Preventing the return of war cannot seriously be discussed until we have taken pains to consider not its more or less obvious ends, but the means it sets in motion; not its unthinkable justifications, but its structure.
I’m not hiding the fact that this leaves us open to bitter reflections, but I think we can bear the weight if that is the price of more clairvoyance, even more so if we are convinced that the cure can only be born from a less superficial understanding of the illness.
We must begin by taking away from war its letters patent and nobility. And let me make myself clear here: within the abominable framework of war there has been a great show of grandeur. This grandeur, when it is true grandeur, only demonstrates in a stagey way, the measure of certain men. In less inclement weather, their outlay of generosity might be the same, and all things considered, less vain. Military heroism presents at least this other side of the coin, that in the midst of battle one must sometimes also accord it to one’s adversary, which leads one to value not only different parts, but the most gung-ho and undoubtedly the most responsible ones, of a whole one professes to abhor. This above is the trouble spot at the heart of the many lines of interference that run through war and whose network represents the cruelest possible emotional ambivalence in mankind.
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