Rationale for Moral Action After 1918 - Essay Example

Rationale for Moral Action After 1918 After the horrors of World War I in which the art of war changed from one of hand to hand combat to one of mass destruction on a widespread scale, the world discovered the old ideas regarding moral action or meaning could no longer be prevailed upon to guarantee the new world order. People could no longer trust in a generally shared conception of what rational and material progress might be and were at a loss as to how to act in a given situation. Does one behave according to the chivalric code or does one hang the code and shoot to kill any enemy on sight? Discovering that even the states were fallible in their interpretations of moral action, individuals were left in confusion attempting to discover just what was expected of them and how they were supposed to answer these major questions of life. To determine what rationale could be used to assess correct moral action after 1918, a number of authors began to write about the subject, or around the subject, attempting to provide their readers with a sense of what was right and what was wrong based upon newly established criteria in keeping with their individual viewpoint. Before discovering what authors such as Hannah Arendt, Modris Eksteins, Franz Fanon and Heda Kovaly have to say about morality and legitimacy, one must first have a clear idea of what is meant when the term ‘morality’ is used. There are a number of things that can be implied when using the word ‘morality.’ According to Bernard Gert (2008), morality can be used “to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society, some other group such as religion or accepted by an individual for her own behavior.” It can also be used to refer to a specific code of conduct that would normally be used by any group of rational people. There is a distinct difference in these two definitions that lies at the heart of the morality question. The first understanding suggests that there are different codes of morality for different people or cultural groups that are not necessarily valid in another group. This implies that the second definition cannot hold true because it suggests that there is a sort of universal code of conduct that is applicable across all human races, cultures and religious practices. When looking at the work of the above-named authors, it seems clear that they are attempting to suggest this sort of universal code is valid, but that its interpretation is not always equally applied. Hannah Arendt discusses the concepts of morality following the first World War as a process of greed of the greater Western nation states as they took advantage of the ‘third-world’ countries that they had colonized. By the time the 20th century had been reached, a number of movements had taken place in reaction against the ‘state’ as a concept of racial identification and new totalitarian governments had risen. In her criticism of the totalitarian regime, Arendt illustrates her view of morality more by what she doesn’t say than what she says. For example, in discussing how the totalitarian regimes manipulated the minds of the masses, she says, “they presented disagreements as invariably originating in deep natural, social, or psychological sources beyond the control of the individual and therefore beyond the power of reason” (Arendt 312). As a result, the role of the state in a totalitarian regime was not to encourage its members to discover the moral right, but rather to frighten them into agreeing with whatever the state determined was right without giving the matter any thought of their own. In making her case, Arendt indicates the importance of an individual sense of morality based upon discovering what was good and right for the majority as well as for the self. While the state may provide an air of legitimacy to the issue, it is up to the individual to consider the implications of the actions rather than blindly follow a poorly identified path. In his book, Modris Eksteins argues against this view to some extent, pointing out the various ways in which Germany embodied the new world spirit prior to the Great War that led to its eventual decline. As he points out, it was during the war that a beneficial socialism was born as a result of the need for every soldier to help his brother. “Man was victim but also rebellious survivor. Bureaucrats, politicians, brass hats, journalists, and war profiteers – those on the outside who fed like jackals on the carnage and misery – were despised. They were the true enemy, scavengers feeding and fattening themselves on death and destruction” (Eksteins 213). Having seen the destruction and carnage of war first hand and realized that those in power really had little sentiment regarding what exactly the soldiers were going through in exchange for nothing of real value, morality began to be defined in terms of what was right for the common man and what was necessary to react against the powers of the greater authority. The role of the state was thus defined as the enemy while the role of the individual was held paramount to determining an individual morality based upon common interest for self-preservation. As can be seen in Franz Fanon’s book, morality after World War I took on the shape of what was right for the people based upon their individual experience in the world as a colonized nation. Fanon’s position on morality is that it takes like action to counteract action and that this must be undertaken whenever harm is being done to an entire people. He points out that it is necessary for Africa to decolonize if her people are ever to gain their equality among nations and their right to live as they see fit. In order to decolonize, the same means by which the territory was colonized must be adopted. In other words, since it required violence to colonize, it will take violence to de-colonize. “Decolonization is always a violent phenomenon” (Fanon 35). This violence is justified because of the many crimes the colonizers have made against the people who were already in Africa when they came. “We should flatly refuse the situation to which the Western countries wish to condemn us. Colonialism and imperialism have not paid their score when they withdraw their flags and their police forces from our territories. For centuries the capitalists have behaved in the underdeveloped world like nothing more than war criminals. Deportations, massacres, forced labor, and slavery have been the main methods used by capitalism to increase its wealth, its gold or diamond reserves, and to establish its power” (Fanon 101). Morality, to Fanon, takes the shape of fighting for the national culture and the betterment of the world. “To fight for national culture means in the first place to fight for the liberation of the nation, that material keystone which makes the building of a culture possible, There is no other fight for culture which can develop apart from the popular struggle” (Fanon 233). Within this view, it is the job of the state to help coordinate the efforts of the masses towards a purpose and allow action to take place. In the end, his moral imperative for his people and for all people is to “try to set afoot a new man” (Fanon 316) who will create, invent and map out a new course for mankind that remains responsible for the self as well as each other and the world itself. The concept of a state mad with power is also the main focus of Kovaly’s work as she recounts her horrific experiences as a Jew in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Her story truly captures first-hand the various ways in which a sense of organized, universal morality seemed to completely break down in the face of governments that had attempted to redefine the important aspects of society according to arbitrary and sometimes conflicting values. Again, the concept emerges that this type of morality is non-existent, depending instead upon the individual morality of the masses as they gather together in bulk to protest the harsh treatment. Like many of the other authors on the subject, she indicates the importance of a thinking public as an essential ingredient to a moral public. At one point, she says, “people aren’t all that mean. It’s just that they don’t think. To gang up on a public enemy is a deep-rooted custom of the country, almost a national tradition. But people have a completely different reaction to a widow in mourning” (Kovaly – not in the pages you sent; a quote found online at http://www.longviewinstitute.org/research/graff/neversayneveragain/). Essentially, Kovaly suggests that true morality lies in the heart of the individual as they look eye to eye upon another human being and act in a way that is in keeping with what is commonly referred to as the golden rule – do unto others as you would have done to you. The role of the state may be to organize this action, but it is up to the individual to think about what they are told and to act in accordance with truth rather than hearsay. All of the above authors exploring the rationale for morality following World War I indicate that it lies in the heart of the individual as a result of normal human suffering and empathy. The role of the state is consistently illustrated to be the directional force of the action, but they also indicate that when the motivation also comes from the state, the individual masses should be concerned with the actions involved. As Arendt and Kovaly demonstrate, a state that motivates action is often motivating for the wrong reasons and with little or no regard for the common masses, both in country and elsewhere, that may suffer as a result of their own greed. Fanon and Eksteins suggest the individual masses have power in their inner morality as they make it known and rise up in defense of it. While there may be a sense of universal morality in the heart of the golden rule, all of these authors seem to indicate that the role of the state should be simply to help define the will of the people and then provide the directional forces required to make action meaningful rather than the originating force of the sentiment. Works Cited Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1966. Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963. Kovaly, Heda Margolius. Under a Cruel Star. NJ: Holmes & Meier, 1986. Read More