THE REAL ISSUE by Henry Geiger (1948) — A still highly relevant observation for today‘s international situation
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| Henry Geiger (1908-1989) (Picture source) |
MANAS
VOLUME I, No. 1 JANUARY 7, 1948
The real issue is not in the threatening imminence of another war, but in the deep-seated belief that only organization can save us from it. Nationalists everywhere are obsessed by the idea that a tremendous military organization — a mass army in peacetime — is necessary to prevent attack. Internationalists are equally convinced that a world-organization with more power than any one nation can alone safeguard the peace. The motives of these two the nationalists and the internationalists-are in direct moral conflict, but both have succumbed to the same delusion. Both imagine that their organization will secrete a magic essence that will make them different from any previous organization. The nationalist dreams of an army that will train for and plan the annihilation of entire continents of men, while loving and preserving “peace.” The internationalist organizer expects the name and form of world government to transform the present international shambles into a world of social ideals.
All history informs us of the futility of depending on organization for either security or progress. The history of great religious inspiration is the history of men who broke with and defied religious organizations. Every chapter in the history of political freedom begins with a revolt against organized authority. Yet, today, the hopes of the world are almost invariably expressed in terms of the “power” of organization. This is the sacred fetish of the twentieth century the idol of civilized barbarism, worshipped, and feared by mechanized man.
When the spirit of human hope the animating impulse of every great revolution-conceives its future in terms of organization, that spirit is itself afflicted with an inner decay. It will recover only when the psychology of human organizations-involving “patriotism,” “national honor,” “class consciousness,” and other familiar ideas-begins to be understood. Until then, national states will continue to demand mighty armaments, and internationalists will continue to insist that “strengthening” the United Nations is our “only hope.”
Calling upon the United Nations to create the conditions for international security is like expecting the betatron or some similar atom-building device to resurrect Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No organization can create either peace or the conditions of peace; peace is a byproduct of the processes of a morally stable human society, and there is no way to get peace except by finding out what these processes are and how to establish them.
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