Summary
Introduction
Junger recounts an incident early in a trip hitchhiking across the American West. Having just finished college, he sets out in search of more meaning in his life than can be found in the safe, sterile suburb where he grew up. While Junger is hitching on a highway in Wyoming, a man approaches him from a nearby town. Based on his appearance, Junger thinks he is going to ask for food. Instead, the man offers up his own lunch, saying Junger needs enough to eat if he wants to make it to California. Junger is struck that the man is not only generousâhe has taken responsibility for a stranger.
Need to Know: Junger is seeking an environment in which people treat each other not as strangers but as members of the same tribe.
The Men and the Dogs
Junger focuses on the things that separated modern society from its historical tribal roots, chiefly, the development of agriculture, followed by the development of industry. Both of these allowed people to acquire wealth and, as a result, make individual choices, including living apart from any communal group.
This growing level of financial independence can lead to isolation and increased risk of depression and suicide. He cites numerous studies, including a World Health Organization finding that people in wealthy countries suffer depression at up to eight times the rate of poor countries.
Junger quotes Mary Jemison, a famous Seneca captive taken in her teens in the mid-1700s. Explaining why so many captives refused to return to white society when given the chance, she says, âNo people can live more happy than the Indians did in times of peace.â
While many whites left for American Indian society, the exodus only went in one direction. There werenât examples of Indians abandoning their tribes for life in the white world. And while Junger stresses that we must not romanticize Indian life, as its treatment of both settlers and other tribes could be savage at wartime, so, he notes, was the Spanish Inquisition, which took place at the same time.
Need to Know: Junger points to three pillars of self-determination that are at the heart of tribal living:
- Competence: A mastery of their work.
- Autonomy: Authenticity in their lives.
- Community: A communal system rather than a hierarchy.
These internal values conflict directly with current Western values, such as wealth, status, and beauty.
War Makes You an Animal
Junger shares his story of reporting from Sarajevo during its three-year siege by Serbian forces, which resulted in the death of 70,000 civilians and soldiers, or roughly 20% of the cityâs population. He also discusses the 1915 Avezzano earthquake, which had a 96% mortality rate, with 30,000 residents killed in the first minute. He cites these stories as illustrations of how people pull together during such trials. This, he states, is because the rich and the poor are suddenly rendered equal: The lack of basic necessities means all must band together to survive.
He further notes that though the English government prepared for an epidemic of psychiatric breakdowns during the Blitz in World War Twoâas many as four million citizens were projected to suffer from âbomb neurosesââinstead, people left psychiatric wards. Suicide rates dropped throughout Europe. The psychiatric wards were also empty in Paris during both world wars.
Charles Fritz, who worked with the US Strategic Bombing Survey in WWII and later researched responses to natural disasters, posited a theory of social resilience. He found that in the midst of disaster, people become a âcommunity of sufferersâ who work together to survive.
Mental health improves during a crisis, Junger observes, because people are actively engaged in a caus...
