=The Attribution of Motive.= One of the least factual elements in human life is motive. Motive is hard to discern, even in one's own life, and it is difficult if not impossible to prove. It must frequently be attributed. Motive is therefore easily interpreted; "falsification" is almost impossible because no matter how much probable motive is twisted, it still might fit the case. Motive is therefore excellent material for psychological warfare. (Those propaganda veterans, the Communists, have a formula for showing that the motive of every person opposed to them is unprogressive, illiberal, and greedy, even if the person himself does not know it. Their own motives are always pure because they are "objectively" and "historically correct" according to _science_, that is, according to the historical rigmaroles of Karl Marx. The formula is a poor science, but a superb propaganda weapon.)
War eases the motive-switching operation because the leaders and people on each side derive moral exhilaration from the common effort. Ostensibly, politicians become statesmen; all higher-ranking officers become strategists; ordinary men become heroes, martyrs, adventurers. The lofty process of war is one which psychologists will not explain in our time; it transposes ordinary persons and events to a frame of reference in which individuals are less self-conscious and also less critical. Among European and American peoples, particularly, there arises the assumption that because of war men should be brave and unselfish, women kind and chaste, yet alluring, officials self-sacrificing, and so on, even though the facts of the case in the particular country involved may be very much to the contrary. The cruel futility inherent in war is so plain to all civilized men that when war does come men overcompensate for it. They set up illusions.
This need not be taken as a criticism of war or of mankind. The world would be a more inspiring place in which to dwell if people generally lived up to the wartime standards they impose on themselves. That these standards are felt to be real is attested by the distinct drop of the suicide rate in wartime, and the increase in suicide, murder, and crimes of delinquency after every war; that the change of role is largely illusory is attested by the fact that no nation appears to have undergone permanent sociological change as a result of improvement during war. Many wartime changes carry on, of course; but they rarely comprise, by the standards of the people concerned, improvements. The upswing is genuine, when it occurs, but it is rarely permanent, and it seldom affects all levels of the entire population with the same degree of exhilaration.