{"id":12340,"date":"2015-09-17T06:03:45","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T11:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12340"},"modified":"2015-09-17T06:03:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T11:03:45","slug":"war-is-the-health-of-the-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12340","title":{"rendered":"War is the Health of the State"},"content":{"rendered":"

War is the Health of the State<\/a><\/h3>\n

The Misfortune of Being Born Into a State<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an essay titled \u201cThe State\u201d, Randolph Bourne, an American writer, made a distinction between a country and a state that I find crucial. He described one\u2019s country as \u201can inescapable group into which we are born<\/em>\u201d. In his view, a country is \u201ca concept of peace, tolerance, of living and letting live. But the State is essentially a concept of power, of competition; it signifies a group in its aggressive aspects. And we have the misfortune of being born not only into a country but into a State, and as we grow up we learn to mingle the two feelings into a hopeless confusion<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"RandolphRandolph Silliman Bourne: a lifelong enemy of the State and war. His great unfinished work \u201cThe State\u201d was discovered after his death. Bourne\u2019s odd physical appearance owed to tuberculosis of the spine, which he suffered in childhood. Jeffrey Riggenbach has published a\u00a0great paean on the brilliance of Randolph Bourne<\/a>\u00a0at the Mises Institute.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University<\/p>\n

Bourne continues to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt cannot be too firmly realized that war is a function of States and not of nations. Indeed, that it is the chief function of States. War is a very artificial thing. It is not the na\u00efve spontaneous outburst of herd pugnacity; it is no more primary than is formal religion. War cannot exist without a military establishment, and a military establishment cannot exist without a State organization. War has an immemorial tradition and heredity only because the State has a long tradition and heredity. But they are inseparably and functionally joined. We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect, or take measures to ensure that this war is a war to end war, unless at the same time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

War is the Health of the State The Misfortune of Being Born Into a State In an essay titled \u201cThe State\u201d, Randolph Bourne, an American writer, made a distinction between a country and a state that I find crucial. He described one\u2019s country as \u201can inescapable group into which we are born\u201d. In his view, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[5728,9093,9090,643,9091,1309,9092,862],"class_list":["post-12340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-acting-man","tag-claudi-grass","tag-country","tag-power","tag-randolph-silliman-bourne","tag-state","tag-state-organisation","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12341,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340\/revisions\/12341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}