That experiences and motives which belong to the field of the
aesthetic play an important part in war can hardly be doubted. The
whole history of war shows this, and even in the beginning war seems
to be an activity carried on in part for its own sake, and not
entirely for its practical results, and thus has qualities which later
are explicitly aesthetic. We cannot of course separate sharply the
aesthetic motive from everything else in studying so highly complex an
object as war, but that war does partake of the nature of what we call
the _beautiful_, and that the craving for the beautiful is a factor in
the causes of war seem to be certain. The relation of art to war is of
course no new theme. War has often been praised because of its
aesthetic nature, and its dramatic features. It is called a beautiful
adventure. It is reproduced in pictorial art, represented in music,
and thus glorified and adorned, showing at least that it can readily
be made to appear beautiful if it does not in itself possess beauty.
Those who think of war as related to play also connect it with art.
Nicolai (79), who condemns war, says that it is when war as an
instinctive action is no longer useful, but is performed for its own
sake that it becomes beautiful.
We cannot undertake to enumerate all the aesthetic qualities of war,
or to show all the relations of the aesthetic aspects to other motives
of war in detail, since to do so would mean to work out some of the
fundamental principles of aesthetics. We may begin, however, by saying
that war as a whole, as a movement in which there is complete
organization of social forces shows already the marks of aesthetic
experience and of art. As such a unification of interest in a strong
and uninhibited movement, as a coördinated expression of deep desires,
a multiplicity of action with a unity of purpose, so to speak, war is
aesthetic in form although to mention such very general qualities does
not go very far toward characterizing an object.
In its meaning as _tragedy_ war contains and exerts a strong aesthetic
appeal. With all its horrors, war fascinates the mind.
As fate, death,
history it inspires awe, and creates a sense of the inevitableness of
events and of the play of transcendental and inexorable forces in
human life. When, under any influence, these feelings appear as an
accepting and willing of evil, we have the tragic movement as we find
it in art. The death _motif_ in war is the center of a variety of
states which are ecstatic and have aesthetic quality.
The religion of
valor, the passion that is aroused by abandoning oneself to fate, the
absolute devotion of service are aesthetic in form as experience,
whatever else they may be. The relation of these motives to love and
to the reproductive impulses has often been noticed.
Devotion and
death appear as beautiful; their representation in art is in part a
recognition of this fact; in part it is an effort to transform them
into the forms of the aesthetic. Art celebrates, but also creates,
this luxury of feeling, and war also in its own dramatic movement
transforms ugly and plain facts of life by including them in ecstatic
states, and surrounding them with glory.
The ideal of glorified death plays a large part in the spirit of war.
In war the fear of death is not only in great part stilled, but there
is a longing to tempt fate and also to experience death itself, and
this desire may become ecstatic. Here we see in effect one of the most
important functions of the aesthetic, which is to carry on a _drama of
the will_ in which something that is in itself painful becomes
pleasant and desired. The desire for war is to some extent a desire
for death, a longing for a form of euthanasia in which the individual
dies but in a sense lives--lives as glorified in death, and also in
the continuance of the life of the group and of the country into which
he has been absorbed. It is of course its relation to death that more
than anything else has made it necessary that war should appeal to
art, and take an aesthetic form, and without the aid of the aesthetic,
war could not maintain itself in the world. As a sheer fulfillment of
duty war could not survive. By the strength of its aesthetic appeal
war must control and overcome the instinct of self-preservation.
War appeals to the human mind as the great adventure of life. To the
healthy normal man this appeal, under certain circumstances, may be
compelling in its power. Man feels the call of adventure in his blood.
War may seem at times the natural expression of what is most real and
most essentially masculine in human nature. War is the essence of all
the dramatic and heroic story of the world. The past lives most
vividly in this theme of war, and the sense of remoteness in time
lends an aesthetic coloring to all the story of war, and is in part
its fascination. The dead heroes of to-day are glorified by linking
their names with the great heroes of the past.
To the glory of the individual, which is an aesthetic appeal, is added
the still stronger appeal of the ideal of national glory. The image
created in the mind which sustains the devotion of the individual is
also an aesthetic form. It is the idea of a nation transformed by
story, symbol and eloquence that is established. The dimness and
mysticism of the long ago, all dramatic scenes of the national life,
the forms of royalty are used in transforming reality into an ideal.
The consciousness of a nation is indeed an artist which creates an
ideal nation, glorifying and transforming the past, and painting a
vivid picture of the empire that is to be. No little part in the
German idea of the fatherland has been taken by the revived image of
the old German Empire, and the story of Charlemagne, the Ottonides,
the Hohenstaufen and the Hohenzollern which has been woven into the
life of the present and has become an aesthetic setting for the idea
of future greatness.
In the religion of valor, also, we may find aesthetic elements. Valor
represents in this cult the spirit of the superior man.
It is an
aristocratic idea. Military life is full of this theme.
The ideals of
_noblesse oblige_, honor, the spirit of sportsmanship, enter into it,
and all these concepts are in part aesthetic in nature.
It is neither
as moral nor as practical ideas that they have so deeply influenced
society, but because of their appeal to the sense of the beautiful.
All this aspect of war and military life, both in its motives and in
its forms, is closely related to the pure beauty of art.
The play
spirit also, which in some of its developments at least is aesthetic,
enters into the motives of war. War, we say, is the great adventure.
It is the realization of power. It is an expression of the love of the
sense of freedom. It is the great game, in which everything is staked.
