12
HANNAH ARENDT
how well established and trusted by its citizens, could survive defeat
in
war, and such survival must be counted as one of the supreme tests of
a government's strength and authority. In other words, under condi–
tions of modern warfare even in its pre-nuclear stage, all governments
have lived on borrowed time. Hence the war question-in its most
extreme form a question of biological survival-is under any cir–
cumstances a question of political survival. Only
if
we succeed in
ruling out war from politics altogether, can we hope to achieve
that minimum of stability and permanence of the body politic with–
out which no political life and no political change are possible.
2. Confusion and inadequacy in the discussion of the war ques–
tion are not surprising. The truth is that a rational debate is im–
possible as long as we find ourselves caught in a technical stage of
development where the means of warfare are such as to exclude their
rational use. To try and decide between "better dead than red" and
"better red than dead" resembles nothing so much as trying to square
the circle. For those who tell us better dead than red, forget that
it is a very different matter to risk one's own life for the life and free–
dom of one's country and for posterity than to risk the very existence
of the human species for the same purposes. Moreover, the very for–
mula goes back to antiquity and rests upon the ancient conviction that
slaves are not human, that to lose one's freedom means to change
one's nature and to become, as
it
were, dehumanized. None of us,
I think, can say that he believes this, least of
all
those liberals who
today try to avail themselves of the old formula. But this is not to
say that its reversal has any more to recommend itself. When an
old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by
being stood on its head. Within the framework of realities which we
face, the slogan "better red than dead" can mean only the signing of
one's own death sentence even before this sentence has been passed
and decided upon.
Insofar as the discussion of the war question moves within the
closed circle of this preposterous alternative, it is nearly always con–
ducted with a mental reservation on both sides. Those who say "better
dead than red" actually think: "The losses may not be as great as
some anticipate, our civilization will survive;" while those who say
"better red than dead" actually think: "slavery will not be so bad,
man will not change his nature, freedom will not vanish from the
