Introduction

 

One of the questions that I am hoping to address in this paper could be summed up in the following way.  Are we, in the European Union, really living in the manifestation of Kant’s Perpetual Peace or in the Federation of Peaceful Democracies that Kant and the other philosophers of the enlightenment were so passionate about?  If the answer to that question is yes – the second question might be – so where do we go from here?

 

To bring the argument right up to date I want to start with a quote form the new British Foreign Sectary –David Miliband.  In a very thoughtful statement shortly after the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish voters (2008) he said the Irish vote raised:

 

The fundamental question –what is the purpose of the European Union now?  The old question that it represented an end to war in Europe is no longer sufficient?

The trouble we have today is not that the EU has failed.  It is the opposite the problem is that it has succeeded and the people of Europe now take that success for granted.[i]

 

I find the implications of this statement absolutely amazing.  David Miliband is right the European Union does represent an end to war in Europe which is historically unprecedented.  The amazing part is that he and others would think that this is no longer sufficient for the peoples of Europe. 

 

In this analysis of the Collapse of the War System in Europe I start from the position that the logic of war –the philosophy of war, the ideology of war- is totally bankrupt.  That was the position as stated by Einstein, Oppenheimer and other scientists after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It was the position on the afternoon of October the 27^th 1962 when under certain circumstances two groups of very rational, well educated and good men came to within a hairs breath of incinerating the Northern Hemisphere and creating a nuclear winter. 

 

 

The Title Explained

 

The term ‘Collapse’ in the title of the paper was chosen deliberately because I think that it represents from a cultural perspective an incredible process that has been taking place in Europe during the second half of the twentieth century.  Other terms may be more acceptable such as ‘demise’ or the ‘weakening’ of the war system but the term ‘collapse’ has a particular meaning.  The question of how systems actually collapse is a research area that has been developed in recent times.  It is a separate issued that has been studied and analysised by people like Jared Diamond in his ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive’ (2005)[ii].  The important point is that many systems collapse rather than decline.  And that many systems collapse when they seem to be at their height or when they seem to be the most secure. 

 

The dates in the title are also selected somewhat on an arbitrary basis.  The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 is generally recognized as the beginning of the modern state system in Europe and the relationship between the modern nation state and the war system seems to be totally symbiotic.  The treaty of Lisbon if is finally ratified is another step in the development in the history of post war Europe in the cultural sense more than in the time sense.

 

European society has experienced more than its fair share of the explosive violence associated with ethnic nationalism, religious intolerance, ideological differences, problems of cultural diversity and many other causative factors.   The grudges held and the animosities built up have not disappeared entirely from European culture.  The ferocity of the conflicts associated with the break up of the former Yugoslavia can confirm how explosive these forces still are.  But at the beginning of the twenty first century Europe is a continent at peace, with growing social, economic and political stability.

 

The Ideology of Violence versus the Philosophy of Peace

 

There are many reasons given for how and why this happened.  In my opinion the explanations that are given are based around two very distinct foundations.  The first set of explanations are based around what I call the ‘Ideology of Violence’ or which could be called the ‘Logic of Violence’. The second set of explanations are based around what I call the ‘Philosophy of Peace’ which could be called the ‘Logic of Peace.’

 

The ideology of violence covers that set of explanations that are based around a realist perspective of the utility of violence in human affairs.  It could be summed up in the Latin proverb ‘If you want peace, prepare for war’ or by Theodore Roosevelt ‘s statement ‘Talk quietly and carry a big stick’. 

 

The philosophy of peace set of explanations are centred around the more normative explanations and can be summed up after over fifty years of peace research as ‘If you want peace prepare for peace’. 

 

From the security perspective the bipolar order imposed by the superpowers at the end of the second world war seemed to have allowed the smaller states of western Europe the luxury of developing civilian economies.  But the structure of the changes were much deeper than this. 

 

At the end of the twentieth century in almost ever European state where the citizens were given the opportunity they viewed war as something to be feared and avoided at all costs and not something to be applauded or admired.

 

In Greece, in Spain and in Portugal the military elites and their cultural certainties were pushed out of politics.  Their peaceful transition to democracy should be seen as unprecedented in European history

 

Why Europeans Hate War and How Americans are seduced by War

 

Some of the arguments in this paper have been developed in at least two recently published books that I want to identify.  The first is the book by Professor James Sheehan: ‘The Monopoly of Violence’[iii] (2008) but it is the subtitle of the book that reflects the arguments being developed in this paper.  The subtitle is ‘Why Europeans Hate going to War.’  This subtitle is in the form of a statement rather than a question.  If the statement is correct and if Europeans do hate going to war as Sheehan argues than that does signify an incredible change in the European culture of violence.

 

The Monopoly of Violence or Why Europeans Hate going to War

 

Sheehan argues that the forces that have brought about the decline of militarism in Europe – in the world’s most violent continent – have been misunderstood and have not been fully explained.  We Europeans have murdered each other over every conceivable difference and in many cases for no particular reason.   Sheehan believes that to day more than ever: ‘The conventional wisdom about war and peace no longer fit the contemporary world.’[iv]

 

The Monopoly of Violence contributes some important new perspectives on the long historical debate on the role of war in modern society.  Issues of the Garrison State versus the Civilian State. 

 

The New American Militarism How Americans are Seduced by War

 

The second book that I want to acknowledge is by Professor Andrew J. Bacevich , The New American Militarism[v] (2006). But again it is the subtitle of the book: How Americans are Seduced by War, that reflects some of the arguments that I want to take up.  I think the subtitle could have just as easily have been ‘How Europeans were historically seduced by war.’

 

Bacevich’s own background as a graduate of the West Point Academy and a Vietnam War Veteran does give his arguments some authority.  He identifies what he describes as a relatively new phenomenon as the ‘military metaphysics’.  He see this as a major development in American political culture.  This development manifests itself:

 

In a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force.[vi]

 

In historical terms he could be describing England, France, Germany or any other aggressive European states.

Bacevich is not the first person to describe this ‘Military Utopianism’ but he does it with a clarity that is refreshing.

 

Within the debate on the collapse of the war system in Europe these two questions are central:  Do Europeans really hate war now ? And were Europeans really seduced by war in the past?

 

The John Hume Analysis

 

I would like to look at what I call the John Hume analysis.  John Hume was the leader of the moderate Nationalist party (the SDLP) in Northern Ireland during the worst years of the recent sectarian conflict.  He stood firmly against the use of violence to try and resolve the bitter ethnic, national and religious conflict and had afflicted Northern Ireland for centuries.  He won the Nobel Peace Prize (1989) for his contribution to long drawn out peace process. 

 

He was and still is a great supporter of the European Union and he repeatedly stated his belief that the European Project was one of the great success stories in relation to creating peaceful societies our of war torn systems and regions. 

 

In his Nobel peace prize (1989) acceptance speech he emphasised the same beliefs when he said

 

The European Union is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution and it is the duty of everyone, particularly those who live in areas of conflict to study how it was done and to apply its principles to their own conflict resolution.[vii]

 

He went on to emphasise what he believed was one of the key factors in this process.

One of the most fundamental principles of peace as established within the European Community is:

 

..The respect for diversity.  The peoples of Europe (then) created institutions which respected their diversity.[viii]

 

Is John Hume right? Has Europe through the European Union become one of the first post war civil societies?

 

From a purely historical perspective the argument for Europe as a post war civil society seems very strong.  In a matter of a few decades the European Union project has moved the countries and the peoples of Europe beyond their bitter historical animosities.  This was no mean feat.  What are the lessons if any that can be learnt for other regions that are still experiencing their own bitter conflicts?  Or is the European experience unique to Europe?

