After Grossman?

Ellerask

Newbie
Talk about Grossmens literature has popped up in a later Podcast and that his statements might not be as valid as he claimed. When you start examining his work the studies and conclusions derived from them are questionable.

Here is an debate about his work that highlight some of the problems. http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/Main-R.htm

That is not to say that some of his statements have merit, but I would agree that he over simplifies things to draw his conclusions and there is evidence from the same time period that contradicts his conclusions that he chooses to not take in to account.

I too at first took Grossmans work as gospel, but now know that it is lacking in explaining how to prepare for combat or deadly encounters, even though it do contains some pieces of the puzzle.

That said his work still pops up in discussions as stated facts, witch it is not. That makes it an holy cow that needs to be slaughtered with better information.

What literature or studies has been published after his work that tackle the same problems and are worth reading.

Personally find Varg Freeborns "Violence of Mind" be one of the better and most insightful books on the subject I have read.

Please discuss what you find lacking in his work and why.
 

Payback

Newbie
Whenever Grossman comes up in professional settings, I have two targets that I always ensure I hit.

1.) If the conversation is about what work of Grossman's is "worth it" I will always recommend "ON COMBAT" over "ON KILLING", full stop. On Combat has got a few nuggets worth of information in there that military, law enforcement, 1st responders, and training junkies all need to read and make a part of their discipline. None of it is revolutionarily earth shatteringly amazeballs, but not enough people write or digest AARs either. Just point out that OC is better for the audience at large than OK, acknowledge the myriad flaws in On Killing and move on to the next thing. I've read both and have both on the shelf at the house. If I lost both, I would only spend the money to replace my copy of On Combat.

2.) I strongly recommend "The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence" by Michael Ghiglieri as the scientific counterpoint to On Killing. Ghiglieri is an Army veteran and martial artist who earned his Ph. D in Biological Anthropology studying the Great Apes in Africa in the 1970s. Using years of scientific research of other primates he examines war, murder, rape, and genocide and draws corollaries to human males, basically the entire book deconstructs the psychologist approach of Grossman and looks at the molecular DNA encoding that the capacity for violence truly exists within all of us. As the title says, it's DARK, but there is a lot of great data inside and anybody who takes issue with Grossman and his borderline puritanical belief that it's oh so hard to train and condition people to commit violence will love reading it. I know I did. I will mention that TDSOM precedes OK by about 3 years, but it is a lesser known yet IMHO more relevant study.

Currently reading "Violence of Mind" and will most likely finish it this evening. A great work from my perspective.
 

Bravo1ResQ

Amateur
I actually had a decent thread on this topic (sorta) on the bookface groups. Check out Torin Hill's Toris Training. He made my understanding and "study" of Grossman look elementary at best. If you reach out to him I'm sure he'd happily provide some "light" reading for you on this topic. I'm STILL going over a list of readings he provided to me over a year ago. A lot of which I'm rereading after reading a separate study to gain a better understanding.
 

ccw1911

Newbie
I work with some really good people who take Grossman as THE source, his stuff and point shooting SMH. It's like read one book and never even consider anything else, I can't do that which puts me at odds with them.
 
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