The ethics of internationalism
In the political thought of the day we observe a furious beating of wings against the bars of internationalism, with the characteristic failure of accomplishment. Internationalism is the all powerful attraction for the hopes and fears which have been generated by the present world struggle. That a scheme of union of at least the leading nations will overcome the present evils of men has become almost a universally accepted doctrine. For the wrongs of this war are so enormous and so many that they cry loudly for relief. Not only is the world suffering from horrors of the field, which are accepted as inherent in the institution of war, but there are the vast restrictions and oppressions of individuals at home. Among the many characteristic war phenomena the unbearable conditions imposed upon the several civil populations are greatly magnified in the present world calamity. The cause of so much discussion concerning the organization of nations is found then in the great need for some cure of the present ills of society. The prevention of war and its attendant calamities appears to be a favorable prognostication, if only the nations can be somehow united. The futility of most of this discussion is inevitable because it succeeds admirably in avoiding concrete condition, and consequently remains in the realm of fancy.
If from the outset we exclude such suggestions for internationalism as are merely vapory expressions of the belief that something must be done, we still find that most of the remedies suggested to bring about better understanding between nations are naive and hopelessly valueless. It is proposed to overcome all the evils of national hatred and war by adopting common customs of various kinds. Some individuals hope to organize nations by merely adopting a common, commercial language, and a common system of coinage. Others propose to reduce national boundaries entirely, to make one nation al all. Such theories imply a total lack of understanding of the psychology of groups, and a failure of appreciation of the values of varying social, artistic and intellectual attitudes. Suggestions for various types of leagues of nations are made ad libitum, with strange neglect of facts concerning the practical possibilities of international relations.
So far as the ethical aspects of the problem of internationalism are concerned, there is a hopeful specification of what must be brought about in the way of improvement. We face the problem of securing moral conduct on the part of nations. To do away with the disasters of national strife, nations must be brought into a moral atmosphere; they must act only in such ways as to make for the common welfare and happiness; they must establish definite rights for all, and provide adequate defense for those rights. It is entirely safe to assert that only when there can be found between nations relations of social understanding, beside mere commercial tug and pull, can there be a harmonious and moral world order. If there is to be a recognized morality among nations, there must be an organization of interests, a conscious interrelation of benefits and obligations. Only in this way can be avoided the present obnoxious diplomacies, the intrigues, and the brutal, and almost always miscarrying wars of aggression. Only by a mutual understanding between nations, can there be an efficient and satisfactory organization of the sources of the world's material welfare, their transmutation, and distribution. The scheme is in a way known to us in the realm of cultural values, in which the products of art and learning are most liberally dealt with in an organized way.
The events of the past few years have brought to us in an extremely vivid manner the insufficiency and harmfulness of the viewpoint that nations determine their own modes of behavior. We have observed the assumption of prerogatives and rejection of obligations on the part of nations under the plea of military necessity. The doctrine of national self-defense presupposes an autonomy and an independence of the rights of other nations, which is entirely contrary to fact, and to our private moral attitudes. The national self which is implied here is certainly not the group of people who bears the national name, for it is an indisputable fact that those people cannot be so isolated from other people as to make possible the implied struggle for existence. The economic and cultural interests of the various groups are entirely too closely bound together to make plausible the need of a defense of one people against another. The co-operation between nations which is absolutely necessary for industrial, sanitary and medical purposes belies the theory that nations can live only at the expense of others. The growing complexity of civil life is drawing even the farthest geographically distributed people into a living alliance. We must conclude that it is always a government which claims military necessity, and political insight teaches us that such a government is an enemy of its own governed. This government is usually a hierarchy of rulers, or the economic control class, at any rate not the people of the nation. A different standard of conduct for states than for individuals will be maintained so long as people fail to realize that after all it is individuals who act for the sake of persons of the group, and not for a class under the disguise of the "state". The realization that an individual is merely another name for a social being, or a social unit, will inevitably tend toward social harmony and co-operation.
