earticle

영어

This paper aims to briefly differentiate views on war as represented in Western Literature and Philosophy. War was revered in Western Philosophy as “naturally rational and sublime”(Kant), “ethical and necessary”(Hegel), and “instinctive and naturally recurrent”(Nietzsche), to name a few Western philosophers. But Western literature, especially that of World War I expressing each individual’s pain and suffering in its concrete form, has begun to stand apart from the religious and philosophical tradition of “sacred war” or “just war” in the Hobbesian world of “homo homini lupus.” Herein lies the dichotomy of pro-war philosophy vs. anti-war literature, a bit oversimplified and hackneyed topos dating from Plato’s denigration of myth and literature. Literature has not always been anti-war, nor has philosophy always been pro-war. Besides, such a dichotomy is no longer tenable in the 21st century when nuclear warfare implies total annihilation of mankind. Total abnegation of “the other” through nuclear war is in effect the total annihilation of “the self,” thus nuclear war nullifies the concept of war itself. The rise and spread of civilization through war’s side effects, such as scientific discovery and technological development, comes to an end with nuclear war, especially when civilization turns out to be barbarity itself, if we follow Walter Benjamin