Jane Addams, Expansive Masculinity, and the Fragility of the War Virtues

Abstract An exemplar of moral resilience during a crucial time in US and world history, the life and words of Jane Addams are at least as relevant today as during her lifetime. This moral resilience was best seen in Addams’s opposition to war, an opposition that included subtle yet often bold critiques of the war virtues that people hold in especially high esteem. Addams’s critiques of the war virtues involve criticizing what this chapter calls expansive masculinity. Mechanized warfare became prevalent in World War I, and Addams was among the first to consider the effects of these changes on all those involved in the creation and continuation of the war virtues. Traditionally masculine, these virtues are those which help perpetuate beliefs that war is a necessary and noble pursuit. Through her resistance to US involvement in World War I, Addams shows that self-reliant moral resilience is more valuable than the fragile valor of the warrior in popular imagination. Addams teaches us that there is no virtue in confusing technological sophistication with true human strength, and what is more, that there is a definite vice in confusing a distorted idea of human strength with moral superiority. The problem is not just that military minds operate on a notion that might makes right, but that they are also operating on a fragile notion of might.