Psychological Analysis

The first element is exercising self-control. Pinker states, “Violence too is largely a problem of self-control...risk factors for violence include selfishness, insults, jealousy, tribalism, frustration, crowding, hot weather, and even maleness” (Pinker, 592). The child soldiers in Sierra Leone were presented with an ultimatum, you kill, or we kill you. Given the circumstances, they had to do what was ultimately best for them. Some were street children, initiation into a rebel group acted as an initiation into manhood, it provided them with an identity, a purpose, an adventure.
Pinker says, “There is nothing inherently irrational about preferring pleasure now to pleasure later...when deciding between indulging today and indulging tomorrow, should indulge tomorrow only if the pleasure would be exponentially greater” (Pinker, 593). In this case, for many children tomorrow wasn’t promised. Tomorrow might never come if they didn’t seize the opportunity in front of them.

The second element is perhaps one of the most extreme, forward panic, or rampage. As defined by Pinker, forward panic is when an aggressive coalition has stalked or faced off against an opponent in a prolonged state of apprehension and fear, then catches the opponent in a moment of vulnerability, fear turns to rage, and the men will explode in a savage frenzy (Pinker, 487). Because the child soldiers in Sierra Leone already possessed and incredible amount of vulnerability, this was enhanced once they were recruited, and even drugged with cocaine while fighting on the frontlines. These children were afraid, they possessed a tremendous amount of fear, and when given commands by their superiors to brutalize and kill, they acted out of this fear stirring inside of them. Pinker notes that no one has to be trained to carry out rampage, and that rampage may even be a primitive adaptation to seize a fleeting opportunity to decisively rout out a dangerous enemy before it can remobilize and retaliate (Pinker, 488). The children confronted with the decision to kill or be killed had no time to spare, it was as if they had absolutely no option. They had to capitulate or they would suffer great consequences. 

The third element is revenge, something we all fall victim to at some point in our lives. Pinker says, “Revenge is not confined to political and tribal hotheads but is an easily pushed button in everyone’s brains...revenge is quite literally, an urge” (Pinker, 530). On an interpersonal level this could be something as simple as getting annoyed with a sibling and out of “revenge” exposing a secret about them to your parents. Now here, this doesn’t only intimately apply to the child soldiers alone, but rather the force they were associated with. Each group fighting in the war had their own purpose for why they were doing what they were doing, they didn’t just wake up and decide to kill each other. For years Sierra Leone was fighting a war within itself based on power-struggles and inequality. Each rebel group, for one reason or another, felt an immense amount of revenge towards the other groups. This feeling was projected onto the soldiers recruited, as they were manipulated into believing what they were doing and what they were a part of was valid.

The fourth element is dominance, Steven Pinker says, “Testosterone, according to scientists’ best guess, does not make men more aggressive across the board, but prepares them for a challenge of dominance...Testosterone rises in adolescence and young adulthood…” (Pinker, 518/519). Many child soldiers, by nature, had been experiencing increased levels as testosterone at the time of their recruitment, and because testosterone does in fact prepare men for a challenge of dominance, while they were fighting, even if it wasn’t a dominance issue to begin with, it most certainly would’ve been played out here. You even see this played out in young men who aren’t affiliated with the military. Foday Sankhoh, leader of the RUF displays a more violent-prone personality than any of the other leaders involved in the conflict. Pinker says, “Violence-prone personality traits are even more consequential when they infect political rulers, because their hang-ups can affect hundreds of millions of people rather than just the unlucky few who live with them or cross their paths” (Pinker, 520). Sankhoh is recalled making claims about the dishonesty of Africa as a continent, and has a very pessimistic view on peace. He claims that there is no peace without him, and tries to display a very overconfident and scary persona to intimidate the vulnerable of Sierra Leone when he is the furthest thing from peace. Of course, one could assume that the people of Sierra Leone understand this due to the atrocities that took place under his army, but they could also be so afraid of another civil war. 

The fifth and final element is sadism. Pinker claims “The deliberate infliction of pain for no purpose but to enjoy a person’s suffering is not just morally monstrous but intellectually baffling, because in exchange for the agony of the victim the torturer receives no apparent personal or evolutionary benefit” (Pinker, 547). Sadism in itself is baffling, and the fact that children were able to channel this type of energy at such a young age is alarming. It’s incredibly difficult to envision a child using an axe to cut off the limbs of others, even given all of the other elements at play, but that’s exactly what they did. Pinker goes on to say “Hideous torture and mutilations can accompany a rampage by soldiers, rioters, or militiamen, especially when they have been released from apprehension and fear, the phenomenon that Randall Collins calls forward panic” (Pinker, 548). Forward panic, as mentioned earlier, is directly linked to sadism in the case of child soldiers in Sierra Leone because not only did rampage stem from their own fear, but it was also antagonized by so many other forces including the others fighting against them, and their own superiors. Pinker also says, “Another appeal of feeling someone’s pain is dominance...it’s reassuring to know that you can exercise the power to dominate others should the need arise” (Pinker, 550). These young boys, often possessing a lacking identity complex, felt as if they were suddenly men, men that belonged, men that dominated. What young boy wouldn’t want that?