The U.S. Goverment

[Potjeh]

There were of course wars -- of Italian and German Unification, the Carlist wars in Spain, The Crimean War -- but those conflicts were fought between armies, and not against civilians. They did not disrupt international trade in any major way, and they were relatively short affairs.

So cutting off Danube from the Black Sea doesn't count as disrupting trade? And de facto cleansing of Bulgaria's Muslim population was purely a conflict between armies? Or the almost total destruction of Stara Zagora?

Frankly, I'd be willing to wager that there was never 50 years without a large massacre in Balkans alone, let alone Europe as a whole.

I'd say that Europeans were always a bunch of bastards. The only thing that makes 20th century stand out is advent of technology which enabled slaughter at unprecedented scale.

[jorb]

There were of course wars -- of Italian and German Unification, the Carlist wars in Spain, The Crimean War -- but those conflicts were fought between armies, and not against civilians. They did not disrupt international trade in any major way, and they were relatively short affairs.

So cutting off Danube from the Black Sea doesn't count as disrupting trade? And de facto cleansing of Bulgaria's Muslim population was purely a conflict between armies? Or the almost total destruction of Stara Zagora?

Frankly, I'd be willing to wager that there was never 50 years without a large massacre in Balkans alone, let alone Europe as a whole.

Haha, when Europe goes to war it often, indeed, seems to be over "some damned foolish thing in the Balkans", to quote Bismarck.

Certainly the Crimean war meant the imposition of a general blockade on Russia, but it pales in comparison to the unrestricted submarine warfare and seizing on the high seas of private merchant ships of enemy nations that we normally associate with the world wars.

The burning of tar warehouses and ships in Oulu and Raahe led to international criticism and, in Britain, MP Thomas Gibson demanded in the House of Commons that the First Lord of the Admiralty explain "a system which carried on a great war by plundering and destroying the property of defenceless villagers".

Similar sentiments were not, I believe, quite as common during the world wars.

I am not entirely familiar, I shall readily admit, with the exact courses of the various Russio-Turkish wars fought during the 19th century, but, I mean, at least someone gave a damn. Again, it quite pales in comparison to the 20th century. Also, I have to try to make general arguments. The point isn't that there are no counter-examples to be found.

[jorb]

Contrast civilian suffering during the Franco-Prussian war with civilian suffering during World War One or, better yet, Two.

[burgingham]

Fun fact: Never in history have 2 democracies been at war with eachother.

Also what I meant to make a bit more clear yesterday was that it was never because of critical thinking that a system has been overthrown and replaced by something worse. Applying critical theory or something in the same spirit aka enlightenment philosophy is definitely not what happened when the Nazis took over or similar events occured in other countries. The exact opposite of a growing immaturity among the population led to such extremists rising to power. Adorno conclusively proves in his theories that immaturity leads to extremist opinions. Unconditional rebellion is a form of immaturity in his eyes too btw.

[jorb]

Fun fact: Never in history have 2 democracies been at war with eachother.

First of all that isn't strictly speaking true, and second of all the example you are really thinking of would be western Europe after world war two. What other examples could you have? I would argue that there are plenty of alternative explanations as to why Western Europe did not fight internally during that era, and that the idea that it is democracy that is the determining factor for the era's relative peacefulness remains unproven at best. The presence of the Atlantic pact and the perception of a common enemy in the Soviet Union could, for example, be just as good an explanation. Thirdly, it would be extremely hard to make the case that representative government in general leads to a less bellicose attitude in foreign affairs. The American and Roman Empires grew out of republican and in some sense democratic traditions, as did the British Empire, as did the European Super state of today.

[jorb]

Also what I meant to make a bit more clear yesterday was that it was never because of critical thinking that a system has been overthrown and replaced by something worse. Applying critical theory or something in the same spirit aka enlightenment philosophy is definitely not what happened when the Nazis took over or similar events occured in other countries. The exact opposite of a growing immaturity among the population led to such extremists rising to power. Adorno conclusively proves in his theories that immaturity leads to extremist opinions. Unconditional rebellion is a form of immaturity in his eyes too btw.

