Finished reading: The Moral Equivalent of War by William James đź“š
History is a bath of blood. The Illiad is one long recital of how Diomedes and Ajax, Sarpedon and Hector killed. No detail of the wounds they made is spared us, and the Greek mind fed upon the story. Greek history is a panorama of jingoism and imperialism—war for war’s sake, all the citizen’s being warriors.
Patriotism no one thinks discreditable; nor does any one deny that war is the romance of history. But inordinate ambitions are the soul of any patriotism, and the possibility of violent death the soul of all romance.
Its upshot can, it seems to me, be summed up in Simon Patten’s words, that mankind was nursed in pain and fear, and that the transition to a “pleasure economy” may be fatal to a being wielding no powers of defense against its degenerative influences. If we speak of the fear of emancipation from the fear-regime, we put the whole situation into a single phrase; fear regarding ourselves now taking the place off the ancient fear of the enemy.
Great indeed is Fear; but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men’s spiritual energy.