War in the Head: Against the Militarization of Thought

Today, Europe seems to speak only the language of rearmament; it has “war in its head”. Diplomacy has fallen silent, politics is fading, and military urgency now shapes public discourse. This book denounces the “bellicisation” of our society—the infiltration of the logic of war into our collective imagination and mindset—revealing how it has reshaped perceptions, relationships, and political life. Through a socio-cultural analysis, it unpacks the normalisation of war as the default response to global crises, showing how militarised language and narratives distort reality and weaken critical consciousness. Europe, once conceived as a project of peace, is increasingly transforming itself into a fortress—not only in material terms but also in the symbolic realm. In an age marked by growing desensitisation to the threat of conflict and by the celebration of "resilience" as a military virtue, this book issues a radical appeal: to disarm our language in order to rebuild an anthropology of coexistence. Against the intellectual endorsement of "warrior virtues" as the foundation of social cohesion, it argues for an urgent rethinking of the future grounded in the gentleness of the just, openness to others, and the absolute rejection of war.