The love of danger and the love of gambling with life that it contains
have roots that are also roots of various forms of art.
Another element, aesthetic in motive and form, obviously related to
the reproductive functions of the individual, is the display motive.
This motive of display is concerned especially with the idea of
courage. It is of course a deep desire of the male to display courage
before the female. This display motive must be the main motive of the
_uniform_ and all the other ornamental aspects of military life. Rank,
titles and decorations belong to the same movement. They are
indications of the advancement of the man in those essential qualities
of the soldier, the chief of which is courage. The aesthetic forms in
which courage is represented help to sustain it, and are an important
element in morale, and they also serve a purpose in creating or
adding to the allurement of the service and the fascination of war. It
is the craving for the display of courage, the desire of the man "to
show the stuff that is in him," that gives to war some of its most
persistent aesthetic forms, and these aesthetic forms help both to
make the display of courage effective and to create courage.
Among these aesthetic elements of war must be considered of course the
rhythms, the forms, all the concerted action, the marching (which may
be regarded as one of the forms of the dance), the parade, the
maneuvering and drill that enter into military life.
Already in
primitive warfare these aesthetic forms begin to appear and indicate
clearly both their practical significance as means of affecting the
will, and their relations to the religious and to the reproductive
motives. The warrior tries to create in his person the appearance of
power, and also by the aesthetic forms he introduces into his warfare,
the feeling of power. He believes indeed that through these aesthetic
forms he actually creates or exerts power. This is the motive of the
war dance, which as an aesthetic form produces this ecstasy of the
feeling of power. This power is often conceived to be magical; the
women dancing at home are supposed to exert an influence upon the men
in the field or upon the enemy, and the savage believes that in his
own displays he actually overcomes the spirit of his enemy. Art is
here plainly serving a purpose. Display is a means of creating an
impression in the minds of the enemy. It also has the purpose of
creating an effect in the mind of the soldier himself.
The art in
military life is, indeed, to give the impression of power to all who
must be affected by the exhibition of force.
All social life contains elements that appeal to the aesthetic sense,
and these aesthetic elements are by no means solely ornamental. The
universal development of etiquette and manners has reference to very
practical aspects of the social life. Their function is to influence
the will. The highly developed etiquette of military life is not
merely to facilitate the military functions, and it is no explanation
of the formalism of the military life to say that this is a sign of
its archaic nature. Formalism in this life is one of the means taken
to cover up all the details of militarism that are repugnant: the
hardship, the lack of freedom and the like. Etiquette acts
persuasively upon the will, it helps to make military life desired,
and to make men submissive under control of absolute leaders. All
formalism in social life, considered in one aspect of it, is a symbol
of the resignation of the will of the individual. As thus a symbol it
may either convey or mediate social feeling, and when social feeling
is absent the art of manners may become a substitute for this social
feeling, and in both these ways it is a means of giving to society
cohesion, order and form.
Such considerations as these help to explain the longing for war or
its equivalent which persists in the human heart. It helps us to
realize the truth of Cramb's (66) assertion that the whole history of
the world shows that man has lacked not only the power but the will to
end war and establish perpetual peace. There are still motives in the
mind of man that make him approve of war. War is perpetuated because
of its heroic form, as a form of experience in which the meaning of
life is felt to be exploited, in which life is transformed and
glorified, in which the tragedy of life, which in any case is
inevitable, becomes a tragedy which, because it bears the form of art,
is acceptable and even longed for. This is the allurement of war, its
persistent illusion, perhaps. The aesthetic forms of war take war out
of the field of reason, and on occasion make it transcend or pervert
reason. So we may understand why it is true that sometimes those who
but little understand why they are to die on the field of battle may
display the greatest courage and the greatest enthusiasm for war, and
we must not say that these causes are fatuous because they exist in
the realm of aesthetic values.
If we take war too realistically, with reference to its practical
motives, its mere killing and looting, which we may suspect are
related to the nutritional motive that we always find running through
human conduct, and leave out of account those aspects of war which
seem to belong mainly to the reproductive motive, to the enthusiasm
and intoxication and art of the world, we shall to that extent
misunderstand it. These motives cannot, of course, be separated
definitely from one another in analyzing conduct, but we cannot be
very wrong in differentiating phases of war which belong predominantly
to the reproductive motive. It is because, at least, all deep
tendencies of life are involved in war that it is so hard to eliminate
it from experience. If war were an instinctive reaction it might be
controlled by reason. If it were an atavism or a rudimentary organ
some social surgery or other might relieve us of it. But war is a
product of man's idealism, misdirected and impracticable idealism
though it may be, but still something very expressive of what man is.
It is this idealism of nations, leading them to the larger life, that
makes them cling to war, whether for good or for evil.
It will avail
little to prove to the world that war is an evil, so long as war is
desired, or so long as something which war so readily yields is
desired. Statistics of eugenics and proofs that war ruins business
will not yet cure us of our habit of war, and not at all so long as
there is a vacancy in life which only the dramatic experiences of war
can fill. When war is abandoned, it will be given up probably not
because economists and sociologists vote against k, and we see that
peace is good, but by the consent of a world which, once for all, is
willing to renounce something that is dear to it and held to be good,
if for no other reason, because it symbolizes what life and reality
are. The world appears to have two minds about war, or at least it
does not hold consistently to any one attitude toward it. Beneath all
judgments about the evils of war, there is the allurement of these
aesthetic motives which must be reckoned with in any psychology of
war, or in any practical plan for eliminating war from the future
experience of the race.