War is a necessary devil explain
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Historians are likely to find Part One, “War in History and Theory,” the most interesting part of the book, as political scientists or psychologists may find Part Two, “The Causes and Effects of War.” But for this ethicist, Part Three, “Ethics, Law, and War,” is particularly helpful, noting as it does the complementary nature of classic just war tradition and international humanitarian law. In seeking to limit the damage of war, these traditions represent the highest aspirations of humankind. They speak to the human capacity for compassion that is every bit as innate as our propensity to violence.
At the same time, Grayling does not spare his reader from the “frightening evidence of cruelty and barbarism” that war everywhere provides. His brief discussion of rape as a strategy of war is extremely important, even if such a discussion is almost inescapably pornographic. Nevertheless, attending to the relationship between war and rape is a bracing antidote to the unfortunate tendency to discuss just war theory in the language of the seminar room rather than the profanity-laced argot of the battlefield.
There are points to quibble with in this volume, but in the end Grayling’s call for an “aversion therapy of truth” that does not romanticize war but shows us war’s “mangled bodies, blown apart children, blood running into gutters,” not to mention the pain and suffering of those whose family members are fighting the war, is compelling. Yet this therapy of truth is not what any society really wants; it is certainly not what the United States wants. Watch or listen to any baseball game on Memorial Day and you will hear the announcers solemnly intone the virtues of those who “made the ultimate sacrifice” in between hawking the goods of the local car dealers and alerting fans to the next bobblehead giveaway.