On Hedges

There is something missing Hedges' final analysis of war in the way which it fails to follow William James' precedent in search for an "equivalent for war." Not necessarily because Hedges' makes a detailed phenomenological analysis of war and man's role in it. While it may be somewhat abstract toward the end, what might deepen Hedges' analysis, instead of simply writing off war all together—and in so doing writing off whatever human reality is affirmed by war—he would benefit from giving more credence to whatever phenomenological reality is affirmed by the reality of war. As opposed to James who searches to for substitutes to fill the moral void, I wonder if Hedges would consider more deeply addressing the anthropological void that he appears to flesh out in his book.

He speaks very astutely about the dehumanizing qualities of war throughout the entire course of the book. Many of the criticisms he makes (fake myth, destruction of culture, etc.) can be understood within the context of the dehumanizing power wielded by the state what war. In the final chapter he notes how it wipes out an "Eros" that may exist. And that in wartime, humans become objects.¹ While certainly the dehumanization of war is obscene, it is not the only time in our modern world that people are transformed into objects. Hedges argument reads partially like a straw man against war, as if war could be painted as so bad and dehumanizing that love could rehumanize people and all we need to do is see others as humans. While I'm in basic agreement with the general premises, it still requires a deeper analysis of the anthropological and sociological mechanisms that enable and even propel us to dehumanize others. War is both part of this mechanism and an outcome of it.

These are the questions that remain for me, throughout this course, stretching back from Hedges, to Niebuhr, straight to William James: is war the inevitable outcome of all societies? Or only some? This is clearly a Niebuhrian question—can the modern nation state do anything but dehumanize? And as long as the state cannot humanize, it seems to me (in agreement with Hedges) that war will always exist. So long as people can always be seen as means and not ends (in the Kantian sense) the state will exploit and war. What is the nature or structure of society that sees all people as valuable, whether inside of it, or outside of it? And honestly, is it even possible? We may be able to rid ourselves individually of the corrupting forces that society can wield against us, but even in agree with his basic right-wing orientation, I am not completely sure that "society" will be fixed by purifying all the individuals.