Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Five
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Part Four: Report From Iron Mountain
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"Economic surrogates for war must meet two principal criteria. They must be
"wasteful," in the common sense of the word, and they must operate outside the
normal supply-demand system. A corollary that should be obvious is that the
magnitude of the waste must be sufficient to meet the needs of a particular
society. An economy as advanced and complex as our own requires the planned
average annual destruction of not less than 10 percent of gross national product
if it is effectively to fulfill its stabilizing function. When the mass of a
balance wheel is inadequate to the power it is intended to control, its effect
can be self-defeating, as with a runaway locomotive. The analogy, though crude,
is especially apt for the American economy, as our record of cyclical
depressions shows. All have taken place during periods of grossly inadequate
military spending."
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SECTION 6 - SUBSTITUTES FOR THE FUNCTIONS OF WAR
By now it should be clear that the most detailed and comprehensive master plan
for a transition to world peace will remain academic if it fails to deal
forthrightly with the problem of the critical non-military functions of war. The
social needs they serve are essential; if the war system no longer exists to
meet them, substitute institutions will have to be established for the purpose.
These surrogates must be "realistic," which is to say of a scope and nature that
can be conceived and implemented in the context of present-day social
capabilities. This is not the truism it may appear to be; the requirements of
radical social change often reveal the distinction between a most conservative
projection and a wildly utopian scheme to be fine indeed.
In this section we will consider some possible substitutes for these functions.
Only in rare instances have they been put forth for the purposes which concern
us here, but we see no reason to limit ourselves to proposals that address
themselves explicitly to the problem as we have outlined it. We will disregard
the ostensible, or military, functions of war; it is a premise of this study
that the transition to peace implies absolutely that they will no longer exist
in any relevant sense. We will also disregard the noncritical functions
exemplified at the end of the preceding section.
ECONOMIC
Economic surrogates for war must meet two principal criteria. They must be
"wasteful," in the common sense of the word, and they must operate outside the
normal supply-demand system. A corollary that should be obvious is that the
magnitude of the waste must be sufficient to meet the needs of a particular
society. An economy as advanced and complex as our own requires the planned
average annual destructoin of not less than 10 percent of gross national product
if it is effectively to fulfill its stabilizing function. When the mass of a
balance wheel is inadequate to the power it is intended to control, its effect
can be self-defeating, as with a runaway locomotive. The analogy, though crude,
is especially apt for the American economy, as our record of cyclical
depressions shows. All have taken place during periods of grossly inadequate
military spending.
Those few economic conversion programs which by implication acknowledge the
non-military economic function of war (at least to some extent) tend to assume
that so-called social-welfare expenditures will fill the vacuum created by the
disappearance of military spending. When one considers the backlog of unfinished
business---proposed but still unexecuted---in this field, the assumption seems
plausible. Let us examine briefly the following list, which is more or less
typical of general social welfare programs.
HEALTH. Drastic expansion of medical research, education, and training
facilities; hospital and clinic construction; the general objective of complete
government-guaranteed health care for all, at a level consistent with current
developments in medical technology.
EDUCATION. The equivalent of the foregoing in teacher training; schools and libraries; the drastic upgrading of standards, with the general objective of making available for all an attainable educational goal equivalent to what is now considered a professional degree.
HOUSING. Clean, comfortable, safe, and spacious living space for all, at the level now enjoyed by about 15 percent of the population in this country (less in most others).
TRANSPORTATION. The establishment of a system of mass public transportation making it possible for all to travel to and from areas of work and recreation quickly, comfortably, and conveniently, and to travel privately for pleasure rather than necessity.
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT. The development and protection of water supplies, forests, parks, and other natural resources; the elimination of chemical and bacterial contaminants from air, water, and soil.
POVERTY. The genuine elimination of poverty, defined by a standard consistent
with current economic productivity, by means of a guaranteed annual income or
whatever system of distribution will best assure its achievement.
This is only a sampler of the more obvious domestic social welfare items, and we
have listed it in a deliberately broad, perhaps extravagant, manner. In the
past, such a vague and ambitious-sounding "program" would have been dismissed
out of hand, without serious consideration; it would clearly have been, prima
facie, far too costly, quite apart from its political implications. Our
objection to it, on the other hand, could hardly be more contradictory. As an
economic substitute for war, it is inadequate because it would be far too cheap.
