Transcript

{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

(Philosophy 9, November 11th, 1953.)

...four human variations, which any war brings into existence. And in this 106 Society of an Army, we said that we have here the {front} soldier, treating the enemy as nature. We have the veteran as the outcome, the man who's able to bring back the memory of his killed buddies. And you have the material and the background of a society which is able to furnish the recruits. And we have the soldier on leave. And since nobody is -- ever seems -- pays attention to this dialectical attitude of a man in action and a man relieved on -- of duty, the picture of an army, which you carry in your mind, and which the -- your teacher -- in the little red schoolhouse has in her mind, is very distorted. We said that a man in the frontline was more than the civilian, and man on leave was less than a civilian.

And I would like to -- read to you a passage, which bears out the sig- -- importance of this division.

Heavens! When do you begin?

One of the generals of the last war, as you know, was George Patton, the commander of the Third Army.

"George Patton, on a visit to base hospitals in Sicily, to see the wounded, encountered in quick succession two men who had no apparent physical hurts. Of the first man he met, Patton inquired why he was a patient in the hospital. To this the man replied, `General, I guess it's my nerves.'

"Patton flew into a rage. He had himself been under a terrific strain for a period of many days. Moreover, he sincerely believed that there was no such thing as true battle fatigue, or battle neurosis."

Perhaps you've now --

"He always maintained that any man who began to show signs of breaking under battle conditions could by shock be restored to a sense of responsibility and to adequate performance of duty. At the moment, also George Patton was also highly emotional state, because of the sights he had seen, and the suffering he had sensed among the wounded of the hospital."

They want to show me that architecture is the ordi- -- -nization of

movement. There are cer- -- however certain uses of doors, Sir. Let me go back:

"At the moment, also Patton was..."

I'm immensely grateful that they come at all. "At the moment, also -- " this is quite serious now, please.

"He was in a highly emotional state because of the sights he had seen and the suffering he had sensed among the wounded of the hospital. He broke out -- in a torrent of abuse against the soldier. This -- his tirade drew protest from doctors and nurses. But so violent was his outbreak that they hesitated to intervene. Within a matter of moments, he met a second soldier under somewhat similar circumstances. This time his emotions were so uncontrollable that he swung a hand at the soldier's head. He struck the man's helmet, which rolled along the ground. And by this time, doctors and nurses, overcoming their natural timidity in the presence of the commanding general, intervened between Patton and the soldier.

"Both enlisted men were, of course, badly upset. One of the them was seriously ill. Doctors later testified that he had a temperature of 102. Patton soon gained sufficient control of himself to continue his inspection, and left the hospital. But throughout his visit, he continued to talk in a loud voice about the cowardice of people who claimed they were suffering from psychoneuroses, and exclaimed that they should not be allowed in the same hospital with the brave, wounded man.

"The story spread throughout the hospital and among neighboring units with lightning speed. I soon received an unofficial report from the surgeon commanding the hospital, and only a few hours thereafter was visited by a group of newspaper correspondents, who had been to the hospital to secure the details. Their report substantially corroborated the one I had already received from the doctor. The question became: What to do? In forward -- areas, it is frequently..."

-- now listen to this very well, because here comes now the transition from this side of the cross to the other --

"In forward areas, it is frequently necessary, as every battle veteran knows, to use stern measures to ensure prompt performance of duty by every man of the organization. In a platoon, or in a battalion, if there is any sign of hesitation or shirking on the part of any individual, it must be quickly and sternly repressed. Soldiers will not follow any battle leader with confidence, unless they know that he will require full performance of duty from every member the team. When bullets are flying and every man's safety and welfare depend upon every other man in the team doing his job, men will not accept a weakling as their leader.

"Patton's offense, had it been..."

Will you kindly take down this sentence? This is really the -- the -- the -- the core of it all.

"Patton's offense, had it been committed on the actual front within an assaulting platoon, would not have been an offense.

"Patton's offense, had it been committed on the actual front within an assaulting platoon, would not have been an offense. It would have merely been an incident of battle. No one would have even noted it, except with the passing thought that here was a leader who would not tolerate shirking. But because of the time and place of his action, George Patton's offense was a serious one, more so because of his rank and standing. Thus to assault and abuse an enlisted man in a hospital was nothing less than brutal, except as it was explained by the highly emotional state in which Patton himself then existed. His emotional tenseness and his impulsiveness were the very quali- -- qualities that made him in open situations" -- that is, on the front -- "such a remarkable leader of an army. In pursuit and exploitation, there is need for a commander who sees nothing but the necessity of getting ahead. The more he drives his men, the more he will save their lives. He must be indifferent to fatigue, and ruthless in demanding the last atom of physical energy. All this I well understood and could explain the matter to myself in spite of my indignation at the act."

But then of course comes the press, and the Mothers of America, and the Daughters of America, and the Sisters of America, and so on. Well, gentlemen, this is written by President, as you know, and then General Dwight D. Eisenhower in his book, Crusade in Europe. Who had -- read this before? Well, that's too few, gentlemen. You owe it to yourself that you all read this book. That's scandalous. And here he describes this great incident, the so-called "slapping" incident of George Patton.

And this brings out the fact, gentlemen, that anything that is right in battle is wrong when off duty. And anything that is permissible off-duty is wrong at the front. I overstate it, of course. But it is for you the important thing.

When we were children, we played with some paper thing. "Salt and Pepper" we called it. If we turned the little fold of paper one way it was black. And when we told the other way, it was white. You remember? Have you played this, too? Salt and Pepper? And it's the same, gentlemen, with this cross of reality. You change -- and what is right here, the way you sit here, relaxed, as we talked about it before, in your shirt and without a tie, and so on. It would be utterly wrong if you stood this way -- sat this way in battle dress, and -- on a parade ground, obviously. Or -- even on a sport, on an athletic field, when you

march in, the football team, you cannot afford to sit the same way. So it would be ridiculous if you would sit at attention here, you see. And it would be ridiculous if you sat relaxed on your -- on your -- squatting on a football ground. You couldn't even think of this, that you would sit down there and -- squatting, or on a -- bring in a fold chair, because you are so tired.

