Page 171 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1948 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Laozi on Power and War

When people are born, they’re supple and soft;

When they die, they end up stretched out firm
the emergence of global terrorism. Conventional wars
and rigid;
seem likely, when involving great powers, to be waged
When the ten thousand things and grasses and only when the odds in favor of an easy victory are seen
trees are alive, they’re supple and pliant; to be high, as in the two wars the United States has
fought in Iraq; civil conflicts ensure that peacekeeping,
When they’re dead, they’re withered and dried
too, will continue to occupy the soldiers of rich nations.
out.
The other reaction to the real and potential destruc-
Therefore we say that the firm and rigid are tiveness of modern war has been the emergence, since the
companions of death, mid-nineteenth century, of organized peace movements
and mass protests against state-led violence. Believing
While the supple, the soft, the weak, and the
that Mutually Assured Destruction is indeed a mad con-
delicate are companions of life.
cept for international relations, opponents of nuclear
If a soldier is rigid, he won’t win; weapons, in particular, often call for an end to all war.
If a tree is rigid, it will come to its end.
Histories of Peace
Rigidity and power occupy the inferior The dialectic between war and peace long predates mod-
position; ern peace movements, of course. The emergence of war
stimulated thinking about war, about peace, and about
Suppleness, softness, weakness, and delicate-
the desirability of either or both and about how peace
ness occupy the superior position.
was to be achieved.
Source: Lao-Tzu. (1989).Te-Tao Ching (p. 47). R. G. Henricks, (Trans.). New York:
Ballantine Books.
Classical Philosophy
Attitudes to war in ancient philosophy rarely invoke true
Mass production of weapons and supplies supported pacifism, the belief that war is so evil that it should be
mass conscript armies, inspired by the mass politics of avoided at all costs. In some warrior-dominated cultures,
nationalism that had first appeared in the armies of the indeed, warfare was glorified; seeking peace would have
French Revolution and Napoleon. Mass destruction in removed all hope for glory and obviated one of the ways
two world wars and in the potential for Mutually Assured in which men (always men, for the history of warfare is
Destruction brought about by nuclear arsenals resulted. highly gendered) gave meaning to their lives. Homer’s
Total War recognized ideologically the practical effect of Iliad provides a clear example of this outlook, though the
weapons systems that reached under water, into the air, Odyssey is more balanced and both recognize the human
and beyond into space: the potential to erase any dis- costs of war.The Indian philosophical tradition raised the
tinction between the frontline and the home front. War elements of such an outlook to the level of high philoso-
itself had become a global phenomenon. phy. The Bhagavad Gita, the central story of the epic
One reaction to the potential for global destruction Mahabharata that forms a central text of Hinduism,
made possible by modern military technology has been explains the concepts of law, duty, and cosmic order in
the decentralization of warfare. Even during the Cold terms of a warrior’s dilemma about killing his relatives in
War, most of the hot wars were fought by proxies for the a looming battle, with the god Vishnu ultimately showing
great powers on one side or both. Since the collapse of that killing is a warrior’s sacred obligation.
bipolarity in 1989, decentralization has increased, with Other classical traditions, while perhaps less noncha-
a majority of armed conflicts occurring in civil and guer- lant about individual deaths, recognize war as an evil nec-
rilla wars below the level of state-to-state war, including essary to the maintenance of order (both internal and