If this seems paradoxical, it must be remembered that up to now all proposed
social-welfare expenditures have had to be measured within the war economy, not
as a replacement for it. The old slogan about a battleship or an ICBM costing as
much as x hospitals or y schools or z homes takes on a very different meaning if
there are to be more battleships or ICBM's.
Since the list is general, we have elected to forestall the tangential
controversy that surrounds arbitrary cost projections by offering no individual
cost estimates. But the maximum program that could be physically effected along
the lines indicated could approach the established level of military spending
only for a limited time--in our opinion, subject to a detailed
cost-and-feasibility analysis, less than ten years. In this short period, at
this rate, the major goals of the program would have been achieved. Its
capital-investment phase would have been completed, and it would have
established a permanent comparatively modest level of annual operating
cost--within the framework of the general economy.
Here is the basic weakness of the social-welfare surrogate. On the short-term
basis, a maximum program of this sort could replace a normal military spending
program, provided it was designed, like the military model, to be subject to
arbitrary control. Public housing starts, for example, or the development of
modern medical centers might be accelerated or halted from time to time, as the
requirements of a stable economy might dictate. But on the long-term basis,
social-welfare spending, no matter how often redefined, would necessarily become
an integral, accepted part of the economy, of no more value as a stabilizer than
the automobile industry or old age and survivors' insurance. Apart from whatever
merit social-welfare programs are deemed to have for their own sake, their
function as a substitute for war in the economy would thus be self-liquidating.
They might serve, however, as expedients pending the development of more durable
substitute measures.
Another economic surrogate that has been proposed is a series of giant "space
research" programs. These have already demonstrated their utility in more modest
scale within the military economy. What has been implied, although not yet
expressly put forth, is the development of a long-range sequence of
space-research projects with largely unattainable goals. This kind of program
offers several advantages lacking in the social welfare model. First, it is
unlikely to phase itself out, regardless of the predictable "surprises" science
has in store for us: the universe is too big. In the event some individual
project unexpectedly succeeds there would be no dearth of substitute problems.
For example, if colonization of the moon proceeds on schedule, it could then
become "necessary" to establish a beachhead on Mars or Jupiter, and so on.
Second, it need be no more dependent on the general supply-demand economy than
its military prototype. Third, it lends itself extraordinarily well to arbitrary
control.
Space research can be viewed as the nearest modern equivalent yet devised to the
pyramid-building, and similar ritualistic enterprises, of ancient societies. It
is true that the scientific value of the space program, even of what has already
been accomplished, is substantial on its own terms. But current programs are
absurdly obviously disproportionate, in the relationship of the knowledge sought
to the expenditures committed. All but a small fraction of the space budget,
measured by the standards of comparable scientific objectives, must be charged
de facto to the military economy. Future space research, projected as a war
surrogate, would further research, projected as a war surrogate, would further
reduce the "scientific" rationale of its budget to a minuscule percentage
indeed. As a purely economic substitute for war, therefore, extension of the
space program warrants serious consideration.
In Section 3 we pointed out that certain disarmament models, which we called
conservative, postulated extremely expensive and elaborate inspection systems.
Would it be possible to extend and institutionalize such systems to the point
where they might serve as economic surrogates for war spending? The organization
of failsafe inspection machinery could well be ritualized in a manner similar to
that of established military processes. "Inspection teams" might be very like
weapons. Inflating the inspection budget to military scale presents no
difficulty. The appeal of this kind of scheme lies in the comparative ease of
transition between two parallel systems.
The "elaborate inspection" surrogate is fundamentally fallacious, however.
Although it might be economically useful, as well as politically necessary,
during the disarmament transition, it would fail as a substitute for the
economic function of war for one simple reason. Peace-keeping inspection is part
of a war system, not of a peace system. It implies the possibility of weapons
maintenance or manufacture, which could not exist in a world at peace as here
defined. Massive inspection also implies sanctions, and thus war-readiness.
The same fallacy is more obvious in plans to create a patently useless "defense
conversion" apparatus. The long-discredited proposal to build "total" civil
defense facilities is one example; another is the plan to establish a giant
antimissile missile complex (Nike-X, et al.). These programs, of course, are
economic rather than strategic. Nevertheless, they are not substitutes for
military spending but merely different forms of it.