So you see, it is very important for you, because you are hesitant. The democratic -- idyll says man is always the same. You don't have the idea that men is e- -- all men are equal. But you have unfortunately the idea that man is the same always. He is not. You are utterly different in different situations. And you have to be treated differently. And you have to be led differently. And you have to learn this, because otherwise you can also not cope with other peoples.

People on strike in a factory are different people from people at work. If you don't know this, you'll run into trouble. And I'll tell you what the -- what the gist of the matter is for comparison of factory and army. Men on strike are like men on the frontlines. And men at work are like soldiers on leave. It's the other way around as you would expect. That is, the man at work is like -- is a civilian. He's not a soldier on the frontlines. But a man on strike is in battle dress, a picket.

Th- -- all this is unknown. We come to this when we deal with management very soon. But to -- at this moment I wish once more to enjoin this -- your insight into yourself, gentlemen, that you contain enough dynamite to explode the discipline of the whole United States of America; and on the other hand, you contain enough elements of discipline to support the United States of America. And it is the same man. Don't think that here are wicked Communists with a conspiracy on the one-hand side, and here are the decent Dartmouth graduates and Dar- -- Harvard graduates who cannot disturb the water. You are -- we all are always the same: dynamite, destructive, you see, on the one-hand side; and disciplined on the other.

If Patton had struck this man in the face very severely when he didn't want to go over the hump, -- over the parapet, you see, at the attack, he did only his duty. And the soldier would have been grateful, because otherwise he had to be shot as a coward. And since he did it -- in -- in the -- behind the frontlines, in the hospital, Patton was absolutely wrong.

Now if you understand this, gentlemen, you understand Shakespeare's word that there is nothing good or evil, but thinking makes it so. It's your situation which creates the good and evil. There is no absolute good and evil.

I once saved the life of a soldier, of a young officer, who was 18 years of

age, and probably hadn't -- shouldn't have been made an officer, but he was on guard in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. And I was commander of this section there. And he was brought in because he had been found sleeping. And I had him report to me in full battle dress: helmet, and gloves, and everything. And -- I was very desperate, because the man would either have gone -- had to be shot as an officer, you see -- sleeping, or -- well, degrade -- degradation was the min- -- minimum and a long -- term in jail.

So -- I had him come before me and removed everybody else so that there should be no witness, and slapped him in the face, cordially and heavily. And with co- -- in cold-blooded -- I think quite coldbloodedly, and said that was it. And so I didn't pursue the case. And he knew it, and he came -- many years later he came to my house with his young wife and wanted to thank me that I had saved his survival, so to speak, his future. So this slapping this man -- is the only time that I think that I have consciously slapped a man -- in the face. And it was lifesaving.

Now you are brought up on such a silly code -- and it all comes I think from the -- too many women who have a hand in your education -- that you do not believe this. You just don't believe it. And you condemn General Patton in general, and you perhaps condemn me, too, because I slapped this young officer in the face. And yet, Patton in action and I myself in this fulfillment of my duty as his superior officer, we did the best. And it is only the derailment, only the deviation of Patton from his emotional state as a front swine, front commander, you see, that make him -- makes him objectionable.

If you see this, gentlemen, then you see how fantastic life is, how we in any minute are provoked in -- into opposite qualifications and opposite demands made on us. Now this are -- seems to be extreme cases. They are not, gentlemen. The first thing you have to know is that there is no code of ethics which says slapping or spanking is not good. You know, we come from a time when children were not allowed -- were -- couldn't be spanked. How many children are now gangsters and criminals because they haven't been spanked?

The idea of prohibitionism, the idea of vegetarians, the idea of notspankers, the idea of progressive education is always to exclude certain things: they aren't done. Gentlemen, this is the greatest lie which you can plant into your own heart and mind -- you wish to live. You can never know what is necessary. It can be necessary to take your thumb and to stop the water running out of a dike. Although in general it is not very reasonable to put -- take your thumb and -- and thereby try to stop the flood. You know this poem of the Dutch boy who stopped the flood in the Netherlands when the dike broke, you see, by -- of course his thumb was ruined. He lost it. But who will say it is just

stupid, you see? It is not stupid. Even if he sacrifices some -- and -- stirred other people's enthusiasm so that they twice as well in order to save the boy.

So will you kindly gather from this sentence of -- of President Eisenhower -- General -- then General Eisenhower, that no action -- no action, cruelty -- what you call cruelty, and so on -- can be classified from the very beginning as excluded. We are free.

The human freedom entails a much greater freedom than you ever consider. You can drink wine and you cannot drink wine. You can smoke and you cannot smoke. And if you have an enemy you're even -- it is -- very wise to get drunk with him at -- on occasions. Never say that nothing can be -- something cannot be done, because the outer action does not seal the -- your soul. When I slapped this boy in the face, I was the -- his most merciful father, and certainly more merciful than if I considered my official duty by sending him to a courtmartial. Can you see this? No?

(Yeah.)

Yes. Do you follow?

(Yeah.)

But it entails, you see, the concession that to slap a man in the face can be an act of mercy, which you will not consider, usually, you see, because your standard is that to slap somebody in the face, it just isn't done.

So it is a -- the army brings us down to -- to rock bottom in that it shows you, as we said, the army is pre-state, pre-national, pre-qualified, pre-ethical. It is necessity itself creating the code. Remember that we said it is not true in war that the state is at war. Because we have seen that any man fighting on one side becomes a citizen of the future state.

