"War is the Health of the State."

[KenH]

 

[Ascetic X]

War Is the Health of the State

 

[Ben1445]

War Is the Health of the State

That is hard to follow. The markup is not clearly defined and adds in WWII to something written with the Great War in mind.
I don’t have time to sort it out.
Would you mind giving me a summary?

 

[Ascetic X]

That is hard to follow. The markup is not clearly defined and adds in WWII to something written with the Great War in mind.
I don’t have time to sort it out.
Would you mind giving me a summary?

“War is the health of the state" is a famous aphorism from Randolph Bourne's unfinished 1918 essay, "The State," arguing that wartime causes government power to expand rapidly, suppressing dissent, and fostering blind patriotism. Bourne believed war turns the state into the central arbiter of life, forcing uniformity and uniting the "herd".

Key Aspects of Bourne's Argument:

• Expansion of Power: During peacetime, citizens may ignore the state, but in wartime, the state and government become identical, causing the state to flourish while individual freedoms shrink.
• Patriotism as Control: War triggers a "herd instinct," transforming the populace into a cohesive unit that supports the government, viewing opposition as disloyalty.
• The "Sacred" State:
  Bourne, a progressive Marxist writer, wrote this to warn that war empowers the least democratic forces in American life. He felt to get rid of war, capitalism must be destroyed.
  
  Context: The essay was written amid World War I and was found in his papers after his death in 1918.

Bourne argued that the state's power is absolute during wartime, treating dissenters as threats to its "sacred" majesty.