 

The Historical Framework

 

The idea of a new Europe united in peace and prosperity has long historical roots.  It would be unforgivable to overlook the philosophers of the enlightenment.  Their contribution to the idea of a Europe beyond the petty squabbles of their masters, a Europe beyond the ingrained bitterness fostered by religious and ethnic difference, cannot be underestimated.  My own favourite is Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and I think he is an excellent starting point.  Particularly his A Lasting Peace Through the Federation of Europe (1782)[ix].   Rousseau himself acknowledges the work his predecessors such as the Abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658-1743) and the Abbé himself was indebted to the work of other individuals such as the duc de Sully (1560-1641).  Many other historical figures have contributed to the evolution of the debate including Desiderius Erasmus (1466- 1536) and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645)

 

I know other people might prefer Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and the ideas put forward in his Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1795)[x] 

He starts from the belief that:

 

The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state

(status naturalis); the natural state is one of war…A state of peace, therefore must be established…(Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch 1795)

 

But it is in my opinion Rousseau that clearly outlines the possibilities of a peaceful Europe.  The very first statement in his ‘A lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe’ (1782) sums up the debate.  In his statement on Saint Pierre’s Project he states:

 

Never did the mind of man conceive a scheme nobler, more beautiful, or more useful than that of a lasting peace between all the peoples of Europe.  Never did a writer better deserve a respectful hearing than he who suggests means for putting that scheme in practice.  What man, if he has a spark of goodness, but must feel his heart glow within him at so fair a prospect? 

 

From Rousseau onwards a whole range of enlightened minds tried to solve the problem of political violence in Europe.  While many of  the philosophers of the enlightenment tried to envision a Europe at peace with itself others took a different approach.  During the nineteenth century Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Georges Sorel warned of the possible dangers of peace in Europe from a very different perspective.  In the house of the enlightenment there seemed to be very many different rooms.

 

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and George Sorel

 

The writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) are full of inconsistencies and are problematic in relation to many of most important issues that still challenge the European cultural metanarrative. 

 

On the one hand Proudhon believed that at some stage in human development war would give way to peace.  He believed that this development might take place towards the end of the 19^th century.  On the other hand he regarded war as a constructive force which had contributed much to humanity and the dignity of Man.  In this world view wars conferred upon the common man a kind of dignity that ordinary industrial life was failing to provide.  Proudhon wrote:

 

‘For the masses, the real Christ is Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon.’[xi]

 

Proudhon believed that the Christian doctrine on war had never really become a dominant force in European Civilization.  The idea that war by its very nature was evil, and peace by its nature virtuous, had lost much of its meaning and value.  For Proudhon the view of war as an ennobling spiritual experience seemed to become more relevant with the continuing decline in any spiritual consensus of the emerging European industrial civilization. 

 

This theme was taken up by Georges Sorel (1847-1922) in his “Reflections on Violence“[xii] in which he identified and criticized the age-old association of violence with barbarism.  He rejected the idea that gentleness is the mark of Civilization, and that acts of collective and individual violence alike should be regarded as barbarous. 

 

In ‘Reflections on Violence’ Sorel attacked the liberal concepts and ideas that were critical of the use of violence.  He also criticised the socialists and revolutionaries who saw violence as a tool of the revolution.  Sorel was not advocating violence for its own sake.  His position on violence was much more subtle than that.  He believed that the greatest danger to any society was not violence but materialism and decadence.  He believed that these dangers were greatest in societies where violence was pasteurised behind legal frameworks. For Sorel:

 

Violence and war (had) become the leading instruments of Civilization because they dedicate men to non-material ends.[xiii]

Sorel’s world-view was set firmly in the tradition of those who questioned the benefits of industrialization.  In this framework “Reason and science had not emancipated man; they had enslaved and debased him.”[xiv]  For Sorel, social, political or any fundamental cultural change was never gradual, uniform or easy.  Sorel believed that in historical terms violence was the key to many of the great social developments.  He emphasized in many of writings the creative role of violence, he believed that “Proletarian violence” was the only means of transforming society.  ‘Proletarian violence not only makes the future revolution certain, but it seems also to be the only means by which the European nations - at present stupefied by humanitarianism - can recover their former energy’.[xv]

 

What Sorel was attempting to do was to reconfirm beyond doubt the legitimacy and authenticity of violence as a means to an end.  Violence was not only to be seen as a means to an end but also as the only way of achieving fundamental social change in society.  The concept of the heroic age and the role of the hero were key factors in Sorel’s manifesto for violence.

 

Those willing to engage in violence, irrespective of its consequences, are manifestly more heroic, more trustworthy, more dedicated than those who profess commitment to goals but shrink from the means necessary to achieve them; so argues Sorel in his ethics of violence.[xvi]

Many of Sorel’s ideas were seen even by his revolutionary contemporaries as being very radical.  His ideas nevertheless represent and reflect a very important contribution in the historical analysis of the components in the culture of violence in European society.  Similar ideas were expressed at a much later stage by Frantz Fanon in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’[xvii] and, to a lesser extent, in ‘On Violence’ by Hannah Arendt.[xviii]  For Fanon, violence was seen as a cleansing force that was an essential factor in the contribution to the search for freedom and the liberation of oppressed people:

 

At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force.  It frees the native from his inferiority complex and restores his self-respect.[xix]

Fanon’s analysis was dominated by his ideas on the problems and the relationships between the colonizer and the colonized.  But in his theories “concerning violence” he attempted to cover the whole gambit of human relationships.

 

Illuminated by violence, the consciousness of the people rebels against any pacification. From now on the demagogues, the opportunists and the magicians have a difficult task.[xx]

Fanon’s ideas and his language make no concessions whatever to the possibility of peaceful social change or to the contribution that a less radical approach might make.  “The Wretched of the Earth” became a clarion call taken up by revolutionary groups all over the world. 

 

Norman Angell: The Great Illusion (1910)

Or the Militarists versus the Pacifists

 

The debate on the nature of war and peace in European society as outlined by Sheehan and others identified some of the arguments that had been already developed by Norman Angell in his classic work of (1910) The Great Illusion[xxi].  Angell believed that the debate centred around the fundamental principles at the heart of the cultural soul of Europe.

 

In simple terms the two sides of the argument could be seen as the militarists versus the pacifists but these labels are more misleading than helpful.  Angell’s The Great Illusion reflected what has been called the great debate.  The nature of this debate reflected significant changes in the core values in European culture and society.  The traditional core cultural values were coming under increasing pressure from economic and technological changes.  The traditional metanarrative of war heroism, honour and sacrifice was being seriously challenged.  The very fact that such a debate was taking place reflected the enormous cultural challenges to the traditional power elites.

 

One side the militarist believed that ‘without war there would be no state’. (States make war and vice verse wars make states)  The creation of the state and the very ability of the state to protect the interest of that state and by implication the interests of its citizens, depended on the states ability to make war.  In a more modern perspective ‘war was deeply inscribed on the genetic code of every European state’. 

 

In nearly every European country in the early part of the twentieth century there was a major worry that society was losing its willingness to fight wars.  There was the belief that modern social and economic developments were undermining the ability of citizens to make the sacrifices necessary to fight a modern war with another modern state.  (The willingness to fight cheap wars in foreign lands against lightly armed natives may have been an exception)

 

Norman Angell summed up part of this argument rather cynically when he said that as a result of a combination of circumstances ‘Europeans were losing their psychology impulse to kill their neighbours.’  Whatever the reasons the general staffs of the military establishments of all the major nations were worried about the trends.  The urban working class in particular in many countries were seen as suspect.  If was feared that they were no longer committed to ‘national values’ and as a result society was losing the cohesion necessary for military sacrifice.  Even William James in his The Moral Equivalent of War [xxii](1906) accepted that war was ‘the gory nurse that trained societies to cohesiveness.’

 

Both sides agreed that the conventional wisdom about war and peace was being challenged by the forces of change emanating from the forces of the new industrial and scientific developments.

 

For many people pacifism, scientific or otherwise was seen as a real threat to society and in particular the state and its needs.  The value of the arguments of the ‘Free Trade’ pacifists such as Richard Cobden et al were not totally dismissed.  But the military elites felt that within the modernising industrial nations ‘quick and limited wars’ would not do any great damage to the industrial potential of the state.  In fact these wars would promote national social cohesion.