I told you of the -- of the Moltke who came over to Germ- -- from Germany here. And although he has the most illustrious military name in Germany, he fought on the si- -- in the American army and is now an architect in Chicago. Which means that the army, if really fully left to its own necessities, develops the next code. We learn in the army what is needed. We don't know it ahead of time by any one written regulation. But these laws restore themselves. We still can say with conviction that General Patton was utterly wrong in this hospital, you see. Why can we? Because there the lid is -- the necessity is gone -- gone -- is behind the front. There is no enemy. Therefore this -- this necessity is not upon us. You -- can you see this?

And -- I think it's a great lesson in the difference between the brotherhood inside an army and the necessity upon an army on the frontline. Here -- you remember what we said in sport, and art, and stu- -- studies. The inward, relaxed attitude in a hospital, in a study center, in the -- American university for the army in -- in France after the war, for example in 1919, is of a strictly inwardness, a strictly intimacy. People are there together as brothers, and face each other as brothers. And here, everybody faces outside, expecting the enemy, expecting the aircraft flying over, you see, expecting attack, expecting to be overtaken by a ruse.

So in this strange valve, in this strange turret that can turn, our best -- our real humanity consists, gentlemen. As long as we can change from these -- one aspect to the other, we are free, because it is of course up to you -- and would have been up to General Patton -- to distinguish where there is necessity, and where there is -- there -- there is leisure. We -- you look for your freedom in a -- quite a different sense. You think your humanity consists in having nothing to do, having no duties, no obligations. No, gentlemen. Your freedom consists only in knowing at what time what.

Now the same is true, gentlemen, about these two other fronts. The reserves, the people who are drafted, the people who are -- should be by now here in universal military training -- as you know, the -- the generations of vipers are hovering over your souls, and say you cannot -- you shall be spared. I don't see the difference between the draft and the universal military service, except that I know that through the draft, an infinite number of criminal injustices have been committed.

I know marriages broken up because a man had to go back a second time to Korea because there was nobody else to go there. And I have told you frankly that I think that -- these people who have been called for a second time to the arms have been wronged. And I -- I'm very firmly of the conviction that because this relation of the recruiting of an army to the army itself is not really thought through in this country, that the civilian branch, this -- whoever it is -- educators, and mothers, families, producers, factor- -- because they only think of themselves, and don't see this relation that they use up too much right -- too many rights over the people who have not to be drafted, that they really should be in a -- in a -- much more open to the demands of the army, which I think has to have first choice.

But you come from a period of a whole century in America, where the army always had second choice. Who went into the army? The stupid ones. And who went into the army -- I mean, the small ones. I told you that you have to be able to be proud of the material that is drafted into the army. And I think the

first thing is that we have to -- to raise the platform. Not everybody should be allowed to enter the army. And I think it is terrible that the gifted boys who have a high standing in college are told that they don't have to join the army, and the illiterate boys are drafted into the army. It should just -- the -- be the other way around. The higher you have a standing in the college, the more you should be drafted into the army.

And if you don't understand this, gentlemen, you haven't still understood the great problem of a nation. It is impossible to say because a man has -- all A's in a co- -- in a -- in a curriculum that he's spared the horrors of the draft. That's not a democracy anymore, if it is called a privilege to stay out of the army. But that's -- as you know, still done. If you -- how -- the rules? -- if you are a B -- B+ student, isn't that so? -- you can finish your college. Is that right?

(There's an exam.)

Wie?

(There's an exam.)

(It completely depends on your local --)

What?

(It completely depends on your local draft board.)

Na ja. All right. I mean, it is just the wrong principle. I told you that you had also to consider in general the question: on how little can an army live? Then you would have a good army. As -- if -- if you see -- ask the opposite question, "How much do I have to feed the soldiers? Steak ev- -- three times a day," you can never have an army. Now it's the same, gentlemen, with your Selective -- draft board. If you say, "The more gifted a man the less he is obliged to serve," you just get no army. You don't get reserves.

And -- just the same, gentlemen, the veteran -- this is so important, as there is an interaction between the son -- of a soldier on leave and the front soldier, that is the same man exploding outward and exploding inward, you must understand that if you get enough {mauvais subjˆts}, enough subhuman people into your army, illiterates, and -- daredevils, and people who have nothing to lose -- and the fewer great souls you get into the army, the more the good Christians, and the good scholars, and the good artists shun the army, obviously the more indecent pressure will the veterans bring on the polit- -- on the -- on the country, because the veterans have authority. Anybody who has fought a --

you can be sure of this -- has a right to claim a very intensive hearing, because he rep- -- he can invoke the ghosts of the dead, you see. And if the poor people in this country, only the -- I mean, the -- mentally poor and the morally poor, happen to be drafted, then of course the voice of the American Legion will sound very hoarse and very coarse.

In our town, the people are so afraid of the American Legion, they don't want to deny her the dancing space, because they say if we do anything, they'll -- they will put fire to our houses. Now that's the low standard -- at this moment of the record of the American Legion veteran, that the people in our town say, "Ssh-, ssh-, ssh-, -- ssh- -- we can't -- forbid them the town hall for dances, because otherwise they might put fire to our house." Imagine! Veterans. Well, {in whose court} is it? It's fault of all the Dartmouth, and Harvard, and Princetonians who were commissioned colonels in the last war right away, without serving first. Had they be- -- shared the ranks, it would -- couldn't have happened, because then they would have a voice in the Legion now. Now they haven't. Ja?

(I personally think that education makes leaders, and that it makes no difference whether you serve at 17 or at 21, if you're -- if you're gonna be -- if you have a chance to be educated, what -- what difference does it make whether he serves young or old, as long as he puts his time in?)

Ja. Oh, if you just mean it's delaying action, I agree with you.

(That's what it is now, we all have to serve.)

Well, who has not? What's the difference between universal military service and the draft? If I could only find out. Can anybody tell me? What is the difference?

(Just as the -- universal military training--)

Wie?

(Military -- universal military training, you'd probably all have to go at the same time. So it's just the same numbers.)

