Christian Lous Lange
Christian Lous Lange
Christian Lous Langewas a Norwegian historian, teacher, and political scientist. He was one of the world's foremost exponents of the theory and practice of internationalism...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth17 September 1869
CountryNorway
communication bridges community
Today we stand on a bridge leading from the territorial state to the world community. Politically, we are still governed by the concept of the territorial state; economically and technically, we live under the auspices of worldwide communications and worldwide markets.
war effort world
In particular, the efforts to reestablish peace after the World War have been directed toward the formation of states and the regulation of their frontiers according to a consciously national program.
war development lasts
Moreover, if the territorial state is to continue as the last word in the development of society, then war is inevitable.
mean animal mutual-help
Concord, solidarity, and mutual help are the most important means of enabling animal species to survive.
political social theory
Internationalism is a social and political theory, a certain concept of how human society ought to be organized, and in particular a concept of how the nations ought to organize their mutual relations.
giving belief consideration
But teleological considerations can lead no further than to a belief and a hope. They do not give certainty.
war intellectual levels
The theoretically unrestricted right to develop power, to wage war against other states, is antisocial and is doubly dangerous, because the state as a mass entity represents a low moral and intellectual level.
real ideas personality
The idea of eternity lives in all of us. We thirst to live in a belief which raises our small personality to a higher coherence - a coherence which is human and yet superhuman, absolute and yet steadily growing and developing, ideal and yet real.
differences sovereign degrees
No state is free from militarism, which is inherent in the very concept of the sovereign state. There are merely differences of degree in the militarism of states.
reading world pulse
The simultaneous reactions elicited all over the world by the reading of newspaper dispatches about the same events create, as it were, a common mental pulse beat for the whole of civilized mankind.
europe feelings form
Only recently, during the nineteenth century, and then only in Europe, do we meet forms of the state which have been created by a deliberate national feeling.
religious strong years
The territorial state is such an ancient form of society - here in Europe it dates back thousands of years - that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland.
thinking organization way
Militarism is basically a way of thinking, a certain interpretation of the function of the state; this manner of thinking is, moreover, revealed by its outer forms: by armaments and state organization.
profound development fields
Like all social theories, internationalism must seek its basis in the economic and technical fields; here are to be found the most profound and the most decisive factors in the development of society.