Among these aesthetic elements of war must be considered of course the rhythms, the forms, all the concerted action, the marching (which may be regarded as one of the forms of the dance), the parade, the maneuvering and drill that enter into military life. Already in primitive warfare these aesthetic forms begin to appear and indicate clearly both their practical significance as means of affecting the will, and their relations to the religious and to the reproductive motives. The warrior tries to create in his person the appearance of power, and also by the aesthetic forms he introduces into his warfare, the feeling of power. He believes indeed that through these aesthetic forms he actually creates or exerts power. This is the motive of the war dance, which as an aesthetic form produces this ecstasy of the feeling of power. This power is often conceived to be magical; the women dancing at home are supposed to exert an influence upon the men in the field or upon the enemy, and the savage believes that in his own displays he actually overcomes the spirit of his enemy. Art is here plainly serving a purpose. Display is a means of creating an impression in the minds of the enemy. It also has the purpose of creating an effect in the mind of the soldier himself. The art in military life is, indeed, to give the impression of power to all who must be affected by the exhibition of force.
All social life contains elements that appeal to the aesthetic sense, and these aesthetic elements are by no means solely ornamental. The universal development of etiquette and manners has reference to very practical aspects of the social life. Their function is to influence the will. The highly developed etiquette of military life is not merely to facilitate the military functions, and it is no explanation of the formalism of the military life to say that this is a sign of its archaic nature. Formalism in this life is one of the means taken to cover up all the details of militarism that are repugnant: the hardship, the lack of freedom and the like. Etiquette acts persuasively upon the will, it helps to make military life desired, and to make men submissive under control of absolute leaders. All formalism in social life, considered in one aspect of it, is a symbol of the resignation of the will of the individual. As thus a symbol it may either convey or mediate social feeling, and when social feeling is absent the art of manners may become a substitute for this social feeling, and in both these ways it is a means of giving to society cohesion, order and form.
Such considerations as these help to explain the longing for war or its equivalent which persists in the human heart. It helps us to realize the truth of Cramb's (66) assertion that the whole history of the world shows that man has lacked not only the power but the will to end war and establish perpetual peace. There are still motives in the mind of man that make him approve of war. War is perpetuated because of its heroic form, as a form of experience in which the meaning of life is felt to be exploited, in which life is transformed and glorified, in which the tragedy of life, which in any case is inevitable, becomes a tragedy which, because it bears the form of art, is acceptable and even longed for. This is the allurement of war, its persistent illusion, perhaps. The aesthetic forms of war take war out of the field of reason, and on occasion make it transcend or pervert reason. So we may understand why it is true that sometimes those who but little understand why they are to die on the field of battle may display the greatest courage and the greatest enthusiasm for war, and we must not say that these causes are fatuous because they exist in the realm of aesthetic values.
If we take war too realistically, with reference to its practical motives, its mere killing and looting, which we may suspect are related to the nutritional motive that we always find running through human conduct, and leave out of account those aspects of war which seem to belong mainly to the reproductive motive, to the enthusiasm and intoxication and art of the world, we shall to that extent misunderstand it. These motives cannot, of course, be separated definitely from one another in analyzing conduct, but we cannot be very wrong in differentiating phases of war which belong predominantly to the reproductive motive. It is because, at least, all deep tendencies of life are involved in war that it is so hard to eliminate it from experience. If war were an instinctive reaction it might be controlled by reason. If it were an atavism or a rudimentary organ some social surgery or other might relieve us of it. But war is a product of man's idealism, misdirected and impracticable idealism though it may be, but still something very expressive of what man is. It is this idealism of nations, leading them to the larger life, that makes them cling to war, whether for good or for evil. It will avail little to prove to the world that war is an evil, so long as war is desired, or so long as something which war so readily yields is desired. Statistics of eugenics and proofs that war ruins business will not yet cure us of our habit of war, and not at all so long as there is a vacancy in life which only the dramatic experiences of war can fill. When war is abandoned, it will be given up probably not because economists and sociologists vote against k, and we see that peace is good, but by the consent of a world which, once for all, is willing to renounce something that is dear to it and held to be good, if for no other reason, because it symbolizes what life and reality are. The world appears to have two minds about war, or at least it does not hold consistently to any one attitude toward it. Beneath all judgments about the evils of war, there is the allurement of these aesthetic motives which must be reckoned with in any psychology of war, or in any practical plan for eliminating war from the future experience of the race.
CHAPTER V[ToC]
PATRIOTISM, NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL HONOR
Many authors find in patriotism or in national honor the chief or the sole cause of war. Jones (37), the Freudian, for example, says that patriotism is the sum of those causes of war which are conscious as distinguished from the repressed motives. Nicolai (79) says that patriotism and chauvinism would have no meaning and no interest without reference to war, and that for the arts of peace one needs no patriotism at all. Hoesch-Ernst (32), another German writer, says that patriotism has made history a story of wars. It has developed the highest virtues (and the worst vices), but it creates artificial boundaries among peoples, and gives to every fighter the belief that he is contending against brute force. Veblen (97) says that patriotism is the only obstacle to peace among the nations. MacCurdy (37) speaks of the paradox of human nature seen in the fact that the loyalty we call patriotism, which may make a man a benefactor to the whole race, may become a menace to mankind when it is narrowly focussed. Novicow says that what shall be foreign is a purely conventional matter. Another writer remarks that patriotism is the guise under which the instincts of tiger and wolf run riot.