Fallows tries again with "The Moral Equivalent of War"

Thanks to James Fallows for introducing his readers (e.g., me)  to William James' The Moral Equivalent of War, which Fallows calls "the indispensable work of American political culture" in that it "examines what is more or less the permanent challenge of American public life: how to evoke the spirit of sacrifice, common national purpose, and long-term perspective that is the noblest part of war, without actually being at war."

It is indeed a boldly imaginative and  far-seeing essay, clear-eyed about the pending horrors of modern mechanized war that would be unleashed a few years later in World War I, trying to imagine a way that humanity might avoid such horrors without losing the intensity of effort and high pitch of virtue that war brings out in people, along with the destructive bestiality that James does not minimize.

James' argument derives its strength by enacting a principle he recommends generally for "any controversy" : "enter more deeply into the aesthetical and ethical point of view of [your] opponents."  In so doing, James opens a window for readers today on a time when some serious thinkers were still arguing openly that war was essential to human progress and the most intense crucible of human virtue. James takes their arguments seriously -- as readers whose minds were formed after the catastrophes of the world wars might have difficulty doing.  He asserts that those who see war as only destructive catastrophe and dare to envision the human race outgrowing it generally fail to grapple with their opponents' insights, which he characterizes as follows: