Why Men Fight: A method of abolishing the international duel — John Shaqi
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
But the effort required had been too great to cease when its purely
defensive purpose had been achieved by the defeat of Napoleon. Now, a
hundred years later, they are still engaged in the same movement, which
has become one of aggression and conquest. Whether we are now seeing
the end of the movement it is not yet possible to guess.
If men had any strong sense of a community of nations, nationalism
would serve to define the boundaries of the various nations. But
because men only feel community within their own nation, nothing but
force is able to make them respect the rights of other nations, even
when they are asserting exactly similar rights on their own behalf.
Analogous development is to be expected, with the course of time, in
the conflict between capital and labor which has existed since the
growth of the industrial system, and in the conflict between men and
women, which is still in its infancy.
What is wanted, in these various conflicts, is some principle,
genuinely believed, which will have justice for its outcome. The tug
of war of mutual self-assertion can only result in justice through an
accidental equality of force. It is no use to attempt any bolstering
up of institutions based on authority, since all such institutions
involve injustice, and injustice once realized cannot be perpetuated
without fundamental damage both to those who uphold it and to those who
resist it. The damage consists in the hardening of the walls of the
Ego, making them a prison instead of a window. Unimpeded growth in the
individual depends upon many contacts with other people, which must
be of the nature of free coöperation, not of enforced service. While
the belief in authority was alive, free coöperation was compatible
with inequality and subjection, but now equality and mutual freedom
are necessary. All institutions, if they are not to hamper individual
growth, must be based as far as possible upon voluntary combination,
rather than the force of the law or the traditional authority of the
holders of power. None of our institutions can survive the application
of this principle without great and fundamental changes; but these
changes are imperatively necessary if the world is to be withheld from
dissolving into hard separate units each at war with all the others.
The two chief sources of good relations between individuals are
instinctive liking and a common purpose. Of these two, a common purpose
might seem more important politically, but, in fact, it is often
the outcome, not the cause, of instinctive liking, or of a common
instinctive aversion. Biological groups, from the family to the nation,
are constituted by a greater or less degree of instinctive liking, and
build their common purposes on this foundation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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