The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
Such pacifism and the dream of universal peace are no new ideas in the
world. Like the philosophy of war pacifism has a long history. There
have been pacifists everywhere and presumably at all times, since
pacifism is quite as much a temperament as it is an idea or a
philosophy. Cramb tells us that all recent centuries have had their
doctrines of pacifism, each century having its own characteristic
variety. In the time of the Marlborough wars, there appeared the book
of Abbe de St. Pierre denouncing all wars. In the middle of the
nineteenth century there is the doctrine of the Manchester school,
maintaining that the peace of Europe must be secured not by religion,
but by the cooeperation of the industrial forces of the continent.
Finally, says Cramb, we see the characteristic thought of the
twentieth century in the position that war is bad because it is
contrary to social well-being and is economically profitless, alike to
the victor and the vanquished. This is the pacifism of the socialist
who holds that the ties of common labor and economic state are
fundamental, and divisions into nationality are secondary and
unimportant; and that militarism belongs to the pernicious state of
society which perpetuates capitalism and privilege and to government
as a function of the favored classes.
This is certainly not the place to try to put order into this
conflicting mass of opinion about war and peace by working out the
principles of a philosophy of good and evil, since this would mean to
attack one of the most fundamental of all problems of philosophy. It
seems to be plain, however, that neither upon biological grounds nor
by ethical principles, nor by finding any consensus in the desires and
opinions of thinkers can we reach any hard and fast conclusions about
the good and evil of war. It is rather by a broad interpretation of
the world and of history and the nature of national consciousness, by
some genetic view of national life, that we are most likely to see our
way toward a practical view of the present good and evil of war. War
is a phase of the whole process of social development of nations. We
think of nations as living and growing, and of a world which is
gradually maturing. War obtains a natural explanation on sociological
and psychological principles, not as a disease, but as a natural
consequence and condition of the formation of nations, or of any type
of horde or group. In the course of the development of nations we see
psychological factors coming more and more to the front. Desires which
are more or less consciously avowed become the motives of history. It
is in the play of these desires: their fixation, their generalization,
and transformation, the manner in which they become attached to
specific objects, that we seek the explanation of wars and of the
especial psychology of nations. Nations have lived secluded and
guarded lives, because of the nature of the desires which were most
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