“War necessary to civilization?”
Well, for a long time in the life of the human race nature was so ill understood, man had such insufficient knowledge and control of nature, that it was extremely difficult to get a living for all. Our ancestors naturally quarreled; perhaps it was necessary for some of them to kill others in order that some of them might live—ignorant as the people were in those times of how to make nature yield bountifully and easily for all. And no doubt the struggle developed the race—the part that did not get killed. In those struggles were developed, at first, strong muscles, skin-ripping claws or knife-like finger-nails, tusks in the mouth, and thick skins; and, later, clubs, spears, cross-bows, bows-and-arrows; and still later, rifles, cannon, battleships and lignite shells, and also the methods and tactics of struggle;—all these were developed. Always, too, cunning, deception, malignance, egoism, egotism, coarse-grained dispositions, cheap ambitions, swaggering manners, fierce eyes, and the soft, bull-like military voices and hero worship—all these were developed.
The muscles and the mentality thus developed are still extremely useful. Indeed, the mentality, developed in war (but neither wholly nor chiefly in war), is worth all it cost, whatever it did cost, because with this godlike mentality, and only with this mentality, we can now have the higher and finer forms and phases of life, the pleasures that distinguish man from the brutes; that is, with this mentality we can have these more glorious forms of life: Provided, that the low cunning, deception, malignance, egoism, egotism and the coarse-grained strain of the ancient brute are not even yet too strong in our veins and characters. In spite of one’s intelligence he may be “not only willing, but anxious to fight.” Such a person may no longer have the skin-ripping finger-claws, but he has the skin-ripping disposition that was developed when the skin-ripping finger-claws were developed, and developed in the same way.
Now, of course, we still need the muscle and the intelligence, every one of us. But we do not any longer need the skin-rippers, or the tusks, or the club, the “big stick,” the spear, the bow and arrow, the rifle and the battleship; nor do we any longer need the arrogant egotism, the cheap cunning, the prize-fighter ambitions or the tiger’s readiness to take blood. Nor should we any longer need the ancient method of struggle, every-fellow-for-himself, in the industrial process of life—in a rationally organized society, with our present control of nature. And we should no longer enjoy any of these brute means and methods if we were civilized in the noblest sense, that is, if we were decently socialized.
“Are you ready for the question?” This is the question:
Can you use, do you prefer to use—your developed mentality like a brute, like a savage, or like a truth-seeking, socialized man? Are you “not only willing, but anxious to fight,” or are the business and the methods of the brute disgusting to you? What o’clock is it in your personal evolution? Do you prefer a library to an armory, books rather than bayonets? Is a fight natural, or necessary, or helpful in your personal development? If a fight, actual part in a fight rifle-in-hand, is not necessary to the preacher, the senator, the professor, the banker or the manufacturer, why should it seem necessary in your case—and why should you permit these “better class” citizens to have you ordered and led around like a prize-winning bull-dog to fight in the international prize-ring called the struggle for the world market? War as a developer and a civilizer is a flat failure in your case if the capitalist class can seduce you for fifty cents a day to fight for a foreign market for American porter-house steak while you and your father and mother are fed on third-rate meat, beans, cheap syrup and mock-coffee without cream. Brother, you may indeed be a “brave boy,” and a “good shot,” and you may have heroically stained your hands in other men’s blood; but, really, the “upper class” have marked you as an easy victim, a useable cheap “guy” of the “lower class.”
(20) John Ruskin keenly appreciated the capitalist’s craftiness and the workingman’s buffoonery in “a war for civilization.” He wrote:[[212]]
“Capitalists, when they do not know what to do with their money, persuade the peasants that the said peasants want guns to shoot each other with. The peasants accordingly borrow guns, out of the manufacture of which the capitalists get a percentage, and men of science much amusement and credit. Then the peasants shoot a certain number of each other until they get tired, and burn each other’s houses down in various places. Then they put the guns back into towns, arsenals, etc., in ornamental patterns, and the victorious party put also some ragged flags in churches. And then the capitalists tax both annually, ever afterwards, to pay interest on the loan of the guns and powder.”
The Italian historian Ferrero sees the swinish snout of the ruling class greed in the wars of three thousand years of “civilization.” He writes:[[213]]
“During those thirty centuries from which dates our historical knowledge, war has been more a social system than a cruel pastime for kings—the first most violent and brutal means adopted by ruling minorities to acquire wealth.”