On September 12, NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg addressed the ServiceNation Summit, which brought together 500 leaders from a wide cross-section of American life to celebrate the power and potential of citizen service and to address America’s social challenges through volunteer and national service. In his remarks, Mayor Bloomberg cited philospher William James’s "pioneering argument for wide-scale, voluntary national service in his [essay, ‘The Moral Equivalent of War.’" Bloomberg may have had this passage in mind:
"Such a conscription [to National Service] with the state of public opinion that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one’s life. I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skillful propagandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities."
Earlier in the essay, James observes:
"Reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it religiously. It is a sort of sacrament. It’s profits are to the vanquished as well as to the victor; and quite apart from any question of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human nature at its highest dynamic. Its "horrors" are a cheap price to pay for rescue from the only alternative supposed, of a world of clerks and teachers, of co-education and zo-ophily, of "consumer’s leagues" and "associated charities," of industrialism unlimited, and feminism unabashed. No scorn, no hardness, no valor any more! Fie upon such a cattleyard of a planet!"
Read the essay, first published in 1906, here.
— sdh