 

For Normal Angell and others the opposite trend was also very significant.  From the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth there was a new sense of urgency about the dangers of industrialised warfare and the need for peaceful relationships between the ‘civilized’ countries and peoples of Europe.

 

Many people were aware of the danger of industrialised warfare.  Bertrand Russell the English philosopher who was not a pacifist in the traditional sense summed up some to this awareness when he said:

 

The war is trivial for all its vastness.  The supposed ideals for which it is being fought are merely part of the myth.

 

Whoever won (he said) the results would be disastrous for (European) civilization probably for one hundred years.[xxiii]

 

That was Russell’s opinion in 1914 and he was dismissed from his post in Cambridge and ended up spending a lengthy period in jail for publishing his opinions.

 

In 1956 he reaffirmed that he was unshaken in his belief.

 

We owe to the first war and its aftermath Russian Communism, Italian Fascism and German Nazism.  We owe to the first war the creation of a chaotic unstable world where there is every reason to fear that the Second World War was not the last.[xxiv]

 

The Two European Miracles

I use the word miracle here not in the divine sense but more as the definition of an extraordinary event or set of events which are almost inexplicable.  The first miracle is what I identify as the Rising from the Ashes and the second miracle I identify with the end of the cold war and the development of the Velvet Revolution.

 

 

The First Miracle:  Rising from the Ashes

 

It would have been utterly inconceivable to suggest to the Europeans (of 1945) – those who had survived the terrible experience of the second world war that within a very short period of time – A relatively democratic, peaceful and prosperous Europe would rise up out of the ashes of war.  It would have been even more unimaginable to suggest that an economic and political union would be created between some of the oldest enemies in Europe.  The Union would create the conditions within which war between these most aggressive nationalities (France, Germany, Great Britain, Poland etc) would become almost impractical. 

 

There are many interpretations and explanations for the changes that took place in European society after 1945.  In my opinion the key change can be traced by analysing how the role of war changed dramatically in relation to the nature of the modern European state and the citizens of those states. 

 

The fundamental changes in the nature of the relationship between the state as actor and its citizens were redefined in a revolutionary sense within the very essence of the structure of the state, of its institutions and its very legitimacy.  In a deep cultural sense power shifted from the values of the traditional military elites towards a different cultural elite.  The forces of civil society started to take a much more active role but the real power shifted to or stayed with the merchant princes – the bankers and industrialists. 

 

For example at the beginning of the twentieth century the largest expenditure of every European state was on its military establishment.  Sometimes called defence but really much more than defence.  The budget is an important indicative factor because as the Austrian political economist Rudolf Goldscheid summed up the position quite accurately when he said.  ‘The budget of the state revels the true nature of the state after its deceptive ideology has been ruthlessly stripped away.’[xxv]

 

In that context the collapse of the war system can be traced in a purely economic sense by looking at some of the figures.  We know that in relative terms the size of Government budgets increased dramatically during the twentieth century.  In the United Kingdom the government budget rose from about six per cent of GDP (1898) too over forty per cent of GDP (1989). 

 

Within these figures the key factor was the dramatic change in what the money was being spent on.  By 1998 in the United Kingdom the amount spent on what can be called Social Welfare ( Health, Education, Social Security) was up to sixty per cent of the budget compared with less than ten per cent at the beginning of the century.

 

The Second Miracle: 1989 and the Collapse of the Cold War System.

 

The importance of the first European miracle was confirmed by the creation of the second European miracle.  That is the almost total collapse of the cold war system in a matter of months.  Again no one could have imagined the sudden events that took place in the few years after 1989.  Within a very short period of time the whole political landscape of Europe had changed almost beyond recognition.  Even more significantly the nature of the changes were dictated and brought about through the power of non-violence social movements.  It would be almost impossible to explain these changes within the traditional narrative based on the ‘ideology of violence’.  As Professor Kendel summed it up by saying:

 

No amount of violence could have brought about in one hundred years the type of change that was brought about in Europe through non-violent social movements.

 

For some observers the ‘Velvet Revolution’ was only possible because of the experience and the success of the European Union.  The experience and example of the European Union as it evolved and expanded must be seen as a key contributing factor in the success of the Velvet Revolution.’ 

 

Many other explanations have been given in relation to theses incredible historical events.  The relative weakness of the Soviet system in relaiton to the United States and the window of opportunity that this offered.  Other factors that were seen as important related to the personalities that were in the key positions at crucial times.  But the effectiveness of the transformation has its foundation in the glaring success of the peace and prosperity of the European Union.

 

Towards a Conclusion:

Breaking the Monopoly of Violence

 

Has Europe really emerged from the horrors and heroics of total war to what Sheehan describes as Kant’s ‘perpetual peace,’- a peaceful federation of democracies.  If so where did all the militarism go?  There can be little doubt that today the European political elites have given up the use of violence as a way of settling their disputes or more importantly the European elites have given up centrality of violence in their cultural metanarratives. 

 

For some people there is a reasonably simple explanation for a relatively peaceful Europe.  The argument would follow the logic of violence rather than the logic of peace.  The level of violence of the first European war (1914-1918) did damage and undermine the historical European culture of violence.  The seeds of doubt were sown in relation to how violence was justified, rationalised and normalised in European culture.  So when the second European war (1939-1945) started there were no cheering crowds in London or Berlin, no bands playing, no civilians lining the streets to cheer on the young men volunteering in case they missed the war.

 

This argument follows the line that the level of violence of the second European war finally tipped the balance against the cultural norm of violence in European culture.  Other factors such as the development of nuclear weapons and the start of the cold war reinforced the trend in this shift in the balance of violence.

 

Engineering the Structures of Peace

 

Quincy Wright in his classical work: A Study of War[xxvi] published originally in 1942, identified the problems of constructing a viable peace in the following scenario.  An engineer or an architect who wants to construct a bridge, must produce a blueprint of the structure of the bridge with the details of the design before the work begins.  What sort of bridge would we get without an intelligent plan or blueprint?  But an engineer building a bridge has some great advantages over those who are trying to build a culture of peace.  Any engineer must know and accept that there are certain laws of physics that must be taken into account or the structure will be unstable and collapse. 

 

The fundamental laws associated with gravity and the laws of mass and weight etc. must be incorporated into the construction.  Architects and engineers can interpret these laws to produce functional or aesthetic variations depending on the material used.  But anyone who tries to build a bridge while ignoring the fundamental laws of gravity will construct a dangerous and unstable bridge. 

 

Robert Schuman one of the founding fathers of the European Union was a real architect of peace.  Schuman himself had come from a part of Europe which had been fought over continuously by France and Germany - the Alsace-Lorraine region.  He experienced first hand the ravages of war.  He believed that if there was ever going to be peace in Europe, then the age old antagonism between France and Germany would have to be addressed.  Many people believed that this was just not possible.  Schuman and other contemporaries like Jean Monnet had the creative imagination to build institutions that would make redundant many of the most significant age old national animosities of Europe.  The key for Schuman was in the open nature of the agreement:

 

Europe will not be made at once or according to a single plan.  It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.[xxvii]

 

At the hearth of the Schuman plan (1950) drafted by Jean Monnet was the proposal of placing the massive coal and steel resources under joint control.  National arguments over the control of these and other resources had contributed to much of the instability in Europe over the previous decades.  This step-by-step gradual approach was the key concept in the European architecture of peace.  It led to the position that Schuman had believed that war would become “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.”[xxviii]

 

In the same way the construction of peace, for example, in international affairs will have certain fundamental laws that must be considered for the stability of the system.  But Wright in his: Study of War believed that planning for peace was much more problematic than planning for building a bridge or other structure.  He believed that the objective of peace cannot be identified as a given variable.  The objective of peace will change with experience so that the fundamental conditions for the construction of peace cannot be predicted in advance.  Under these conditions engineering plans for peace cannot be as scientific as conditions pertaining to the natural world.  Even allowing for such differences, the fundamental principles for constructing peace have been identified and studied in many cultures in many ages.   There is no mystery or

 

Sigmund Freud

 

Towards the end of his life Sigmund Freud, wrote very pessimistically about the future of civilization.  In particular he was pessimistic about the future of European society.  He painted the following picture.  European culture with its two thousand years of Christianity, its hundreds of years of enlightenment, its scientific tradition, its education, its literature, its art, its philosophy was still a very violent and savage place.  For him the First World War had shown just how thin the veneer of civilization really was – it was barely skin deep.  He was shocked at how easy the men of learning in particular, were in justifying and rationalising war and violence.

