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In two books published during the First World War, British soldier Coningsby Dawson wrote as follows: “In the noble indignation of a great ideal, British soldiers faced a worse hell than even the most ingenious of fanatics ever planned or plotted. Men die scorched like moths in a furnace, blown to atoms, gassed, tortured. And again other men step forward to take their places well-knowing what will be their fate.” In other words, bodies may die therefore the spirit of England grows greater.
The First World War was a gigantic potlatch (see below), each society competing to determine who could "gift" the most materials and soldiers to their respective nation-states. The purpose of the First World War was monumental loss.
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Dear Readers of the Library of Social Science Newsletter.
I'm in the process of developing a series of four presentations to bring forth into the world: YouTube videos, podcasts, radio and television broadcast--beyond the range of the specially selected geniuses to whom this Newsletter is directed.
Creating these presentations has been an arduous task, condensed from 10,000 pages of notes and over fifty-Newsletters on each topic--into a four 2000-word presentations.
I'm going to distribute a few Newsletters on each topic that will serve for me as a way of consolidating my thinking. Hopefully, you will find them valuable as well.
My "Warfare as Potlatch" presentation focuses on the First World War. I cite a British soldier who wrote two books in 1917:
- “In the noble indignation of a great ideal British soldiers faced a worse hell than even the most ingenious of fanatics ever planned or plotted. Men die scorched like moths in a furnace, blown to atoms, gassed, tortured. And again other men step forward to take their places well-knowing what will be their fate.”
- What Dawson is saying is--“Bodies may die therefore the spirit of England grows greater.”
- 880,000 British men died in the First World War, 12.5% of those who served, 6% of the adult male population.
- The "potlatch" was a festive ceremonial distribution of gifts practiced by the American Indians of the Northwest Pacific Coast, reaching its most elaborate development among the southern Kwakiutl from 1949 to 1925. The word potlatch means to "give away" or "a gift." The potlatch was a ritual by means of which nobles validated their status positions by giving away "gifts" through lavish distribution and ostentatious destruction of gifts resources and property. Sometimes, the potlatch ceremony took the form of "war:" The "winner" of a war was the chief who gave away the most."
- The First World War for Great Britain and other nations was a gigantic potlatch or episode of ostentatious destruction, a competition to see which nation could give away the most material resources and human beings. Soldiers were "gifts" that each nation gave away. The prestige or "greatness" of a nation was measured in terms of the number of sacrificial victims it produced.
Richard Koenigsberg
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