An excerpt from Bertrand Russell's "Why Men Fight:"
Any man with
any force in him would rather live in this world,
with all its ghastly horrors, than in Plato's Re-
public or among Swift's Houyhnhnms. The
men who make Utopias proceed upon a radi-
cally false assumption as to what constitutes a
good life. They conceive that it is possible to
imagine a certain state of society and a certain
way of life which should be once for all recog-
nized as good, and should then continue for ever
and ever. They do not realize that much the
greater part of a man's happiness depends upon
activity, and only a very small remnant con-
sists in passive enjoyment. Even the pleas-
ures which do consist in enjoyment are only
satisfactory, to most men, when they come in
the intervals of activity. Social reformers, like
inventors of Utopias, are apt to forget this very
obvious fact of human nature. They aim
rather at securing more leisure, and more op-
portunity for enjoying it, than at making work
itself more satisfactory, more consonant with
impulse, and a better outlet for creativeness and
the desire to employ one's faculties. Work, in
the modern world, is, to almost all who depend .
on earnings, mere work, not an embodiment of
the desire for activity. Probably this is to a
considerable extent inevitable. But in so far
as it can be prevented something will be done
to give a peaceful outlet to some of the im-
pulses which lead to war.
It would, of course, be easy to bring about
peace if there were no vigor in the world. The
Roman Empire was pacific and unproductive;
the Athens of Pericles was the most productive
and almost the most warlike community known
to history. The only form of production in
which our own age excels is science, and in
science Germany, the most warlike of Great
Powers, is supreme. It is useless to multiply
examples; but it is plain that the very same
vital energy which produces all that is best also '
produces war and the love of war. This is the
basis of the opposition to pacifism felt by many
men whose aims and activities are by no means
brutal. Pacifism, in practice, too often ex-
presses merely lack of force, not the refusal to
use force in thwarting others. Pacifism, if it is
to be both victorious and beneficent, must find
an outlet, compatible with humane feeling, for
the vigor which now leads nations into war and
destruction.
Any man with
any force in him would rather live in this world,
with all its ghastly horrors, than in Plato's Re-
public or among Swift's Houyhnhnms. The
men who make Utopias proceed upon a radi-
cally false assumption as to what constitutes a
good life. They conceive that it is possible to
imagine a certain state of society and a certain
way of life which should be once for all recog-
nized as good, and should then continue for ever
and ever. They do not realize that much the
greater part of a man's happiness depends upon
activity, and only a very small remnant con-
sists in passive enjoyment. Even the pleas-
ures which do consist in enjoyment are only
satisfactory, to most men, when they come in
the intervals of activity. Social reformers, like
inventors of Utopias, are apt to forget this very
obvious fact of human nature. They aim
rather at securing more leisure, and more op-
portunity for enjoying it, than at making work
itself more satisfactory, more consonant with
impulse, and a better outlet for creativeness and
the desire to employ one's faculties. Work, in
the modern world, is, to almost all who depend .
on earnings, mere work, not an embodiment of
the desire for activity. Probably this is to a
considerable extent inevitable. But in so far
as it can be prevented something will be done
to give a peaceful outlet to some of the im-
pulses which lead to war.
It would, of course, be easy to bring about
peace if there were no vigor in the world. The
Roman Empire was pacific and unproductive;
the Athens of Pericles was the most productive
and almost the most warlike community known
to history. The only form of production in
which our own age excels is science, and in
science Germany, the most warlike of Great
Powers, is supreme. It is useless to multiply
examples; but it is plain that the very same
vital energy which produces all that is best also '
produces war and the love of war. This is the
basis of the opposition to pacifism felt by many
men whose aims and activities are by no means
brutal. Pacifism, in practice, too often ex-
presses merely lack of force, not the refusal to
use force in thwarting others. Pacifism, if it is
to be both victorious and beneficent, must find
an outlet, compatible with humane feeling, for
the vigor which now leads nations into war and
destruction.
Trying to update my sig ...