The problem of international morality may be summed up then in the need for a reduction of the disparity between private and public morality. The solution of such an issue is clearly indicated in an organization of nations; so that each one will have a corresponding place in the world group, as individuals have in their respective groups. This will impose upon nations unequivocal obligations of conduct. The point is fairly made that it is idle to discuss the morality of nations unless some means of organizing them into an inclusive group is provided. We must now inquire into the means necessary to bring this organization into existence and determine what is involved in the task of bringing nations into a recognized moral society. It is apparent that there must be an inclusive society, but the question comes up as to whether the mere fact of inclusion guarantees moral conduct. It is perhaps not idle to ask whether on the whole persons who do live in an inclusive society are more moral than nations. Not even the most sentimental optimist would betray himself into such a belief. Take almost any nation, and observe the conflicts and struggles between individual and individual, class and class, and between individual and class. It is not good logic to argue that there might be lack of social organization within a nation, since that would imply that what is meant by group inclusion is an absolute, moral order. Even if we avoid confusing mere group contiguity with morality, we can still point to the positive advantage of the inclusive society, which is that the possibility of moral order is never wholly lacking. It is evident that within a nation there are always definite conditions which make for some kind of moral coercion. This brings us to the central problem of social organization; namely, how can the forces of moral control, resident in a social group, be brought to bear upon the members. This is the fundamental problem of moral control, and is anything but easy to solve. The comparatively simpler task of preventing robbery and quarrels among members of a nation has not been concluded, or perhaps even begun. To accomplish much more, namely the positive organization of social and economic needs among individuals of a more or less homogeneous group, is a tremendous task; to do this for nations as nations is to multiply the difficulty a thousand fold. But this difficulty is no at all disheartening, especially since it forces us to face the facts, that at bottom, the problem of the morality of nations is very similar to the problem of the morality of individuals. Furthermore it offers us a glimpse of the only genuine meaning of social organization, which is the socialization of individuals. A moral society must always be a voluntary group of self-conscious persons. This is a matter which unfortunately has been overlooked. Our psychology and ethics have been so zealous in denying the natural individualism of man, and affirming the essentially social character of human nature, that they have neglected to profit by some of the important consequences of those discoveries.
We may distinguish two meanings of the term social. One refers to the natural fact of the herd nature of men. In this sense the social man, as a consciously behaving animal, is a product of the interaction of a number of similar individuals. The other meaning of social refers to a condition of men, who have developed to a self-conscious realization of affinity with and responsibility for other conscious beings, who may or may not yet have developed to the stage of self-consciousness. This second condition, that of socialization, is not a condition imposed upon persons, but a conscious development, consequential to the interaction of individuals. The implication here is that we may hope to bring about a genuine, social organization, if we shape our plans with reference to the individual. Is not this at bottom the clue to the significance of President Wilson's distinction between the German government and the German people? We cannot help but realize that as persons there must be much in common between the members of all states. Genuine, social organization must somehow cut across the boundaries of states or nations, and bring the people into co-operation. The idea suggested here found expression in the recently published aims of the Inter-Allied Labor Conference, which looks forward to an inter-human labor co-operation. There is no doubt that something like this must occur to make workable a league of nations, which has the positive object to look after social and economic needs. Only in so far as we can bring about the conscious interrelation of individuals can we transform our nations from "nature states" into "political and social states." When we learn to think in terms of socialized individuals, there will be an automatic reduction of the discrepancy between public and private morality.
Since the problem here is one of moral conduct, a prime requisite for any accomplishment is the highest kind of self-consciousness. This fact is somewhat obscured in recent writings by an overemphasis of the facts that ideas and moral sentiments of men are the products and reflexes of social institutions. There is grave danger that this will lead to evil consequences in our attitudes toward the functions of nations. The overemphasis of institutions offers too frequent occasion to overstress the nations as nations. It seems that just here lies our disapproval of the German nation, whose people, it is claimed, are carried away by ideas and sentiments dictated by a social institution. In the German system individuals have an insufficient power in the formulation of their institutions; they are conspired against and influenced to accept certain moral sentiments,--the non-morality of states for example--which are created by special organizations of political rulers who are not considered as entirely interested in the well-being of the people.
Any valuable and workable social organization must come as a result of co-operation between human individuals. The only hopeful basis for a harmonious social order is the reflective attitude of persons concerning their rights and obligations. Any social organization, which is not a product of the conscious interaction of actual individuals, is doomed to failure. The truth of this is beginning to be appreciated by the more enlightened supporters of social reforms and is brought into evidence by the advocacy of the democratization of industry, which is proposed after a fair trial of stressing action through group institutions, as manifest in labor laws. Of course all ideas and sentiments must be products of social organization, but so far as this social organization is built upon anything but a conscious formulation of ideas and moral sentiments, it cannot be the criterion of morality, public or private. It is certainly true that the problems which lead to ideas and moral sentiments are directly imposed upon the reflecting individuals, but they transform these problems in effecting their solutions. This is in no sense a subjectivistic viewpoint; it is merely stressing the inevitable interaction between the individual and the group. If in the problem of social organization the insistence is upon the inclusion of individuals, it is more probable then that no one will be left out. With the emphasis first and always upon the individual, we arrive at genuine democracy. It is not an arbitrary matter whether we emphasize the individual or the institutions. Democracy is committed to an empirical philosophy, and that means always that concrete material must be the primary consideration. It is obvious that human persons constitute such material.
