Lessons of the War
THE moral shock has long since spent its force. Eighteen months of slaughter has blunted our nerves. We no longer think in terms of human suffering. The cry of misery stirs not our numbed feelings. The struggle has assumed proportions too immense to be grasped by the average mind. It is a stupendous spectacle that overwhelms the senses. Thought is powerless to concentrate itself upon so many things at once; logic is helpless to unravel the knotty tangle of impressions, and the titanic conflict is ranging itself, in the minds of the people, among the unfathomable phenomena of nature. Imperceptibly we grow accustomed to the new experiences. We are lapsing into a state of passivity, allowing our gray matter to absorb indiscriminately all sorts of facts and influences. New ideas are spontaneously evolving in the inner depths of consciousness and laboriously forming into intelligible conceptions. An adjustment to varied conditions is gradually taking place. It is a painful process and long in coming. We are in the throes of a new mental alignment. The outlook of the masses upon the world is undergoing a vital change. Ideas, however, are the hardest to die and the slowest to spread. We can perceive only the direction,—the actual working out of the new spiritual phase will take place at a later date.
No doubt, the time is not yet ripe for a calm survey of all that the war has brought in its wake so far. When the smoke of powder shall have cleared away and the fields of battle shall have become the hives of toiling masses, it will be much easier to contemplate the results of the present cataclysm. There are, however, some features of the struggle that need not wait to be grasped and explained. They stand out in bold relief and are visible to all who care to look that way.
National Solidarity
The first and foremost distinctive feature of this war is the remarkably keen sense of national unity displayed by all classes alike. What had seemed so vague and elusive has shown itself a most vital power in shaping the destinies of humanity. The individuals of the nations affected feel as component units of a whole, indivisible and all-embracing. The personal will is not only submissively subordinated to the national task at hand, it is actuated by the same motives which create and maintain the universal sentiment. No pressure is exerted, and none is yielded to. It is a spontaneous flaring up of a collective consciousness and collective will. Nationalism is not a theory. It is a living force, a fountain of general sentiment and aspiration; it is a social psychology of which every individual psychology is an integral part.
ka si An ee a et” ihren - 2 Me Se = er Tr Germany and France, where there are no disturbing foreign elements, stand out as the most striking illustrations of solidified, united nationality. Though torn by rival factions in times of peace, these two countries now reveal a vigor of unity at once unparalleled and inspiring. Where socialism was the strongest, national patriotism now reigns supreme; where individuality was cherished the most, it now is completely merged in the general will and determination.
There is, of course, nothing exceptional in this phenomenon to those who have learned that society is the mainspring of the individual consciousness. Every one of us is the focal point of rays radiating from our fellow men. We absorb the spirit of the group in whose midst we are brought up and within which we derive all that is dear and essential to us. Even our so-called instincts are colored and directed by the surrounding mental sphere and mode of activity. Is there, then, any wonder that a nation, the most immediate and the most enduring reservoir of thought and regulator of conduct, should suffuse every single mind and bring to the surface the dominant spirit of all? In times of national crises everyone feels affected in his innermost soul, and a wave of the general spirit submerges all narrow personal interests.
But, however apparent that might have been to the student of society, it was not clear to the average run of the people. They could talk themselves hoarse on the viciousness of patriotism and futility of nationalism. It required a great destructive war to show to all how nature is stronger than the notions of the moment. The most ardent Russian socialist has suddenly awakened to the impelling force of nationalism. Though the least favored of all of the Czar’s subjects, he is the strongest advocate of unity for the defence of his land. And the same is true of all the belligerents. More than that. The more intense a man’s feelings for the welfare of his kind the nearer he must have at heart the interests and ideals of his people. That is one reason why all idealists and professed humanitarians are found on the side of their respective national cause. A man of ideals is necessarily sensitive to the throbbing pulse of his people. He must be psychologically capable of responding to all that thrills and stirs life. Speaking figuratively, he is the nerve centre of the social body. Quite natural, then, he should be the first to feel and the first to act in behalf of those whose interests are so much a part of his own. It must, therefore, be clear why education heightens the national sentiment. It brings the individual in intimate touch with a widening range of national interests and deepens his sensibility to whatever affects his neonle’s life
The same is, unfortunately, not true of the Jewish intellectuals. With us education is a disintegrating factor. It is the difficulty of assimilation rather than the inherent sympathy with their own people that keeps our educated classes partly within our fold. On the one hand, we are constantly forced back into our own ranks while on the other we stuff our minds with foreign culture. Our life is too much dependent upon the surrounding society to permit of a rich and unhampered national development. While the continued interplay of so many cultured types produces in our people the highest degree of spirituality and versatility, we lack the stabilizing effect of a normal, unifying and harmonizing culture of our own. In matters national we are, therefore, compelled to learn by the experiences of others. No natural flow of organic social life molds our national thoughts and policies. Herein lies the original cause of Jewish cosmopolitanism. The denationalized Jewish mind looked out unon