A more sophisticated variant is the proposal to establish the "Unarmed Forces"
of the United States. This would conveniently maintain the entire institutional
military structure, redirecting it essentially toward social-welfare activities
on a global scale. It would be, in effect, a giant military Peace Corps. There
is nothing inherently unworkable about this plan, and using the existing
military system to effectuate its own demise is both ingenious and convenient.
But even on a greatly magnified world basis, social-welfare expenditures must
sooner or later reenter the atmosphere of the normal economy. The practical
transitional virtues of such a scheme would thus be eventually negated by its
inadequacy as a permanent economic stabilizer.
POLITICAL
The war system makes the stable government of societies possible. It does this
essentially by providing an external necessity for a society to accept political
rule. In so doing, it establishes the basis for nationhood and the authority of
government to control its constituents. What other institution or combination of
programs might serve these functions in its place?
We have already pointed out that the end of the war means the end of national
sovereignty, and thus the end of nationhood as we know it today. But this does
not necessarily mean the end of nations in the administrative sense, and
internal political power will remain essential to a stable society. The emerging
"nations" of the peace epoch must continue to draw political authority from some
source.
A number of proposals have been made governing the relations between nations
after total disarmament; all are basically juridical in nature. They contemplate
institutions more or less like a World Court, or a United Nations, but vested
with real authority. They may or may not serve their ostensible post-military
purpose of settling international disputes, but we need not discuss that here.
None would offer effective external pressure on a peace-world nation to organize
itself politically.
It might be argued that a well-armed international police force, operating under
the authority of such a supranational "court," could well serve the function of
external enemy. This, however, would constitute a military operation, like the
inspection schemes mentioned, and, like them, would be inconsistent with the
premise of an end to the war system. It is possible that a variant of the
"Unarmed Forces" idea might be developed in such a way that its "constructive"
(i.e., social welfare) activities could be combined with an economic "threat" of
sufficient size and credibility to warrant political organization. Would this
kind of threat also be contradictory to our basic premise?--that is, would it be
inevitably military? Not necessarily, in our view, but we are skeptical of its
capacity to evoke credibility. Also, the obvious destabilizing effect of any
global social welfare surrogate on politically necessary class relationships
would create an entirely new set of transition problems at least equal in
magnitude.
Credibility, in fact, lies at the heart of the problem of developing a political
substitute for war. This is where the space-race proposals, in many ways so well
suited as economic substitutes for war, fall short. The most ambitious and
unrealistic space project cannot of itself generate a believable external
menace. It has been hotly argued that such a menace would offer the "last, best
hope of peace," etc., by uniting mankind against the danger of destruction by
"creatures" from other planets or from outer space. Experiments have been
proposed to test the credibility of an out-of-our-world invasion threat; it is
possible that a few of the more difficult-to-explain "flying saucer" incidents
of recent years were in fact early experiments of this kind. If so, they could
hardly have been judged encouraging. We anticipate no difficulties in making a
"need" for a giant super space program credible for economic purposes, even were
there not ample precedent; extending it, for political purposes, to include
features unfortunately associated with science fiction would obviously be a more
dubious undertaking.
Nevertheless, an effective political substitute for war would require "alternate
enemies," some of which might seem equally farfetched in the context of the
current war system. It may be, for instance, that gross pollution of the
environment can eventually replace the possibility of mass destruction by
nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat to the survival of the species.
Poisoning of the air, and of the principal sources of food and water supply, is
already well advanced, and at first glance would seem promising in this respect;
it constitutes a threat that can be dealt with only through social organization
and political power. But from present indications it will be a generation to a
generation and a half before environmental pollution, however severe, will be
sufficiently menacing, on a global scale, to offer a possible basis for a
solution.
It is true that the rate of pollution could be increased selectively for this
purpose; in fact, the mere modifying of existing programs for the deterrence of
pollution could speed up the process enough to make the threat credible much
sooner. But the pollution problem has been so widely publicized in recent years
that it seems highly improbable that a program of deliberate environmental
poisoning could be implemented in a politically acceptable manner.
However unlikely some of the possible alternate enemies we have mentioned may
seem, we must emphasize that one must be found, of credible quality and
magnitude, if a transition to peace is ever to come about without social
disintegration. It is more probably, in our judgment, that such a threat will
have to be invented, rather than developed from unknown conditions. For this
reason, we believe further speculation about its putative nature ill-advised in
this context. Since there is considerable doubt, in our minds, that any viable
political surrogate can be devised, we are reluctant to compromise, by premature
discussion, any possible option that may eventually lie open to our government.
