Free The World as I See It by Albert Einstein Page B

sovereignty of the individual country with security against attack. Will it need new disasters to induce the countries to undertake to enforce every decision of the recognized international court? The progress of events so far scarcely justifies us in hoping for anything better in the near future. But everyone who cares for civilization and justice must exert all his strength to convince his fellows of the necessity for laying all countries under an international obligation of this kind.
    It will be urged against this notion, not without a certain justification, that it over-estimates the efficacy of machinery, and neglects the psychological, or rather the moral, factor. Spiritual disarmament, people insist, must precede material disarmament. They say further, and truly, that the greatest obstacle to international order is that monstrously exaggerated spirit of nationalism which also goes by the fair-sounding but misused name of patriotism. During the last century and a half this idol has acquired an uncanny and exceedingly pernicious power everywhere.
    To estimate this objection at its proper worth, one must realize that a reciprocal relation exists between external machinery and internal states of mind. Not only does the machinery depend on traditional modes of feeling and owe its origin and its survival to them, but the existing machinery in its turn exercises a powerful influence on national modes of feeling.
    The present deplorably high development of nationalism everywhere is, in my opinion, intimately connected with the institution of compulsory military service or, to call it by its less offensive name, national armies. A country which demands military service of its inhabitants is compelled to cultivate a nationalistic spirit in them, which provides the psychological foundation of military efficiency. Along with this religion it has to hold up its instrument, brute force, to the admiration of the youth in its schools.
    The introduction of compulsory service is therefore, to my mind, the prime cause of the moral collapse of the white race, which seriously threatens not merely the survival of our civilization but our very existence. This curse, along with great social blessings, started with the French Revolution, and before long dragged all the other nations in its train.
    Therefore those who desire to encourage the growth of an international spirit and to combat chauvinism must take their stand against compulsory service. Is the severe persecution to which conscientious objectors to military service are subjected to-day a whit less disgraceful to the community than those to which the martyrs of religion were exposed in former centuries? Can you, as the Kellogg Pact does, condemn war and at the same time leave the individual to the tender mercies of the war machine in each country?
    If, in view of the Disarmament Conference, we are not to restrict ourselves to the technical problems of organization involved but also to tackle the psychological question more directly from educational motives, we must try on international lines to invent some legal way by which the individual can refuse to serve in the army. Such a regulation would undoubtedly produce a great moral effect.
    This is my position in a nutshell: Mere agreements to limit armaments furnish no sort of security. Compulsory arbitration must be supported by an executive force, guaranteed by all the participating countries, which is ready to proceed against the disturber of the peace with economic and military sanctions. Compulsory service, as the bulwark of unhealthy nationalism, must be combated; most important of all, conscientious objectors must be protected on an international basis.
    Finally, I would draw your attention to a book, War again To-morrow , by Ludwig Bauer, which discusses the issues here involved in an acute and unprejudiced manner and with great psychological insight.
    II
     
    THE BENEFITS THAT THE inventive genius of man has conferred on us in