An Impeachment of War

It is the gift of reasoning that largely separates humans from non-human animals. And to use the term "human nature" to refer to humans has been a common thing with regard to the stated point. Unless, therefore, reasoning is abandoned in the doing of things, there is no good reason to question whatever is done. In cases that human actions appear strange rather than normal, it may be inferred that passion displaced reason. While a good dose of passion is crucial to energize reason and bring about the desired action, it is improper for passion to overrule reason, since there is the tendency to overdo things and cause unwarranted problems. Reason nourished with sensible passion depicts human nature. This is the area of humanness that brings about peace, socialization, moral and economic correctness - and family-hood; otherwise, irrationality may arise.

The question of war is, perhaps, the most difficult to understand among all human actions since it echoes the issue of irrationality and brings to mind the urge to evaluate human nature. While the concept of war may puzzle the mind if we care to introspect about it, war, nevertheless, is praised for its outcome by the victor and a majority of the victor's citizenry whenever it dishes out prosperity, nationalistic fervour. It would seem, at first glance, that the victor showed far more bravery than the vanquished; yet, it is usually not asked whether a fair balance of reason and passion instigated the war.

Of course, in life, the brave is usually claimed to be far more successful than the weak. The brave is daring, fears not to go to even dangerous places to face all kinds of challenges and get what was desired; the brave is better positioned to be a leader, undertake and manage risks that are crucial for growth and development. The brave, moreover, is likely to implement ambitious ideas that could yield fruitful outcomes. But the weak retreats in the face of slight or moderate danger and can only lead a dull, simplistic life lacking in challenges. This argument need not be true for all cases, but it will surely be advanced by whoever prefers a strong willpower to a weak one, a strong sense of determination and optimism to needless procrastination. For it can be claimed that our actions, strong or weak, emanate, in a corresponding fashion, from strong or weak willpower.

Perhaps, due to this kind of argument, convincing in many ways, we go on to fit the concept of war into it, which, of course, is wrong. Heroism in the face of adversity is still a mark of civility unless it is intended to destroy people or cause unprovoked harm. That is why many a people prefer, as we have seen, the brave to the weak. However, war, in the face of adversity, is not a mark of civility but of brutality because the initiator of war intends to kill and does kill people. Now, a qualified explanation has to be made.
The initiator of war who abolishes the principles of reasoning and sensible passion has decided to be an aggressor of a dangerous kind. Suppose a pacifist strives to talk him/her out of war and exhausted every possibility but failed, then the pacifist is warranted to also impose war on the aggressor. The pacifist has thereafter become an aggressor but a legitimate one, a rational aggressor; for he/she has initiated war to stop a war that was initiated by the first aggressor. Yet the first aggressor is not a legitimate aggressor since his/her intentions are not to stop war – as the second aggressor aims at doing – but to promote war and terrorize the opponent's people; and he/she gathers all the necessary war machine with the hope of winning the war and salve a brutish passion.

Throughout the history of the world, disagreeable parties have settled their differences in different ways. Sometimes, settling differences is by means of war; sometimes, heated arguments begin and one of the parties gives up. Sometimes, too, the argument may not be that heated, and this grants the parties the chance to argue constructively until one party’s arguments become so convincing that the other decides, for the sake of civility, to surrender in peace.

It is clear that contemporary humans, given the chance to reason without being awfully nationalistic, will choose the last option as the most pleasing, both for peace and human decorum, while the first will be dismissed outright as saddled with barbarity.
It is well known that the antiquarian past was full of human uncertainties; for humans were incapable of leading a settled, safe, and comfortable life. Life was primeval; and in order to strive for comfort, one had to use might. Dominant societies happened to be such, often forcing war upon weak societies in order to confiscate the available booty. This was the period when everybody’s conscience was destabilized by the insecurities of life; and how strong the brutish instinct in humans was – or, at best, how unrefined passion showed itself in action – ultimately decided the dominance, and, hence, the warped prosperity of a society, small or big. Might was the key to success, prosperity. Humans, then, were dangerously aggressive, ruthless, and full of the appetite to kill.

One will likely say, on account of this point, that war, in whichever society one views it, archaic, medieval, modern, is an uncivilized human activity even though its consequence can bring satisfaction and pleasure to the victor, the inhabitants of the victor's society, as well as a kind of materialistic development that may be unsurpassed by other societies that chose a different route, a peaceful route, so to speak. But even so, materialistic development does not alone determine the scope of development. Moral, social, spiritual and political developments are all significant branches of development.

The victor in a war in contemporary societies does not have to physically, directly, grab the available spoils, else anxious observers or reporters will consider such an action as equally barbaric and a reminder of the brutish life of the antiquarian past. Booty may be grabbed alright, but it may take a sophisticated form that ties the reconstruction of the war-ravaged society into the hands of the victor. There could occur massive pay-offs to the victor in all sorts of ways. The vanquished – shall we say - is trapped in a vicious circle of dependency. The victor's society basks in prosperity as a result of this, and people who did not care to assess the implications of war go on to glorify the greatness that is claimed of the victor's society.

Whether in the antiquarian past or at present, the victor in a war holds a dominant position on the world stage. Therefore, conquerors, prominent generals, war heroes, tend to earn much more fame by way of memorials, sculptures, other crafts and arts, continual glorification, than other greats. For if a society's greatness and chief forms of development sprang, by and large, from conquests, then it follows that the heroes have to be duly honoured. Yet, the greatness of a society through the instrument of war calls to question the issue of civility. And one is bound to ask: is a great society propped by war necessarily civilized?

War serves as a dangerous precedent and may encourage reckless leaders to start a war any time disagreements with another party or some parties persist. The leaders may lose their restraint, and insist that might is right, that might is preferable to reasoning. Should this happen, the old fallacy of “appeal to force” will grip the leaders' conscience. It is as though there is no point in establishing the factual and logical basis of war; that all that is required is to impose war in order to get what one wants. War is expected to settle disagreements swiftly and easily in spite of the countless human lives that may be lost as well as the flying arrogance that it may breed in the victor. This is a big human frailty.

And to the question whether a great society is necessarily civilized, one must ask again: What means did such a society use to be great? If peace is preferable to war - which it is - then the moral justification of war should occupy our minds far more than the consequences of war. A modern country that chooses the route of war as the means to develop revives the sentiments of killing and the savagery of the antiquarian past. Accordingly, the consequences of war cannot justify the means.