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• Bibliographical Essay: Isaac Kramnick, English Middle-class Radicalism In the Eighteenth Century
• I: I Social and Political Thought
• Community, Individuality, and Freedom
• Rousseau's Social Thought
• A Sociological History of Utilitarianism
• Spencer and Comte In American Labor Thought
• Bureaucracy In Weber & Kafka
• Bergson's Political Doctrines
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• II: Education, Politics, and Values
• Schools and Political Socialization
• Schooling For Imperialism
• The Political Economy of Public Schooling
• Federal Education Policy
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• William James As Individualist
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• Property, Law, and Economics
• The Economic Analysis of Law Vs. Values
• IV: Foreign Policy and Ideology
• The Attractiveness of War
• Walzer On International Morality
• Eduard Bernstein and Imperialism
• Roosevelt Vs. His War Critics
• American Preconceptions of Japan
• The Marshall Plan and Russia
• V: Self-knowledge, Autonomy, and Liberty
• The Self In Political Thought
• Autonomy, Self, and Will Power
• Self-knowledge: Goethe, Kant, and Hegel
• The Egoist As a “psychopath”
• The History of Social Psychology
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• Free Will, Purpose, and Responsibility
• Political “groupthink” and Reality
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The Attractiveness of War

Roland N. Stromberg

With few exceptions, such as Bertrand Russell, the overwhelming number of European intellectuals in the various countries welcomed the coming of the First World War. Only a tiny handful were conscientious objectors. It is difficult for historians today to understand the outlook of those who glorified the coming of the war, and numerous recent biographies of such intellectuals are embarrassed by this attitude.

Why did war have such appeal to the intellectuals? It offered a sense of purpose for the intellectuals, a “spiritual awakening” which transcended the “narrowness and pettiness” of everyday life, offering “new perspectives on greatness.” War promised a growing opportunity for community and fraternity for intellectuals unhappy with the growing materialism and individualism. For the youth there was talk of “self-discovery” through violence and the solidarity of struggle.

There was a remarkable similarity between the youth of that generation and those today, which included such things as “communalism, getting back to nature, unconventional sexual morality, mistrust of the older generation, and protests against false education.” A worship of the irrational encompassed the occult, the mystical and the spiritual. Culture implied soul, while civilization meant intellect.

There was a certain paradox and illogic in rebelling against a sterile culture which impinged upon the individual, while asserting that individual affirmation could best be achieved through the re-creation of a primitive community where reason was subordinated to instinct. The overriding hope that a better world would arise from the ashes was closely linked to the “prevailing ‘historicism,’ at once optimistic and irrational.” Nowhere is this attitude better observed than in the work of Max Scheler, a pioneer in phenomenology, who argued in 1915 in The Genius of War and the German War that war would destroy the mechanical, bureaucratic organization of society and encourage freedom, love, and the creative spirit.