Helmut Kuzmics, from the University of Graz/Austria …. a paper originally presented at the Interdisciplinary Collaboratory ” Norbert Elias: Emotional Style and Historical Change,” held on 14-15 June 2011 at the University of Adelaide
The Problem[1] There exists a basic consensus that guides public opinion within Western, particularly European states, referring to war and other acts of inter- or intrastate violence. It is pacifist and tends to treat all these events as simply “irrational” or “uncivilized”. Resulting from this attitude – which is also often not devoid of a dismissive or derogatory element – two quite differing types of judgement emerge: The first type regards war as atavistic and time-bound. War can or should be overcome with the progress of mankind. The second type – maybe a bit paradoxically – treats war and violent conflict as endemic to human nature and, therefore, unchangeable in its “essence”. This duality of judgment also extends to the field of the human sciences themselves. Two voices shall be picked out here. In Norbert Elias’s (2000) theory of ‘Civilizing Processes’, reality and experience of war are situated historically. In one of the most surprising and original recent interpretations of war, Van Creveld (1998: 319) has stressed its basically unchanging character, including the motives and causes for war. For him, the male fascination for war is deeply rooted in needs that can be summarized vaguely as the appeal of danger, the wish to prove manliness, by all means not guided by rational interest or profit-seeking. War is rather a transcendental game with ultimate seriousness and should be distinguished from throwing atomic bombs, massacring innocent by-standers or committing mass-suicide. Declared war-aims are irrelevant to a deeper understanding of war – sacred soil, god, fatherland, nation, race or social ideals are not important per se, but because people – or better: men –fight and die for them. This readiness to sacrifice one’s own life is the main criterion that distinguishes war from other forms of collective violence; without this, even the best-equipped armies of the world would degenerate to mere bugbears. Van Creveld, thus, emphasizes the unchanging, eternal nature of war, and since he sees it, essentially, not as a means for achieving certain goals but rather as a means in itself, he can accept the various forms in which war occurs, also their arbitrariness, as long as men fight for something; and they will do so for a very long time to come. Continue reading →
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