Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage

ALTERNATIVE SATISFACTIONS FOR THE FIGHTING EMOTIONS

The uniformity of visceral responses when almost any feelings grow very intense, and under such conditions the identity of these responses with those characteristically aroused in the belligerent emotion of anger or rage and its counterpart, fear, offer interesting possibilities of transformation and substitution. This is especially true in the activities of human beings. And because men have devised such terribly ingenious and destructive modes of expressing these feelings in war, an inquiry into the basis for possible substitution seems not out of place.

Support for the Militarist Estimate of the Strength of the Fighting Emotions and Instincts

The business of killing and of avoiding death has been one of the primary interests of living beings throughout their long history on the earth. It is in the highest degree natural that feelings of hostility often burn with fierce intensity, and then, with astonishing suddenness, that all the powers of the body are called into action—for the strength of the feelings and the quickness of the response measure the chances of survival in a struggle where the issue may be life or death. These are the powerful emotions and the deeply ingrained instinctive reactions which invariably precede combat. They are the emotions and instincts that sometimes seize upon individuals in groups and spread like wildfire into larger and larger aggregations of men, until vast populations are shouting and clamoring for war. To whatever extent military plans are successful in devising a vast machine for attack or defense, the energies that make the machine go are found, in the last analysis, in human beings who, when the time for action comes, are animated by these surging elemental tendencies which assume control of their conduct and send them madly into conflict.

The strength of the fighting instinct in man has been one of the main arguments used by the militarists in support of preparation for international strife. They point to the historical fact that even among highly civilized peoples scarcely a decade passes without a kindling of the martial emotions, which explode in actual warfare. Such fighting, they say, is inevitable—the manifestation of “biological law”—and, so long as human nature remains unchanged, decision by battle must be resorted to. They urge, furthermore, that in war and in the preparations for war important physical qualities—sturdiness, hardihood, and strength for valorous deeds—are given peculiarly favorable opportunities for development, and that if these opportunities are lacking, lusty youth will give place to weaklings and mollycoddles. In addition the militarists say that war benefits mankind by its moral effects. Without war nations become effete, their ideals become tarnished, the people sink into self-indulgence, their wills weaken and soften in luxury. War, on the contrary, disciplines character, it sobers men, it teaches them to be brave and patient, it renews a true order of values, and its demand for the supreme sacrifice of life brings forth in thousands an eager response that is the crowning glory of the human spirit. As the inevitable expression of a deep-rooted instinct, therefore, and as a unique means of developing desirable physical and moral qualities, war is claimed by the militarists to be a natural necessity.[1]

The militarist contention that the fighting instinct is firmly fixed in human nature receives strong confirmation in the results of our researches. Survival has been decided by the grim law of mortal conflict, and the mechanism for rendering the body more competent in conflict has been revealed in earlier chapters as extraordinarily perfect and complete. Moreover, the physiological provisions for fierce struggle are found not only in the bodies of lower animals, that must hunt and kill in order to live, but also in human beings. Since this remarkable mechanism is present, and through countless generations has served the fundamentally important purpose of giving momentous aid in the struggle for existence, the militarists might properly argue that, as with other physiological processes, bodily harmony would be promoted by its exercise. Indeed, they might account for the periodic outburst of belligerent feelings by assuming that these natural aptitudes require occasional satisfaction.[*]

Growing Opposition to the Fighting Emotions and Instincts as Displayed in War

In spite of the teachings of history that wars have not grown fewer, and in spite of the militarist argument that war is a means of purging mankind of its sordid vices, and renewing instead the noblest virtues, the conclusion that the resort to arms is unavoidable and desirable is nowadays being strongly contested. The militarists show only part of the picture. No large acquaintance with the character of warfare is necessary to prove that when elemental anger, hate and fear prevail, civilized conventions are abandoned and the most savage instincts determine conduct. Homes are looted and burned, women and children are abominably treated, and many innocents are murdered outright or starved to death. No bland argument for the preservation of the manly virtues can palliate such barbarities. Even when fighting men are held within the rules, the devices for killing and injuring are now made so perfect by devilish ingenuity that by the pulling of a trigger one man can in a few seconds mow down scores of his fellow-creatures and send them writhing to agony or death. War has become too horrible; it is conducted on too stupendous a scale of carnage and expenditure; it destroys too many of the treasured achievements of the race; it interferes too greatly with consecrated efforts to benefit all mankind by discovery and invention; it involves too much suffering among peoples not directly concerned in the struggle; it is too vastly at variance with the methods of fair dealing that have been established between man and man; the human family has become too closely knit to allow some of its members to bring upon themselves and all the rest poverty and distress and a long heritage of bitter hatred and resolution to seek revenge.

