A Soldier’s Matrix: A Group Analytic View of Societies in War

In this article¹ I will discuss the question of violence in (large) groups and the relationship between the mass and the individual selves. This will be done through the concept of the ‘soldier’s matrix’². I refer to a matrix dominating a whole society, which participates in organized aggression and suffers its emotional consequences. Everybody in the matrix becomes a soldier, and the identity or the ‘Habitus’ (Elias, 1989) of the society is influenced by soldiership. This applies not only to Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the dark days in Germany, but also to two, three or more decades after the Second World War, and for most other societies in war. The advantage as well as the disadvantage of using the term soldier’s matrix in Germany is the fact that for the new generation, the attitude towards the army has undergone a great change. For many people, soldiers represent almost a taboo or a kind of sickness. Finally I would like to contribute to the understanding of pathological relationships, with particular reference to relation disorders, which are connected to violence.