WE HAVE strayed far into the field of Nature. It is time that we come home and remember that we are men. The only important philosophical question of today is: what are we, and what is man?
When Confucius heard that a stable had burnt down, he asked if any man was hurt, but “did not inquire about the horses.” I am such a “humanist” that I do not care if the whole species of horses and dogs and cats and rabbits are wiped out, if man hereafter can live in peace. This may sound a little Oriental and heathenish, but there are, on the other hand, men whose minds are almost as limited in compass as mine, and who, while very much devoted to the very lovable dogs, have not yet any conception of the brotherhood of all men. I am sure horses think the same way, too. The white horses are devoted to man, but have nothing but contempt for brown and bay horses, and the brown and bay horses have nothing but contempt for the spotted ones. Horse love, I understand, is only skin deep. The most inconceivable barriers of pigment exist. In the same way, a bulldog will patronize a human being, but must persecute his brother, the Irish terrier, because his own tail is straight and smooth while the other dog has a wiry tail and somewhat too much of a mustache. How the westerners laugh at Chinese high cheekbones and almond eyes and how the Chinese laugh at the westerners’ hairy chests and arms!
But this state of things is not funny any more. We are starting out on an era of compulsory world living with all the tribalistic traits of a past epoch and the psychology of the bulldog-terrier racial prejudices. We talk lightly of world co-operation and world government without realizing the immense complexities of the new problems, not only in respect of their size, but also in respect of their nature.
Perhaps Aristotle’s Politics is broad enough, or perhaps it isn’t, but a modern Aristotle, his analytical mind exercised over the new problems created by a world state, would ponder very deeply and seek for certain cardinal principles. Aristotle would be what we call a “realist,” but his realism would be profound, and he would not necessarily potter around with “expediencies” in ignorance of first principles. He would still classify the three possibilities of the government of the world, like those of a state, as being the rule of the one, the rule of the few, and the rule of the many, but taking the nations instead of individuals as the units. He would still postulate the good and bad forms of each: the good being monarchy, aristocracy, and timocracy; the bad being tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. And he would picture how these different principles would operate, and speculate how each might degenerate and how each might evolve into, or be replaced by, another form. And he would still apply his psychology of motivation, and would maintain:
In considering how dissensions and political revolutions arise, we must first of all ascertain the beginnings and causes of them which affect constitutions generally. . . . The universal and chief cause of this revolutionary feeling has already been mentioned; viz., the desire of equality, when men think that they are equal to others who have more than themselves; or again, the desire of inequality and superiority, when conceiving themselves to be superior they think that they have not more but the same or less than their inferiors; pretensions which may or may not be just.41
He would find the two desires, for equality and for inequality or superiority, still operating today in respect of a World Federation and as causing all dissensions or revolutions that may consequently come up. And he would not conceive of any one form of World Government as so perfect, so good, so just, that it would not undergo internal transformations from psychological causes, or even evolve from one form to another by a series of world revolutions. He would rather try his best to see that the best and the most just form be adopted to ensure the greatest stability. Being a knower of human nature and its corruptibility, he would be realistic and would probably despair of a utopian settlement. But his would be a less mechanistic mind than ours, and he would certainly not agree with Ely Culbertson’s international contract bridge, or trust a mechanical elaboration of a World Police Force and say to himself, “There is the basis of an enduring peace.” On the other hand, having read Locke now, he would at once plunge into a discussion of the principles of coercion and consent, and their manifold reactions. In addition to the forms like world tyranny (rule of one nation), world oligarchy (rule of a few rich nations), and world democracy (rule of the many nations), he would also postulate the collapse of all and a reversion to national autarchy, which in view of the present state of nationalistic psychology, might most likely result.