 

In Civilization and Its Discontents[xxix] he ended his analysis by saying that it would probably take another five hundred years of the gradual process of civilization to have any effect on our violent instincts and in reducing the levels of violence in European culture.  His analysis might have been even more pessimistic if he had lived to see the savagery and brutality of the Second World War.  Given the levels of violence in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century it would seem almost miraculous that a European Community has evolved against all the odds.  But the European Community was not founded on any magical formulas.  The principles which underlay the foundations of the Community were not newly invented in the nineteen fifties.  They have been recognised by many philosophers and critical thinkers throughout history.

 

It has always been problematic to argue, from a non-violent perspective, against the utilitarian effectiveness of violence in social conflict or the efficiency of military force in political conflict.  Because it is always easier to sow the seeds of doubt and fear than to sow the seeds of trust and tolerance.  But we know that there are limits to the use of and to the effectiveness of violence. 

 

The Dark Shadows: Role of Ethnic Nationalism.

 

In a recent article in Foreign Affairs the author Gerry Muller[xxx] (of the Catholic University of America) takes up some of the arguments from a very different perspective.  He argues that is was the brutal genocides and the forced population shifts of the early part of the twentieth century that eventually helped make peace in Europe possible in the latter half of the century.  Muller’s argument takes a very negative perspective on the construction of a peaceful Europe.  He argues that one of the results of all the violence in Europe was that ethnic and state boundaries now matched each other i.e. most Germans live in Germany, Greece is dominated by Greeks etc. This has removed many of the fundamental causes of the historical conflicts. 

 

Muller sums up his arguments by saying that the peace established in Europe was not based on the defeat of ethnic nationalism but the very opposite it demonstrates its success.  The recent war in Kosovo is a good example of the power of ethnic diversity to generate violent conflict.  According to this analysis one of the great culprit in European history was the power of ethnic nationalism.  He argues that the peace and stability in Europe today is the result of the triumph of ‘the ethnonationalist project’.  The arguments that Muller uses to support his thesis of the power of ethnic nationalism as the cause of much of European conflict is true only as fare as it goes.  There were many other ingredients both in the positive and negative sense that must be ignored to make this argument seem plausible

Towards a European Culture of Peace.

 

The collapse of the historical war system in Europe has created a window of opportunity for the creation of a foundation of a culture of peace.  Because a culture of peace will not be possible before the collapse of the war system - The horse must come before the cart.  

 

Unfortunately the ideology of militarism in Europe has been weakened but not destroyed and the danger is that it will rise like Lazarus from the dead.  The Lisbon Treaty obliges and requires members of the Union to ‘progressively increase their military capacities.’

 

In recent times the European Constitution (2005) was rejected by the peoples of France and the Netherlands.  When the constitution was repackaged and presented as the Lisbon Treaty (2008) the only population that was given a vote – the Republic of Ireland also rejected the treaty.

 

This has lead to much soul searching within the political elites of the European Community.  In the case of the Irish vote and I think the same could be said for the French and Dutch votes – the rejection of the Constitution and of the Treaty were not rejection of the European project.  In Ireland in particular that has never been an significant anti European movement as there is in the United Kingdom and in some other countries.

 

The French minister of Defence Hervé Morin has announced, an ambitious strategy to increase the EU’s military capacity.’[xxxi]  He believes that the EU should build a fleet of aircraft carriers which would be the support basis for troops deployed on mission.  He went on to lament the fact that the US spends more than six times as much on research on military technologies and that there was a vital need to redress this balance so that Europe would not fall further behind.  This is a quote from the French Minister of Defence in the year 2008.  It would sound all too depressingly familiar to Norman Angell as a quote from 1908.

 

When you listen to these very rational arguments about creating the military might of the European Union – the importance of the relationship between soft power and hard power you begin to worry that the seduction of war that has inflicted so much terror into European history and into the personal lives of so many previous generations of Europeans is still a potentially explosive force. 

 

The last word to John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

 

Quarry the rock with razors or moor the vessel with a thread of silk,

then you may hope such delicate instruments as human knowledge

and human reason to contend against those giants,

the passion and the pride of Men

 

Paper presented at the Peace Theories Commission of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) conference at Leuven, Belgium (16/07/2008)

 

Bibliography

 

Angell, Norman.  The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relationship of Military Power to National Advantage. London. Putman 1913

 

Arendt, Hannah.  On Violence. Orlando. Harvest.1970

 

Bacevich, Andrew J. The New American Militarism. Oxford. OUP 2006

 

Diamond, Jared.  Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. London Penguin 2006

 

Fanon, Frantz.  The Wretched of the Earth trans. Constance Farrington. London: Pelican 1983

 

Freud, Sigmund.  Civilization and Its Discontents. Penguin. London 2004

 

Hume, John. The Nobel Lecture 1998

 

James, William.  The Moral Equivalent of War. New York. Viking 1987

 

Mliband, David. Miliband backs stronger EU military force.  Irish Times 03/07/2008 12

 

Morin, Hervé. France revels plans to boost EU Defence. Irish Times 03/07/2008

 

Muller, Jerry Z.. The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism. Foreign Affairs March/April 2008,

 

Nef, John U.  War and Human Progress. New York. Norton. 1978 407

 

Nisbet, Robert.  The Social Philosophers. London. Heinemann. 1974

 

Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph.  Selected Writings. Ed. Steward Edwards. London. Macmacmillan. 1963

 

Reiss, Hans.  Trans. by H. B. Nisbet. Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge. CUP 1991

 

Rempel, Richard A.  The Collected Works of Bertrand Russell. Vol.XIII. London. Unwin. 1988

 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Trans. C. E.. Vaughan. A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe.

 

Russell, Bertrand.  Justice in Wartime. Illinois. The Open Court. 1917

 

Schuman, Robert. An Architect of Peace. Irish Times. Dublin 27.03.2007.

 

Sheehan, James.  The Monopoly of Violence: Why Europeans Hate Going to War. London Faber.200

 

Georges Sorel. Reflections on Violence. Trans. T.E. Hulme. London. Unwin and Allen. 1917

 

Georges Sorel. The Illusion of Progress. J. Stanley & C. Stanley. Berkeley. UCP. 1969

 

Wright, Quincy.  A Study of War. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. 1983

[xxxii]

---

 

[i] David Mliband. Miliband backs stronger EU military force.  Irish Times 03/07/2008 12

 

[ii] Jared Diamond. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. London Penguin 2006

 

[iii] James Sheehan. The Monopoly of Violence: Why Europeans Hate Going to War. London Faber.2008

 

[iv] Ibid. 32

 

[v] Andrew J. Bacevich. The New American Militarism. Oxford. OUP 2006

 

[vi] Ibid. 2

 

[vii] John Hume The Nobel Lecture 1998

 

[viii] ibid.

 

[ix] Jean Jacques Rousseau. Trans. C. E.. Vaughan. A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe. (http://oll.libertyfund.org/)03/01/2008

 

[x] Hans Reiss (ed). Trans. by H. B. Nisbet. Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge. CUP 1991

 

[xi] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Selected Writings. Ed. Steward Edwards. London. Macmacmillan. 1963

 

[xii] Georges Sorel. Reflections on Violence. Trans. T.E. Hulme. London. Unwin and Allen. 1917

 

[xiii] John U. Nef. War and Human Progress. New York. Norton. 1978 407.

