I go to my old dictionary, and find; "Politics, I. The science of
government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and
government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace
and prosperity; the defence of its existence and rights against foreign
control or conquest; the augmentation of its strength and resources, and
the protection of its citizens in their rights; with the preservation
and improvement of their morals. 2. The management of political parties;
the advancement of candidates to office; in a bad sense, artful or
dishonest management to secure the success of political measures or
party schemes, political trickery."
From present day experience we might add, 3. Politics, practical; The
art of organizing and handling men in large numbers, manipulating votes,
and, in especial, appropriating public wealth.
We can easily see that the "science of government" may be divided into
"pure" and "applied" like other sciences, but that it is "a part of
ethics" will be news to many minds.
Yet why not? Ethics is the science of conduct, and politics is merely
one field of conduct; a very common one. Its connection with Warfare in
this chapter is perfectly legitimate in view of the history of politics
on the one hand, and the imperative modern issues which are to-day
opposed to this established combination.
There are many to-day who hold that politics need not be at all
connected with warfare, and others who hold that politics is warfare
from start to finish.
In order to dissociate the two ideas completely let us give a paraphrase
of the above definition, applying it to domestic management;--that
part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of
a family; the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; the
defense of its existence and rights against any strangers' interference
or control; the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the
protection of its members in their rights; with the preservation and
improvement of their morals.
All this is simple enough, and in no way masculine; neither is it
feminine, save in this; that the tendency to care for, defend and manage
a group, is in its origin maternal.
In every human sense, however, politics has left its maternal base far
in the background; and as a field of study and of action is as well
adapted to men as to women. There is no reason whatever why men should
not develop great ability in this department of ethics, and gradually
learn how to preserve the safety, peace and prosperity of their nation;
together with those other services as to resources, protection of
citizens, and improvement of morals.
Men, as human beings, are capable of the noblest devotion and efficiency
in these matters, and have often shown them; but their devotion and
efficiency have been marred in this, as in so many other fields, by the
constant obtrusion of an ultra-masculine tendency.
In warfare, _per se_, we find maleness in its absurdest extremes. Here
is to be studied the whole gamut of basic masculinity, from the initial
instinct of combat, through every form of glorious ostentation, with the
loudest possible accompaniment of noise.
Primitive warfare had for its climax the possession of the primitive
prize, the female. Without dogmatising on so remote a period, it may
be suggested as a fair hypothesis that this was the very origin of our
organized raids. We certainly find war before there was property in
land, or any other property to tempt aggressors. Women, however, there
were always, and when a specially androcentric tribe had reduced its
supply of women by cruel treatment, or they were not born in sufficient
numbers, owing to hard conditions, men must needs go farther afield
after other women. Then, since the men of the other tribes naturally
objected to losing their main labor supply and comfort, there was war.
Thus based on the sex impulse, it gave full range to the combative
instinct, and further to that thirst for vocal exultation so exquisitely
male. The proud bellowings of the conquering stag, as he trampled on his
prostrate rival, found higher expression in the "triumphs" of old days,
when the conquering warrior returned to his home, with victims chained
to his chariot wheels, and braying trumpets.
When property became an appreciable factor in life, warfare took on a
new significance. What was at first mere destruction, in the effort to
defend or obtain some hunting ground or pasture; and, always, to secure
the female; now coalesced with the acquisitive instinct, and the long
black ages of predatory warfare closed in upon the world.
Where the earliest form exterminated, the later enslaved, and took
tribute; and for century upon century the "gentleman adventurer," i.e.,
the primitive male, greatly preferred to acquire wealth by the simple
old process of taking it, to any form of productive industry.
We have been much misled as to warfare by our androcentric literature.
With a history which recorded nothing else; a literature which praised
and an art which exalted it; a religion which called its central power
"the God of Battles"--never the God of Workshops, mind you!--with
a whole complex social structure man-prejudiced from center to
circumference, and giving highest praise and honor to the Soldier; it is
still hard for its to see what warfare really is in human life.
Someday we shall have new histories written, histories of world
progress, showing the slow uprising, the development, the interservice
of the nations; showing the faint beautiful dawn of the larger spirit of
world-consciousness, and all its benefitting growth.
We shall see people softening, learning, rising; see life lengthen with
the possession of herds, and widen in rich prosperity with agriculture.
Then industry, blossoming, fruiting, spreading wide; art, giving
light and joy; the intellect developing with companionship and human
intercourse; the whole spreading tree of social progress, the trunk of
which is specialized industry, and the branches of which comprise every
least and greatest line of human activity and enjoyment. This growing
tree, springing up wherever conditions of peace and prosperity gave it a
chance, we shall see continually hewed down to the very root by war.
To the later historian will appear throughout the ages, like some
Hideous Fate, some Curse, some predetermined check, to drag down all our
hope and joy and set life forever at its first steps over again, this
Red Plague of War.
The instinct of combat, between males, worked advantageously so long
as it did not injure the female or the young. It is a perfectly natural
instinct, and therefore perfectly right, in its place; but its place
is in a pre-patriarchal era. So long as the animal mother was free and
competent to care for herself and her young; then it was an advantage to
have "the best man win;" that is the best stag or lion; and to have the
vanquished die, or live in sulky celibacy, was no disadvantage to any
one but himself.
Humanity is on a stage above this plan. The best man in the social
structure is not always the huskiest. When a fresh horde of ultra-male
savages swarmed down upon a prosperous young civilization, killed off
the more civilized males and appropriated the more civilized females;
they did, no doubt, bring in a fresh physical impetus to the race; but
they destroyed the civilization.
