While the issue of conscription is being hotly debated. It might be worth while to consider quietly whether it matters very much if we have conscription or not. Cast aside emotive camouflage which tends to obscure discussion of this topic, and whether Communist, Conservative, Pacifist or Militarist, let us see whether peace on a world scale is ever likely.

So then, the matter seems to resolve itself into this question: is warfare inevitable?

I would suggest that while warfare is not necessarily inevitable, aggression is—whether it be physical or in fantasy, directed against animate or inanimate objects. A well-known hypothesis in connection with frustration and aggression seems relevant. It is maintained that aggression is the "primary and characteristic reaction to frustration." Now this frustration is engendered by patterns of infant care, feelings of economic and social insecurity, and in sum, by the laws, mores and institutions generally. We realise, of course, that restrictions are necessary to get along with one's fellows. In fact, society forms an "in-group" within which sanctions and expectancies arise, so that Justice will not consist, of the rule of the strongest, and so that we may enjoy the benefits resulting from some measure of cooperation.

Obviously, all countries and groups of people must have restrictions for social living. While these are outwardly accepted, there are indications that through repression of many of man's egotistic desires, to the mores, through fear of punishment for transgression, and through frustration by members of our group upon whom we are dependent, tensions and hostility arise. "Each person has a rugged history in which frustration, hostility and fear have all played roles."

The security of the group must be preserved, so men must find some legitimate venue for their hostility. Any one individual might work some of the energy off in athletics, vicarious reactions to films, social service and so on, but in the main, these avenues do not provide sufficient relief for the masses.

In the international scene, different patterns of culture—often with antithetical political ideologies—create further tension and misunderstanding.

This hostility is aggravated by the externalisation on to the "out-group" or other peoples, of internal dissatisfaction. Here is the opportunity for preserving "in - group" solidarity, while providing an expression for the aggression toward the "out-group."

No Solution Yet

It does not appear that we and everybody else in the complexity of civilised life have found a lasting solution to aggression necessarily aroused by social living. We have, it is true, short-term substitute responses, but no general outlet which can reduce tension for the individual personality, and thus reduce the chance of war for the mass.

Some suggest that tension is whipped up by press and radio. To the contrary, the position seems to be that any propaganda expressed by these means is a symptom rather than a redisposing of the tension.

So we seem to be helplessly geared for aggression, and hence for war. The question then arises: what stand shall the individual take? I shall suggest that we shall probably derive more egotistic pleasure from going down fighting than by going down peacefully.

The idealist pacifist might suggest that we use non-violent resistance. However, the population of a small country like ours would soon be absorbed culturally. In other words, we would simply become a "host" (in the biological sense) for an aggressor.

Maybe this is just hastening the eventual extinction of our civilisation. I suggest that ultimately we shall go the way of all other civilisations and in the end, life as we know it, will probably become reduced (as Freud suggested) to start again. Why? I can't imagine. Maybe there is some primal inevitability of matter which endlessly causes its own restructure.

Irrationality of Man

So the situation is this. No satisfactory equivalent for aggression leading to warfare seems to have been found. Conferences between national representatives seem to fail because the different patterns of culture forming frames of reference for each one isolate him from the others. A common meeting ground cannot be found in, human "rationality," for we are always at, the mercy of the irrational and emotive bases of our thought.

Man seems to be left with his egoism, which perhaps is simply a refinement of the primitive. Our egoism, which is responsible for our existence, will extinguish us—perhaps to start again—who knows?