changes in the language
involved in defining and modifying the interactions
characteristic of military practical experience. This language
became progressively more adapted to the goal-win the war-and
less coordinated with civilian language, in which the discourse
of motivations leading to the conflict occurred.
Correspondingly, relations with the outside world-future members
of the military, social and political institutions, cultural
establishments, the church-took place in what appeared to be a
different language.
Changes in the structure of the practical experience of human
self-constitution, as well as changes resulting from a growing
scale, had an influence both inside and outside the military.
When the individuals making up the world constituted themselves
as literate, the functioning of the military assumed the
expectations and characteristics of literacy. What would emerge
as military academies were probably established at this time.
Von Moltke's ideas of changing the nature of relations with
subordinates just predated the many modern advances in war
technology: the use of steam-powered warships (by the Japanese
in their war against the Russians in 1905); the introduction of
radio, telephone, and automotive transportation (all tested in
Word War 1); and even the articulation of the concept of total
war (by Erich Lindendorf). All these correspond to a pragmatic
framework within which literacy was necessary, and literacy's
characteristic reflected upon new practical experiences. The
total war is of the same nature as the expectation of universal
literacy: one literacy replaces all others. There is to the
military institution of the civilization of literacy an
expectation of permanency, embodied in rules and regulations, in
hierarchies, and centralized structure, similar to that of state,
industry, religion, education, science, art, and literature.
There is also an expectation of centralism, and thus hierarchy
and discipline. These characteristics explain why almost all
armies adopt similar literacy-based structures. Guerrilla wars,
in their early manifestations (skirmishes during the American
Revolution) and in their current forms in South America, for
example, are illiterate in that they are not based on the
conventions of literacy. They unfold in a decentralized manner,
and are based on the dynamics of self-organizing nucleii. This
is why military strategists consider them so dangerous today.
Patterns of military action and the language recurrences
associated with these patterns express attitudes and values
pertinent to the pragmatic framework. England, at the height of
its literate experience, had a highly structured, almost
ritualized way of carrying out war. One of the main complaints
during the American Revolution was that the colonials did not
fight according to the rules that literate West Europe had
established over the centuries. Under circumstances of change, as
those leading to the end of the need for a generalized,
all-encompassing literacy, these attitudes and values, expressed
in language and in patterns of military activity, are exhausted,
except where they are carried over to other forms of praxis,
especially to politics and sports.
As is the case with many literacy-based institutions, the
military became a goal in itself, imposing rules on social and
political circumstances, instead of adapting to them. Following
World Wars I and II, the military took control of many countries
under the guise of various political and ideological
justifications. Military, or military-supported, dictatorships,
displaying the same characteristics of centralized rule as
monarchy and democracy under presidents, sprang up where other
modes of government proved ineffective. This happens today in
many parts of the world that are still dedicated to economic and
political models of the past, such as in South America, the
Middle East, and Africa, for example.