All these reasons for hostility to war imply a thwarting of strong desires in men—desires for family happiness, devotion to beauty and to scholarship, passion for social justice, hopes of lessening poverty and disease. As was pointed out in the previous chapter, the feeling of hostility has no definite object to awaken it. It is roused when there is opposition to what we ardently wish to get. And because war brings conditions which frustrate many kinds of eagerly sought purposes, war has roused in men a hostility against itself. There is then a war against war, a willingness to fight against monstrous carnage and destruction, that grows in intensity with every war that is waged.

The Desirability of Preserving the Martial Virtues

Although there is increasing opposition to the display of the fighting emotions and instincts in war, nevertheless the admirable moral and physical qualities, claimed by the militarists to be the unique products of war, are too valuable to be lost. As McDougall[2] has indicated, when the life of ideas becomes richer, and the means we take to overcome obstructions to our efforts more refined and complex, the instinct to fight ceases to express itself in its crude natural manner, save when most intensely excited, and becomes rather a source of increased energy of action towards the end set by any other instinct; the energy of its impulses adds itself to and reënforces that of other impulses and so helps us to overcome our difficulties. In this lies its great value for civilized man. A man devoid of the pugnacious instinct would not only be incapable of anger, but would lack this great source of reserve energy which is called into play in most of us by any difficulty in our path.

Thus the very efficiency of a war against war, as well as struggle against other evils that beset civilized society, rests on the preservation and use of aggressive feeling and the instinct to attack. From this point of view the insistence by the militarists that we must accept human nature as we find it, and that the attempt to change it is foolish, seems a more justifiable attitude than that of the pacifists who belittle the fighting qualities and urge that changing them is a relatively simple process. We should not wish them changed. Even if in the war against war a means should be established of securing international justice, and if through coöperative action the decrees of justice were enforced, so that the occasions which would arouse belligerent emotions and instincts were much reduced, there would still remain the need of recognizing their elemental character and their possible usefulness to society. What is needed is not a suppression of these capacities to feel and act, but their diversion into other channels where they may have satisfactory expression.

Moral Substitutes for Warfare

“We must make new energies and hardihoods continue the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings. Martial virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built.” Thus wrote William James[3] in proposing a “moral equivalent for war.” This, he suggested, should consist of such required service in the hard and difficult occupations as would take the childishness and superciliousness out of our youth and give them soberer ideas and healthier sympathies with their fellow-men. He conceived that by proper direction of its education a people should become as proud of the attainment by the nation of superiority in any ideal respect as it would be if the nation were victorious in war. “The martial type of character,” he declared, “can be bred without war. Strenuous honor and disinterestedness abound elsewhere. Priests and medical men are in a fashion educated to it, and we should all feel some degree of it imperative if we were conscious of our work as an obligatory service to the state. We should be owned, as soldiers are by the army, and our pride would rise accordingly. We could be poor, then, without humiliation, as army officers now are. The only thing needed henceforth is to inflame the civic temper as past history has inflamed the military temper.”

Similar ideas have been expressed by others.[4] It has been pointed out that the great war of mankind is that against pain, disease, poverty and sin; that the real heroes are not those who squander human strength and courage in fighting one another, but those who fight for man against these his eternal foes. War of man against man, in this view, becomes dissension in the ranks, permitting the common enemies to strike their most telling blows.

These moral considerations, however, are apart from the main intent of our discussion. Our earlier inquiry confirmed the belief that the fighting emotions are firmly rooted in our natures, and showed that these emotions are intimately associated with provisions for physical exertion. It is particularly in this aspect of the discussion of substitutes for war that these studies have significance.

Physical Substitutes for Warfare

The idealization of the state and the devotion of service to social welfare, which have been suggested as moral substitutes for military loyalty, leave unanswered the claims of the militarists that in war and in preparations for war opportunities are offered which are peculiarly favorable to the development of important physical qualities—bodily vigor, sturdiness, and ability to withstand all manner of hardships.

In the evidence previously presented, it seems to me there was a suggestion that offers a pertinent alternative to these claims. When the body goes onto what we have called a war footing, the physiological changes that suddenly occur are all adapted to the putting forth of supreme muscular and nervous efforts. That was what primitive battle consisted of, through countless myriads of generations—a fierce physical contest of beast with beast, and of man with man. Such contests, attended as they were by the thrill of unpredictable incidents, and satisfying completely the lust of combat, are to be contrasted with the dull grind in preparation for modern war, the monotonous regularity of subservience, the substitution everywhere of mechanism for muscle, and often the attack on an enemy who lies wholly unseen.[*] As Wallas with nice irony has remarked, “The gods in Valhalla would hardly choose the organization of modern lines of military communication, as they chose the play of sword and spear, to be the most exquisite employment of eternity.”

While it is true that physical strength can be developed by any form of hard labor, as, for example, by sawing wood or digging ditches, such labor does not stimulate quickness, alertness, and resourcefulness in bodily action. Nor does it give any occasion for use of the emotional mechanism for reënforcement. If this mechanism, like other physiological arrangements, is present in the body for use—and previous discussion leaves little doubt of that—then as a means of exercising it and, in addition, satisfying the strong instinct for competitive testing of strength and physical skill, some activity more enlivening than monotonous gymnastics and ordered marching is required.