 

[xiv] Georges Sorel. The Illusion of Progress. J. Stanley & C. Stanley. Berkeley. UCP. 1969 xi.

 

[xv] Ibid., 92.

 

[xvi]Robert Nisbet. The Social Philosophers. London. Heinemann. 1974 303.

 

[xvii] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth trans. Constance Farrington. London: Pelican, 1983.

 

[xviii] Hannah Arendt, On Violence. Orlando. Harvest.1970.

 

[xix] Fanon, 74.

 

[xx] Ibid.

 

[xxi] Norman Angell. The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relationship of Military Power to National Advantage. 4^th ed.  London. Putman 1913

 

[xxii] William James. The Moral Equivalent of War. New York. Viking 1987

 

[xxiii] Bertrand Russell. Justice in Wartime. Illinois. The Open Court. 1917

 

[xxiv] Richard A. Rempel. The Collected Works of Bertrand Russell. Vol.XIII. London. Unwin. 1988 xiii

 

[xxv] Sheehan (2008) 176

 

[xxvi] Quincy Wright. A Study of War. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. 1983

 

[xxvii] Robert Schuman. An Architect of Peace. Irish Times. Dublin 27.03.2007. Supplement p 3

 

[xxviii] Ibid.

 

[xxix] Sigmund Freud. Civilization and Its Discontents. Penguin. London 2004

 

[xxx] Jerry Z. Muller. The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism. Foreign Affairs March/April 2008,

 

[xxxi] Hervé Morin. France revels plans to boost EU Defence. Irish Times 03/07/2008 12

 

[xxxii]

By Seán English PhD

‘On Violence’ By Hannah Arendt (1969)

I suppose it is the role – if not the duty – of every new generation to question and challenge the beliefs, the assumptions, the myths and the truths of previous generations.

This is true in all walks of life from religious practice through sexual norms to political and economic ideologies.   In many ways these challenges can have both positive and negative consequences for society.   It is also the belief of every new generation that there insights are the most original and most progressive in historical terms.

 

On the question of violence that Hannah Arendt addresses or as she quotes form Connor Cruise O’ Brien – The debate on the legitimacy of violence in the theatre of ideas.   One of the first considerations that might help in the understanding of her approach is the following consideration.   The arguments that surround the use of violence in the early part of the 21^st century are the same arguments that can be clearly seen in the ‘Melian Dialogue’[i]as set out in Thucydides history of the Spartan –Athenian war of the 5^th century BC .   The problem of violence was one that perplexed St. Augustine (who was the subject of Arendt’s PhD thesis) and who was writing almost one thousand years after Thucydides.   St. Augustine squared the circle of violence by Christianising the ideas on war and peace from the classical world.   The just war theory as it evolved is the example par excellence of the marriage of Greek philosophy with Christian theology.   Augustine spelt out the concepts that are still the cornerstone of much of the debate today on the question of violence.   I think the approach taken by Professor Hinsley in his ‘Power and [ii]the Pursuit of Peace’ is still very relevant when he says

 

Every scheme for the elimination of war that men have advocated since 1917 has been nothing but a copy or an elaboration of some seventeenth century programme – as the seventeenth-century programmes were copies of still earlier schemes.   What is worse, those programmes are far more widely accepted as wisdom now than they were when they were first propagated.   Nor is this the full extent of our stupidity.[iii]

 

I like Gandhi’s approach (but I am not sure how much aware was Hannah Arendt of the work of Mahatma Gandhi I could not find any direst quotes).   Gandhi’s approach too many of the questions of violence reflected his belief that the concepts that we are dealing with are ‘Puratana and ‘Santana’, ‘Old’ and ‘Eternal’.   As Gandhi said ‘I have nothing new to teach the world, truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.’   Some cynics will to tempted to say so are war and violence.   But this philosophical approach to the question of violence is quite different from most western traditions.   Gandhi believed that all the knowledge and information that is needed for the creation of a peaceful world already exists.   That there is not going to be any new discovery that will undermine the culture of violence that the antidote for violence are the ancient concepts of Satyagraha (the Truth Force) and Ahimsa (the Law of Love).

 

But getting back to ‘On Violence’   I think  the basic arguments put forward in this paper can be simply summarized (but as many people will appreciate – simplicity can be a very deceptive tool.)

 

The core of the argument is the following: Or at least my interpretation of what Arendt is saying in ‘On Violence’ and much of her later work.

 

That the justifications and rationalizations that are generally (and normatively) used to legitimise some forms of violence and delegitimize other forms of violence  that these justifications and rationalisations are false.

 

She also dismisses the utilitarian arguments that are made for rationalizing violence in relation to its efficiency and effectiveness of the use of violence in any conflict situation.  She identifies as false the idea that no alternative or substitute has yet been discovered for the use of violence.

 

What are the implications of her approach?

 

There are in my analysis two sets of implications

 

The first set of implications of this belief are the following - that no breakthrough in our understanding of violence will be possible unless and until we face up to these false justifications and false rationalizations.

 

The second set of implications arise from the narratives we tell ourselves about war and violence.   One of the most important examples surrounds the second world war.   The mega-narrative we tell ourselves about the Second World War as a crusade of pure good versus pure evil is false.   This matters because most of the justifications that are given by political leaders and their ideologists for the pursuit of the culture of violence in the second part of the 20^th century and early part of the 21^st century are based on these genuine but false beliefs in such simple mega-narratives. 

 

 

A General Theory.

The Philosophy of Hannah Arendt Revisited.

 

 

‘On Violence’ by Hannah Arendt was published 1969/1970.   It is sometimes overshadowed by her better know works such as ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’ (1951),  ‘The Human Condition(1958) ‘On Revolution’ (1962), ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem a Report on the Banality of Evil’ (1963) and many other works on political philosophy.   Arendt’s ‘On Violence’ (1969) is in many ways a child of its time reflecting the issues of the 1960’s and questions arising from the cold war, the nuclear arms race and the American war in Vietnam but it should also be seem as significant contribution to the debate on the understanding of the question of violence both in Society and in Man as individual.   The work reflects the burning issues of the middle part of the twentieth century and is inspired by the energies of the student movements from the sixties.   But Her analysis of the nature of violence is as relevant to day as ever.   I think that most of the debate and the analysis of violence that was created by the 9-11 attack on the United States reflect what Arendt might see as the total misunderstanding of the questions of violence.   This real paucity of analysis in relation to violence is hard to explain…

 

 

The work itself is just over one hundred pages long including the appendices and is divided into three untitled sections.   For the purposed of this analysis I have taken the liberty of giving my own title to each of the sections as follows.

 

On Violence: Which I have subtitled

(Violence and its Ideologies)

 

Part One

General Theories of Violence: The Paradox of Violence

 

Part Two

The Nature of Violence in its relationship to

Power, Authority, Force, Legitimacy and other related concepts.

 

Part Three

Apology for Violence: The Nature of Violence and Rational

Hypocrisy

 

 

Definitions

 

I am going to sidestep the issues of definitions for the present but I would like to quote from Georges Sorel in his ‘Reflections of Violence’ which is one Arendt’s sources.   ‘It is not necessary to be a very profound philosopher to perceive that language deceives us constantly as to the true nature of the relationships which exist between things.’[iv]   In part two if her book Arendt spends some time in explaining the importance of linguistics and terminology in any attempt at the understanding of violence.   She refers to the early work of Noam Chomsky on the politics of linguists extensively through out the book.

 

 Part One General Theories of Violence.  The Paradox of Violence

 

One of the questions that Arendt address in this section is :  How obsolete is war?

