War

Total War in Shaping Europe
World War I and II had theaters all over the world, however the center of gravity of casualties was firmly in the center of Europe. Before World War I, European society still viewed war with romance - the idea of going to fight for liberation, serving your country with honor and dignity were popular and unquestioned. Decorum around the military and proper manners were incredibly important. In fact, the triggering event for World War I - the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand serves us a textbook example of how decidedly un-modern European state administration was:

Archduke Franz Ferdinand survived that assassination attempt, only for Governor-General Oskar Potiorek to decide that it wasn't important enough for security to bring soldiers into the city to do so without them in their dress uniforms. Then, with one and only one assassin in custody (they didn't know for sure that there were other assassins, but it seems a reasonable suspicion) they decided to ride in their convertible car through the city to visit the victims of the bombing in the hospital.

 

The importance of proper dress was put over the importance of security. Similarly, another incident occured on the Western front of the war, between Germany and France, where many British soldiers served. British soldiers were used to marching in line and formation. These were people who never had a machine gun used against them and so their military methods were unprepared for the onslaught - over 60,000 British soldiers died in a single day due to the machine gunning. As is the case with many other things in European culture - the survivors were left better off - with the lesson that those old ways would not do in this new paradigm. The old way of marching was quickly abandoned and soldiers adopted the same trench charging strategy as the Germans, resulting in stalemates rather than brutal losses. It is important to note that the British had been using the machine gun against other nations for quite a long time but were unprepared for its use against them. This type of hubris is often what leads to the downfall of nations.Truly, there are no innovations, be it the splitting of the atom, the repeating rifle, the antibiotic, that once its creation has been proven, remains out of the reach of a society with the determination and resources. Skills are catalysts, but not necessary..

 

Soldiers who saw how quickly the old order crumbled in the face of the new total war returned home with a macabre sense of novelty. To them, novelty was scary, but to their commanders, novelty was rewarded. Coming up with new ideas and strategies led to victory in this new world. These same attitudes helped shape these military commanders’ success later in the business world. Total war means you have to abandon the formalities and custom associated with normal society. After you revert to normalcy, there's little incentive to put those back on. India hasn't had a total war to shake it up in the same way. Regionalistic jingoism is hard to foment as Indians and foreigners have emigrated across the entire nation for several hundred years, often while holding onto their original identity.

 

Since we are often guilty of projecting our own horrible aspects onto others, let’s turn to an example. The caste system is considered uniquely Indian, crossing religious lines, linguistic lines and cultural lines. However, upon closer examination of other societies, it’s clear that this system existed in Islam - with the Qureshi, Mohammad’s tribe as the top-most caste, a series of concentric circles radiating outward with Medinites, then Arabs, then everyone else. In fact, given the flexibility of caste in the Vijayanagara empire, as well as other Indian empires, the modern caste system is best understood as a reflection of European feudal society into the Indian order. As Indian elites began gaining their education from Western institutions, they began to practice what they were taught - that the caste system is similar to the European model where the king reigns on high, the nobles below, clergy below that and commoners at the bottom. What is most interesting is not this idea that caste is somehow radically different from the European definition of class, but that Europeans also add race to the mix, with biological arguments for why people remain in a particular class and henceforth constitute a caste. In fact, it shoudl be remembered that the Western world practiced slavery - from Glasgow to Arabia, there were slaves in the Western world while the criticism about caste came forth. Even today, race in America functionins in the same way that caste does in India - reservations are offered for disadvantaged races/castes and the historically advantaged castest/races complain about it. Historically advantaged castes/races often say there isn’t a caste/race problem, while those below say there is.

European society was able to shed its class affiliations in the forge of war. In war, there is no time for these false distinctions and only survival matters. Once people begin to experience the objective reality of war, then we are able to see the subjective nature of our social constructs and tear them apart for greater manipulation of the objective reality. This is the real goal - to be able to mold our social constructs to the point where we can manipulate objective reality more.