In many respects strenuous athletic rivalries present, better than modern military service, the conditions for which the militarists argue, the conditions for which the body spontaneously prepares when the passion for fighting prevails. As explained in an earlier chapter, in competitive sports the elemental factors are retained—man is again pitted against man, and all the resources of the body are summoned in the eager struggle for victory. And because, under such circumstances, the same physiological alterations occur that occur in anticipation of mortal combat, the belligerent emotions and instincts, so far as their bodily manifestations are concerned, are thereby given complete satisfaction.

The Significance of International Athletic Competitions

For reasons given above, I venture to lay emphasis on a suggestion, which has been made before by others, that the promotion of great international athletic contests, such as the Olympic games, would do for our young men much that is now claimed as peculiar to the values of military discipline. The substitution of athletic rivalries for battle is not unknown. In the Philippine Islands, according to Worcester,[5] there were no athletics before the American occupation. The natives soon learned games from the soldiers. And when the sports reached such development that competition between towns and provinces was possible, they began to arouse the liveliest enthusiasm among the people. The physical development of the participants has been greatly stimulated, the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship, formerly lacking, has sprung into existence in every section of the Islands, and the annual meets between athletic teams from various provinces are recognized as promoting a general and friendly understanding among the different Filipino tribes. The fierce Igarots of Bontoc, once constantly at war with neighboring tribes, now show their prowess not in head-hunting, but in baseball, wrestling, and the tug-of-war.[*]

Is it unreasonable to expect that what has happened in the Philippine Islands might, by proper education and suggestion, happen elsewhere in the world? Certainly the interest in athletic contests is no slight and transient interest. At the time of a great war we know that news of the games is fully as much demanded as news of the war. Already in the United States, without special stimulation, the number of young men engaged in athletic training is estimated as equal to the number in the standing army. And in England, belief in the efficacy of athletics as a means of promoting hardihood and readiness to face stern hazards has found expression in the phrase that England’s battles have been won on the football fields of Rugby and of Eton. With the further promotion of international contests the influence of competitive sports is likely to increase rather than lessen. Within national boundaries emulation is sure to stimulate extensively such games as will bring forth the best representative athletes that the country can produce. In one of the high-spirited European nations, which made a poor showing at the last Olympic meet, thousands of young men began training for the next meet, under a director imported from the nation that had made the highest records.

Training for athletic contests is quite as likely to enure young men to physical hardship and fatigue, is quite as conducive to the development of bodily vigor, the attainment of alertness and skill and the practice of self-restraint, as is army life with its traditional associations and easy license. It may be urged, however, that an essential element is lacking in all this discussion—the sobering possibility that in war the supreme surrender of life itself may be required. Death for one’s country is indeed glorious. But the argument that being killed is desirable has little to commend it. When the strongest and sturdiest are constantly chosen to be fed to the engines of annihilation, the race is more likely to lose greater values than it gains from the spectacle of self-sacrifice, however perfect that may be. Are there not advantages in the conditions of great athletic rivalries that may compensate for war’s most austere demand? The race of hardy men, to secure which the militarists urge war, is much more likely to result from the honoring and preserving of vigorous men in their vigor than it is from the systematic selection of such men to be destroyed in their youth.

There are other aspects of international games which strongly commend them as an alternative to the pursuit of military discipline. The high standards of honor and fairness in sport; its unfailing revelation of excellence without distinctions of class, wealth, race or color; the ease with which it becomes an expression of the natural feelings of patriotism; the respect which victory and pluckily borne defeat inspire in competitors and spectators alike; the extension of acquaintance and understanding which follows from friendly and magnanimous rivalry among strong men who come together from the ends of the earth—each of these admirable features of athletic contests between nations might be enlarged upon. But, as intimated before, these moral considerations must be left without further mention, as being irrelevant to the physiological processes with which we are dealing.

We are concerned with the question of exercising the fighting instinct and thus assuring the physical welfare of the race. The race must degenerate, the militarists say, if this instinct is not allowed to express itself in war. This declaration we are in a position to deny, for the evidence is perfectly clean-cut that the aggressive instincts, which through æons of racial experience have naturally and spontaneously developed vigor and resourcefulness in the body, are invited by elemental emotions, and that through these emotions energies are released which are highly useful to great physical effort. No stupid routine of drill, or any other deadening procedure, will call these energizing mechanisms into activity. War and the preparations for war nowadays have become too machine-like to serve as the best means of preserving and disciplining these forces. The exhilarating swing and tug and quick thrust of the big limb muscles have largely vanished. Pressing an electric contact or bending the trigger finger is a movement altogether too trifling. If, then, natural feelings must be expressed, if the fighting functions of the body must be exercised, how much better that these satisfactions be found in natural rather than in artificial actions, how much more reasonable that men should struggle for victory in the ancient ways, one against another, body and spirit, as in the great games.

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