| The Purpose of the First World War |
Jay Winter, Dean of World War I studies, concludes his video series, The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996): “The war solved no problems. Its effects, both immediate and indirect, were either negative or disastrous. Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict.”
Meaningless? Precisely the opposite. The purpose of the First World war was to demonstrate that there is a transcendent domain of reality separate from our ordinary, mundane reality. This transcendent domain consists of “nations”—in the name of which human beings are willing to die and kill. |
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