Aristotle would, I am sure, agree with the general principle that world peace must be enforced by a world police. But he would analyze the problem further in respect of three points: what to police, who are to police, and who are to be policed, and why. Such a dispassionate examination would reveal that certain things can be policed and certain things not. For instance, he would believe that only such laws and traditions as command the general public approval can be enforced by the police, that police power derives from public approval and sense of justice and not from tear-gas bombs or tommy guns, and that policing an unjust order would be the maintaining by force of a state of things due for a change. So he would be careful to point out that before we decide to police and maintain by force something, we have to make clear what that thing is. Whether, for instance, it will be constrained to defend the status quo against “acts of rebellion against the World Government.” Secondly, he would closely examine the area and the neighborhood to be policed. He would not try to police too much a peaceful neighborhood, but would concentrate on certain gangster sections that in the past have repeatedly upset public order, where the most “muggings” have been going on. Only the principle of historic experience would seem to serve as safe guidance in regard to those to be policed and those selected to do the policing. And in equity, he would be forced to the conclusion that those nations which have in the past most disturbed others, have been most aggressive, most imperialistic, ought to be the policed nations, and those that have observed the principles of good neighbors ought to be the policing nations. Thus he would probably arrive at the astounding conclusion that Eskimos, Javanese, Samoans, Chinese, and Americans, Danes, Swiss, etc. ought to police the Japanese, the Germans, the English, the French, and the Italians. The Spaniards and Portuguese, though having been once in their time bloodthirsty pirates, ought to be given liberal consideration on parole and good behavior.
In view, however, of the “desire of inequality” of the “Big Powers,” such a scheme is obviously unacceptable. There would probably be a sort of compromise, excluding none and based on complete equality for all nations, or it would lose its police character and have the characteristics of an agglomeration of powers. Following such a principle of common consent and common equality, the best solution would be for the World Police to “belong” to no particular nation, as no community police belongs to any socially prominent members of the community. Such a community police may now and then distribute small, private favors to the socially prominent members, such as better lighting on certain streets or shifting “no parking” signs in their favor, since they pay more taxes, but this must be underhanded and the state of things must not become unbearable to the other poorer members of the community or enrage the public sense of justice.
And over all these questions must stand the philosophic question whether the World Government is to be preponderantly laissez-faire, according to Rousseau, or preponderandy regi-mentalized, according to Hobbes; whether it is to be a government by Polizei, according to Prussian Nazism, or government by self-government according to Jeffersonian democracy and the old-roguish Chinese. There is so much trouble that could be avoided if we did not poke our nose into it. The point immediately suggests itself, that the greater the area of government, and the more scattered the populations, the less can force be relied upon in government.
The Chinese, having governed their country for four thousand years without lawyers or police, and having had some experience in the matter of governing large areas, would instinctively incline toward Jeffersonian democracy. After all, a nation that believes in government by worship and song, by rituals and music, must be a little stunned by the idea of government by Polizei. The Chinese would probably lead the revolt against the Polizei, and they have certain ways of dealing with the police. They believe it is their duty to corrupt them by sending the police sergeant a present when his wife gives birth to a baby because he is so obliging as to stand and guard our doors. They have no idea that he is there to guard public order, since public order is already guarded by scrolls of proverbs and public laughter at transgressors—the thief has a bad mother—but they understand he is there to open limousine doors for rich men arriving at sumptuous hotels. They are not rich themselves, but they can also buy the policeman’s small favors by pulling him into their house on a hot day and giving him a cup of tea. Just by sheer human experience, they have found that no policeman in the world can resist such corruption. And the Burmese, the Javanese, the Eskimos, the Samoans, the Caucasian villagers, and the Brazilians and the Chileans would join with the Chinese and shout to the French, the English, the Germans, and the Americans: “What the hell! Why do we require your police? We ain’t got Krupp guns or parachutists here. Why don’t you police yourselves? Why don’t you try to police Moscow?”
One may make here also a parenthetical remark about America. America has a fair record, not a blameless, but a fair record, in respect of imperialism. The American is too good a democrat to be a successful imperialist. He pats the foreigners on the back and American doughboys pull rickshaws for Hindus out of sheer fun. That is the last thing an imperialist should do. You haven’t got the imperialist instinct. You can’t fraternize with “natives” and be their masters. The fellows whose backs you pat today will think tomorrow that they are as good as you are, and good-by to your empire! It’s rather odd, isn’t it, the way humans think? But America has developed enough power, and power is a dangerous thing, and I am winking and blinking to see what she is going to do with that power. America, having come of age, is like a research doctor who suddenly finds himself married to a socialite. “It’s the war,” the doctor says, trying to explain his marriage. To go on with the research or move in with his socialite wife to cure corns and misshapen nails for the rich is now this doctor’s central spiritual problem—and this is the only important problem that faces America today. For America today stands at the crossroads. Be a research doctor, I say.
41 Aristotle Politics, tr. by Jowett (Oxford), p. 148.