SOCIOLOGICAL
Of the many functions of war we have found convenient to group together in this
classification, two are critical. In a world of peace, the continuing stability
of society will require: 1) an effective substitute for military institutions
that can neutralize destabilizing social elements and 2) a credible motivational
surrogate for war that can insure social cohesiveness. The first is an essential
element of social control; the second is the basic mechanism for adapting
individual human drives to the needs of society.
Most proposals that address themselves, explicitly or otherwise, to the postwar
problem of controlling the socially alienated turn to some variant of the Peace
Corps or the so-called Job Corps for a solution. The socially disaffected, the
economically unprepared, the psychologically unconformable, the hard-core
"delinquents," the incorrigible "subversives," and the rest of the unemployable
are seen as somehow transformed by the disciplines of a service modeled on
military precedent into more or less dedicated social service workers. This
presumption also informs the otherwise hardheaded ratiocination of the "Unarmed
Forces" plan.
The problem has been addressed, in the language of popular sociology, by
Secretary McNamara. "Even in our abundant societies, we have reason enough to
worry over the tensions that coil and tighten among underprivileged young
people, and finally flail out in delinquency and crime. What are we to expect..
where mounting frustrations are likely to fester into eruptions of violence and
extremism?" In a seemingly unrelated passage, he continues: "It seems to me that
we could move toward remedying that inequity [of the Selective Service System]
by asking every young person in the United States to give two years of service
to his country--whether in one of the military services, in the Peace Corps, or
in some other volunteer developmental [ea: illegible: "w? Am"] at home or
abroad. We could encourage other countries to do the same." Here, as elsewhere
throughout this significant speech, Mr. McNamara has focused, indirectly but
unmistakably, on one of the key issues bearing on a possible transition to
peace, and has later indicated, also indirectly, a rough approach to its
resolution, again phrased in the language of the current war system.
It seems clear that Mr. McNamara and other proponents of the peace-corps
surrogate for this tar function lean heavily on the success of the paramilitary
Depression programs mentioned in the last section. We find the precedent wholly
inadequate in degree. Neither the lack of relevant precedent, however, nor the
dubious social welfare sentimentality characterizing this approach warrant its
rejection without careful study. It may be viable --- provided, first, that the
military origin of the Corps format be effectively rendered out of its
operational activity, and second, that the transition from paramilitary
activities to "developmental [ea: illegible "w? A""] can be effected without
regard to the attitudes of the Corps personnel or to the "value" of the work it
is expected to perform.
Another possible surrogate for the control of potential enemies of society is
the reintroduction, in some form consistent with modern technology and political
processes, of slavery. Up to now, this has been suggested only in fiction,
notably in the works of Wells, Huxley, Orwell, and others engaged in the
imaginative anticipation of the sociology of the future. But the fantasies
projected in Brave New World and 1984 have seemed less and less implausible over
the years since their publication. The traditional association of slavery with
ancient pre-industrial cultures should not blind us to its adaptability to
advanced forms of social organization, nor should its equally traditional
incompatibility with Western moral and economic values. It is entirely possible
that the development of a sophisticated form of slavery may be an absolute
prerequisite for social control in a world at peace. As a practical matter,
conversion of the code of military discipline to a euphemized form of
enslavement would entail surprisingly little revision; the logical first step
would be the adoption of some form of "universal" military service.
When it comes to postulating a credible substitute for war capable of directing
human behavior patterns in behalf of social organization, few options suggest
themselves. Like its political function, the motivational function of war
requires the existence of a genuinely menacing social enemy. The principal
difference is that for purposes of motivating basic allegiance, as distinct from
accepting political authority, the "alternate enemy" must imply a more
immediate, tangible, and directly felt threat of destruction. It must justify
the need for taking and paying a "blood price" in wide areas of human concern.
In this respect, the possible enemies noted earlier would be insufficient. One
exception might be the environmental-pollution model, if the danger to society
it posed was genuinely imminent. The fictive models would have to carry the
weight of extraordinary conviction, underscored with a not inconsiderable actual
sacrifice of life; the construction of an up-to-date mythological or religious
structure for this purpose would present difficulties in our era, but must
certainly be considered.