Well, but you could have leeway there, too. I mean, you have a universal military training. And I don't see why people shouldn't be allowed to serve between the age of -- 17 and 23. I mean, there's no reason not to grant such a concession, you see. Don't see any reason. It was in our country. I served when I was 23. Ja?

(Well, you said yourself that you come out very strongly against the merits of the peacetime -- )

Pardon me?

(You come out rather strongly against the merits of a peacetime army. And you think that it is really a privilege to serve in a peacetime army, and have a universal military training { }?)

Well, that's a very good point. You are quite right. But this wasn't the case in the last three years. And I -- we were debating this at this moment, you see. But I have always thought that from the experiences of the total -- total war, the global war not only, but total war we had to face in the last war, the result would be a universal service obligation in such a way that the -- type of service could be much enlarged, that it hadn't to be just with arms, you see, but that if you proved to the satisfaction of some decent board that you did something in the service of your country, you see, of a creditable nature that you -- that would figure in your record as though it was service.

So I think the universal service law is needed, and not a universal military training service. And I don't see why it isn't -- it's just -- would jibe -- it would just fit in with the fact that in a war today, women, and children, and everybody is just as mobile, and just as much in danger as the front soldier, you see. Therefore it is absolutely right that anybody who undertakes to -- to revive the life of the community by two or three years of service would rate with the soldier in a -- in the barracks. It is not easy to establish such a comparison, but I think it is feasible. And Mr. Vorhees from California, the man in Congress, has tried to -- to -- he has written such a law in 1941. It was only because the war came so speedily that it wasn't passed.

But there have been many leaders in this country who have felt that the service idea, you see, should be stressed and universalized, but it hadn't to be specifically { } military service only. Ja?

(You suggested the possibility of -- of putting the intelligent ones and the -- and the well-educated people in the ranks and leaving the illiterates and so forth at home. Well, if you had a war, the -- the better classes of people and the more intelligent ones would naturally be among the highest casualty rates. Therefore that would -- the illiterates and the -- the lower mentality people would be at home reproducing the race and the rest would be out being killed. Or at least not being in a position where they could -- they could reproduce more or less. And so wouldn't this lower your general --)

Have you read Mr. {Vogt} or Mr. {Osborne}?

(Nah.)

All right. Sounds like the zoo. I tell you a story. A great Catholic writer, Mis- -- Baron von Hgel, in England, one of the old -- the very old families, and very distinguished -- as I said, re- -- writer on religion, once was asked, "What is supernatural?"

And he said, "Well, there are very few instances in our modern life where -- which I can quote. But I'll give you one example. An Oxford graduate" -- and you know in England, these Oxford graduates are just treated like, as you think, the educated should be treated, as the elite -- "An Oxford graduate, a young lieutenant was in the Boer -- War against the Boers, in South Africa, together with his sergeant, who was simple folk and very -- just a -- well, a -- from the -- from the lower stratum of the people." And in England, you know, they make quite much of these class differences. I mean, at that time in 1900.

"And they were lying on a railroad track. And the snipers -- the guerrillas -- the Boer guerrillas came nearer and nearer and discovered them, and -- and began to shoot at them. And when it became very bad, and they suddenly open- -- a machine gun opened on them, the Oxford student -- or Oxford graduate -- threw himself over the body of the sergeant and received this shower -- this hail of -- of -- of bullets.

"And the sergeant said to him, `How terrible!' before -- just before this young man died. `How terrible that I -- with my very drab and common life should be saved by this -- your noble blood.'

"And the so- -- the Oxford graduate replied, `What could be more beautiful?'"

And that's supernatural. And if you have nothing supernatural in a war, you can't go to war. You can't go to war, Sir, if this transvaluation of values doesn't happen. If the officer doesn't sacrifice himself for his men, just as much as occasionally will -- the opposite will take -- will be true.

Sir, you can't ask any man to save another man or his country, you see, in whom you do not arouse the ambition to save even lower life, if you mean it this way, at the cost of your own. That is -- certainly it cannot be always demanded. But to base a law on this ideology which -- you have brought forward is a way of making war impossible, because it leads to calculation of values, of human lives, which you and I have no right to undertake. How did -- do you

dare you to say that the gifted people are better souls, and better men, and greater heroes than the uneducated? Don't say that. It's a -- it leads you into an abyss, and it is today the Darwinian ideology by which you are obediently dominated. But I know, my dear man, if I look into your own actions, you do not at all act on -- in line with -- this is the -- Mr. {Osborne} and Mr. {Vogt's} idea, of just -- dog eats dog. And so the elite has to preserve itself and let the other people die for the elite. This is all nonsense. All nonsense. You can only run a nation when the highest man -- man highest placed is willing to sacrifice his life for the poorest.

(Yeah, but your educated person is an investment of this society, isn't he? They put certain money --)

Yes, yes, yes. Sure. But you see, just look at the Orozco frescoes. Bankers always need generals -- always need George Pattons to run a war. The bankers themselves are just one branch of society. Certainly if you -- if you call humanity an investment, Sir, I would like to see the bank who devises -- distributes then the dividends.

There is no investment in my life. I am the result, the fruit. And I am an not an investment. And you are not an investment. This is all -- it's all dirty language. Obscene. You see, you are so accustomed to it that you no longer know what you are talking about. There is no such thing as an investment in human lives. This is on -- done on faith.

I don't say that we are not to a certain extent right in trying to build up such a reserve and so on. But as soon as you want action in battle, where the whole of life is at stake, all these distinctions do not furnish you any code of behavior. You see, this is the -- in battle this has to go. That is, man is an investing animal, and a noninvesting animal. That's so strange. We are always both. We are always -- I mean, if you think of the peacetime situation, you are completely right, and within your rights.

