Why Men Fight: A method of abolishing the international duelRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Why Men Fight: A method of abolishing the international duel
Russell, Bertrand
Liberty; Property; Social problems; State, The; War
The unifying of life ought not to demand the suppression of the casual
desires that make amusement and play; on the contrary, everything ought
to be done to make it easy to combine the main purposes of life with
all kinds of pleasure that are not in their nature harmful. Such things
as habitual drunkenness, drugs, cruel sports, or pleasure in inflicting
pain are essentially harmful, but most of the amusements that civilized
men naturally enjoy are either not harmful at all or only accidentally
harmful through some effect which might be avoided in a better society.
What is needed is, not asceticism or a drab Puritanism, but capacity
for strong impulses and desires directed towards large creative ends.
When such impulses and desires are vigorous, they bring with them, of
themselves, what is needed to make a good life.
But although amusement and adventure ought to have their share, it is
impossible to create a good life if they are what is mainly desired.
Subjectivism, the habit of directing thought and desire to our own
states of mind rather than to something objective, inevitably makes
life fragmentary and unprogressive. The man to whom amusement is the
end of life tends to lose interest gradually in the things out of
which he has been in the habit of obtaining amusement, since he does
not value these things on their own account, but on account of the
feelings which they arouse in him. When they are no longer amusing,
boredom drives him to seek some new stimulus, which fails him in its
turn. Amusement consists in a series of moments without any essential
continuity; a purpose which unifies life is one which requires some
prolonged activity, and is like building a monument rather than a
child’s castle in the sand.
Subjectivism has other forms beside the mere pursuit of amusement.
Many men, when they are in love, are more interested in their own
emotion than in the object of their love; such love does not lead to
any essential union, but leaves fundamental separateness undiminished.
As soon as the emotion grows less vivid the experience has served its
purpose, and there seems no motive for prolonging it. In another way,
the same evil of subjectivism was fostered by Protestant religion and
morality, since they directed attention to sin and the state of the
soul rather than to the outer world and our relations with it. None
of these forms of subjectivism can prevent a man’s life from being
fragmentary and isolated. Only a life which springs out of dominant
impulses directed to objective ends can be a satisfactory whole, or be
intimately united with the lives of others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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