“The militarily-patriotic and the romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution.”
1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: The militarily-patriotic and the romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution. The notion of a sheep's paradise like that revolts, they say, our higher imagination. Where then would be the steeps of life? If war had ever stopped, we should have to re-invent it, on this view, to redeem life from flat degeneration.
Reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it religiously. It is a sort of sacrament. It's profits are to the vanquished as well as to the victor; and quite apart from any question of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human nature at its highest dynamic.
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William James 246
American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910Related quotes
Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 14 (p. 268)
Context: At the end of the Vietnam War, I was actively involved in the Stop-the-Draft movement. I've done a full 180-degree turn today. [... ] As long as we have a professional military, it's not going to touch that many Americans whose attitude is, "Well, they all volunteered, they're there because they want to be." The fact is, a professional military is now the strong arm of our president and corporate America, and the gun can be pulled out of the holster far too easily. It creates an atmosphere where the majority of the fighting men are poor people. Trying to improve in the military is their only way of getting a college education down the line. The rich kids, even a great majority of the middle class kids, are not serving.
I'm okay with a professional military during peacetime, but the moment a vote to go to war occurs, the draft should automatically be reinstated. We need to make war as difficult as we can to declare. You've got to bring the war home.
“Especially dangerous on the musical front in the present class war.”
An official Soviet verdict on Rachmaninoff's music, delivered in 1931; cited from Percy A. Scholes The Oxford Companion to Music, 5th edn. (London: Oxford University Press, 1944) p. 775.
Criticism
Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 98
"Notes on Nationalism" (1945)
Context: By "nationalism" I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled "good" or "bad." But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By "patriotism" I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
Source: The Outline of History (1920), Ch. 40
Source: Rules of Sociological Method, 1895, p. 64
Colville, John. Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle. New York: Wyndham Books, 1981. p. 161
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