Military Training

Today, I was reading the memoir Useless Violence by Nazi concentration camp survivor Primo Levi. The book describes how Nazi concentration camps were filled with seemingly pointless violence and torture. For instance, despite warehouses being stocked with thousands of spoons, Jewish prisoners weren’t given enough—they were forced to lap up their soup like dogs. They had to use the same bowl for food, excrement, and bathwater. They were ordered to move piles of sand from one side to the other, only to be told to move them back again—forced to endure meaningless labor as a form of suffering. They weren’t allowed to use the toilet until they wet themselves, at which point they were mocked.

Some argue that the Nazi imprisonment and mass murder of Jewish people were purely for economic gain. But in these examples, the Nazis gained nothing economically from inflicting such suffering. So why did they do it? The author offers two explanations. First, these acts of meaningless violence were a way for the Nazis to reinforce their belief in their own racial superiority—they could do whatever they wanted to the “inferior” Jews. Second, such acts gradually dehumanized Jewish prisoners in the eyes of the Nazi perpetrators, making them more cruel and indifferent, paving the way for mass murder. In other words, this so-called “pointless” violence actually served a purpose.

Two particular examples in the book stood out to me. One was how Nazis required Jewish prisoners to make their beds perfectly neat every morning, with sharp lines and corners. Inspections were even conducted. But what was the point? The beds would be messed up the moment someone lay down at night. The other example was how Nazis would call Jewish prisoners to the square for roll call, sometimes dragging corpses over just to be counted. These roll calls lasted for hours—sometimes ten or more—forcing starving, freezing prisoners to stand in misery. But what was the purpose? Could them suddenly discover new Jews from doing roll calls?

Reading these, I immediately thought of the universal practice of military training in mainland China. It is enforced for grade 7, grade 10, and college freshmen students. From my uderstanding, it’s filled with violence, punishment, humiliation, suffering, and forced obedience. I remember in my first year of junior high school, during the military training, our “drillmaster” (who was in no ways an actual drillmaster in a military or legal sense) kept reepating the line “Reasonable demands serve as training; unreasonable demands serve as tests of endurance” (合理的要求是训练，不合理的要求是磨炼). But this phrase is a blatant demand for absolute obedience to unreasonable orders. Logically speaking, if something is unreasonable, then it shouldn’t be done at all. If endurance itself is unreasonable, then we shouldn’t endure it—we should only engage in reasonable training and challenges.

For students like me, who were physically feeble, being publicly ridiculed and scolded by instructors and teachers for poor physical fitness was a routine. Some people argue that military training is for physical exercise. But marching in step and standing motionless under the sun when the temperature reaches 35 °C (95 °F) is hardly an effective training method. If schools arranged for students to go to the gym with professional trainers instead, that would make a lot more sense. Others claim military training is for national defense, preparing citizens for times of crisis. But marching in formation has nothing to do with actual combat. When I was in high school in Taiwan, we actually used real guns and bullets for target practice—though, to be honest, that was also pretty dangerous.

Some argue that military training fosters teamwork and unity. But there are countless ways to build teamwork—why choose methods that involve suffering and discrimination? For example, in my second year of middle school, we had an agricultural training program, which I found fantastic—it built teamwork while also teaching real skills. If military training does strengthen unity, it seems to be by making the drillmaster a “villain” so students bond over their shared suffering. For example, I saw the drillmaster of a nearby class actually kicking one of the students. But then again, many of my classmates, who initially resented the drillmaster just like I did, somehow ended up “grateful” and full of admiration for them by the end of the training. They were crying, saying that the training was too short and they did not want to leave. That shocked me. I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now, and I probably never will.

This stark contrast suggests two possibilities: either those students initially misunderstood the drillmaster’ “good intentions” and wrongly hated them, or they developed Stockholm Syndrome within a week, thanking to their tormentors. Lu Xun once wrote:

“If one knows they are a slave, suffers, resists, and struggles, even if they fail and are shackled again, they are still just a slave. But if someone finds ‘beauty’ in slavery, admires it, praises it, and indulges in it, then they are truly a hopeless lackey, forever resigned to their chains.”

Oh, and one more thing—hopefully this doesn’t scare anyone from my junior high school. During our first-year military training, the bathhouse was in a basement, a B1 floor, and there was no further building on it. Directly above its ceiling, on the ground level, there was an opaque plastic roof. It was kind of like a sunken basement, if that makes sense. One day, after showering, a friend and I wandered near the path between the dorms and the bathhouse and noticed a hole in the plastic roof. From there, you could see directly into the women’s bathhouse. Just as we were staring one another in shock, an old man suddenly ran to us and started yelling at us, calling us perverts. We were completely dumbfounded. Dude, what were you doing here?

—-Atlas, 2022.5.18, originally in Chinese