Unmaking War, Remaking Men: How Empathy Can Reshape Our Politics, Our Soldiers and Ourselves
One day at a beach Kathleen Barry witnessed an accidental death. Seeing how empathy drew together the bystanders - strangers until that moment - in shared human consciousness, she asked: "Why do we value human lives in everyday moments but accept the killing in war as inevitable ?"
In Unmaking War, Remaking Men, Kathleen Barry explores soldiers' experiences through a politics of empathy. By revealing how men’s lives are made expendable for combat, she shows how military training drives to them kill without thinking and without remorse, only to suffer both trauma and loss of their own souls. With the politics of empathy, she sheds new light on the experiences of those who are invaded and occupied and shows how resistance rises among them.
And what of the state leaders and the generals who make war? In 2001, a fateful year for the world, George W. Bush became President of the US; Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel; and Osama bin Laden became the de facto world terrorist leader. Analyzing their leadership and failure of empathy, Unmaking War, Remaking Men reveals a common psychopathology of those driven to ongoing war, first making enemies, then labeling them as terrorists or infidels.
Kathleen Barry asks: "What would it take to unmake war?" She scrutinizes the demilitarized state of Costa Rica and compares its claims of peace with its high rate of violence against women. She then turns to the urgent problem of how might men remake themselves by unmaking masculinity. She offers models for a new masculinity drawing on the experiences of men who have resisted war and have in turn transformed their lives into a new kind of humanity; into a place where the value of being human counts.
2010 | ISBN 9781876756864 | Paperback | 229 x 151 mm | 210 pp
Reviews
Unmaking War, Remaking Men should be a required text for every college student, male and female. I, along with my students, found the concepts of core-masculinity, empathy, expendability and their intersection with patriotism, racism and religion a source of meaningful, engaged and sincere discussion. It will be a required text selection for the remainder of my teaching life. Thank you, Dr. Kathleen Barry, for this wonderful gift to this and future generations.
—Professor Fritz Pointer, author, A Passion to Liberate: Alex LaGuma's South Africa
Unmaking War, Remaking Men is a highly researched, thought-provoking book that doesn’t shy away from hard topics and raises a lot of interesting points that worth considering if we wish to part of a world that promotes peace.
—Victoria Nugent, Aduki Independent Press
Unmaking War, Remaking Men reminds us that this is what the best feminism should do: keep listening, keep talking on the uphill walk.
—Ruby J Murray, Overland
In a world where Arabs are often being demonized, it is soothing to read a book by such a fine Western intellectual who has so much empathy and knowledge and who gives an excellent analysis of the situation which she not only acquired first hand by going there courageously, but who also offers us a unique perspective at how we could entangle the knots of an explosive situation that could easily turn into a nightmare. This book is a must to anyone trying to find solutions to war.
Evelyne Accad, Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East
Empathy. Yes, empathy is such a strong concept, and such a strong civic value. Kathleen Barry shows in her book how empathy threatens those who promote the militarization of masculinity while simultaneously providing an antidote. She has done deep thinking – thinking that all of us will be made smarter by!
—Cynthia Enloe, Globalization & Militarism
How can we end war if we don’t understand the makings of war? Kathleen Barry's Unmaking War, Remaking Men is a remarkable blend of history, current war-making and soul-searching that unravels the very structures of war. Read it, get energized and join us in Barry’s ultimate challenge: replacing the paradigm of war with a paradigm of shared human consciousness based on empathy.
—Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK and Global Exchange
With the courageous vision, scrupulous scholarship, and heartfelt writing that has illumined her books on female sexual slavery, Kathleen Barry here focuses her laser-like intelligence on violence, militarism, and core masculinity. Unmaking War, Remaking Men makes the connections that could save us all. Ignore it at your peril.
—Robin Morgan
In an era of perpetual war, Kathleen Barry asks the important questions: how do we learn and teach violence, and what does killing do both to us and our society? A provocative, impassioned and necessary exploration of a topic too often cloaked by euphemisms and evasions.
—Jeff Sparrow
Unmaking War, Remaking Men is a fascinating work by US feminist activist and sociologist Kathleen Barry, which explores traditional constructs of masculinity, and the role they play in military training...Barry suggest that shared human consciousness causes humans to naturally be empathetic in the face of tragedy, and argues that military training aims to suppress this natural empathy by marginalising and dehumanising them so that they only connect with other soldiers, allowing them to kill without remorse...Unmaking War, Remaking Men is a highly researched, thought-provoking book that doesn't shy away from hard topics and raises a lot of interesting points that worth considering if we wish to part of a world that promotes peace.
—Chris Ward, Chinchilla Media
Unmaking War, Remaking Men is a thoughtful read with plenty to think about, highly recommended.
—Midwest Book Review