Now let's turn to this and I will show you why the investment principle works as longs as you think of the civilian life of a nation. But that the founders of this country -- the man who was in charge of the expedition to the Rockies and crossed over there for the first time, { }. You know these famous parties who -- take Fr‚mont, or anybody. Now if Mr. Fr‚mont had said, "I sail around the Straits of Magellans," you see, and "You take the risk over the Rockies," do you think that would have worked? Mr. Fr‚mont, or Clark, and -- who was the other? Lewis and Clark? Well, they had to go in person. And of course the investment in them was all -- there -- larger too, than compared to the -- couriers, or how do you call these French porters, I mean, the French-Canadian?

(Fur traders?)

With the cour- -- these wood --

(Cannucks. Cannucks.)

Ja. You see. But that doesn't help Mr. Fr‚mont, or Mr. Lewis and Clark. They have to march, you see -- just as much risk their lives. It's just no -- no way at this moment to tell the Cannucks, "Your life is worth less than mine, so perhaps you are shot first." You think that would work? Ja?

(What you're saying, though, in case of a peacetime army would be -- would be different, I think, wouldn't it, because it'd depend on whether the man could best serve his country in the army or out of the army, in -- peace. I mean, in other words, say all the men in this room, if there were actually no other war, no threat of war, would it be better to remain civilian, or go into the military?)

Well, there is this handicap. I -- I agree with you, that the potential of a peacetime army doesn't bring out the great qualities of man. Really it cannot. And it is only, I think, that you have to show the willingness and you have -- if you find there a good 50-50 grading, so to speak -- some willingness on the part of the high-brow has to be shown, you see. If he thinks that he is exempt totally during -- that's impossible, you see. If you can in -- I'm all for exceptions. If you have a violinist whose hands would be -- you see, ruined by not cultivating, you see, not exercising. I'm all for an exception, but it must be clear that this is an exception. I wouldn't -- never make it a hard and fast rule that certain categories are exempt, because then you create two -- kinds of people. And in wartime, there isn't -- are no different kinds of people. This is the main point. Ja?

I -- I see your problem, but I would say this is an exception. The draft board or whoever it is has -- has then at that time to convene and say, "Really here we should make an exception, because the man is personally, you see, really deserves it."

But as soon as you in the abstract allow a man to live with the conviction that he is spared, you have created a -- a dangerous, you see, class of people. You understand? He knows it too early, so to speak. The law, you see, is something on which he can rely. Now this exception may happen to him, but he should not be able to rely -- to rely on it in the abstract. It should concretely be given him, because he is this man. That would s- -- you see, that would be a -- still a stimulus to him. You understand the difference? Because man is already changed, and he knows what the law is. And if he -- as long as he doesn't know what the law is, he behaves very much better.

Now gentlemen, let's go over to the other side of the picture, into the management of peacetime production. And at this moment, I think we have a break of five minutes.

[tape interruption]

...the -- in order to make the transition once more from leadership to management, we have to see, gentlemen, that the complete leader, the commander-in-chief of an army must be able to lead these people back to peace. And to lead them into war. That is -- ja?

(Excuse me, Professor. Is this the official transition? We're going into the man at work now?)

Ja, ja. I wish to oppose leadership and management at this moment. That is, I wish to begin the management -- the industrial problem with the man on top. And I wish to end the war situation with the man on top. We have not yet sufficiently, I think, brought out the fact that Mr. Patton was a good front soldier, but not an overall leader of an army, because he didn't care for the notfrontline soldier, as we have heard in the story, you see. And Eisenhower is president, and Bradley became head of the Veteran Administration, because he -- both men had the complete gen- -- more complete generalship which includes the human behavior of a man who is explosive, who is a veteran, you see, and who has to be recruited. Once you see this, you see that the -- complete division of the military and the civilian is quite infeasible, that any human leader in war is so intimately connected with what -- where he's getting his soldiers from, and where he's leading them into, that -- like Grant, and George Washington, and -- it is only normal that a general has a very profound stake in the fate of his country as a civilian organization.

So in Patton, and Eisenhower, and Bradley, you have a very clear example, gentlemen, of the distinction between frontline general, and general -- marshall, field marshall, so to speak. Or COC, I mean, like the president of the United States. This is the deepest reason why George Washington first was commander-in-chief and later became president. In himself, this transition of an army to peacetime activity was done. Because this transition is the secret of leadership. The problem of disbanding an army and the problem of mobilizing an army is part of military wisdom.

And this is not understood in this country. You think the Pentagon can take care of this. This is not true, gentlemen. You have -- the draft -- that's why the wisdom of this measure of the draft board, that it is in the hands of civilians, you see, to remind the people that this problem of war is far more universal, as --

Winston Churchill has said, you see: war is far too serious to be entrusted to the generals. The ord- -- what we call the ordinary general. Perhaps Cl‚men‡eau said it. I think Georges Cl‚men‡eau said it in France. War is too serious to have it entrusted to the generals. That is, a man like George Patton is not the complete leader. Leadership is more comprehensive. Leadership is the capacity of understanding the -- constant transition of man from recruit to veteran, from frontline soldier to off-duty soldier. Any man who is so complete that he can understand this transition -- these transitions, can lead men.

Now comes the second significance of leader- -- the word "leadership," gentlemen. A leadership quality is only there where a man can ask from somebody else to lay down his life for a command, at the -- at his orders. Leadership entails the so -- absolute identity that the led know that the leader -- as we said, of Lewis and Clark, and as we said of -- of Fr‚mont, you see, the same thing -- that if I am now ordered to reconnoiter, it isn't because the general is too much of a coward to reconnoiter himself, but because he simply cannot go -- all places himself. You have to trust Patton, or you have to trust Eisenhower, or you have to trust Lewis and Clark, if you are under his command, that this division of functions in an army has nothing to do with being sacrificed by -- by the leader, you see, by the officer in command, for his promotion. There have been officers in every war who wanted to get a medal. The medal -- and then they order their division to attack. And then the -- the division is mowed down, but he gets his order of merit, you see, like the -- this terrible attack of the light brigade at Balaclava, where the people knew that it was a just a kind of vanity to do that. They never believed that anything else could happen but disaster. I don't think that this should be shown in a movie, because it is certainly -- a very doubtful affair. Because at that time, glory demanded of Great Britain, you see, that you -- that you went home with a smashing, you see, glor- -- glori- -- glori- -- glorious attack. And that was the story.

