Page 26 (in History and Moral Philosophy class)
But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had learned. One girl told him bluntly: "My mother says that violence never settles anything."Page 27 -
"So?" Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure that the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn't you mother tell them so? Or why don't you?"
They had tangled before -- since you couldn't flunk the course, it wasn't necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, "You're making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!"
"You seemed to be unaware of it," he said grimly. "Since you do know it, wouldn't you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea -- a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and thoroughly immoral -- doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts or Napolean Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at best. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."
Suddenly he pointed his stump at me. "You. What is the moral difference between the soldier and the civilian?"Page 54 (at boot camp)
"The difference," I answered carefully, "lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not."
"The exact words of the book," he said scornfully. "But do you understand it? Do you believe it?"
Zim said almost gently, "You've got it all wrong, son. There's no such thing as a 'dangerous weapon.'"Page 97 (in History and moral Philosophy)
"Huh? Sir?"
"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We're trying to teach you to be dangerous -- to the enemy. Dangerous even without a knife. Deadly as long as you still have one hand or one foot and are still alive. If you don't know what I mean, go read 'Horatius at the Bridge' or 'The Death of the Bon Homme Richard'; they're both in the Camp library."
He had been droning along about "value," comparing the Marxist theory with the orthodox "use" theory. Mr. Dubois had said, "Of course, the Marxian definition of value is rediculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart, it remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess, value zero. Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare the ordinary sweet.Page 99
"These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value -- the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives -- and illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use."
I fancy that the poet who wrote that somg meant to imply that the best things in life must be purchased other than with money -- which is true -- just as the literal meaning of his words is false. The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion ... and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself -- ultimate cost for perfect value."See also, page 117 on capital punishment and page 125 on duty vs. rights.
