Hegel believed that the state has a higher purpose. Whereas civil society recognizes rights only in the form of private property, the state is the sphere in which ethical life is fully actualized. The state, then, constitutes the actualization of ethical life and alleviates the atomization of civil society. By strengthening social bonds, it raises the individual to consciousness of his universality. A citizen, Hegel says, is one who participates in the universal ethical life by integrating his particular interests with the universal. And the fullest expression of citizenship—participation in the universal—is war. War, Hegel believes, is a “positive moment” wherein the state asserts itself as an individual, establishing its rights and interests. Sacrifice on behalf of the ‘individuality’ of the state is the “substantial tie between the state and its members—and so is a universal duty.” The state—as actualized freedom and the progress of Spirit itself—provides a greater source of meaning than civil society. Hegel critically alludes to Kant’s writings on peace when he writes that, “Just as the blowing of the winds preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of a prolonged calm, so also corruption in nations would be the product of prolonged, let alone ‘perpetual’ peace.” Warfare constitutes a form of purification, confirming the role of the state in the life of the individual. Some may believe, Elshtain says, that in the contemporary world we have transcended Hegel’s “great and terrible story” promoting “archaic and bellicose state worship.” She is “not so sanguine.” Even now, some may echo the desire to sacrifice for the state found in the proclamations of Spartan mothers—who expressed not only a willingness, but a desire to sacrifice their sons in battle. These women, catalogued by Plutarch and echoed by Rousseau, embody a sensibility that lingers in the modern West “just beneath the surface of everyday, conscious recognition, ready to emerge full-force” should a nation go to war. Hegel does not offer principles for distinguishing wars of conquest from defensive wars—i.e., for determining if a war is just. Each individual state will determine what injuries it can absorb and which ones constitute a justification for war. Just as the citizen recognizes his will in the state’s laws to the extent that they are rational, a particular war reflects the citizens’ will to the extent that the grounds for it are rational. Hegel echoes Plato’s sensibility from The Republic when he writes that the complexities of international relations “become so delicate that they can be handled only by the head of state.” Experienced statesmen should make the decisions about when to go to war. He denies that monarchs and cabinets are more likely to rush to war than the general public. Thus, Hegel allows little room for dissent when the state asks its citizens to make sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice in wartime. Elshtain draws upon Hegel to explain why “the young man goes to war not so much to kill as to die, to forfeit his particular body for that of the larger body.” Because it simultaneously transcends and absorbs the individual, the state is seen as a something worth fighting and dying for. Such deaths are deemed heroic and honorable. Patriots in all countries (whether or not they have studied Hegel), perceive their state as a metaphysically transcendent entity. |
