How Pacifist Were the Founding Fathers?: War and Violence in Classical Sociology

Abstract

Most commentators agree that the study of war and collective violence remains the Achilles heel of sociology. However, this apparent neglect is often wrongly attributed to the classics of social thought. This article contests such a view by arguing: (1) that many classics were preoccupied with the study of war and violence and have devised complex concepts and models to detect and analyse its social manifestations; and (2) most of the classical social thought was in fact sympathetic to the 'militarist' understanding of social life. In many respects, classical social thought shared the analytical, epistemological and even moral universe that understood war and violence as the key mechanisms of social change. The structural neglect of this rich and versatile theoretical tradition is linked to the hegemony of the normative 'pacifist' re-interpretation of the classics in the aftermath of two total wars of the twentieth century. The author argues that the contemporary sociology of war and violence can gain much by revisiting the key concepts and ideas of the classics.

Protest in Western militaries

“…While this isolation can partially be attributed to mainstream academia which nowadays commonly ignores the military organization (Malešević, 2010;Zürcher, 2013), our review shows that military sociologists do not invest enough effort into understanding how the developments within the military relate to trends described in other sectors.…”

“…From the 1970s on, the classical focus on the military has all but disappeared and the military as organization has been neglected by mainstream sociologists (Malešević, 2010). While the military organization itself could always count on sustained policy-driven research on its effectiveness and deployment (Haltiner and Kümmel, 2009: 75), military personnel's welfare was rarely a subject of academic research.…”

Towards a strong program in the sociology of war, the military and civil society

“…For this reason military organizations have often only been granted major causal roles in pre-modern modes of political rule (Andreski, 1968;Collins, 1975). Malešević (2010b) makes an interesting intervention here, asserting that some early sociological writings (and the social conditions in which they were writing) were militaristic, for example the work of Ludwig Gumplowicz (2007Gumplowicz ( [1899), Gustav Ratzenhofer (1904) and Lester Ward (1914). This militarism is also evident in the work of the early American sociologists like William Sumner (1911) and Pitirim Sorokin (1937).…”

“…This militarism is also evident in the work of the early American sociologists like William Sumner (1911) and Pitirim Sorokin (1937). For Malešević (2010b) it was only following the horrors of the Second World War that a new pacifist sociology was formed. The 'founding fathers' of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, who seldom mention war, were selected and established as a new canon to serve this peaceable end.…”

The Military, War and Society: The Need for Critical Sociological Engagement

“…1 In fact, some claim that the study of war and collective violence is "the Achilles heel of sociology" and by implication, a disciplinary weakness. 2 This is indeed a shortcoming if one considers the catastrophic effect that war and violent conflict have on society. While some sociologists have paid attention to military matters, this has been mostly in an interdisciplinary or a specialist area applied to a specific issue, 3 or left to military theorists and strategists.…”