LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable) length is that of one of our " News of the Week " paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.]
" THE FIGHTING INSTINCT "
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sul,—In view of the interest which is certain to be raised by Major Yeats-Brown's book Dogs of War ! may I, as a member of the generation most concerned, make a few remarks upon it ?
The whole book, it seems to me, is based on a popular fallacy : that war is made inevitable by human nature. We read of the " fighting spirit," the " combative instincts ' and the " psychological urges to conflict." None of these are fundamentals of human nature. Our biological instincts, for example, are those of animals, and animals only fight for definite ends—for their mates and their food. It is true that economic causes of war correspond to the struggle for food—but the author does not discuss such causes. It is true that men will fight for self-preservation, but this, of course, implies an aggressor.
The fact is that human beings are not normally aggressive.
Most of them like to live at peace with each other. When they quarrel it is because they are morbidly dissatisfied, or ill, or have nothing to do. Whether in small villages or large towns, the people who seem most aggressive are either stupid, or infirm, or feel themselves insufficiently noticed and therefore wish to assert themselves. When economic and political conditions are unsatisfactory people become more quarrelsome. The importance of social conditions is mentioned in this book—Patriotism and Social Reform are put forward as proposals for relative peace " ; but this, one of the main clues to world unrest, is obscured by assuming that war is inevitable.
Because he assumes that war is part of human nature
Major Yeats-Brown does not discuss the actual conditions and " psychological urges to conflict "—such as, in Europe, Germany's resentment of her inequality and consequent self-assertiveness, and the self-assertiveness of other countries which are only just becoming nations.' When these do become real nations they will not be aggressive, and so in Europe the problem is to prevent war for the present. It is true that we cannot disarm so long as our politicians, like the author, believe in the inevitability of war. But if we rearm, surely it must be with the Federation of Europe in view—federation which is impossible now precisely because certain nations are still in process of building.
Whatever the merits of rearming might be, there is an overwhelming case for the abolition of private interests in armament—if only for our good faith in " patriotically " arming. This case, made out hysterically in Cry Ilavoc (to which Dogs of War ! is a reply), Major Yeats-Brown dismisses with the curious assumption that, if every Government had to make its own armaments, they would necessarily make more than are made for private profit today !
One other point. The author is one who shrinks from perpetual peace just as from " Utopia." But what seems Utopian today -would in fact be very imperfect : there is no danger of perfection, dullness and " lack of zest " where really Civilized human beings are concerned. But in the economic, political and cultural chaos of today we are like sick people whose accustomed sickness has become so much our ball-mark that we no longeer wish, whole-heartedly, to
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