Municipal government -- United States; Peace; Political participation -- United States; Social justice; Working class -- United States
It is difficult to formulate the newer dynamic peace, embodying the
later humanism, as over against the old dogmatic peace. The word
“non-resistance” is misleading, because it is much too feeble and
inadequate. It suggests passivity, the goody-goody attitude of
ineffectiveness. The words “overcoming,” “substituting,” “re-creating,”
“readjusting moral values,” “forming new centres of spiritual energy”
carry much more of the meaning implied. For it is not merely the desire
for a conscience at rest, for a sense of justice no longer outraged,
that would pull us into new paths where there would be no more war nor
preparations for war. There are still more strenuous forces at work
reaching down to impulses and experiences as primitive and profound
as are those of struggle itself. That “ancient kindliness which sat
beside the cradle of the race,” and which is ever ready to assert
itself against ambition and greed and the desire for achievement, is
manifesting itself now with unusual force, and for the first time
presents international aspects.
Moralists agree that it is not so much by the teaching of moral
theorems that virtue is to be promoted as by the direct expression of
social sentiments and by the cultivation of practical habits; that in
the progress of society sentiments and opinions have come first, then
habits of action and lastly moral codes and institutions. Little is
gained by creating the latter prematurely, but much may be accomplished
to the utilization of human interests and affections. The Advocates
of Peace would find the appeal both to Pity and Prudence totally
unnecessary, could they utilize the cosmopolitan interest in human
affairs with the resultant social sympathy that at the present moment
is developing among all the nations of the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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