Yeah well, you can find quotations supporting any belief in any time period given the large numbers of people around at any given time, just like if you're a Christian you can find stuff that prefigures Christianity in the Stoics or Plato if you so desire. I think it would be really really hard to argue that the premodern view of war and violence in general was not a lot different than our own. Not a whole lot of people nowadays go around praising war as an intrinsic good -- it is a very fringe belief. Neither do we go in for blood sports, public executions, dueling to settle disputes, or putting populations to the sword. I also don't think you can talk about the common people (a vague concept) in any era as having a single view.
It occurs to me that translating "polemos pater panton" as "war is father of all things" is kind of problematic. Classical Greek did not use word order except in the case of articles and prepositions, so it is unclear if war or father is the subject of sentence. It's also not clear which word "of all things" goes with. In addition, since no articles are employed, it is unclear if what is meant is war or father in general, a specific war or father, or some war or father. It's quite, well, delphic. ;)
--- On Tue, 9/15/09, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] War (was Conservatism)
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 2:17 PM
> Yes, well, see Simone Weil, The
> Iliad, Poem of Might (or Force), published after the fall of
> France. Up until fairly recently the nobility viewed war as
> an opportunity and a duty. it was, literally, the basic
> feudal duty. Fight for me and I will give you this land.
>
> On the other hand the common people had a different view:
> see Grimmelshausen's novel Simplicissimus, about the 30
> year's war.
>
> Anti-war attitudes go as far back as the always out-of step
> Euripides, whose The Trojan Women is hard not to read as a
> great anti-war statement. "Greeks, your strength is in your
> spears, not your minds," says Hecuba, as she lays the body
> of her grandson, Hector's son, Astyanax, into his his dead
> father's shield -- the child had been thrown off the
> remaining battlements to complete the destruction of Troy.
>
> This was written or performed 415-16 BC, right after the
> Athenian destruction of Melos in the Peloponnesian War,
> another 30 years war, an event recounted with shocking
> cynicism and brutality by Thucydides in his History -- a
> more ambiguous work, but one that certainly has among its
> points that war leads to moral degradation of victors as
> well as destruction of the vanquished.
>
> http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Melian.html
>
> in a the stiff Victorian Jowett translation.
>
> The theory of the Just War, developed by the Scholastics,
> _presumes_ war is an evil. Aquinas, in the Summa II.ii. q.
> 40, puts forth three conditions: that it be waged by
> sovereign authority and not privately -- vendettas were a
> big problem in those days; that it be for a just cause
> against belligerent at fault (today, and not long after
> Aquinas, put in the idea that war is supposed to be a last
> resort), and that it be fought for a good purpose -- not
> just for glory or booty or as a land-grab.
>
> It's my understanding that in traditional Chinese culture
> war was considered an evil even by the upper classes.
> Soldiers were not held in high esteem, unlike in Europe or
> Japan. After the Warring States era, China was actually
> remarkably peaceful for a very long time. Sun Tze's The Art
> of War emphasizes winning without actually fighting, if you
> can do it, s the mark of the superior military leader.
> Buddhism in theory repudiares war, but that didn't seem to
> have a lot of impact, and the Japanese managed to combine
> Zen with military dictatorship and all-around militarism
> without a blink.
>
> Andie
>
> --- On Tue, 9/15/09, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > From: Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] War (was Conservatism)
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 6:49 AM
> >
> > Πολεμοσ πατηρ παντων. (this damn
> translit
> > program can't do diacritical marks or terminal sigmas
> > right.)
> >
> > Well, getting killed BY A GOD is kind of a singular
> honor.
> >
> > "War is evil" is in general a pretty modern
> sentiment,
> > likely brought about by secularization of Christian
> norms
> > and (more materially) weapons that are far more
> destructive
> > than even Achilles' shield.
> >
> > More broadly, why would it its closeness to the
> dialectic
> > be distrurbing to you? The dialectic includes all
> things,
> > one of which is war. More specifically, violence, not
> just
> > war.
> >
> > --- On Tue, 9/15/09, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > "Those killed by Ares are honoured by gods and
> men."
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
>
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