Note: I originally wrote this on 23 June 2005 to help a former classmate of mine address an essay prompt that she did not understand regarding any positive emotional meaning that war can bring to those involved. Christopher Gonzalez Responsibility for war People tend to seek meaning for their lives, but those who do not easily find it try to pass unto somebody else the task of finding it for them. Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre called this attempt to delegate responsibility for your thoughts and actions to an external entity “bad faith” because it suggests the false possibility that rational human beings are incapable of controlling their actions. Soldiers often act in bad faith to excuse what their job description entails. Several Nazi officers did this during the Nuremberg Trials, claiming they were “under orders” and “only did what they were told,” placing the blame on higher officials. Who is truly responsible for murder, though? Even if every soldier ordered to fire on the enemy had been held at gunpoint by his superior officer, every one of those soldiers would still have held within the few inches of his own trigger finger the power to take a life or spare it. He would still have been the commander of his own destiny, despite what he was told to do. For those in war who realize this and decide that they are willing to act on their own behalf for the war’s duration, war can be an internally empowering experience. Even if they are brought to justice for what they did prior to this epiphany, at least they are honest and virtuous enough to take responsibility for that which may sentence them to death. To take a more simplistic view at the positive emotional aspects of war, refer back to bad faith. Ignore any negative connotations surrounding blaming another for your actions and claim both that purpose is a good thing and that war provides it, even if that purpose is to anonymously kill other rational human beings with beliefs different from your own or those of your elected “commander-in-chief” back home. War establishes your identity, protects you from feeling guilty or remorseful, gives you a scapegoat for your crimes against humanity, pays for your education (wherein you may decide that you are opposed to war, but by then will be contracted to the military for another several years anyway), awards you medals to promote your self-esteem, makes you feel morally superior to your fellow “unpatriotic” anti-military citizen, and integrates you into something bigger than yourself so you need never feel alone.