Now leadership then, gentlemen, has this one at its core. It makes no difference who does the thing. All are identical. It makes no difference whether the general -- General {Dean} is made prisoner or whether a private first class is -- is made prisoner. They both suffer -- in the -- in the -- so perhaps you can formulate it: the division of service in an army has nothing to do with the division of labor in peacetime. We have heard so much under -- in the last century in the economy -- who is -- majoring in economics? -- well, you always hear there of the division of labor. Now you see, Marx can only be beaten when you understand that there is a division of service in the world, which is quite different from the division of labor. The division of services means that Patton and the soldier of the ranks are first one man, and must keep this feeling of identity before they can split into different functions.

Now we come to the factory, gentlemen, and we meet with the manager principle, where it is the very opposite. The division of labor divides people in such a way that there is even -- here labor and there capital. This doesn't exist in any good army. Division of services is the opposite from a division of labor. And since this is not understood in your civilian society, all your teachings of -- about the national budget are wrong. Because certain services of the national budget cannot be bought for money. You cannot buy the services of a soldier for steaks. But that's what the instinctive idea of management is: feed the soldier well, and he will be a good soldier. It's an error! It is true in management because, gentlemen -- now -- go over to management -- management has no right to think of any man who works for management that they are identified -- -fiable. A professional -- a skilled worker, a violinist of the band of the factory, the telephone operator, and the manager of this factory, they are just as different as can be. And they are held together by the monetary interest, because they all make their living there. There is absolutely no intention on the part of the telephone operator to do anything but to get married. But as -- before she is married, she has to make a living, so she goes there for three years until her fianc‚ has enough money to rent one of these terrible houses in Sachem Village.

Now gentlemen, mark you well: in a -- the management problem -- well, here, don't we have here something? -- to clean out this table? Yes, will you kindly pass me the -- { }?

An army comes from one reservoir. Everybody a potential leader and spreads out into these directions of the -- of the reserves, the veterans, the soldier on leave, or in training, and the soldiers on the frontline. In a factory it's the very opposite, gentlemen. In a factory, here is management -- "capital investment," as you rightly called it, is possible. The manager is asked to invest. And he asks people to come in. And the only lure he has for them is not that he -- they have any feelings for management or for the Standard Oil Company, but that they are offered a wage, a living wage, so that their next day can be passed without starvation. Look at this telephone operator. That is, gentlemen, they pass through this completely unchanged. They are bought for what they are worth now, and they are going out here, and have passed their time, their working hours here until they are given notice, or until they go elsewhere. They are not veterans when they leave this factory in any -- and they are not before untrained material. Quite the contrary. They try to train first so that they can ask for a high wage. And then they are -- they are exploited, or they are used, or they are put to work.

I'm -- just happened to be three days ago in Keene, New Hampshire. And there a firm who has been established for 60 years has gone bankrupt. Four hundred people were given notice. They were told at 3 o'clock -- at 2 o'clock in

the -- at noon that they didn't -- could go home, the same day -- just to -- even to save the last three working hours of the day. Four hundred people. The town is, of course, you can s- -- know -- can imagine, in jitters. They had a family ownership there. The last family member who ran the factory was no good. They waited too long before they forced him to -- to hire a manager. The manager who came in the last six months says, "I could have saved this -- plant if you had given me half a year more. But it -- now it's too late, so we'd better close with the -- in the most drastic fashion so that not a minute, not an hour is paid too many -- you see, too long."

Now you see from this crude and very brutal development that this manager is not like Bradley, to be head of the Veterans' Administration. There are no veterans in such a factory, you see. They are all back to where they were before. They are back to their professional status, and the tragedy of factory life, or the seriousness of factory life is just that a man is not expected to grow in any factory, because he's bought for what he's worth. He's bought for what he is now. You have no right. Very different from a school, gentlemen, very different from a school indeed, to grow in a factory, because you are paid, as you know, as a young worker today better than an old worker. If you are over 40, your rate declines.

In a school, you are first a student, and then you are a -- an assistant, and then you are an associate professor, and finally you are a professor; and finally you become a dean. That is, you are all the time expected to unfold, to grow.

In a factory, the ideology of an in- -- a modern industry is that you are asked to do that for which you were qualified when you entered the factory, you see. And if there is -- should happen anything more, that's so much gravy. But nobody can expect this, you see, because what he's paid, and what the union demands from management to pay is what this man already is qualified for. There is no growth of human li- -- human skill or professionalism in the factory by establishment. If it so happens that there is an apprentice workshop, that's quite out of the ordinary.

On a whole -- on the whole, you must say that when you go into business, you are paid what you are worth on the first day. And they try to buy you cheap. That is, they may even pay you quite a good sum in the beginning, but you have no claim to a salary, perhaps family wages, or all these non- -- I mean, outer considerations nowadays, because you have six children. That's not a good reason really for getting a pay rise, because it is not a growth of your -- of your industrial faculties, of your capacity for work, you see. It would be an outside consideration, that you -- getting some more money because you have a larger family to support, obviously. I'm all against these family wages for this

reason, because I think that that just allows a manager to remain nothing but a manager and to say, "My people are used as they are. I buy labor." But he does. So far that's our whole -- our whole arrangement. And it has -- does miracles. We'll see what the benefit of this organization is in a minute.

But the first thing I want to draw your attention to is there are -- is no -- are no recruits. And there are no veterans. There are skills that are bought. That is, the development of a person lies before he enters the army.

