POLI 212 Lecture Notes - Industrial Warfare, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Practical Reason
24 Apr 2013
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Notes on michael howard s land of war, land of peace . Europe for most of its history has been a land of war . Rulers in europe justified their rule through success in wars. This belligerent culture was the one to make great strides in innovation (as compared with contemporaneous china). Whether or not this militarism was a necessary condition for the development of europe s magnificent high culture, as john ruskin and others would have us believe, may be debatable, but it certainly did nothing to inhibit it . War as an innate part of european culture for many centuries. War culture is not a bad idea because benefits of winning go to rulers and soldiers, but consequences of losing fall only on the peasantry. Partly practical reason: war becomes counterproductive because harder on taxpayer, less territorial benefits, and didn t increase wealth/ status of rulers.
