To the Editor:
Reading “Western Values and Total War” [October 1961], I am astounded that, apart from one splendid paragraph of Mr. Morgenthau, there is no discussion of national sovereignty as the bottleneck preventing a solution to the dilemma, and in fact creating and aggravating the dilemma. Yet the nation-state as we have it is simply what Lewis Mumford would call a baroque hangover. In this respect there is no difference between President Kennedy (and our power elite) and Louis XIV. Every time we speak of “we” and “they”—or of “unilateral” and “multilateral” disarmament—we essentially accept and affirm this disastrous conception. We are talking about states, not people.
The symposiasts are discussing absolute danger—and therefore it would be worthwhile to consider such merely relative “losses” as renouncing sovereignty in various combinations and degrees. (There are several other possibilities besides the supra-state that Mr. Morgenthau mentions.) Yet these possibilities have never been thoroughly explored in public discussion. Naturally such proposals are literally subversive; they involve lowering the flag. Is this why they are avoided by prestigious scholars?
On the other hand, the entire history of Western culture has to do with the motion among tribal, city, imperial, feudal, and national organization, and the dialectic of state-power and freedom. One is not giving up Western values if one suggests that in present circumstances it would be wise to give up the United States of America.
Paul Goodman
New York City
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To the Editor:
With the exception of Irving Kristol, whose contribution [from the audience] to the discussion was very brief and was ignored by the others, the participants all operated with an assumption that I would call the rationalistic fallacy: they took it for granted that both sides in the East-West competition rationally pursue only such “healthyminded” motives as survival, power, prestige, revenue.
Professor Hook, whose thinking in this respect is similar to that of the others, has faith that the Communists want to survive. Why? They believe in history and not in immortality, hence survival is the summum bonum. That does seen rather logical and rational, but since when have the Communists—or anyone else, for that matter—been either?
The assumption that men pursue their self-interest does sometimes help us explain certain routine events—perhaps certain routine stock market transactions, though even here the irrational enters very significantly. But to be able to come to grips with such phenomena as war and totalitarianism, one must, in my opinion, assume that men desire not only survival but also self-destruction, not only life but also death. Without such an assumption, how can one explain the persistence and extraordinary popularity of war, in modern and ancient times?
Werner Cohn
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, Canada
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To the Editor:
Congratulations on the Snow-Hughes-Morgenthau-Hook symposium.
The magazine continues to be remarkably consistent in quality.
Nat Hentoff
New York City
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To the Editor:
Surely better alternative positions could have been found than those expressed in “Western Values.” COMMENTARY owes its readers articles by Erich Fromm, Seymour Melman, Charles Osgood, yes, even Bertrand Russell and Martin Buber. . . .
Your round-table is too skillfully arranged and has the cards stacked against proponents of human survival.
Rubin Falk
New York City
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To the Editor:
When I see a good play, I stay in my seat and applaud until my hands get tired and the curtain has dropped. I wish with this letter to effect the same response to “Western Values and Total War.”
Richard Badlain
Boston, Massachusetts
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To the Editor:
Having demonstrated the demise of the art of conversation in your lead article, you nevertheless left some questions unasked. For Professor Hook: Regardless of what they say, how many men would really rather be dead than, say, be a citizen of Moscow?
When the rude form of certain death waits without, most men (with or without Ph.D.’s) will rather be anything than dead.
John Weiss
Detroit, Michigan
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To the Editor:
So many interesting, important, intelligent things are said by various speakers in “Western Values and Total War” that one is at first baffled by the fact that the experience of reading the record is so unrewarding. To be hostile to the idea of a debate may seem rather subversive, but there remains the question whether certain kinds of debate can be fruitful. One kind that cannot, it seems to me, is a debate in which the speakers are really accusers. In the present discussion one side accuses the other of capitulating to the Soviet aggressors, while the other accuses the one of helping to bring about a nuclear war! ! ! Either accusation is of such colossal proportions that the points actually “debated,” otherwise important enough, shrivel to insignificance. . . . In a situation like this, the “gossip” heard after the meeting is more honest than anything said from the platform. This gossip is to the effect that Speaker A is stupid, or that Speaker B is suffering from an obsession—precisely the things the people on stage were thinking but were too polite to say; for it is permissible to suppose that one’s colleagues are appeasers or warmongers, even at times when appeasement or war would mean general catastrophe, but it is not permissible to be impolite. . . .
I would propose removing from the platform the men who suspect their opponents of stupidity or morbidity. Then one could perhaps discuss the proposition that any form of unilateral disarmament would mean surrender to Soviet imperialism and the equally problematic proposition that if you want peace you should prepare for war.
As far as accusation goes, the one legitimate accusation would be against COMMENTARY itself which issued the invitations and failed to include a pacifist. I am not a pacifist myself, but that does not stop me from recognizing that pacifism is the only attitude that now has any considerable dynamic among the younger intelligentsia. . . . A great deal of the “debate,” though not stupid, was “Old Codger” talk: the same sentiments, less well-expressed, can be heard through the keyhole of any faculty club or senior common room.
Eric Bentley
Columbia University
New York City
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To the Editor:
This is to congratulate you on your stimulating and thought-provoking discussion.
It is a pity, however, that Mr. Hughes’s recommendation of Swiss-type militia forces for the European NATO nations, which he amplified by his reference to George Kennan’s proposal, was not elaborated upon by other participants. At least, some of them came very close to raising the same demand. Mr. Hook remarked that “we must never lose sight of the ethical issue” and that “if we are prepared to fight, then we may not have to fight,” which reminded me of Leon-hard Frank’s challenging paradox that “not the murderer, but the murdered is guilty.”
I also refer to Mr. Morgenthau’s criticism of “our inability to devise a third alternative” to surrender or nuclear war, and Snow’s remark that “the only reason why the West relied on the deterrent was the implied disbelief in the willingness of Western men to bear arms”—a disbelief justified only as long as our political leaders and defense planners cannot think of anything but professional and semi-professional armies, and continue to disregard the possibilities which lie in the creation of Swiss-type forces for territorial defense and as reserves.
Sir Charles Snow was the only one to express approval of George Kennan’s recommendation of the Swiss system. If Mr. Hook opposed this idea because “it is highly romantic to imagine that a militia alone could prevent a country from being occupied,” he should have been reminded that, as I have always emphasized, most countries can and will back up their Swiss-type forces by regular, heavily-armed, and mobile divisions.
It therefore would seem that in spite of the wide divergency of the starting points of your participants, agreement could have been reached on at least one very positive program: the creation of strong Swiss-type reserve forces by the European NATO nations, which has the following tremendous advantages:
- It can be enacted unilaterally by the West, without being delayed by negotiations with the Kremlin.
- In view of its patently defensive nature, it is unlikely to meet objections on the part of the Kremlin. In fact, it is apt to calm down any fears which Communist nations may have in view of the lopsided structure of Western defenses.
- It is by far the most economical and most popular military system.
- Combined with existing regular forces and their heavy weapons and equipment, such forces, by their immediate readiness and their ubiquity, are of great defensive and deterrent value (see Switzerland, Sweden, and Israel, and also Finland).
- Training and membership in citizen forces is the best means yet devised for fostering a sense of truly democratic, responsible citizenship throughout a nation—a spirit that makes it well-nigh impervious to Communist influence and subversion.
Frederick Martin Stern
New Rochelle, New York