One of you argued with me about a man -- hillbil- -- a back-hill boy should be allowed to enter the army, though illiterate, in order to make good. Well, in a factory, the thing -- this question cannot arise. You want to have a man whose faculties you really know now. You want to know beforehand. You have aptitude tests. You -- you want to have him -- show his certificate where he worked before. What can he do? Management want to know the man at the moment of his entrance. Whereas, as you know, a sergeant in the army, he has to be like a wet-nurse. I mean, he has to teach this boy for the first three-quarters of a year how to eat, and how to sleep, and how to wash, and how to shave, because they don't -- nothing, because he has this patience in making the soldier grow. That all doesn't -- this boot camp business doesn't exist in a factory. The first day, you are expected to know. Perhaps you are shown three hours, or half a week, you see, a kind of semi-skilled work. But otherwise, there you are, with what you can.

So gentlemen, the growth of a man takes place outside the factory and the decline of a man takes care -- place outside the factory. Is he over 40? The people say, "Ach, I don't hire people over 40 -- or 45." As you know that's the great calamity at this moment in this country. Once you have reached the age of -- where a man is in his prime, you are just -- down and out as an industrial employee. And that is the -- so to speak, the crisis of our society at this moment, that we haven't yet found a remedy how a society can be run on -- on industry -- I mean, on efficiency lines, and not be ha- -- haunted by this superstition that a man over 45, you see, is -- has to write The Death of a Salesman.

So growth and decline are not considered by management because they rate a man for the delivery of his -- the goods. He has to deliver the goods day by day at a certain rate, because otherwise management cannot calculate. The office, gentlemen, of calculation, the costing office, is the soul of the factory. And the greatness of the factory appears in the fact that the costing office knows one thing which the army never knows: the expense.

All -- we are -- so said -- we are against planning. Gentlemen, people are only against state planning in this country, because a manufacturer who

wouldn't plan his production could never make money, you see. So the word "plan" is not used in the costing office. But how do you call what he -- they do? They don't call it "planning," but what do they do, when they -- when they write in for a contract? Well, take a contractor who wants to build some highway in the st- -- in the state of New Hampshire. He wants a contract now. What does he do -- when he go -- before he offers the state a bargain? Wie? A bid. Now how is this bid -- arrived at?

(He estimates his own -- the costs to him of -- of building whatever they want to build, and also includes his...)

Ja. Now write it down, gentlemen. "Estimates" is the decent word in America -- in the United States. And "plan" is the indecent word in the United States. It's exactly the same. It's exactly the -- one on the basis of private business, and the other on the -- basis of common business, public business. But because we do not see the relation -- the -- the Communists bring in this word "plan," and the military men. We -- really many people in this country think that planning is unheard-of. You see, we mustn't plan. Gentlemen, every estimate is based on a plan. But it is only a plan within a costing office of a private -- firm, of a corporation.

This estimate, gentlemen, however, shows you now that the soldier is not -- the worker is not in the frontlines. The -- in the frontline of any business is the salesman. He meets the customer, and he has to fight the customer; he has to ambush the customer; he has to intoxicate and eventually kill their -- customer. At least choke him. The outward relation of an industrial plant is the sale -- market. The market is this front. And thereby we have already discovered that obviously the honor of business will be with the salesman. He bears the brunt of the battle. A Fuller Brush man, therefore, is a national institute.

This is very important, gentlemen, because it explain- -- may explain -- begin to explain to you the difference between a soldier and a worker. The distinction between a worker and a soldier can be put very simply into these terms, that when a war is at an end, you always get strikes, because the workers must get even with the soldiers. They also went to -- have good girls. And any girl wants to know that her husband can -- her sweetheart can fight. The only way in which so- -- workers can fight is at -- on strike. And therefore you find the -- in the history of humanity, that after every war there is strike. Because the workers must show that they have genitals, that they are men. So they must fight. That there are not just bees, bees, sexless beings, you see, in the process of production -- workers.

The worker, gentlemen, works on the backward front of industry. The

salesman in the -- at the front. Therefore the strike is the only way in getting the soldier into the worker, the -- the equality of virility and of manhood. I give you another secret in this respect, which you will find also expressed in this pamphlet, which you will kindly write -- read, and I hope we'll write upon it some quiz at the end of this management chapter. You know this, Multiformity of Man.

As far as I can see -- of course, it's very hard to prove -- but as far as I can see, and nobody has been able to refute me: no strike has ever been -- broken out for wages only, or for wages in the main. There is always more to it. People will work for very low wages if they, for example, know that management just can't pay more. There is much more complicatedness. Mostly a strike breaks out for spiritual and moral reasons. That's one of the fictions that the people clothe it in the language. They ask for more wages, but the cause -- why they go to a -- to strike -- why they strike is not the wages. It is the way in which -- the only way in which they can talk to management. But if I say to my enemy, "You have to pay me a dollar more," that must not be the reason why I want him to pay a dollar more. The reason is as -- much -- very much more a social reason. You'll find this -- examples of this in the pamphlet.

This is a fact, gentlemen, that the great strikes on the continent of Europe, by which all -- labor organized, were not fought on wages -- for wages. That is, one of the favorite stooges, or favorite lies of the econ- -- economists of the world, liberal economists, to -- to have it stated that the strikes are breaking out on wages, because they need this limitation of a worker's life to wages. Their whole system is based on the assumption that a worker is connected with the factory only by wages. Therefore, they can only speak wages, so to speak. Between management and worker, there is no other -- no communication, except on dollars and cents. But that hasn't to do with the real commotion that goes on in an industrial worker's life.

I have shared this life, gentlemen. I know very well what I'm talking about.

