Ο πόλεμος στη νεοτερικότητα και οι μύθοι της νεοτερικής ιδεολογίας

Abstract

The paper is an attempt at re-assessing the commonly held view that war in modernity is radically different from anything that had preceded it in traditional societies. This view, the paper argues, ought to be fully fledged out; for it is not just the scope or destructiveness of warfare that has changed so dramatically from tradition to modernity; so have also done the perceptions of war. These, characteristically ‘modern’, perceptions are deeply influenced by the utopian perspective of modern ideologies which have imbued the modern mind with the conviction that warfare may not after all be an integral part of the human condition but just another remediable problem subject to social engineering. Such a view of war may therefore be seen as a byproduct of the disjunction of abstraction from experience promoted by ideologies in modern times.