Since social organization is a problem centering about the individual, whatever genuine social progress we may expect must come from the enlightenment of persons. This important point argues forcibly that leagues of nations be leagues of persons. As long as we insist upon nations, we lose sight of their actual content and structure; we stress formal organization, rather than concrete organization; we stress nations rather than men. We can see in every line of past history that this is partly the cause of all social miseries. It is almost unbelievable what the consequence would be of thinking not in terms of national welfare but in terms of human welfare. To think in this way would remove the occasions for disputes arising from exclusive ownership of control of natural resources, and routes of travel and commerce, since the power and prestige of nations drop out of account. In specific groups this sort of thinking would mean that all benefits would accrue to all persons within a nation. To think in terms of persons instead of classes would mean--to name some concrete facts of our own country--the abolition of petty party strifes, the increase of the number of navigable rivers, and the decrease of palatial village post offices. In other words, the benefits of human association would be more evenly distributed. Perhaps no better example of the effect of developing self-consciousness can be cited than the sovereignty of the Swiss people. We can trace the supreme democracy of Switzerland, with its increasing benefits for all the people, directly to the self-consciousness of individual citizens. Because the Swiss are conscious of themselves as men in relation to other men, they can maintain their confederation with its heterogeneous groups of many languages, social traditions and religions, as the pride of all freedom loving men. It is because the Swiss appreciate the value and dignity of human personality that their social institutions have reached such a wonderful state of efficiency and service.
The problem of state morality becomes reduced to the problem of education, since the development of self-consciousness is the process of acquiring information and intelligence. Progress of a political and social or ethical sort can come about only through the development of proper cultural attitudes. Men must be brought to realize the significance of human nature in all its varied phases. They must understand history correctly, which means to understand the faults and failings of nations and social institutions in the course of their development. As a result they would grow to appreciate more the functions and purposes of institutions, and their relation to the individuals they are designed to benefit. Self-consciousness of individuals depends upon an understanding of economic values; the vanity of luxury, the futility of unfair competition, and the absolute necessity of interhuman mutual aids must be taught as daily lessons from actual observation. The work of education must advance continuously so that the citizens of a nation may not be thought too ignorant to know their needs and to provide for them. A prime requisite for citizenship is the capacity to check the servants of the state. To hold this up as an ideal would mean much in the way of pointing out specific measures of political reforms, instances of which have been worked out in Switzerland. The proper education for citizenship would bring about such a state of enlightenment of individuals in a group that they would abolish the secrecy now attending upon group relations, especially of the diplomatic sort. This would prevent classes in power from carrying on their high-handed anti-public activities, hidden from the public under the guise of preventing other nations from knowing their plans. When the men of the world are those really concerned in commerce and government, nations will be able to deal with each other in broad daylight. When treaties are honest and fair there is absolutely no necessity for secrecy.
Because of present social conditions the program of education as it is here hinted at must seem huge in its proportions, but we must anticipate the puny objection that it is impossible to accomplish. During the course of the present war we have all seen the marvelous work of educational campaigns. We have all learned a lot in a short time concerning the value of economic mutual aid, and general social co-operation, even when the aim was not the establishment of a league of nations. If we should establish sincere educational campaigns in the avowed interests of permanent and universal human co-operation we could learn more, and with greater ease.
The facts of the present war indicate that a start has already been made toward the attitude that the problems of states are the direct problems of the people. In the first place, perhaps as never before, the issues have been stated in terms of people and not government. There has been an enormous flood of literature concerning the self-determination of peoples, even of the Africans. So persistent have been the suggestions for the improvement of the conditions of peoples, that we may hope for some permanent interest in human welfare. In the second place the present struggle is bringing out more than ever the importance of individuals in actual group activities. We are told that the war must be fought by women and children, as well as men, by workingmen and farmers, as well as soldiers, in short by all the people. This contrasts with situations in which the state hired a certain number of men and guns to carry on some enterprise of aggression and plunder. We are reaching the stage where each individual in the group must be considered a part of the organized effort to accomplish a given result. This is carrying over into the realms of industry, commerce, and transportation, the league of nations which has been a fact for some time in the realms of art and science. The next stage should be one in which each person will be conscious of his place among the members of human society. When states become groups of self-conscious individuals, who realize their international relations of mutual aid and obligation, a war of aggression will certainly be less possible. And may we not then hope for a general amelioration of the outrages resulting from the immorality of states?