On the very first page of the written text Arendt sets out the core of the problem as she sees it.   ‘The technical developments of the implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict.’[v]   Arendt like most of her contemporaries sets the framework for her debate within the European Enlightenment tradition.   The very foundation stones of this tradition are set within the parameters of ‘rational analysis’ and ‘logical argument’.   This is the paradox that Arendt points out.   For example the concept of ‘deterrence’ must be seen as the ‘Emperor with no Clothes’.   She identifies what she calls the ‘obvious insanity of this position,’[vi] but she sees no simple answer or easy way out of the paradox.   But this is the paradox that any general theory of violence must address or the theory itself is worse than useless.   What she is asking is how is it possible to rationalize the irrational.  

 

Arendt is not the first person to address this question but it is still a central question of the paradox.   How can rational men and women adopt or support policies on nuclear extermination that should be seen as totally irrational.   According to Arendt the logical flaws in the arguments that are used to support weapons of mass destruction of all sorts are so glaringly obvious that she is amazed that people accept these arguments.

 

 

Scientific developments in the technology of destruction and extermination have exposed the irrationalities in the basic arguments of the just war theory and other theories for justifying and rationalizing violence.   The question is how long will it take for this understanding to become effective in the affairs of man?   Will war put an end to man before man can put an end to war? The jury is still out and the verdict may well be part of the sentence.  

 

Professor John Nef in his book ‘War and Human Progress: an essay on the rises of industrial civilization’ takes up a similar thesis.   According to Nef there has always been a belief:

 

That the introduction of more frightful instruments of death might impose limits on wars, or perhaps even lead to the abandonment of war as an instrument of political policy. Such a thesis proved illusory.[vii]

 

This thesis that the introduction of specific weapons would reduce the resort to war fighting was no more accurate in relation to the cross bow in the 10^th century as it was for the introduction of the machine gun in the 20^th century.  But this is in itself does not weaken Arendt’s argument

 

 

The Suicidalness of Militarism and the Zero Sum Game.

 

Arendt starts by assuming that war in any rational sense is obsolete – at least among nuclear powered states.   She argues that war is only still rationally possible in ‘the affairs of underdeveloped countries’ that have no nuclear or biological weapons.   So she then asks why is this fact not accepted by those particularly in the western world who use logic and reason in their analysis of war?   She specifically criticizes those ‘Scientifically minded brain thrusters in the council of governments… The trouble is not that they are cold-blooded enough “to think the unthinkable” but that they do not think’   This, is just one of the logical flaws according to Arendt, in the arguments for war.  

 

It is not just nuclear weapons that her analysis should apply too.   One of the key arguments that is made in ‘On Violence’ is that once science is applied to the technology of extermination (of violence) the problem becomes a zero sum game.   It is what Arnold Toynbee called in his classical work ‘A Study of History’, ‘The Suicidalness of Militarism’[viii].   Toynbee argued that the very creative forces that are essential for the creation and establishment of countries and empires can undergo what he calls a sinister transformation form constructive to destructive agent.  He identifies the cultural, the economic, the military, the spiritual, the political and all the ingredients that are the driving forces of history.   In his analysis of the ‘the Suicidalness of Militarism; he believes that it is the military forces/ideology that consistently undergoes the sinister transformation from creative to destructive agent.

 

‘The military prowess which a society develops among its frontiersmen for its defence against external enemies undergoes a sinister transformation into the moral malady of militarism when it is diverted form its proper field in the No man’s land beyond the pale and is turned against the frontiersmen’s own brethren in the interior.’[ix]

 

One of the major driving forces of this change is what Toynbee calls ‘The Intoxication of Victory’.  

 

The level of sophistication of the arguments for war only hides the string of non-facts on which it is built.   This is the worse form of pseudo-science.   Arendt identifies the dangers of putting forward, as scientific, arguments for war, which are based on ‘pompous pseudo-science theories’[x] of which she suggests would be humorous if they did not have the potential to be so tragic.

 

The Relationship Between Power and Violence.

 

Arendt identifies and acknowledges ‘the enormous role violence has always played in human affairs’.   According to Arendt’s argument there is a great shortage of real critical analysis on the role and function of violence in human society ‘no one engaged in thought about history and politics can remain unaware of the enormous role violence has played in human affairs, and it is at first glance rather surprising that violence has been singled our so seldom for special consideration’[xi]  

She contrasts the approach taken by Clausewitz in his classical analysis ‘On War’[xii] with the approach taken by Engel’s[xiii] in much of his writings.   She rejects what she calls these ‘nineteenth century formulas’[xiv].

 

In her analysis of the nature of the relationship between power and violence in society Arendt sets the debate within the framework of the revolutionary left tradition.   The arguments put forward by Marx and Engel’s by Sorel and Fanon are the basis for part of her analysis.   She attempts to identify the connections if any between these theories of violence and what she calls ‘the suicidal development of modern weapons’ that have become central to the ‘arsenals of violence’ produced by governments in the post war world.

 

Arendt believes that the old arguments about the relationship between war and politics or between violence and power have become inapplicable in the post second world war era.   These theories are not to be dismissed entirely but the establishment of the military-industrial-labour complex reflects new realities on the ground.   Engel’s definition of ‘violence as the accelerator of economic development’ cannot be entirely ignored.   Mao Tse Tung’s belief that ‘Power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ is still a very good working theory for most revolutionaries and reactionaries.   On the other hand Marx has clearly regulated violence to a very secondary role in revolutionary change.   For Marx it was ‘the contradictions inherent in the old society brought about its end.’   According to Marx the emergence of a new society would be preceded but not caused by violence.   Both governments and revolutionary groups could use violence to win particular battles but the war would be won or lost under different criteria.

 

 The Law of Unforeseen Consequences and the Means - Ends Debate and.

 

‘The fecundity of the unexpected far exceeds the statesman’s prudence or the expert’s calculations’[xv] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. 

 

In trying to outline and explain any particular theory of human social phenomenon it is important to have some agreement on the relationship between ‘the means and the ends’ and ‘the cause and the effect.’   As Arendt sets her analysis of violence within the tradition of the enlightenment the ‘means-ends’ and ‘cause-effect’ debate pose one of the central paradoxes for her.

 

‘The very substance of violent action is ruled by the means-ends category, whose chief characteristic, if applied to human affair, has always been that the end is in danger of being overwhelmed by the means which it justifies and which are needed to reach it.’[xvi]

 

Arendt believes that in human affairs the means-ends debate is always open to unpredictability.  The ends are always in danger of being overwhelmed by the means.   But she believes that once you introduce violence into the debate then it becomes totally unpredictable:

 

‘Since the end of human action as distinct from the end product of fabrication, can never be reliably predicted, the means used to achieve political goals are more often than not of greater relevance to the future world than the intended goals.’[xvii]

 

For example in the rational analysis of any conflict there are normally at least three distinct phases.   The reasons given before the conflict, the reasons given during the conflict and the reasons given after the conflict.   All these sets of reasons are of course open to change over time and to fit whatever ideological justifications and rationalizations that are currently believed to be necessary.

 

The Danger of Violence

 

            Within the traditional rationalizations and justifications of violence the dangers from the use of violence have been almost ignored or have only been given a cursory analysis.   Even Arendt while identifying the problem only gives it a brief analysis.   She states ‘the danger of violence, even if it moves consciously within a non extremist framework of shot term goals will always be that the means overwhelm the end.’[xviii] 

 

Part II   The Nature of Violence in its relationship to: Power, Authority, Legitimacy, Force, Obedience, Law and other related concepts.

 

I have entitled part II of ‘On Violence’ The nature of violence and its relationship to the concepts of power, authority, legitimacy, force, obedience, law and many others.   This section of the book seems to me a reasonably good overview of many of the contemporary theories and explanations surrounding the question of violence.   In this section her sources range from the ancient Greeks to Voltaire, Hobbes, Rousseau, Clausewitz, Max Weber and of course Sorel again among others.

