Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife , livre ebook

Pub One Info - Edward Carpenter

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79 pages

English

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The following Studies and Notes, made during the earlier period of the present war and now collected together for publication, do not - as will be evident to the reader - pretend to any sort of completeness in their embrace of the subject, or finality in its presentation. Rather they are scattered thoughts suggested by the large and tangled drama which we are witnessing; and I am sufficiently conscious that their expression involves contradictions as well as repetitions.

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World War I

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9782819900054
Langue	English

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I
I NTRODUCTORY
The following Studies and Notes, made during theearlier period of the present war and now collected together forpublication, do not – as will be evident to the reader – pretend toany sort of completeness in their embrace of the subject, orfinality in its presentation. Rather they are scattered thoughtssuggested by the large and tangled drama which we are witnessing;and I am sufficiently conscious that their expression involvescontradictions as well as repetitions.
The truth is that affairs of this kind – like allthe great issues of human life, Love, Politics, Religion,and so forth, do not, at their best, admit of final dispatch indefinite views and phrases. They are too vast and complex for that.It is, indeed, quite probable that such things cannot be adequatelyrepresented or put before the human mind without logicalinconsistencies and contradictions. But (perhaps for that veryreason) they are the subjects of the most violent and dogmaticdifferences of opinion. Nothing people quarrel about more bitterlythan Politics – unless it be Religion: both being subjects of whichall that one can really say for certain is – that nobodyunderstands them.
When, as in the present war, a dozen or more nationsenter into conflict and hurl at each other accusations of theangriest sort (often quite genuinely made and yet absolutelyirreconcilable one with another), and when on the top of thatscores and hundreds of writers profess to explain the resultingsituation in a few brief phrases (but unfortunately theirexplanations are all different), and calmly affix the blame on"Russia" or "Germany" or "France" or "England" – just as if thesenames represented certain responsible individuals, supposed for thepurposes of the argument to be of very wily and far-schemingdisposition – whereas it is perfectly well known that they reallyrepresent most complex whirlpools of political forces, in which themerest accidents (as whether two members of a Cabinet havequarrelled, or an Ambassador's dinner has disagreed with him) mayresult in a long and fatal train of consequences – it becomesobvious that all so-called "explanations" (though it may be rightthat they should be attempted) fall infinitely short, of thereality. 1
Feeling thus the impossibility of dealing at alladequately with the present situation, I have preferred to takehere and there just an aspect of it for consideration, with a viewespecially to the differences between Germany and England. I havethought that instead of spending time over recriminations one mightbe on safer ground by trying to get at the root-causes of this war(and other wars), thus making one's conclusions to some degreeindependent of a multitude of details and accidents, most of whichmust for ever remain unknown to us.
There are in general four rather well-marked speciesof wars – Religious wars, Race wars, wars of Ambition and Conquest,and wars of Acquisition and Profit – though in any particular casethe four species may be more or less mingled. The religious and therace motives often go together; but in modern times on the whole(and happily) the religious motive is not so very dominant. Wars ofrace, of ambition, and of acquisition are, however, still commonenough. Yet it is noticeable, as I frequently have occasion toremark in the following papers, that it only very rarely happensthat any of these wars are started or set in motion by themass-peoples themselves. The mass-peoples, at any rate of the moremodern nations, are quiescent, peaceable, and disinclined forstrife. Why, then, do wars occur? It is because the urge to warcomes, not from the masses of a nation but from certain classeswithin it. In every nation, since the dawn of history, there havebeen found, beside the toiling masses, three great main cliques orclasses, the Religious, the Military, and the Commercial. It was soin far-back ancient India; it is so now. Each of these classesendeavours in its turn – as one might expect – to become the rulingclass and to run the government of the nation. The governments ofthe nations thus become class-governments. And it is one or anotherof these classes that for reasons of its own, alone or incombination with another class, foments war and sets it going.