Games theorists have suggested, in other contexts, the development of "blood
games" for the effective control of individual aggressive impulses. It is an
ironic commentary on the current state of war and peace studies that it was left
not to scientists but to the makers of a commercial film to develop a model for
this notion, on the implausible level of popular melodrama, as a ritualized
manhunt. More realistically, such a ritual might be socialized, in the manner of
the Spanish Inquisition and the less formal witch trials of other periods, for
purposes of "social purification," "state security," or other rationale both
acceptable and credible to postwar societies. The feasibility of such an updated
version of still another ancient institution, though doubtful, is considerably
less fanciful than the wishful notion of many peace planners that a lasting
condition of peace can be brought about without the most painstaking examination
of every possible surrogate for the essential functions of war. What is involved
here, in a sense, is the quest for William James' "moral equivalent of war."
It is also possible that the two functions considered under this heading may be
jointly served, in the sense of establishing the antisocial, for whom a control
institution is needed, as the "alternate enemy" needed to hold society together.
The relentless and irreversible advance of un-employability at all levels of
society, and the similar extension of generalized alienation from accepted
values may make some such program necessary even as an adjunct to the war
system. As before, we will not speculate on the specific forms this kind of
program might take, except to note that there is again ample precedent, in the
treatment meted out to disfavored, allegedly menacing, ethnic groups in certain
societies during certain historical periods.
ECOLOGICAL
Considering the shortcomings of war as a mechanism of selective population
control, it might appear that devising substitutes for this function should be
comparatively simple. Schematically this is so, but the problem of timing the
transition to a new ecological balancing device makes the feasibility of
substitution less certain.
It must be remembered that the limitation of war in this function is entirely
eugenic. War has not been genetically progressive. But as a system of gross
population control to preserve the species it cannot fairly be faulted. And, as
has been pointed out, the nature of war is itself in transition. Current trends
in warfare--the increased strategic bombing of civilians and the greater
military importance now attached to the destruction of sources of supply (as
opposed to purely "military" bases and personnel)---strongly suggest that a
truly qualitative improvement is in the making. Assuming the war system is to
continue, it is more than probable that the regressively selective quality of
war will have been reversed, as its victims become more genetically
representative of their societies.
There is no question but that a universal requirement that procreation be
limited to the products of artificial insemination would provide a fully adequate
substitute control for population levels. Such a reproductive system would, of
course, have the added advantage of being susceptible of direct eugenic
management. Its predictable further development---conception and embryonic
growth taking place wholly under laboratory conditions--would extend these
controls to their logical conclusion. The ecological function of war under these
circumstances would not only be superseded but surpassed in effectiveness.
The indicated intermediate step--total control of conception with a variant of
the ubiquitous "pill," via water supplies or certain essential foodstuffs,
offset by a controlled "antidote"---is already under development. There would
appear to be no foreseeable need to revert to any of the outmoded practices
referred to in the previous section (infanticide, etc.) as there might have been
if the possibility of transition to peace had arisen two generations ago.
The real question here, therefore, does not concern the viability of this war
substitute, but the political problems involved in bringing it about. It cannot
be established while the war system is still in effect. The reason for this is
simple: excess population is war material. As long as any society must
contemplate even a remote possibility of war, it must maintain a maximum
supportable population, even when so doing critically aggravates an economic
liability. This is paradoxical, in view of war's role in reducing excess
population, but it is readily understood. War controls the general population
level, but the ecological interest of any single society lies in maintaining its
hegemony vis-a-vis other societies. The obvious analogy can be seen in any
free-enterprise economy. Practices damaging to the society as a whole--both
competitive and monopolistic--are abetted by the conflicting economic motives of
individual capital interests. The obvious precedent can be found in the
seemingly irrational political difficulties which have blocked universal
adoption of simple birth-control methods. Nations desperately in need of
increasing unfavorable production-consumption ratios are nevertheless unwilling
to gamble their possible military requirements of twenty years hence for this
purpose. Unilateral population control, as practiced in ancient Japan and in
other isolated societies, is out of the question in today's world.
Since the eugenic solution cannot be achieved until the transition to the peace
system takes place, why not wait? One must qualify the inclination to agree. As
we noted earlier, a real possibility of an unprecedented global crisis of
insufficiency exists today, which the war system may not be able to forestall.