 

The Importance of Linguists and Terminology

 

What Arendt tries to do in this section is almost the impossible task of connecting the language to the concepts in some agreed format.   She tries to define what she sees as the key concepts that must be understood for the construction of any ‘theory of violence’.   Concepts such as power, authority, force, legitimacy and other related concepts.   Her approach will be understood by most social scientists, that you cannot describe reality correctly if your linguists are faulty.   She says that it is ‘A rather sad reflection on the present state of political science that our terminology does not distinguish among such key concepts.’[xix]   She is even more critical in general terms when she says that even the greatest thinkers sometimes use them (the words and concepts) at random.    She says ‘The correct use of these words is a question not only of logical grammar, but of historical perspective’[xx]

 

There are a number of general problems that arise in the definitions approach.   No concept stands alone and there are of course no watertight compartments that separate one definition from another.   The concepts that are being defined very often change their meanings when combined with each other.   Another problem and possibly the most important one as Arendt points out is the consistent gap that exists between theory and reality

 

All the authorities that she quotes have strong opinions on the question of violence and its role and function in society.   Arendt argues that there is a general consensus that ‘Violence is nothing more than the most flagrant manifestation of power’.   She quotes Max Weber’s definition of the state as the ‘Rule of men over men based on legitimate that is allegedly legitimate violence.’[xxi]   Arendt does not agree with such a consensus because she says that to accept such a consensus you would have to ‘Equate political power with the organization of violence and this only makes sense if you follow Marx’s estimate of the state as an instrument of oppression in the hands of the ruling classes.’[xxii]

 

This is where the narrative tends to go around in circles of confusion.   Arendt says that our understanding of violence will depend on our understanding of power and our understanding of power will depend on our understanding of authority which will depend on our understanding of force and legitimacy and so on.   Most of these understandings will depend on how we define the state.    Government as defined from the early Greeks as the rule of man over man, with variations.

Arendt quotes John Stuart Mills that ‘the first lesson of civilization is obedience.’   And obedience only works because of two distinct inclinations.   The desire to exercise power over others is always balanced by the inclinations of the many to have power exercised over themselves.   As Arendt says ‘the desire to obey and be ruled by some strong man, is at least as prominent in human psychology as the will to power and perhaps more relevant.’[xxiii]

 

The Ascendancy of Power over Violence.

 

Arendt puts forward her own her own set of theories to try and square the circle of confusion.   She believes that ‘no government exclusively based on the means of violence has ever existed’,[xxiv] or ever existed for more than a very short period.  The crucial reason for this according to Arendt is that in the ‘Power – Violence’ relationship there is a fundamental ascendancy of power over violence.   Governments in order to exist need power but they do not necessarily need violence.  She believes that power needs no justification but its needs legitimacy.    While violence can destroy power it can not create power.  Arendt believes that ‘Power’ and ‘Violence’ are opposites and where one rules absolutely the other is absent.   Rule by violence comes into play only when power is being lost.    A short definition that Arendt refers too is that power equals institutionalized force and that violence is a manifestation of power.

 

 

III Apology for Violence: The Nature of Violence and Rational Hypocrisy

 

Three Schools of Violence.

 

In part thereof ‘On Violence’ which I have titled ‘Apology for Violence: The nature of violence and rational hypocrisy Arendt looks at the nature and causes of violence.  Arendt recognizes that ‘not many authors of rank glorified violence for violence’s sake; but these few - Sorel, Pareto, Fanon – were motivated by a much deeper hatred of bourgeois society and were led to a much more radical break with its moral standards…’[xxv]   Violence was and is seen by many reformers as the best and in many cases the only tool for smashing the old order.   For some actors violence is also seen as the tool for creating a new society.    In order to get some perspective on her analysis I have identified three distinctive forms of violence which she looks at and which I have named

 

Firstly Natural Violence, Secondly Traditional Violence and Thirdly Cultural Violence

 

All three levels of violence are interrelated in human society and all three can coexist at different levels with some form of positive or negative feedback loops.  They could be said to have both interrelated and separate functions.   This approach does not necessarily contradict Galtung’s identification of the importance between direct and structural violence.

 

Firstly the Role and Functions of Natural Violence

 

Arendt identifies many of the main areas of study that contribute to the understanding of aggressiveness and violence in human and animal behaviour and in particular what she looks at what she calls ‘the riddle of aggressiveness’

 

 She looks at the work of the biologists, the zoologists, the psychologists, the sociologists and many other areas of study.  She highlights the work of Konrad Lorenz whose book ‘On Aggression’[xxvi] had only recently being published.   She looks at the arguments being put forward in the case of what is sometimes termed ‘natural violence’ based on the theory of instinctual behaviour in the natural world such as the nutritive and sexual instinctive drives.   She looks at the debate from the animal kingdom that most ‘natural violence’ is a function of self preservation and in that sense it has the rational of self preservation of the individual, the species or the gene.

 

Arendt believes that the study of ‘natural violence’ is useful and has made a contribution to a certain extent to the study of violence in human society.   But its contribution is limited for many reasons not least because Man is both the subject and the object of the rational drives that are part of the process of violence.  

 

The question that Arendt addresses is what has made Man the most aggressive and dangerous animal on the planet.   The answer according to Arendt is that Man is the most dangerous animal because he is an ‘Animal Rationale’ [xxvii] and it is the use of reason that Arendt says makes us, as a species, ‘dangerously irrational’.  Rational Man can turn the role of ‘natural violence’ with it life-promoting functions into something which is characterized by self-destruction and devoid of any life promoting function.

 

Under the study of ‘natural violence’ Arendt accepts the role of aggression, rage frustration etc and the violence that springs from them as part of the natural ingredients of the human psychic.   She says ‘In this sense, rage and the violence that sometimes –not always- goes with it belong among the “natural” human emotions, and to cure man of them would mean nothing less than to dehumanise or emasculate him.’ [xxviii]   Arendt accepts that ‘the resort to violence when confronted with outrageous events or conditions is enormously tempting because of its inherent immediacy and swiftness.’[xxix]

She accepts that some of the characteristics of violence has an attraction for people everywhere and that violence has an intoxicating spell that Man repeatedly falls under.  

 

 

To sum up her argument on this part of the question of violence it is possible to say that she recognizes certain positive functions of ‘natural violence’ however defined.   This natural violence has a positive function in self-preservation both intraspecies and interspecies and has on balance a life promoting function.   Arendt is not the first to argue the importance of such a distinction but many of the theories on human violence seen to have a problem with this distinction.   When we come to analysis human violence within its cultural context we must recognize that any theory of natural violence will only have a very limited creditability.  Even at the level of natural violence there would seem to be dichotomy between ‘rational violence’ and ‘irrational violence’.   The rationale for violence is basically its function in self-preservation.   But one man’s rationality may well be another man’s irrationality.

 

Secondly the Role of Traditional Violence in Human Society

 

Is it possible to trace and identify the evolution of violence from its natural and primitive functions to the cultural manifestations of violence that had become so widespread in the 20^th Century?   Arendt seems to believe that it is possible and useful to our understanding of violence to try and identify some middle stage in the evolution process.  

War is the basic institutional form of traditional violence.   In historical terms war fighting and related cultural concepts have been seen as the creator and defender par excellent of the statue quo.   History has been generally written with the assumption that war is one of if not the major form of human activity.   Quincy Wright in his classical ‘A Study of War’[xxx] identified many of the functions of war in modern society

 

 

The genocidal nature of many of the conflicts of the 20^th should be according to Arendt a wake up call for our understanding of violence.   Arendt is critical of the nihilist approach taken by Sartre and others and she is critical of the kind of Hegelian explanation for his espousal of violence.   ‘Needs and scarcity determine the Manicheistic basic of actions and morals…and must manifest itself in antagonistic reciprocity between classes.’[xxxi]

 

Thirdly: The Cultural Evolution of Violence.

