Conscription Not A Total Solution

Even if war were worth it, and did achieve the things the war leaders argue it does (freedom, justice, and peace), it could still be suggested (as a solution to the problem of living together) to only one nation or group of nations, never to the whole world. But isn't it obvious that all people have been born on to the earth, and have to find a way of living together? A solution in terms of one nation or group, since it does not cover everyone in the world, is not a real solution at all.

Neither war, nor violence, nor preparations for those activities, will ever do anything to help the whole world to live together. These things are the culmination of self-seeking. Self-assertion only makes others respond by the same sort of activity. Since the more we have the more we want, and there are not enough things to satisfy everybody's wants, clashes must occur so long as the policy of self-seeking is being pursued. This applies to individuals, to groups, to natons. In this world of limited bounty, self-seeking leads to conflict and destruction. Conscription prepares us for more direct self-seeking—it envisages action that excludes co-operation. Do we not recognise from our own experience with individuals that aggressive activity on our part never produces a true solution? And doesn't our experience of nations in history bear out a similar conclusion?

"We must love one another, or die." (W. H. Auden.)

We are here concerned primarily with nations, however. The way of assertion and violence does not solve the problem—that is, it is not a practical solution. It must lead to destruction. Are there any alternatives? There is only one solution that I can bring to mind. It is the solution of conciliation, co-operation, friendliness. This is the hope that can be realised.