If this should come to pass before an agreed-upon transition to peace were
completed, the result might be irrevocably disastrous. There is clearly no
solution to this dilemma; it is a risk which must be taken. But it tends to
support the view that if a decision is made to eliminate the war system, it were
better done sooner than later.
CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC
Strictly speaking, the function of war as the determinant of cultural values and
as the prime mover of scientific progress may not be critical in a world without
war. Our criterion for the basic nonmilitary functions of war has been: Are they
necessary to the survival and stability of society? The absolute need for
substitute cultural value-determinants and for the continued advance of
scientific knowledge is not established. We believe it important, however, in
behalf of those for whom these functions hold subjective significance, that it
be known what they can reasonably expect in culture and science after a
transition to peace.
So far as the creative arts are concerned, there is no reason to believe they
would disappear, but only that they would change in character and relative
social importance. The elimination of war would in due course deprive them of
their principal connotative force, but it would necessarily take some time for the
transition, and perhaps for a generation thereafter, themes of socio-moral
conflict inspired by the war system would be increasingly transferred to the
idiom of purely personal sensibility. At the same time, a new aesthetic would
have to develop. Whatever its name, form, or rationale, its function would be to
express, in language appropriate to the new period, the once discredited
philosophy that art exists for its own sake. This aesthetic would reject
unequivocally the classic requirement of paramilitary conflict as the
substantive content of great art. The eventual effect of the peace-world
philosophy of art would be democratizing in the extreme, in the sense that a
generally acknowledged subjectivity of artistic standards would equalize their
new, content-free "values."
What may be expected to happen is that art would be reassigned the role it once
played in a few primitive peace-oriented social systems. This was the function
of pure decoration, entertainment, or play, entirely free of the burden of
expressing the socio-moral values and conflicts of a war-oriented society. It is
interesting that the groundwork for such a value-free aesthetic is already being
laid today, in growing experimentation in art without content, perhaps in
anticipation of a world without conflict. A cult has developed around a new kind
of cultural determinism, which proposes that the technological form of a
cultural expression determines its values rather than does its ostensibly
meaningful content. Its clear implication is that there is no "good" or "bad"
art, only that which is appropriate to its (technological) times and that which
is not. Its cultural effect has been to promote circumstantial constructions and
unplanned expressions; it denies to art the relevance of sequential logic. Its
significance in this context is that it provides a working model of one kind of
value-free culture we might reasonably anticipate in a world at peace.
So far as science is concerned, it might appear at first glance that a giant
space-research program, the most promising among the proposed economic
surrogates for war, might also serve as the basic stimulator of scientific
research. The lack of fundamental organized social conflict inherent in space
work, however, would rule it out as an adequate motivational substitute for war
when applied to "pure" science. But it could no doubt sustain the broad range of
technological activity that a space budget of military dimensions would require.
A similarly scaled social-welfare program could provide a comparable impetus to
low-keyed technological advances, especially in medicine, rationalized
construction methods, educational psychology, etc. The eugenic substitute for
the ecological function of war would also require continuing research in certain
areas of the life sciences.
Apart from these partial substitutes for war, it must be kept in mind that the
momentum given to scientific progress by the great wars of the past century, and
even more by the anticipation of World War III, is intellectually and materially
enormous. It is our finding that if the war system were to end tomorrow this
momentum is so great that the pursuit of scientific knowledge could reasonably
be expected to go forward without noticeable diminution for perhaps two decades.
It would then continue, at a progressively decreasing tempo, for at least
another two decades before the "bank account" of today's unresolved problems
would become exhausted. By the standards of the questions we have learned to ask
today, there would no longer be anything worth knowing still unknown; we cannot
conceive, by definition, of the scientific questions to ask once those we can
now comprehend are answered.
This leads unavoidably to another matter: the intrinsic value of the unlimited
search for knowledge.
We of course offer no independent value judgments here, but it is germane to
point out that a substantial minority of scientific opinion feels that search to
be circumscribed in any case. This opinion is itself a factor in considering the
need for a substitute for the scientific function of war. For the record, we
must also take note of the precedent that during long periods of human history,
often covering thousands of years, in which no intrinsic social value was
assigned to scientific progress, stable societies did survive and flourish.
Although this could not have been possible in the modern industrial world, we
cannot be certain it may not again be true in a future world at peace.
(end part four)
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Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Five
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