Ideas Endangering Peace

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31124, 29 July 1966, Page 17

Ideas Endangering Peace

The ideas of nationalism and fanaticism were the main forces that endangered peace, said Professor R. M. Hare, in a public address at Canterbury University. He will soon become White’s professor of moral philosophy at Oxford.

! Professor Hare said neither idea was the monopoly of any party or idealogy. Fascists and Communists, for example, could be both nationalists and fanatics, and both ideas operated at a much deeper level than ideological divisions. Professor Hare said it was crucial to distinguish between nationalism and fanaticism. The nationalist thought it right to pursue the interests of his country in complete disregard of the interests of other countries. Nationalism could be sustained by treating as relevant the differences — often trivial ones—among nations. The fanatic on the other

hand, thought it right to pursue an ideal at the expense of all other interests, even his own. Pure nationalism, in someone prepared to think would be easily asailed in argument but not if it was combined with fanaticism. Professor Hare said no argument could compel the real fanatic to abandon fanaticism but there were so few real fanatics that there was no need to worry'. However, fanatics of a sort were not in the least rare—for example Nazis, racists, and Stalinists, whose policies were sometimes adopted by entire nations. There would be no danger of that if a nation was composed of intelligent, well-informed people capable of thinking clearly but such nations were rare and in most, people could be controlled by fanatics through propaganda and other means. Fanatical proposals were often presented in amalgums which the ordinary person could not take apart. If he could, he could assess the components for what they were. i Professor Hare said he

could not see a nuclear war occurring in the world today unless there arose a combination of nationalism and fanaticism in one or more countries. Even then, war could be prevented if the two ideas could be disentangled and restrained. Professor Hare said it was of the utmost importance that the policies of states were arrived at as rationally as passible after wide, clear discussion. By doing this, universities such as the University of Canterbury could contribute to the cause of peace. In the main, persons in power pursued single-mind-edly courses which they thought to be right This was

true of Hitler, Mussolini, Sukarno, and de Gaulle. It could be said that Hitler did what he did, knowing it to be wrong, because he was a wicked man but that sort of approach got nowhere. Hitler would have admitted that what he was doing was contrary to the moral convictions of others (whom he despised) but he thought he had a higher destiny. To understand why such people were different, it was necessary to discover their processes of thought which made them act differently. If the causes of their psychological imbalance could be remedied, steps could be taken to make them understand that they were not doing right.