All is fair in love and war, right? So the saying goes at least and our reality shows us the veracity of this statement very frequently in our daily lives. These two forces are so powerful and interact with each other in the same ways they interact with each of us. But they do have their differences which are seen and felt as we dismantle them both. The words “just and unjust” can be applied to the phenomenon of war but not to Love. Love cannot even if one were to call it morally right or wrong be described as just or unjust. For the ways that one gains or experiences love cannot be judged as unjust or just, it is simply human to desire something to the greatest extent. War on the other hand cannot be created off the same natural pre-programmed assembly line. War is not a desire but an action that follows at least but not limited to one desire from one thing to another. How to classify war is a whole other ball game. Rousseau theorized that Just or Unjust wars will occur by following the real or apparent interests of a people. Therefore the real and apparent interests must be classified as just or unjust, before any attempt at classifying the entire act of war can be made. Rousseau saw war as a completely unjust affair created by nations following only their apparent interests to the battle field. However, due to war being a beast powered by many, it cannot ever be dismantled then catalogued as a whole. History will never get the whole picture, the present contenders will never know the real interests of everyone involved, and the future will always hide necessary details. Making war all that more dangerous.
How does such a power to wage war and bring death for a desired and expected end, come into the “hands” of an intangible entity produced by the written social pacts? Rousseau believes that this power stems from nations acting on their own self or apparent interests. Whereas the real interests of the sovereign are not acted upon or even considered. Under this conclusion it would be easy to say that all war is an evil action bent on carrying out a dangerous and unneeded desire. Simply put all war is Unjust, every war and every act preformed in it will be viewed by anyone at any time and classified as evil, wrong and unjust. But where do these two separate interests come from and how are they according to Rousseau designed to define the status of war to the ages and masses? These two “interests” were spawned as many other Rousseau theories were by the first mistake man made in the beginning. By the beginning he meant our allegedly terrible first mistake to leave the basic state of nature. This state of nature as Rousseau describes it finds man in total freedom and innocence, needing nothing that cannot be provided by the simple charity of nature. Rousseau even dared to rub against every accepted religious grain at the time by even saying that man himself was not corrupt from the start. Stating in the face of every religious creed offered that man is not stained by the “original sin” performed by Adam in the Garden of Eden. Simply, “Rousseau was the first to blame evil not on our conflicted nature or on God but on human inventions, above all society” (Who lost Who? Pg. 480) Rousseau believed that man or more so that the society and its minions will corrupt the once innocent and free man. He saw man corrupt himself through his created society. One facet of society that corrupts man explained Rousseau was interdependence, or cooperation to an unhealthy level. Men began to cooperate because of the obvious advantages in efficiency they experienced. Increased efficiency means accumulation of wealth and this gave rise to the lauded evils of Private Property. “From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: “beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all of us, and the earth itself to nobody!””(Re-reading Rousseau, Pg. 249). Rousseau believed the creation of private property fused every feature of human nature with possessive and corrupting qualities. Robbing men of their ability to choose good or evil, who portray themselves as real and apparent interest. Clearly stating that our real interests represent the good and anything else is an impostor or apparent interest and evil. Not too be bogged down in this demobilizing swamp of a theory, Rousseau explains that in creating a way to protect Private Property and prevent the tiny quarrels created by it, men created an even more terrible monster than property squabbles. Nations were born and bred to protect the rights of the citizens located within their own lines. But what happens between these titans that are created to protect and act on the interests of once innocent men now corrupted by envy and the endless desire of more then what is their own? Because now we have on a scale much larger abroad the exact situation that men tried to avoid at home. Nations powered by millions obeying only one rule, “the Right of the Strongest”. This is where the terrible power of the apparent interest is seen; when a people pursue an interest that is not really necessary to the bitter and bloody end. With no clear rules even in the case of many treaties and complicated checks and balances meant to create authority, war is inevitable. Because to the Nation anything that furthers its self interests is “just” in its own eyes. To boil Rousseau’s theories down to their bones, man lost his innocence by creating a society geared toward the protection of man’s private property. This society corrupts man by enhancing the inequality between those who have all and still want, and those who have nothing and still are in need. This same society is also a monstrous brute called a nation, who will butt the heads and bloody the noses of all other nations that get in the way of its misguided and evil self-interest. To Rousseau its simple black and white and nothing gets blacker then the eternally unjust war. Who could argue with such a solid theory? Anyone could look at any historical war and see how Rousseau’s theoretic bones only get more muscles added on with each act of war. In today’s wars and rumors of wars we see those evil and vain apparent interests carried out by the men who have all but still want more. But the answer to, “who could argue with such a solid theory” it is anybody. How could any one person even a great French philosopher determine what is an evil interest and what is a real, necessary interest to be carried out? War springs from so many souls in so many different predicaments that it would make it impossible for any person with foresight, hindsight or even eyesight to make the classification. Yes it is dangerous to say that there will never be anyway in the future, past or present to classify completely if war is the “right” thing to do. But is it not just as dangerous to believe any group or one person’s opinion on just or unjust war? A few examples may clarify what was not seen by Rousseau’s tunnel vision. Of course war’s generated interests may be that of a vain and envious war mongering aristocrat. But does the ethnic slave not see an act of war against his enslavers as a necessary interest for himself? Yes the world is corrupt by gainsaying, greedy societies, and war will always be an ugly matter to be avoided like as it should be said, war. But do not forget altruism, or the basic human nature that was never lost, a desire to help fellow man. The incredible theories of many of our philosophers often seem to lack redeeming values while they wallow in the world’s evil and corruption. It would seem just as horrible as war itself to declare that all men who gave their lives in a war did so unnecessarily. War is such a terrible thing that it feels wrong to say that good can come from it, and that there can be situations where death of others is the real interest of another people. But there is no mistaking that the argument over the destruction of one man to free another in the name of charitable love towards mankind exists. It is also legitimate as well as Rousseau’s theory that all war is an unjust affaire that accomplishes nothing of real worth to anyone. So war cannot be classified neatly into either of the two categories, war will always be ugly and should always be avoided at the highest costs. But the inability of man to see clearly only his real interests or simply know between good and evil will cause all that is evil and complicated. Even to the great complication itself, war. War therefore is a mess morally and physically, but it will get things done. Up till now sadly no one has ever known and possibly will know if these are the just or unjust things to get done.
References.
Title: Who Lost Nature? Rousseau and RousseauismAuthor(s): Jonathan MarksSource: Polity, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer, 2002), pp. 479-502Publisher(s): Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Title: Re-Reading Rousseau in the Post-Cold War WorldAuthor(s): Torbjorn L. KnutsenSource: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Aug., 1994), pp. 247-262Publisher(s): Sage Publications, Ltd.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1964. The First and Second Discourses. Boston / New York. Bedford St.Martin’s
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1968. The Social Contract. London, England. Penguin Books.
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