Little green army men

Topic: Violence

Source: Ch.8 of our ANTHRO textbook and my little brother’s toys when he was little.

Relation: The classic little green army men toys are a means of promoting collective violence, as described in the textbook.

Description:  As I started to think about violence and how it is so embedded in our culture, I can’t help but think of the toys that children are given and how those may promote violence.  Most people talk about this subject in terms of video games or violent television programs, but I think about classic male toys, in particular those little green army men.  The reason these stick out in my memory is because my little brother insisted on having them and my father insisted on taking every single one and cutting off all the guns with scissors.  My father did not want any sort of toy gun in our house, even tiny plastic ones.  I was still in elementary school at the time, so my friends would see these toys and ask why most of the men were missing parts of arms or their hands.  Of course it seemed unnecessary to us children that the guns had to be removed.  But I respect my dad’s decision, because I think it did change the way that we played with the army men.  Neither me nor my little brother played with them as army men, but rather as just little green men who hung out with their little green friends or drove hot wheels cars.  

Commentary/Analysis:  In the text Robbins states that, “Acts of collective violence are rationalized as purposeful, noble, or inevitable” (Robbins 180).  I think having toys that promote or even just represent collective violence, such as army men toys, make it seem like a normal occurrence in the world.  It makes war into a game for children and in this way desensitizes them against the horrors of war.  Like the Yanomamö socialized male children to be hostile, I think toys do the same, in a slightly more subtle way.  Although young males may not always be encouraged to fight each other, the toys they play with still encourage violence.