Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization

I previously reviewed Azar Gat's "War in human civilization" (Feb. 2008). This is an important book and despite its neocon slant--in particular, the tendency to regard all social processes in fake biological terms--many of its arguments have intellectual validity. So my discussion with Gat continues.

The Jewish people never had an instituion of nobility and did not have kingship for the past 2000 years. Yet, for the most part of this period, they lived in the midst of hostile peoples. Hence, Gat's exaggeration of ethnic factors in warfare and his complete oblivion to others, in particular, dynastic, confessional and class reasons for war is understandable, especially from his position as a mid-ranking reserve officer of Israeli Army.

Yet, for the sake of truth, I must take an argument with his vision. First, ethnicity existed only as an academic category before mid- to late XIX century. Ethnicity as a political factor followed nationalism and did not precede it. For instance, when my grandfather grew up in the Russian Empire, simple people like him did not identify themselves as "Russians." They considered themselves "Skobar" (i.e. from Pskov), "Poshekhonian" or "Ryazanski", i.e. by the place of their birth. The word Russian meant the subject of the Russian Tsar and the Greek Orthodox.

In the first world war, Russian Baltic Navy was commanded by von Essen and the doomed East Prussia invasion force by von Rennenkampf. His German opposite number was Gen. Francois (i.e. "French" in French). Similarly, the inhabitants of the neighboring villages in the Transcarpathia were typically called "Slovaks" if they were Roman Catholics, "Ruthenians" if they were Uniate and "Ukrainians" if they were Orthodox. If you think that boys from one village in course of the centuries never dated girls from another village, you gravely misjudge human nature. Similarly, the closest neighbors in the Western provinces of the Russian Empire were Catholic Lithuanians, mostly uniate White Russians or Orthodox Russians. On the contrary, a peasant from Smolensk and a peasant from Tobolsk in Siberia identified themselves as Russians on the basis of their common Orthodox religion. If you were to call Metternich, Radetzky or Windischgraetz Czechs they would be neither offended, nor find it hilarious. They simply would not understand it as if you were calling them astronauts.

Nor this phenomenon was limited to the Eastern Europe. When, in 1870s the King Victor Emmanuel united Italy he quipped: "We created Italy. Now we must create Italians." Friulani in the North were absolutely different people from central Toscanians and had nothing to do with Napolitans or Sicilians. Norwegians of the ancient Kingdom of Norway, before the advent of national television were three distinct groups who could barely if at all understand each other.

What Azar Gat confuses with ethnicity is "localism", which certainly existed (and informed warfare) from the time immemorial. When the Catholic Poles, semi-pagan Lithuanians of "Polish Rus" and Orthodox Novgorodians from the Russian principality of Novgorod jointly opposed the Teutonic Knights they did it in the name of the local patriotism and the Polish King from Lithuanian dynasty. So much for ethnicity. Again, when the federation of Italian towns under the Milanese leadership defeated Friedrich II at Legnano--one of the turning points of late medieval history--they did it to avoid Imperial taxes and other impositions. German ethnicity of the knights and the Emperor's Sicilian upbringing had no part in that.

Barbara Ehrehreich. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. ISBN: 978-0805087499

Modern society nixes importance of philosophers and poets. Yet, in purely practical terms, without philosophers political discourse becomes incredibly shallow. And with poets reduced to drudgery in "liberal arts" colleges, the language of political debate becomes increasingly colorless and nasty. Politics is and always was a hyper-competitive business but for the observer of the Kennedy-Nixon exchange of 1960, there is a feeling of unbelievable deterioration of collective intelligence in recent times.

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the very few, may be the only remaining social philosopher of distinction in America. She is the only person whom I know who poses questions relevant for the everyday life. So-called academic philosophy is sterile. Academic social science should better be called "applied statistical research." These things may be useful for budgetary planning-- how many public toilets with Wi-Fi access an average city must have-- but are irrelevant for the terms in which normal people comprehend the society.

While her new book is not so daring and unusual in its treatment as "Nickel and dimed" and "For her own good" but she identifies the 180 degrees turn in values, which has occurred in American Puritanism. While the pilgrims held the dim view of "institutionalized depression" (Ehrenreich's term), modern American outlook heavily influenced by the Southern Baptist culture of megachurches and the New Age, propagates superficially "sunny" concept of reality and the supernatural. Neither repentance, nor continual self-improvement are necessary. Salvation can be achieved by having "the right attitude." The opposite side of this worldview also with the roots in pilgrim Puritanism is that if one is unhappy and/or unlucky--all mostly understood in terms of material wealth--one is beyond salvation and must fake a positive attitude not to become an outcast.

Kudos to Barbara! Keep up the good work!