Violence and Modernity: War
2. Social costs and scars of war
(achievements?)
• As we have already seen the costs, scars and
consequences of war are inseparable from its
other aspects.
• We have been looking, for example at its
interaction with the modern state. War is at the
core of modern citizenship and the developing
ideologies – especially nationalism – are geared
to uniting people to fight. War is a, arguably the,
main raison d’etre of the modern state.
Impacts associated with war
• economic development
• Technological, medical and scientific
development
• Cultural/psychological impact
• Political manipulation
• Social change (gender roles; weakens class)
• Engenders revolutions
• Destroys empires and economies
Impacts 1 Economic Development
• Victory can strengthen a country’s economic
grip by defeating a rival – classic example is
Britain vs France Seven Years’ War and beyond
• Imperialism and imperial state
• War makes state a leading investor and/or
customer
• War (and space) spending has a ‘Keynesian’
effect on economy
• ‘Military-industrial complex,
Impacts 2 Technological, medical and
scientific development
Impacts 3 Cultural/psychological impact
• Enormous impact of war on culture high and
low
• Goya and war painting from Napoleonic
period
• From figurative to abstract art – music
Tchaikovsky to Stravinsky
– Painting - Kandinsky
Goya – Executions of the Third of May
1808
Goya Il Colosso
Goya from The Disasters of War
Salvador Dali Soft Construction
Robert Capa Death of a Loyalist Soldier
1936
Impacts 3 Cultural/psychological impact
• Enormous impact of war on culture high and
low
• Goya and war painting from Napoleonic
period
• From figurative to abstract art – music
Tchaikovsky to Stravinsky
– Painting - Kandinsky
Kandinsky 1908
Kandinsky 1912
Kandinsky 1912
Kandinsky 1919
Kandinsky 1923
War Movies
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz3Cc7wlf
kI
Political Manipulation
• Chauvinistic military campaigns to influence
elections
(Falklands factor)
French imperialism in N.Africa
Bismarck
Social change
• gender roles; in mass warfare women move
into ‘male’ civilian roles at work (what
happens when the surviving men come back?)
• weakens class – ‘all in it together’
Rosie the Riveter (US WWII)
Ministry of Labour/ RoSPA UK 1943
British Women Workers WW2
Engenders Revolutions
• Russian Revolution
• Chinese Revolution – People’s Liberation
Army, Long March, Yunan Period
Destroys Empires
Final Thought
• Wars rarely solve problems –
They transform one set of problems into a new,
and often unpredictable, new set of problems.
1st WW ---- 2nd WW
2nd WW ---- Cold War
‘War on Terror’ ---- War on Radical Islam