When he wrote‘On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society’ , Lt Col Dave Grossman provided us with a fascinating exploration of how ordinary people face killing other ordinary people. In a world where the media provides us with billions of deaths by every conceivable means, deaths that scare us, excite us and sometimes entice us, it becomes increasingly hard to separate fact from fiction. The advance nature of internet shoot ’em up gaming allows us to virtually kill whenever we feel like it. War is becoming like a computer game where an operative using a joystick can fly a drone thousands of miles away and kill with impunity unleashing their Hellfire missiles on the hated enemy. The more remote the enemy the easier it is for us to kill them.

Grossman discusses distance at some length if you pardon the pun. he uses…