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With zoom classes finally under wraps, I am finally reading things there was no time for, including @samuelmoyn's beautifully written piece Tolstoy’s Case Against Humane War. A few thoughts follow. https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/politics/tolstoys-case-against-humane-war
The focus of the reaction to Sam's essay, to the extent I've seen it, is, appropriately on the substantive issue he raises: have efforts to humanize war made war more enduring. There is also an important methodological issue: how important is carnage to the study of war?
The importance of war's corporeality is a crucial issue that, I believe, @samuelmoyn & I agree about, though we are studying it in different ways, and we are writing about different implications.
The Tolstoy essay helped me to better understand why Moyn focuses on animal slaughter, and the book Every Twelve Seconds. https://books.google.com/books/about/Every_Twelve_Seconds.html?id=lr3ycfnaldMC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button
From war, to slavery, to the industrial killing of animals, the shielding of violence enables more violence. Examining carnage across categories enables him to draw a broader argument from it.
There is more to say about the way our approaches intersect and differ than tweets can capture, of course, and I have not seen his highly anticipated new mss, but a couple of quick thoughts.
Moyn is taking a wider view. I am zooming in on the culture and politics of US war. I am writing a long history of how US civilians lost interest in war, thereby (I argue) enabling unlimited presidential war power. Early take:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004292
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3004292
It's really hard to write a narrative history of how something disappears, but that's the effort. What disappears is the deep connection with carnage that Faust calls a "Republic of Suffering." https://books.google.com/books/about/This_Republic_of_Suffering.html?id=0Ng-hNXC1P0C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button
So (I think) I don't treat carnage as having an absolute quality over time. Instead, it's historical specific. I have to think about this point some more. But the culture of war death changes over time, and war politics/law is linked to it.
I think Moyn & I get to the same point: that the inability of a broader public to perceive war's carnage enables ongoing war. Haven't seen his highly anticipated mss of course, but I think for him the mechanism is law & for me it's politics - how US war politics has been broken.
Hope to write more on this once @samuelmoyn's new book is out... and hopefully my mss is closer to completion.