In saying this I do not by any means wish to sayanything against the mere existence of Class, in itself. In a sensethat is a perfectly natural thing. There are differentdivisions of human activity, and it is quite natural that thoseindividuals whose temperament calls them to a certain activity –literary or religious or mercantile or military or what not –should range themselves together in a caste or class; just as thedifferent functions of the human body range themselves in definiteorgans. And such grouping in classes may be perfectly healthy provided the class so created subordinates itself to the welfareof the Nation . But if the class does not subordinateitself to the general welfare, if it pursues its own ends, usurpsgovernmental power, and dominates the nation for its own uses – ifit becomes parasitical, in fact – then it and the nation inevitablybecome diseased; as inevitably as the human body becomes diseasedwhen its organs, instead of supplying the body's needs, become thetyrants and parasites of the whole system.
It is this Class-disease which in the main drags thenations into the horrors and follies of war. And the horrors andfollies of war are the working out and expulsion on the surface ofevils which have long been festering within. How many times in thehistory of "civilization" has a bigoted religious clique, or aswollen-headed military clique, or a greedy commercial gang –caring not one jot for the welfare of the people committed to itscharge – dragged them into a senseless and ruinous war for thesatisfaction of its own supposed interests! It is here and in thisdirection (which searches deeper than the mere weighing andbalancing of Foreign policies and Diplomacies) that we must lookfor the "explanation" of the wars of to-day.
And even race wars – which at first sight seem tohave little to do with the Class trouble – illustrate the truth ofmy contention. For they almost always arise from the hatredgenerated in a nation by an alien class establishing itself in themidst of that nation – establishing itself, maybe, as agovernmental or dominant class (generally a military or landlordclique) or maybe as a parasitical or competing class (as in thecase of the Jews in Europe and the Japanese in America and soforth). They arise, like all other wars, from the existence of aclass within the nation which is not really in accord with thepeople of that nation, but is pursuing its own interests apart fromtheirs. In the second of the following papers, "The Roots of theGreat War," I have drawn attention to the influence of the militaryand commercial classes, especially in Germany, and the way in whichtheir policy, coming into conflict with a similar policy in theother Western nations, has inevitably led to the presentembroilment. In Eastern Europe similar causes are at work, butthere the race elements – and even the religious – constitute amore important factor in the problem.
By a curious fatality Germany has become the centreof this great war and world-movement, which is undoubtedly destined– as the Germans themselves think, though in a way quite other thanthey think – to be of vast importance, and the beginning of a newera in human evolution. And the more one considers Germany's partin the affair, the more one sees, I think, that from the combinedinfluence of her historical antecedents and her national psychologythis fatality was to be expected. In roughly putting together theseantecedent elements and influences, I have entitled the chapter"The Case for Germany," because on the principle of toutcomprendre the fact of the evolution being inevitableconstitutes her justification. The nations cannot fairly complainof her having moved along a line which for a century or more hasbeen slowly and irresistibly prepared for her. On the other hand,the nations do complain of the manner and the methods with which atthe last she has precipitated and conducted the war – as indeedthey have shown by so widely combining against her. However right,from the point of view of destiny and necessity, Germany may be,she has apparently from the point of view of the moment put herselfin the wrong. And the chapter dealing with this phase of thequestion I have called "The Case against Germany."
Whatever further complications and postponements mayarise, there will certainly come a time of recovery andreconstruction on a wide and extended scale over Europe and a largepart of the world. To even outline this period would be impossibleat present; but in the sixth chapter and the last, as well as inthe intermediate pieces, I have given some suggestions towards thisfuture Healing of the Nations. * * * * *
The Evil – huge and monstrous as it is – is notsenseless, one may feel sure. Even now here in England oneperceives an extraordinary pulling together and bracing up of thepeople, a development of solidarity and mutual helpfulness, agreater seriousness, and a disregarding of artificialities, whichare all to the good. These things are gains, even though the way oftheir manifestation be through much of enmity and ignorance. Andone may fairly suppose that similar results are traceable in theother nations concerned. Wounds and death may seem senseless andneedless, but those who suffer them do not suffer in vain. Allthese shattering experiences, whether in a nation's career or inthe career of an individual, cause one – they force one – to lookinto the bases of life and to get nearer its realities. If, in thiscase, the experiences of the war, and the fire which the nationsare passing through, serve to destroy and burn up much of falsityin their respective habits and institutions, we shall have to admitthat the attendant disasters have not been all loss – even thoughat the s