The Great Illusion · Chapter
IV: Methods explained
This chapter argues that progress in international relations cannot be achieved through mechanical means like Hague Conferences or arbitration treaties, but only through the reform of ideas and public opinion.
What happens
This chapter argues that progress in international relations cannot be achieved through mechanical means like Hague Conferences or arbitration treaties, but only through the reform of ideas and public opinion. Angell contends that governments are bound by the prevailing political opinion of their people and cannot lead too far ahead of it. He critiques the reliance on 'friendship' between nations as a substitute for understanding the real factors of international rivalry, and emphasizes that hard intellectual work, not sentiment, is the price of progress. He draws a parallel with the decline of belief in witchcraft to show that once essential facts are straightened out, old illusions can quickly dissolve.
Themes in this chapter
Role of Public Opinion
Angell argues that public opinion is the necessary motive force for national action and that governments cannot lead far ahead of it.
Interdependence of Nations
The chapter emphasizes the growing unity and interdependence of the modern world, which makes attempts to separate interdependent activities by irrelevant divisions break down.
Illusion of Political Power
Angell critiques the notion that territorial conquest and political power bring real benefits, calling such ideas 'preposterous illusions'.
Critique of Militarism
The chapter criticizes the emphasis on physical force and armament expansion, suggesting that progress comes from intellectual effort rather than military might.
Characters to notice
- Norman Angell
Author of the book, presenting his arguments on the methods for achieving international reform.
- Lecky
Cited for his observation that educated judges in the eighteenth century still condemned people for witchcraft.
- Admiral Mahan
Mentioned as an example of those who learnedly advance theories about the advantages of conquest.
- Baron Karl von Stengel
Mentioned alongside Mahan as a proponent of theories on the advantages of conquest.
- Leo Maxse
Cited as an English example of anti-administration literature and epithet-making.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Mentioned indirectly through the reference to President Wilson's lobbyists, though not directly named in this excerpt.
Key passages
“The Hague Conferences represented an attempt not to work through the reform of ideas, but to modify by mechanical means the political machinery of Europe, without reference to the ideas which had brought it into existence.”
The Hague Conferences tried to change Europe's political system directly, without first changing the underlying ideas that created that system.
Angell criticizes the approach of the Hague Conferences for ignoring the need for intellectual reform.
“What is a leader or a ruler in a modern parliamentary sense? He is a man who holds office by virtue of the fact that he represents the mean of opinion in his party.”
A modern political leader is someone who holds power because they represent the average opinion of their party.
Angell explains why leaders cannot initiate change without the support of their party's common opinion.
“It is a psychological impossibility in any ordinary workaday circumstances to have any special feeling of affection for a hundred or sixty or forty millions of people, composed of infinitely diverse elements, good, bad, and indifferent, noble and mean, pleasing and unpleasing, whom, moreover, we have never seen and never shall see.”
It is psychologically impossible to feel genuine affection for tens of millions of people we have never met and never will meet.
Angell argues against the notion that 'friendship' between nations can be a real factor in international politics.
“All the fine theories about the advantages of conquest, of territorial aggrandizement, so learnedly advanced by the Mahans and the von Stengels; the immense value which the present-day politician attaches to foreign conquest, all these absurd rivalries aiming at 'stealing' one another's territory, will be recognized as the preposterous illusions that they are by the younger mind, which really sees the quite plain fact that the citizen of a small State is just as well off as the citizen of a great.”
The sophisticated arguments for the benefits of conquest will be seen as absurd by future generations, who will understand that citizens of small states are just as well off as those of great powers.
Angell predicts that future generations will see through the illusions of territorial conquest.
