The Evening Star (January 25, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
There must be a moral equivalent for war
By Dorothy Thompson
Years ago, one of the great American philosophers, William James, wrote a little essay, called “A Moral Equivalent for War.” Prof. James differed somewhat from the predominant thinking of his age. He did not think that war was an “unmitigated” evil. If it were, he saw, it would have been abolished long ago.
Prof. James saw that war, with all its terrors and griefs, fulfilled the function of binding and of recalling men from selfish individualism to the community, awakening the sense of oneness, and the major virtues of heroism and sacrifice, so that while it released instincts of aggression it compensated, to a remarkable degree, by releasing the opposite instincts, too, of comradely affection and self-abnegation. He did not, for this reason, become an apologist for war. But he did see that the abolition of war might lead to crass materialism and therewith to the disintegration of human societies, unless life in peace also called on the major virtues in pursuit of a common goal.
Now we see how right he was, as the loving solidarity that bound us together collapses, as our armies become hardly more than mobs, as management and labor lock the economy in a paralyzing struggle, as Congress and the administration become no longer one government, but two, and the masses of the people settle into apathy.
There was this to worry about during the war: Many of the people, who in powerful ways influence our habits of thought, seemed unaware that all unconsciously they were helping prepare this demoralization. I think of some of the advertisements we read that held before the people’s eyes peace in terms of illimitable rayons, gasoline, and houses equipped with every gadget… peace as one big spending spree. It was painful to hundreds of thousands who during the war had only one prayer, “Dear God, take care of him … please, dear God … help him to live…” accompanied by those childlike promises one makes, “If only this be granted I will never complain. I will be good.” No one who had a son in grievous battle thought about the new refrigerator. And if the dreaded telegram came, how could one reconcile oneself except by faith and determination that it should not have been in vain and that the country, the nation, would be worthy?
The fantastic American production was the result of that community effort. High wages and profits were the creation of a national effort directed toward a clear goal. Now we seem to think it was the other way around, that wages and or profits created the victory and not that the will to victory, the will to preserve and defend one’s civilization, released the material power. We were seeking first the welfare of the nation, and all the rest was added unto us.
That is what we have to seek again, and that is what is disappointing – if the president will forgive me – in his message on the state of the Union. I do not want to criticize the president, for he has an unenviable job, and no one, as far as I can see, is doing much to help him. But the people would help him – the people would help anybody who would articulate for them a new vision of the land that we could build, the great, beautiful country we could build, all together, as a living memorial forever, to our own heroes and our own noblest selves.
Sometimes when I read what I have lately written I deprecate its pessimism, and indeed there is every visible reason for pessimism. But pessimism, the dictionary tells us, is the conviction that the world and mankind are more evil than good, and nothing in my experience of life justifies such a view. But for a nation of people to be at its best it must be living as a community, bent on a goal that satisfies the longing and will to creation, to advance, to beauty, to love. It must have a vision, a frame of values, a mission, within which the inevitable frustrations and disappointments of individuals and groups assume relative insignificance, as they do in war.
There must, as William James saw, be a moral equivalent for war, or there is no creative peace, no peace of mind, or peace of human relationships, which can only come from the sense of the people that they are doing something together, larger and greater than their own interests or even their own im mediate times.