My eldest son read a poem to me this morning that brought to mind a quote by John Stuart Mill. While I wouldn't encourage anyone to adopt his worldview, the quote should slap most of America out of its comfortable complacency.
I post this quote not to address current US foreign policy. That's another discussion. I post it to spur us toward reconsidering our lethargic assessments of issues in our home, communities, and spanning the globe (a tip of the hat to WWoS). Here it is...
"But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."
(from his essay "The Contest in America")
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1 comment:
I've had the portion of this qoute you highlighted in white memorized since college. The horrible, ugly nature of war is overshadowed by only a few things. Lack of Freedom is one of those things. Thanks for posting the quote.
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