But the French revolution grew out of precisely critical thinking. The idea that all things old, traditional and established should be replaced by new, rational, scientific forms is precisely the underlying theme of the whole french revolution, even to the point where humanity itself is to be replaced by new forms of "republican man". The calendar was thrown out, religion was thrown out, the monarchy was thrown out, and the predictable result was the guillotine. The point being that once you have started to question long established traditions it is extremely easy to find yourself on a slippery slope where all culture gets thrown out the window. The gulags, systematization in Romania, the agrarian reforms of the soviet union, the Great leap forward in China, or even, indeed Hitlerite Germany. All those things were motivated precisely by supposedly scientific and new ways of understanding reality. All of them were fundamentally revolutionary in nature. Human progress, however, is not revolutionary. It is fundamentally evolutionary.

This could very well be said to be the central thesis of Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, by the by.

EDIT: And this is why I am extremely skeptical of the enlightenment as an intellectual attitude. It's belief in general universialism -- of values, of government, of ideas -- and its belief in man's ability to a priori reasoning and understanding of the world is anti-empirical, unscientific and full of hubris.

[burgingham]

Well, I am talking about modern, nation state democracies. Also, I am speaking about war between two democracies. There are plenty of examples where one democracy was involved in a war of course.

The North Atlantic treaty while still intact has undergone quite a paradigm shift during the past two decades and there is no more common enemy that keeps the western alliance together, or at least the NATO has quite some troubles finding one. Its biggest enemy is the decline in influence it has to face. Still no war since the downfall of the Sowiet Union. Even quite young democracies haven't broken this tendency as long as they could be defined as true democracies (I am aware that the "true" is asking for another discussion).

There is a branch of political theories that has gained enourmous popularity after the end of the Cold War called Liberal Instituionalism and that branch is arguing that it is in fact impossible that two modern and true democracies would ever go to war against eachother. It would take too long to lay down the entire argument here, but it has something to do with common values and norms that make a war scenario quite unlikely and forge a rather strong "we"-feeling. If you are interested in that theory read Thomas Risse-Kappen. Harvard professor who is one of the most famous representatives of Liberal Institutinalism and wrote quite some of his books or articles on the very topic like "Democracy and Peace".

[jorb]

Oh, no need to, I'm quite familiar with the argument. One hears it repeated time and time again. It is used all the time when people want to argue for going to war in far flung places of the world to spread the gospel of democracy to them by force of arms. I've used it to precisely that effect myself.

[burgingham]

The point being that once you have started to question long established traditions it is extremely easy to find yourself on a slippery slope where all culture gets thrown out the window. The gulags, systematization in Romania, the agrarian reforms of the soviet union, the Great leap forward in China, or even, indeed Hitlerite Germany. All those things were motivated precisely by supposedly scientific and new ways of understanding reality.

No, they were not. That is a blatant lie that either those overthrowing the system would spread themselves or people like you would now to abuse it as an argument. They never had any true scientific understanding or methods being used to justify a new system.

...and the predictable result was the guillotine.

That is populist and falls short of explaining the impact of the french revolution.

Human progress, however, is not revolutionary. It is fundamentally evolutionary.

No idea how you come to this conclusion, but I find it to be dangerous. Denying the existance of a universal morality (which you then do again in the Edit) is far more likely to create such systems as Nazi Germany than a critical theory ever could.

and its belief in man's ability to a priori reasoning and understanding of the world is anti-empirical, unscientific and full of hubris.

Those are big words you are just throwing out there. I would say the exact opposite is the case. There is nothing more scientific and more rational than the philosophy of Enlightenment. It is the very essenceof every rational thinking that has ever occured wether the ones thinking it knew that or not.

[burgingham]

Oh, no need to, I'm quite familiar with the argument. One hears it repeated time and time again. It is used all the time when people want to argue for going to war in far flung places of the world to spread the gospel of democracy to them by force of arms. I've used it to precisely that effect myself.

That is an abuse of the theory, Risse-Kappen himself would never approve of that. You should start to distinguish those interested in providing theories as a tool to get close to the truth of understanding human nature and systems created by humans and between those abusing such systems to graft their ideologies on top of them to justify questionable actions.