Why war ? Symposium
“Why War?”
- Par Albert Llussà
“Why War?” Study Day
Avila Carmelite Centre, Donnybrook, Dublin 4
Saturday 12 April 2025
by Albert Llussà
In 1931, the League of Nations arranged for exchanges of letters between representative intellectuals “to serve the common interests of the League of Nations and the intellectual life”. Among the first to be approached was Einstein, and Einstein suggested Freud’s name.
In 1932, Einstein invited Freud to address the question of whether the propensity for war shown by humanity throughout history could somehow be explained from a psychological point of view, and asked him to shed “the light of your far-reaching knowledge of man’s instinctive life” to see if there might be “any way of delivering humanity from the menace of war.”
The League of Nations was the first ever international organisation for political cooperation, established in 1920 in the aftermath of World War I, with the objective of securing collective security and disarmament. At the time the letter was written, the League of Nations was already in crisis. The sound of sabre rattling was ominous across Europe. Major powers such as Japan, Germany and Italy had withdrawn from the League. The main criticism made of the League to explain its failure to prevent a new war breaking out was its lack of legal and juridical power to enforce international law. Observing current political trends across the Atlantic, such as increased isolationist policies towards international institutions set up after World War II and the current economic war on tariffs unilaterally started by the Trump government, it is difficult to escape the feeling that we are living in a period that resembles the 1930s of last century. The war on tariffs is a radical withdrawal from the international trade agreements pursued by the international community under the auspices of the UN, first in the form of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GAAT), and, since 1995, its successor the World Trade Organization (WTO). It is worth noting that GAAT was created following WWII to prevent a replay of the tariff wars of the 1920s.
The War of the Rose
- Par AMANDINE JAYET
by Amandine Jayet
“We, later civilisations now know we are mortal. We have long heard of whole worlds that have disappeared, whole empires gone down with all their men and their machines; gone down into the unexeplorable depths of the centuries alongside the gods and their laws [---].
But, these wrecks had nothing to do with us. And, we now see that the abyss of history is large enough for all of us. We feel that a civilisation has the same fragility as a life.” (Paul Valery : The Crisis of Spirit; The Pleiade, 1919).
Enclave
- Par DUVERNEUIL E.
by Elsa Duverneuil
My eyes go as far as they can see. Beyond that, my body falls.
Digging underground tunnels and running fast, dodging the bombs. Once the war is over, it will be time for her to accept to return to the surface. There to the field of ruins, where the only thing that grows now is that which needs nothing to survive. The world is built on the most lifeless of foundations: it rises from the ashes of what is closest to death. Run fast if you want life to hold you tightly in its grasp. Scratches and welts, the words of your skin, the words from what you said all remained there. But you know how to pass under them, and over them.
I lay down to sleep on the rim of your eyes.
WAR AND PEACE
- Par AMIEL-DAL'BO M.
by Marianne AMIEL
War and Peace, the title of Leo Tolstoy's novel, (1869) highlights their impossible separation, despite the obvious opposition between the two terms. Indeed, Tolstoy presents us with two scenes: on one side, war and its massacres, and on the other, a society of speaking beings, a society at peace, cultivated, almost ideal, without us knowing exactly how we move from one to the other. These two scenes oppose and almost ignore each other. The book questions the impossibility for either to stop the ongoing process.
Here is an excerpt that perfectly illustrates this interweaving of two states of affairs from which the hero seems to vacillate, only to end up shattering everything.
"Until his last breath, he could never grasp nor gauge the effects of his actions for they were too much in conflict with the notion of good and with human. He could disown his actions although glorified by half the world and that was why he was led to renounce the truth of good and of all that is human. Enough, enough about these regrettable actions, gather your senses and reflect upon what you are committing! Yet, on both sides, each of these exhausted and starved men was starting to question the need to keep exterminating. Kill whoever you want, do whatever you please but I want it no more. Still, a mysterious and unfathomable strength was urging and enticing them to accomplish this grisly scheme. Unintendedly, they would thus keep to this horrendous task which does not hinge upon human will."
Pourquoi la guerre ? La lâcheté de l’inconscient
- Par Samuel Odet
de Samuel Odet
Abrégé : Derrière la question « pourquoi la guerre ? », se cachent deux questions qu’il est intéressant d’explorer ; l’une concerne les raisons de l’émergence de la guerre, sans cesse renouvelée, depuis les débuts de l’humanité ; l’autre concerne l’embarras que celle-ci nous procure par sa persistance au fil de l’Histoire humaine. Car la guerre se fait à un autre qui ne m’est pas complètement étranger. Plus que cela… je fais la guerre à quelqu’un que je pourrais aimer !
The Opponent Without and the Opponent Within
- Par Emer Rutledge
by Dr Emer Rutledge
In his essay written in 1932 Why War? Freud tells us “conflicts of interest between man and man are resolved, in principle, by the recourse to violence.” However “brute force can be overcome by union. The union of the people must be permanent and well organised; it must enact rules to meet the risk of possible revolts; must set up machinery ensuring that its rules- the laws- are observed and that such acts of violence as the laws demand are truly carried out. The recognition of a community of interests engenders among the members of the group a sentiment of unity and fraternal solidarity which constitutes its real strength.” For Freud the kernel of the matter therefore is “the suppression of brute force by the transfer of power to a larger combination, founded on the community of sentiments linking up its members.”
The notion of unity of harmony amongst families, neighbours, races, peoples, nations is precarious. In this newly fledged state “there exists two factors making for legal instability, but legislative evolution too: first the attempt by the ruling class to set themselves above the law’s restrictions and secondly the constant struggle of the ruled to extend their rights and see equal laws for all.” As is often the case, the ruling class is loath to relinquish their position of superiority and to allow for equal laws for all. Civil war is all too often a consequence of this situation and there is as Freud tells us a period when law is in abeyance and force is once more the arbiter, followed by a new regime of law.
Love and Hate
- Par Angela Walsh
by Angela Walsh
In 1932 the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, under the League of Nations, proposed to Professor Albert Einstein that he should contact any person he wished, to have a frank exchange of views on a problem facing civilization at that time. Einstein chose to put the following question to Freud “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war? In his letter to Freud he went on to say “with the advance of modern science, this issue has come to mean a matter of life and death for civilization as we know it; nevertheless, for all the zeal displayed, every attempt at its solution has ended in a lamentable breakdown”.
Einstein goes on to question how it is possible for man to be roused to such wild enthusiasm for war, even to sacrifice his life for it? He believes that there is only one possible answer because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. He adds, “here lies, perhaps, the crux of all the complex of factors we are considering, an enigma that only the expert in the lore of human instincts can resolve.”
