A longer and more detailed examination, by 1952 Nobel Peace Prize
winner Albert Scwheitzer, is contained in his lecture, "The Problem of
Peace." I've excerpted some of the most relevant, imo, grafs here.
I'll leave the interpretation and comparison to our times to you.
It would seem then that, in the past, war could operate just as well
in favor of progress as against it. It is with much less conviction
that we can claim modern war to be an agent of progress. The evil that
it embodies weighs more heavily on us than ever before.
Because they anticipated the progressive humanization of the methods
of war, people also believed that the evils resulting from future
conflicts would be relatively slight. This supposition grew out of the
obligations accepted by nations under the terms of the Geneva
Convention of 1864, following the efforts of the Red Cross. Mutual
guarantees were exchanged concerning care for the wounded, the humane
treatment of prisoners of war, and the welfare of the civilian
population. This convention did indeed achieve some significant results
for which hundreds of thousands of combatants and civilians were to be
thankful in the wars to come. But, compared to the miseries of war,
which have grown beyond all proportion with the introduction of modern
weapons of death and destruction, they are trivial indeed. Truly, it
cannot be a question of humanizing war.
The concept of the brief war and that of the humanization of its
methods, propounded as they were on the eve of war in 1914, led people
to take the war less seriously than they should have. They regarded it
as a storm which was to clear the political air and as an event which
was to end the arms race that was ruining nations.
While some lightheartedly supported the war on account of the
profits they expected to gain from it, others did so from a more noble
motive: this war must be the war to end all wars. Many a brave man set
out for battle in the belief that he was fighting for a day when war
would no longer exist.
Since we now know what a terrible evil war is, we must spare no
effort to prevent its recurrence. To this reason must also be added an
ethical one: In the course of the last two wars, we have been guilty of
acts of inhumanity which make one shudder, and in any future war we
would certainly be guilty of even worse. This must not happen!
Let us dare to face the situation. Man has become superman. He is a
superman because he not only has at his disposal innate physical
forces, but also commands, thanks to scientific and technological
advances, the latent forces of nature which he can now put to his own
use. To kill at a distance, man used to rely solely on his own physical
strength; he used it to bend the bow and to release the arrow. The
superman has progressed to the stage where, thanks to a device designed
for the purpose, he can use the energy released by the combustion of a
given combination of chemical products. This enables him to employ a
much more effective projectile and to propel it over far greater
distances.
However, the superman suffers from a fatal flaw. He has failed to
rise to the level of superhuman reason which should match that of his
superhuman strength. He requires such reason to put this vast power to
solely reasonable and useful ends and not to destructive and murderous
ones. Because he lacks it, the conquests of science and technology
become a mortal danger to him rather than a blessing.
But the essential fact which we should acknowledge in our
conscience, and which we should have acknowledged a long time ago, is
that we are becoming inhuman to the extent that we become supermen. We
have learned to tolerate the facts of war: that men are killed en masse
- some twenty million in the Second World War - that whole cities and
their inhabitants are annihilated by the atomic bomb, that men are
turned into living torches by incendiary bombs. We learn of these
things from the radio or newspapers and we judge them according to
whether they signify success for the group of peoples to which we
belong, or for our enemies. When we do admit to ourselves that such
acts are the results of inhuman conduct, our admission is accompanied
by the thought that the very fact of war itself leaves us no option but
to accept them. In resigning ourselves to our fate without a struggle,
we are guilty of inhumanity.
What really matters is that we should all of us realize that we are
guilty of inhumanity. The horror of this realization should shake us
out of our lethargy so that we can direct our hopes and our intentions
to the coming of an era in which war will have no place.
This hope and this will can have but one aim: to attain, through a
change in spirit, that superior reason which will dissuade us from
misusing the power at our disposal.
Is the spirit capable of achieving what we in our distress must expect of it?
Let us not underestimate its power, the evidence of which can be
seen throughout the history of mankind. The spirit created this
humanitarianism which is the origin of all progress toward some form of
higher existence. Inspired by humanitarianism we are true to ourselves
and capable of creating. Inspired by a contrary spirit we are
unfaithful to ourselves and fall prey to all manner of error.
Whether peace comes or not depends on the direction in which the
mentality of individuals develops and then, in turn, on that of their
nations. This truth holds more meaning for us today than it did for the
past. Erasmus, Sully, the Abbé Castel de Saint-Pierre, and the others
who in their time were engrossed in the problem of peace dealt with
princes and not with peoples. Their efforts tended to be concentrated
on the establishment of a supranational authority vested with the power
of arbitrating any difficulties which might arise between princes.
Kant, in his essay on "Perpetual Peace", was the first to foresee an
age when peoples would govern themselves and when they, no less than
the sovereigns, would be concerned with the problem of peace. He
thought of this evolution as progress. In his opinion, peoples would be
more inclined than princes to maintain peace because it is they who
bear the miseries of war.
The time has come, certainly, when governments must look on
themselves as the executors of the will of the people. But Kant's
reliance on the people's innate love for peace has not been justified.
Because the will of the people, being the will of the crowd, has not
avoided the danger of instability and the risk of emotional distraction
from the path of true reason, it has failed to demonstrate a vital
sense of responsibility. Nationalism of the worst sort was displayed in
the last two wars, and it may be regarded today as the greatest
obstacle to mutual understanding between peoples.
Such nationalism can be repulsed only through the rebirth of a
humanitarian ideal among men which will make their allegiance to their
country a natural one inspired by genuine ideals.
I am well aware that what I have had to say on the problem of peace
is not essentially new. It is my profound conviction that the solution
lies in our rejecting war for an ethical reason; namely, that war makes
us guilty of the crime of inhumanity. Erasmus of Rotterdam and several
others after him have already proclaimed this as the truth around which
we should rally.
Only when an ideal of peace is born in the minds of the peoples will
the institutions set up to maintain this peace effectively fulfill the
function expected of them.
Even today, we live in an age characterized by the absence of peace;
even today, nations can feel themselves threatened by other nations;
even today, we must concede to each nation the right to stand ready to
defend itself with the terrible weapons now at its disposal.
Such is the predicament in which we seek the first sign of the
spirit in which we must place our trust. This sign can be none other
than an effort on the part of peoples to atone as far as possible for
the wrongs they inflicted upon each other during the last war. Hundreds
of thousands of prisoners and deportees are waiting to return to their
homes; others, unjustly condemned by a foreign power, await their
acquittal; innumerable other injustices still await reparation.
In the name of all who toil in the cause of peace, I beg the peoples
to take the first step along this new highway. Not one of them will
lose a fraction of the power necessary for their own defense.
I believe that I have expressed the thoughts and hopes of millions
of men who, in our part of the world, live in fear of war to come. May
my words convey their intended meaning if they penetrate to the other
part of the world - the other side of the trench - to those who live
there in the same fear.
May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands,
studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to
deteriorate and become even more dangerous. May they take to heart the
words of the Apostle Paul: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you,
live peaceably with all men". These words are valid not only for
individuals, but for nations as well. May these nations, in their
efforts to maintain peace, do their utmost to give the spirit time to
grow and to act.
One last thought: It wouldn't hurt to send some of these key
passages to the Powers That Be. America's moral compass is seriously
out of whack, right now, and we could use all the help we can get.
We'll start out this week with a timely message from my pal Chicago Dyke:
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