 

Arendt summarizes many of the arguments that try and understand the phenomena of violence and the arguments that try and justify the use of violence in human society.   She calls than ‘apologies for violence’ and believes that many of the explanations go back into antiquity with some modern interpretations glossed over them.   Some of the explanations are of course relatively new based on the knowledge arising from the new sciences of biology and psychology among others.   She is not that impressed with the newness of the thinking, she says ‘the seemingly so novel biological justifications of violence is again closely connected with the most pernicious elements in our oldest tradition of political thought.’[xxxii]

 

Nietzsche may have thought that he had discovered something new when he declared violence as a life promoting and creative force.   The biological justifiers for violence felt that they were on sure grounds when they could appeal to ‘the undeniable fact that in the household of nature destruction and creation are but two sides of the natural process.’[xxxiii]   Many of the political philosophies of the 19^th and early part of the 20^th centuries saw violence as unfortunate but necessary harbingers of social change and social progress.   At the same time a new elite, a new priesthood of power under the general name of scientists were emerging and making their contribution to the question of violence.  

 

Arendt holds this new priesthood elite of scientists responsible for creating what must be the greatest paradox of all as she says they have created ‘the real possibility of constructing a doomsday machine and destroying all life on earth.’   Oppenheimer and his gang of scientific warriors were not driven by any of the demented ideologies of the 20^th century and they generally could not be considered as evil individuals.   Oppenheimer had it would seem some sense of humour when he quoted the famous lines form the Bhagavad-Gita ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’ But the Cuban missile crises and the other crises of the cold war instilled in Arendt and some of her contemporaries the belief that the old explanations or apologies for violence were childishly irrelevant just as Albert Einstein has already discovered.   Einstein was very clear in his thinking about this when he said ‘The developments of science and technology have determined that the peoples of the world are no longer able to live under competing national sovereignties with war as the ultimate arbitrator’[xxxiv] It follows from that principle that ‘The nation-state is no longer capable of adequately protecting its citizens, to increase the military strength of a nation no longer guarantees its security… It is useless to proceed along this path, one cannot prepare for war and expect peace.’[xxxv]

 

Arendt and her contemporaries may not have been fully aware of the omnicidal nature of a thermonuclear war the scientific basis of a nuclear winter only came later.   But Arendt went to the top of the mountain and she clearly saw the utter absurdity of playing with doomsday machines.   These developments gave a whole new meaning to Toynbee’s concept of ‘The Suicidalness of Militarism, there are very few historical precedents for creating an ideology of suicidal terrorism.   All the benefits and possibilities of the new scientific civilization would be of little use when compared with the profoundly nihilistic refusal to face up to the dangers of applying science to the technology of destruction.   It seems that maybe Marx was right after all that every society and every civilization has the seeds of its own destruction built into it.

 

 

Summary And Conclusions

 

In 1951 when she published ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’[xxxvi]her analysis followed the following logic.   The appalling levels of violence of the first half of the 20^th century in particular Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia could not be understood within the context of any traditional analysis.   These ‘manifestations of evil’ as she called them represented an unprecedented form of terror.   Terror was no longer a means to an end but an end in itself.   The problem was that these ideologies had used logical argument to justify their ideologies.   According to the Nazi’s the ‘Laws of Nature’ dictated that the degenerate races should be used by superior races for what ever utilitarian function that necessity required.   According to the Communist ideologies the ‘Laws of History’ would logical see the eventual triumph of a classless society.   But this new society could only come about with the destruction of whatever counter revolutionary elements were seen as a threat.

 

There is no shortage of evidence to show how instrumental violence seems to be in brining about change or defending the status quo.    Arendt acknowledges and has little doubt that violence pays in the sense that it gets results.   But she points out that ‘the trouble with violence is that it pays indiscriminately’.[xxxvii]    When you opt for violence you are writing a blank cheque on fate.   Arendt accepts that the practice of violence ‘like all action changes the world but the most probably change is to a more violent world’.[xxxviii]  She believes that while violence can sometimes guarantee change it can never guarantee what type the changes might be.   Most violent action is irreversible and a return to the status quo is always unlikely.

 

In 1963 when she published ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of Evil[xxxix] she reexamines some of her ideas on the role of hate and ideology in the culture of violence and she raised some controversial issues.   In one sense her conclusions form this work are very bleak.   If the type of radical evil that individuals can inflict upon other individuals has no real meaning that the human mind can understand then that is a very bleak picture.

 

Her book implicitly recognizes a theory that is a key factor in any analytical approach to the understanding of violence.   We must be aware and accept ‘the flawed nature of the human personality and the dual nature of the individual rooted as we are both good and evil.   This theory of the flawed nature of the individual complicates our narrative of any particular event or set of events.   It is perfectly legitimate for an individual to hate evil such as the evil of the Nazis ideology but it mist be realized that hatred is probably the most efficient tool for distorting facts and creating inverted thinking.

 

In the final analysis it is my belief that the 20^th century has seen a significant evolution in the debate on the nature of war and peace and on the nature of violence and non-violence and I believe that Hannah Arendt has contributed significantly to that debate.   The real possibility of human society transcending collective violence and the real possibility of individuals being able to resolve conflict without the resort to violence have begun to be critically and scientifically examined.   But it has to be admitted that the practical application of the knowledge arising form this examination has not yet resulted in any significant achievements in reducing the general level of violence.

 

But the most or the least we can say is that those who advocate the functional nature of war and the utilitarian reality of violence are now on the defensive.   The very foundations on which war and violence have traditionally been rationalized and justified have been critically undermined and that Hannah Arendt has played an important role in these very positive developments.

 

 

Paper presented to the Peace Theories Commission of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) Conference.  Calgary Canada July 2006

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[i] Michael Walzer. Just and Unjust Wars.  Basic Books New York 1977  p5

 

[ii]

 

[iii] F. H. Hinsley. Power and the Pursuit of Peace. Cambridge.Cambridge University Press 1963 p3

 

[iv] Georges Sorel. Reflections On Violence.  Trans. T.E. Hulme & J. Roth New York (Dover pub. 2004) p251

 

[v] Hannah Arendt. On Violence.   |New York. Harvest 1970 p 3

 

[vi] ibid. p4

 

[vii] John  U Nef. War and Human Progress. New York. Norton 1978 p 254

 

[viii] Arnold J. Toynbee. A Study of History. Oxford University Press London 1974 Vol. I-VI p336

 

[ix] ibid. p347-348

 

[x]  ‘On Violence’ p 7

 

[xi] On Violence p8

 

[xii] Carl von Clausewitz. On War (Ed. By Anatol Rapoport London Penguin, 1968

 

[xiii]

 

[xiv] On Violence. P.10

 

[xv] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. General Idea of the Revolution. University Press of the . Pacific Hawaii (2004)

 

[xvi] On Violence p4

 

[xvii] ibid. p .4

 

[xviii] ibid.p80

 

[xix]  On Violence p 43

 

[xx] Ibid.

 

[xxi] Ibid. p 35

 

[xxii] Ibid. p 36

 

[xxiii] Ibid. p 39

 

[xxiv] Ibid. P50

 

[xxv] Ibid. p.65

 

[xxvi] Knorad Lorenz. On Aggression. London Methuen 1966

 

[xxvii] On Violence. p.62

 

[xxviii] Ibid. p. 64

 

[xxix] Ibid. p63

 

[xxx] Quincy Wright. A Study of War. 2 Vols. Chicago University Press. (1942) reprint 1965.

 

[xxxi] Ibid. p.90

 

[xxxii] Ibid. p.74

 

[xxxiii] Ibid. p.75

 

[xxxiv] Otto Nathan & H. Norden. Einstein On Peace. London. Methuen. 1963. p 412

 

[xxxv] Ibid. 407

 

[xxxvi] Hannah Arendt.   The Origins of Totalitarianism.  London Harvest 1976

 

[xxxvii] Ibid. p80

 

[xxxviii] Ibid. p80

 

[xxxix] Hannah Arendt.  Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report of the Banality of Evil. London. Penguin 1994