An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation by Thorstein Veblen

Author:Thorstein Veblen [Veblen, Thorstein]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781006010057
Barnesnoble:
Published: 2007-02-27T06:00:00+00:00

* * *

The case of the two formidable dynastic States whose names have been coupled together in what has already been said is perhaps the more immediately interesting in the present connection. As matters stand, and in the measure in which they continue so to stand, the case of these is in no degree equivocal. The two dynastic establishments seek dominion, and indeed they seek nothing else, except incidentally to and in furtherance of the main quest. As has been remarked before, it lies in the nature of a dynastic State to seek dominion, that being the whole of its nature in so far as it runs true to form. But a dynastic State, like any other settled, institutionalised community of men, rests on and draws its effectual driving force from the habit of mind of its underlying community, the common man in the aggregate, his preconceptions and ideals as to what things are worth while. Without a suitable spiritual ground of this kind such a dynastic State passes out of the category of formidable Powers and into that of precarious despotism.

In both of the two States here in question the dynastic establishment and its bodyguard of officials and gentlefolk may be counted on to persevere in the faith that now animates them, until an uneasy displacement of sentiment among the underlying populace may in time induce them judiciously to shift their footing. Like the ruling classes elsewhere, they are of a conservative temper and may be counted on so to continue. They are also not greatly exposed to the discipline of experience that makes for adaptive change in habits of life, and therefore in the correlated habits of thought. It is always the common man that is effectually reached by any exacting or wide-reaching change in the conditions of life. He is relatively unsheltered from any forces that make for adaptive change, as contrasted with the case of his betters; and however sluggish and reluctant may be his response to such discipline as makes for a displacement of outworn preconceptions, yet it is always out of the mass of this common humanity that those movements of disaffection and protest arise, which lead, on occasion, to any material realignment of the institutional fabric or to any substantial shift in the line of policy to be pursued under the guidance of their betters.

The common mass of humanity, it may be said in parenthesis, is of course not a homogeneous body. Uncommon men, in point of native gifts of intelligence, sensibility, or personal force, will occur as frequently, in proportion to the aggregate numbers, among the common mass as among their betters. Since in any one of these nations of Christendom, with their all-inclusive hybridisation, the range, frequency and amplitude of variations in hereditary endowment is the same throughout all classes. Class differentiation is a matter of habit and convention; and in distinction from his betters the common man is common only in point of numbers and in point of the more general and more exacting conditions to which he is exposed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.