(MORALITY AND ETHICS [continued(6)])[19th April 1987]

[Redbook3:207][19870419:1050d](MORALITY AND ETHICS [continued(6)])[19th April 1987]

19870419.1050

[continued]

If execution is probably immoral,* what of the Soldier? This is even more complicated, and involves something similar to the Just War argument. First of all, I reject absolutely the idea which I have heard expressed by soldiers that since all War is wrong, one might as well fight it as barbarically as will give one any advantage at all. In my view, each action, each level of action, must be answered for, just as in peace.

If all War were found to be immoral, we would (although free to do what we choose) be wise to eschew it, for the sake of our Souls**. But War is a very large description of a state of affairs: similar to Society, or Chaos: so large that it has both separating and unifying effects. We are specifically concerned with the main feature and weapon of war: killing. It is quite possible to envisage wars of the future in which nobody was [sic] killed (except by accident).

I thought at first that the Love had to be direct[ed] at the Victim*** to justify killing morally: later I realised that this was insufficient; the crucial point was the purity, i.e. selflessness, of the Love. I doubt whether it has to be felt specifically for the victim if you bear in mind that pure Love is indivisible, as, I think, are all the Inner Qualities, taking their indivisibility from God**** (even Diversity, as a Quality, is indivisible#). What this means is that the soldier motivated to fight be selfless Love for (his) people #*will include in his love even the enemy he has to kill (there being no other way of translating his love into the necessary protection).

I think the highest manifestation of this that we have seen was in the soldiers of the First World War, and particularly in the poems of Wilfred Owen: 'My subject is war, and the pity of war'#** (Pity is an expression of Love). 'I am the enemy you killed, my friend.[...] Let us sleep now.'#***

*[See last two previous entries before last previous entry.]

**(?)

***(See p.207 [--last entry but one.])

****(i.e. Unity?)

# =? <801031>

#*(cf.p210)

#**[“This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

(If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives -- survives Prussia -- my ambition and those names will have achieved fresher fields than Flanders...)"

- from Wilfred Owen's draft Preface, prepared for a collection of war poems that he hoped to publish in 1919. Written in Ripon, Yorkshire, in 1918. (http://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/biography/preface)]

#***['It seemed that out of the battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision’s face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.

“Strange, friend," I said, “Here is no cause to mourn.”

“None," said the other, “Save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something has been left,

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now....”' Wilfred Owen, 1893 – 1918, “Strange Meeting”, 1918]

[continues]

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