The reproduction of perfectly good savages is not the main business of
humanity. Its business is to grow, socially; to develop, to improve; and
warfare, at its best, retards human progress; at its worst, obliterates
it.
Combat is not a social process at all; it is a physical process, a
subsidiary sex process, purely masculine, intended to improve the
species by the elimination of the unfit. Amusingly enough, or absurdly
enough; when applied to society, it eliminates the fit, and leaves the
unfit to perpetuate the race!
We require, to do our organized fighting, a picked lot of vigorous young
males, the fittest we can find. The too old or too young; the sick,
crippled, defective; are all left behind, to marry and be fathers; while
the pick of the country, physically, is sent off to oppose the pick of
another country, and kill--kill--kill!
Observe the result on the population! In the first place the balance is
broken--there are not enough men to go around, at home; many women are
left unmated. In primitive warfare, where women were promptly enslaved,
or, at the best, polygamously married, this did not greatly matter
to the population; but as civilization advances and monogamy obtains,
whatever eugenic benefits may once have sprung from warfare are
completely lost, and all its injuries remain.
In what we innocently call "civilized warfare" (we might as well speak
of "civilized cannibalism!"), this steady elimination of the fit leaves
an everlowering standard of parentage at home. It makes a widening
margin of what we call "surplus women," meaning more than enough to
be monogamously married; and these women, not being economically
independent, drag steadily upon the remaining men, postponing marriage,
and increasing its burdens.
The birth rate is lowered in quantity by the lack of husbands, and
lowered in quality both by the destruction of superior stock, and by
the wide dissemination of those diseases which invariably accompany the
wife-lessness of the segregated males who are told off to perform our
military functions.
The external horrors and wastes of warfare we are all familiar with;
A. It arrests industry and all progress. B. It destroys the fruits of
industry and progress. C. It weakens, hurts and kills the combatants. D.
It lowers the standard of the non-combatants. Even the conquering nation
is heavily injured; the conquered sometimes exterminated, or at least
absorbed by the victor.
This masculine selective process, when applied to nations, does not
produce the same result as when applied to single opposing animals.
When little Greece was overcome it did not prove that the victors were
superior, nor promote human interests in any way; it injured them.
The "stern arbitrament of war" may prove which of two peoples is
the better fighter, but ft does not prove it therefor the fittest to
survive.
Beyond all these more or less obvious evils, comes a further result, not
enough recognized; the psychic effects of military standard of thought
and feeling.
Remember that an androcentric culture has always exempted its own
essential activities from the restraints of ethics,--"All's fair in
love and war!" Deceit, trickery, lying, every kind of skulking underhand
effort to get information; ceaseless endeavor to outwit and overcome
"the enemy"; besides as cruelty and destruction; are characteristic of
the military process; as well as the much praised virtues of courage,
endurance and loyalty, personal and public.
Also classed as a virtue, and unquestionably such from the military
point of view, is that prime factor in making and keeping an army,
obedience.
See how the effect of this artificial maintenance of early mental
attitudes acts on our later development. True human progress requires
elements quite other than these. If successful warfare made one nation
unquestioned master of the earth its social progress would not be
promoted by that event. The rude hordes of Genghis Khan swarmed
over Asia and into Europe, but remained rude hordes; conquest is not
civilization, nor any part of it.
When the northern tribes-men overwhelmed the Roman culture they
paralysed progress for a thousand years or so; set back the clock
by that much. So long as all Europe was at war, so long the arts and
sciences sat still, or struggled in hid corners to keep their light
alive.
When warfare itself ceases, the physical, social and psychic results do
not cease. Our whole culture is still hag-ridden by military ideals.
Peace congresses have begun to meet, peace societies write and talk, but
the monuments to soldiers and sailors (naval sailors of course), still
go up, and the tin soldier remains a popular toy. We do not see boxes
of tin carpenters by any chance; tin farmers, weavers, shoemakers; we
do not write our "boys books" about the real benefactors and servers
of society; the adventurer and destroyer remains the idol of an
Androcentric Culture.
In politics the military ideal, the military processes, are so
predominant as to almost monopolise "that part of ethics." The science
of government, the plain wholesome business of managing a community for
its own good; doing its work, advancing its prosperity, improving its
morals--this is frankly understood and accepted as A Fight from start
to finish. Marshall your forces and try to get in, this is the political
campaign. When you are in, fight to stay in, and to keep the other
fellow out. Fight for your own hand, like an animal; fight for
your master like any hired bravo; fight always for some desired
"victory"--and "to the victors belong the spoils."
This is not by any means the true nature of politics. It is not even a
fair picture of politics to-day; in which man, the human being, is
doing noble work for humanity; but it is the effect of man, the male, on
politics.
Life, to the "male mind" (we have heard enough of the "female mind" to
use the analogue!) _is_ a fight, and his ancient military institutions
and processes keep up the delusion.
As a matter of fact life is growth. Growth comes naturally, by
multiplication of cells, and requires three factors to promote it;
nourishment, use, rest. Combat is a minor incident of life; belonging to
low levels, and not of a developing influence socially.
The science of politics, in a civilized community, should have by this
time a fine accumulation of simplified knowledge for diffusion in
public schools; a store of practical experience in how to promote
social advancement most rapidly, a progressive economy and ease of
administration, a simplicity in theory and visible benefit in practice,
such as should make every child an eager and serviceable citizen.