The impulse of expansion undergoes but a slight change to become the will to domination. This latter is a primitive impulse. The Indian was taught to despise manual labor, but to glory in the overcoming and plundering of other tribes. It is still dominant in the race. What men desire, at least in the Western world, is power, and they would rather exercise dominion over others than be free themselves. Goethe puts the idea in poetical form:
“How often has it arisen! Yes, and it will arise
Ever and evermore! No man yields sovereignty
Unto his fellow: none will yield to him
Who won the power by force, and by force keeps his hold.
For man, who cannot rule his own unruly heart,
Is hot to rule his neighbor, bind him to his will.”[25]
The desire for dominion was awakened by the Napoleonic aggressions, and has played a great part in fanning the flame of nationalism in the nineteenth century. It has given nationalism an aggressive and militant character. And the people of a democratic country are not immune from the virus; they as well as kings sometimes give themselves up to the thirst for domination, a fact which has at least some bearing upon whether or not democracy will make the world safe. The citizen rarely disputes the external sovereignty of his country. Consequently the fact of internal democracy by no means gives assurance that a country will uniformly abstain from assuming the attitude of a dynastic state when it faces the world. Democracy often ceases at the water’s edge.
Pride is a part of patriotism. Men walk with heads up and chests out at the consciousness of belonging to a conquering or respected nation. The triumphal processions of the Romans were a spectacle that no doubt stirred patriotism of this variety in noble Roman hearts. They could “point with pride” to their glory. And a little touch of glory makes the whole world kin; modern men in their swelling national pride are of the same stock as the ancient men of Rome. Men now identify themselves with their group, and feel that along with it, they themselves rise or fall in importance. If the country submits to another’s will, they hang their heads in shame; if it imposes upon another its own will, they hold their heads high. An important practical consequence of national pride is that no people now would voluntarily consent to peace without honor, which is food for thought in the planning of peace.
The patriotism of pride is not loath to meet its adversary upon the field of honor. When nations have a lively sense of power and prestige, a situation is created which furnishes admirable fuel for trouble. For insecure pride will induce fear, and fearful pride will allow no nation to do other than to resent insults, real or supposed, promptly and bitterly. Material interests need not clash in order that a war be provoked. If the patriot says to himself that the country’s honor has been assailed, the fight is on, no matter what the insult may consist in; it may have to do with only a matter of mere punctilio. An insult has been offered, and injured pride does not enjoy itself until it reaps revenge. Of course the crime is that the insult is a public one. “The act that, more certainly than any other, provokes vengeful emotion is the public insult, which, if not immediately resented, lowers one in the eyes of one’s fellows. Such an insult calls out one’s positive self-feeling, with its impulse to assert oneself and to make good one’s value and power in the public eye.”[26]
But it does not happen that any one country is allowed to assert itself without opposition. Others will follow the example, attempt to assert themselves, and make good their prestige. What then happens is that there is a race for power, and patriotism becomes a spirit of rivalry or emulation.[27] The fact is that what most of us desire is not only well-being but prestige, not only the Good, but the Better or the Best. Athletic contests are invested with such great interest not only because they may be good games, but because they are contests, contests perhaps between traditional rivals, or are for the championship of this, that, or the other. It is likewise with countries. National welfare is viewed at the present time very largely as a competitive success. And affairs have come to such a condition that no one country dares to let up in its vigilance in the universal competition. Individually it is helpless. If it relaxes, its competitor will monopolize all the advantages, its own prestige will be lowered, and it will be inviting aggression in which it will be preyed upon. There doesn’t seem to be much help for the situation except in the concerted action of nations. But in the meanwhile the struggle goes on, and patriots throw themselves into the spirit of it with abandon.
It should be said that it is not inevitable that the impulse of rivalry should issue exclusively in destructive conflict. One does not need to destroy his competitor in order that he himself should be benefited, and in fact enlightened competition does desire the preservation and welfare of the competitors. One way in which the emulative impulse differs from the combative impulse, for instance, is just this, that it does seek to preserve a defeated competitor. The possibility is, then, that patriotism may be sublimated into a higher and more innocent form of rivalry than what we have at present.
We have, however, to deal with the present fact that the rivalry of nations is likely to issue in war. And hence it becomes necessary to take into consideration the impulse of pugnacity. The plain fact is that war has a fascination. Even if one’s own country be not involved, one turns eagerly to the war news in the daily papers. History is the history of wars. The attractiveness of war is expressed in the following verse of Richard Le Gallienne:
“War
I abhor
And yet how sweet
The sound along the marching street
Of drum and fife! and I forget
Wet eyes of widows, and forget
Broken old mothers, and the whole
Dark butchery without a soul.”
There is that about the martial life which excites enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm gets connected with patriotism. Patriotism runs at high tide in war times.[28]