Bergson on Mechanism and Vitalism in WWI

Why is the tendency so strong for us to argue against our opponents by dehumanizing them?  This tendency finds expression as much in daily domestic life situations with family members or professional contexts with co-workers as it does on a wider, often political, stage.  The French philosopher Henri Bergson contrasts “vitalism” and “mechanism” in cultural and national terms.  His patriotic alignment with and encouragement of the French cause in World War I against Germany led him to characterize the ethos of those two countries in strikingly opposing ways. I am struck, among the features of Bergson's interpretation of the contrasting civilizational forces, by the way in which he vilifies his enemy by dehumanizing him.

The opposition is particularly reflected in the word that Bergson uses to signify the war itself:  not “guerre” (in English: “war”), but “lutte” (in English: struggle).  For Bergson, what played out on the European battlefields was not just a war but a struggle for cultural and national identity beyond the survival of particular armies.  It was a contest, and the context was civilizational in scope and nature.  According to Bergson, French vitalism was in a struggle with German mechanism for ascendency in Europe and beyond.

Consider first Germany and mechanism.  In The Meaning of the War: Life and Matter in Conflict, Bergson argues that Germany, particularly Prussia, was “a people with whom every process tended to take a mechanical form. Artificiality marked the creation of Prussia; for she was formed by clumsily sewing together, edge to edge, provinces either acquired or conquered. Her administration was mechanical … it is certain that the idea of Prussia always evoked a vision of rudeness, of rigidity, of automatism, as if everything within her went by clockwork, from the gesture of her kinds to the step of her soldiers.”  All of this stood in stark contrast to “the unity which comes from within by a natural effort of life.” Centralization and discipline fueled the Prussian/German war machine.  Rather than peaceful coexistence with the world, now militarized and mechanized, Germany’s “ambition looked forward to the domination of the world.”  The result was not just a martial character in the German people, according to Bergson, but also an ethical devolution as a whole (“there was no moral restraint which could keep this ambition under control”).  German philosophy reflected and justified this “brutality…appetites…vices.”  Mechanization of the German people and culture is total.

In contrast stand the French, Bergson's own people, who are characterized not by the cold death of mechanism but instead the organic life and creative spirit of vitalism.  The German aggression brought together the French people into a unity. (This, by the way, echoes the different thesis by Rudolf Eucken about the foreign threat that united distinct German peoples around certain values.) The French, Bergson suggests, raised “themselves into a richer and more harmonious diversity,” and promoted personhood and humanity in the process: “A yet greater miracle: in a nation thought to be mortally divided against itself all became brothers in the space of a day.” 

Henri Bergson (1859-1941)

To gain a vivid sense of how Bergson pointedly contrasts these two ways of life and national character, it will be helpful to draw further upon his own language:  “On one side, mechanism, the manufactured article which cannot repair its own injuries; on the other, life, the power of creation which makes and remakes itself at every instant. On one side, that which uses itself up; on the other, that which does not use itself up.”  This idea of self-expenditure versus rejuvenation is not merely ideological.  From it Bergson concludes with a bold prediction that life (and the French) must prevail over death:  “The issue of the struggle (lutte) is not doubtful. Germany will succumb,” because, as mechanistic, there is “no way of renewing” its “material and moral force.”

The life struggle between mechanism and vitalism is simultaneously a moral struggle between Germany and France.  Mechanism is morally bankrupt, Bergson avers, and the “moral energy of nations, as of individuals, is only sustained by an ideal higher than themselves. … But the energy of our soldiers is drawn from something which does not waste, from an ideal of justice and freedom.” His contrast is rhetorical, indeed, but that rhetoric reflects the overarching civilizational struggle he identifies.

In short, then, Bergson portrays mechanism and vitalism, representing Germany and France, respectively, as in a struggle, a contest, and not just a war, for one way of life against the other.  In his view, both civilizational forces had a role in forming the modern nation-state. Both fashioned the unique character of a people (cold/warm, death/life, impersonal/personal, bellicose/harmonious, bestiality/humanity). Both provided the moral energy that compels a people forward to success or failure.  Vitalism, however, is for the French like a star that provides its own vivifying power, illuminating and animating them in their path to victory.

Bergson's sketch is, from one perspective, inspiring.  That, no doubt, is a key reason for its power and an incentive to its war-time purpose.  What prompts me to outline his view goes beyond its historical context.  It goes beyond the fact that presidential election season in the United States taps into this tendency among partisans, who sometimes not so subtly question the credentials of another candidate's humanity. Sometimes that questioning of humaneness (if not humanity) may be justified.  What interests me is the deeper phenomenon on display, namely, that there is something about recognizing another's humanity that fosters affinity.  When we acknowledge similarities in others -- behaviors, feelings, attributes, activities -- it becomes more difficult to alienate them precisely because we no longer see them as alien.

Whether this dynamic turns on sympathy, empathy, or some other, more accurate term, I need not settle now.  Whether this tendency springs from human evolutionary history among primate kinship groups is not my focus.  The pedestrian side of me thinks it boils down to this:  when we acknowledge similarities rather than distinct types between one another, we see something of ourselves in others, and it becomes much harder then to maintain a hostile, violent stance toward even a dim reflection of ourselves.

The flip-side of this is, at the individual level, when we think of only ourselves:  narcissism.  This is when we exclusively focus not only on ourselves but do so with an inflated, exaggerated, and unjustified sense of self-importance, value, and greatness.  If there exists in my perception a chasm between my qualities and yours, between my worth and yours, between my excellence and yours -- even my credentials as a human and yours -- then it will be far easier to assume a privileged position over against you. It will be more "natural" with this outlook and disposition to reinforce my inflated conception of myself because the alternative (lowering my perceived greatness) comes at such a cost to my own sense of value and power.  Indeed, I will likely use my financial, rhetorical, social, political, and manipulative skills not only to maintain this view of myself in relation to you, but also to extend it, that is, to self-aggrandize further and to deprecate you more fully.

It is little wonder, then, that Bergson sees between Germany and France what we might see in various forms everyday around us:  a lutte, a struggle, or contest fueled by an alienating disposition to self-importance.  It exists everyday between husbands and wives.  Witness it in "mean girls" and bullying in our schools.  Sometimes, especially in the political sphere, it may be pitched by candidates as a generational or civilizational struggle in which extreme, even "revolutionary," measures need to be taken, despite the costs, to bring down the Big Wall Street terrorist or provide free [fill in the blank] for every constituency. Maybe the struggle is one to "make America great again," no matter if it requires premeditated war crimes against the wives and children of terrorists or the inferior treatment of mostly peaceable, natively foreign people seeking better lives for their wives and children and mothers and fathers.  In these calls, I hear no empathy; I hear arrogance.  There is no pity; there is petulance.  More often than not, when we end up questioning another's humanity we are precisely then at risk of losing it ourselves.