Now gentlemen, at the front of all modern industrial pro- -- processes is the inventor, the engineer, the research man. He is in the opposite situation from the worker. He's not like the salesman at the front of nature, in space against the market where people want to buy something or don't want to buy something. The inventor, gentlemen, is novel -- the innovator. He changes the product or the -- and he changes the process of production. He changes both, gentlemen. He changes the product, because instead of saying, "Use coal," he says, "Use oil." Instead of using oil, you see -- says, "Use atom -- atomic energy." That is, he -- thereby he changes the product to pro- -- be produced in this hith-

erto coal mine. And now it's suddenly an atom plant. And he changes the process by which coal is gained by improving the machinery. But you have always to keep in mind the two things, gentlemen, that industry of modern times is based on a constant change of the product, and a constant change of the process of production. And I think you have to mention it both, because otherwise you are too short-sighted. It is not true that invention only improves the way something is produced, but that it also abolishes that which has hitherto to be produced. And instead of having buttons, you have a zip. In this moment, the whole industry of buttons goes to ruin. And suddenly zip is there, you see, and we all get stuck -- why laugh?

(It's just funny.)

It is funny. Life is terribly funny. And so will you kindly be pedantic enough to grant me this -- this bifurcation, this double-talk that it is the product that is changed, at the -- at every moment today, and it is the way it is produced which is changed every day. Only if you keep in mind the -- the twofold content of the industrial process can you see the danger of the worker -- in which the worker lives. These 400 people in the woolen mill in Keene are equally threatened by plastic fiber, as they are threatened by cheap labor in the South, or by another machinery which -- to -- to -- {draw} the wool. It's a double threat on every industrial worker today in the world. We are all under the threat, gentlemen. The existence of Dartmouth is under the threat. If all the people -- alumni of Dartmouth, or a majority of them are in the wrong businesses, you see, then we have no alumni fund.

Well, there are wrong businesses, in other words. Gentlemen, in every moment in modern industry, certain businesses -- whole businesses are on the way out and whole businesses are on the way in. Therefore gentlemen, industry is not composed of factories. Industry is not composed of thousand businesses. But industry is the process by which businesses are called into being, and are shut up -- are closed down. As long as you define materialistically, you see, business -- industry as the sum of that what you see with your eyes, you are simply the slave of the golden-calf religion, because you think that you can see industry. You cannot see industry. Industry is a perpetual revolution of production. That's the difference between handi- -- against handicrafts, the difference against home work. Industry is the constant revolution of places of production.

And therefore, the cross of reality of the management situation is: you have the front of the market. Somebody has to buy your product. You have the front of the inventors, the patents, the engineers, the technicians, the technologists as -- however you call them. They go from Mr. Einstein of course, and -- and Mr. Hahn, and Meit- -- {Lina} Meitner, the inventor of the atomic process,

you see, to the engineer and the technician in the plant. You have here the workers who are hired for a certain skill, a certain performance -- that is, who are asked to reiterate a certain function day by day. So they represent the past, because they represent the repetitive part of the process. And the inventor represents the future, because they represent the unique march through time. All -- what we call "worker" is a man who is expected to do the same thing tomorrow as he did it yesterday in -- in -- in the main. The -- he -- this man is expected to do everything different today, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. A research lab is based on the assumption that there are enough experiments to change every day, so to speak, the experiments, the row of experiments.

Many problems in a modern industry arise from this conflict. I had this following problem. One of you -- you in former {years} came to me and said, "My brother is in -- is a labor -- in management in a factory on the Hudson River. And they have a research lab. And they can't solve the problem by what tariff the workers in this research lab should be paid. The inventors say, `Well, every hour these people are required to do something different, and something original.'" The union wanted to pin them down to some standard wage, you see. And you cannot solve the problem, how to pay a worker in a lab. You could -- say the research assistant gets so much of a salary, you see, and you get the premium for the next invention, and so on. But the worker who helped in this laboratory of course would have been a better job if he had also shared in this excitement, you see, of the crusade for the invention.

Well, I told them that they shouldn't try to reconcile this, and the only thing was to have a -- a union for research workers. That is, the conditions of paying such a man coul- -- cannot be compared to the workshop where these things are produced in mass. But in this country, as you know, mass production has taken such a favorite place in the thinking of human- -- of American -- the American people, that it is very hard to build in the exceptions from this massproduction rule. And so the research laboratory, actually in many places, is stymied, because they cannot appeal to the best in the worker who is under union yoke, you see, or union rule, you see, and therefore has to be compared with some wage that is paid in the workshop.

Can you see the -- the quandary of these two fronts? And again, what's meat for -- what is it? What's meat for the gander is...? Is it poison? What is it? -- I mean, you see, if -- like the frontline soldier and the soldier on leave, for the worker in the research lab, no rule really applies -- that applies on the production line. And it hasn't -- been thought out at all. The unions have all -- always thought -- tried now to bring the research lab worker in line with the -- with the man in the production -- in production. And it shouldn't.

Now here you see the unfortunate manager, gentlemen. The unfortunate manager has to keep in between the inv- -- the new invention -- the next invention the workers in the workshop under their foreman, and the market, and the report of the salesman. And the pressure on management therefore is, gentlemen, not that he has to make a time-study, or what-not, all these things -- relation -- usually seen between labor and management. Management is the arbitration office between inventor group, research group, if you know that this needs the new product, another product.

A man in a coal mine in -- in Kentucky today, or in Pennsylvania. Take Mr. John Lewis' friends there. His whole question is, "How long coal -- how much coal will be used with all the oil now produced?" Therefore, the -- the first question of management is to stay in business at all. The second is not to have so many disasters as under the protection of Mr. John Lewis' brother. And therefore, the management is -- and that's so important -- always haunted by the idea that this product will not last.

So management has always this double problem today, to improve on the way this product is produced, and to be on the lookout to give up this product when a b- -- another product, you see, of quite a different source is preferable. But then it may mean that you give up the coal mine, you see. And then you go to Texas. And then you aren't six feet large, and then you can't go to Texas.

So -- let's stop here. But I -- perhaps have given you an -- first insi- -- inkling that really management and leadership, army and factory are absolutely two worlds apart.