Introduction
The introduction to the Discourse on Arms and Letters is the anxious inquiry to Zoraida about whether or not she is baptized, since this determines not whether she will go to heaven, but rather which weapon her children—if she has any—will serve.
And just as the question of Zoraida’s baptism is the introduction to the discourse, its continuation and epilogue is the story of the captive. Cervantes has two plays precedents for the story of the captive in Algiers: the first in Los baños de Argel, a compendium of commonplaces considered to be a work created to raise money for captives by moving or influencing the audience; and a later one, Los tratos de Argel (1), a much more complex and subtle play which, when performed, repeatedly displays a white cloth to the audience from windows on stage—though it is not referred to by its proper military term, ‘white flag’, which is a term of Arms.
In the story of the captive, after presenting us with various and highly significant real and realistic cases of ‘bad’ and ‘good’ renegades, Cervantes introduces the “white flag of peace” at the crucial moment of the encounter and bond between the two members—later lovers—of the irreconcilable and incommunicable sides.
The white flag, since it cannot be the Letters, is the alternative to Arms—the possibility of opposing them, anticipating them, stopping violence; for once the white flag is raised, all violence becomes illegitimate, just as our nature, intelligence, and logic dictate. One day, it will be the path to disarmament, which is the same as saying ‘human unity’. Indeed, inclusivity—the inclusive decision-making that is peace—not only establishes all violence as illegitimate, but also the very intention to cause harm, as evidenced by the fact that it must be hidden. Thus, finally, the figments through which Letters serve to conceal the weapon will also disappear like smoke once the fire ceases.
Only a realist way of thinking grasps that the irreducible meaning of the weapon is submission or death, and that the white flag merely negates violence. In contrast, within the framework of idealism or confession—both of which are consequences of the weapon and dependent on it—there is no option other than attack and aggression, and, consequently, the raising of the white flag is inevitably interpreted as surrender or submission.
This is why the vision of the white flag as surrender or submission is contradicted by its appearance in Part Two, in the famous chapter of the Lions, Chapter XVII, titled: “Where the ultimate point and extreme to which the unheard-of courage of Don Quixote reached and could reach is declared, with the happily concluded adventure of the lions. (2)
This adventure, just as it has not been understood, paradoxically remains one of the book’s great foundations of meaning. A good number of scholars, following the current opened by their master Menéndez Pidal, take Don Quixote at his word, even though he is more deluded than ever when he says:
“What do you think of this, Sancho?” said Don Quixote. “Are there enchantments that can prevail against true courage? Enchanters may well rob me of fortune, but effort and spirit—they shall never take them from me.” (3)
Empty words, repellent and ignorant of the fact that his enchanter-author is more on his side than ever. For the staging—meaning the unthinkable force of chance assembling the necessary components and factors for the desired event to occur, in this case, the adventure of the curds—is no mere joke or isolated anecdote. With them, Don Quixote is drenched in whey, making it believable that the lion does not eat him.
But it also serves the author so that the white cloth appears—the object necessary to end the adventure already foreshadowed in the previous chapter as “the one with the cart of flags.” It is the simple sight in the distance of the “cart of flags” that causes Don Quixote to urgently request his weapons, certain that the colored flags signal the opportunity for heroism. And already in Chapter XVII (read the title again), as it approaches, the “cart of flags” is mentioned again, a total of four times. First in a dialogue with the man in green, then in another with the cart driver, all leading up to the moment when, after the lion disregards Don Quixote and he asks the lion keeper to close the cage:
The lion keeper did so, and Don Quixote, placing on the tip of his lance the cloth with which he had wiped his face from the rain of the curds, began to call to those who were still fleeing and looking back with every step, all in a group and led by the nobleman. But when Sancho caught sight of the sign of the white cloth, he said:
“Kill me if my master hasn’t defeated the wild beasts, for he’s calling us.”
We said earlier that only to realist thought does the white flag not mean surrender—and now we will show that it precisely represents victory, as in Don Quixote’s case. If we halt violence or the effort to cause harm unilaterally, without agreement with the other party or parties, this unilateral cessation of harm results in the same outcome as defeat: the loss of competitive capacity and, consequently, submission, the dispossession of freedom or autonomy, and the deprivation of the very ability to propose, to speak.
Whereas precisely the white flag requests the cessation of arms in order to propose. It may indeed be surrender—but not necessarily always, while is undoubtedly meant to propose, and therefore does not require, nor even allow, any prior unilateral action—except, logically, the proposal or call to cease the harm or evil by both parties—which is what is symbolized by the raising of the white flag. And the dismantling or elimination of the evil—the disarmament—can only be carried out jointly, universally, just as Cervantes already perceived that Earth is fully discovered. For surrender or unilateral disarmament is not true disarmament, and we know it; it still serves the weapon, just a different one—under a different flag.
Analysis and commentary on the Speech
“Now there is no reason to doubt that this art and exercise (Arms) surpasses all those that men have invented, and it must be held in higher esteem the more dangers it is subject to.”
Indeed, the occupation and supreme effort of human beings at all times and in all places is to serve and develop the weapon. “Here we must again warn and emphasize that the intent to harm, which is already harm itself, is necessarily concealed; harming and warning are contradictory (4). That is why the appearance presented to us is that when wars begin, weapons were already there, as if by chance. But in reality, what we call a period of peace is a ceasefire or truce during which the greatest effort is made to rearm and to prevent the other from doing so—as much so that wars are truly preventive: their aim is to stop the other from arming.
The most well-known historical example—probably due to the precision and objectivity of its author—is the Peloponnesian War, where Thucydides tells us there was no specific conflict between Athenians and Spartans. The Athenians, after the Persians withdrew following the Persian Wars, used their superior fleet to gain new tributaries in Asia Minor and thus acquired power that alarmed the Spartans, the historic leaders of the Greeks. So the Spartans started the war to maintain their supremacy, their ability to continue destroying the Athenians—that is, to destroy or limit their walls and control their weaponry, troops, and resources.
Before our eyes we have the current tension between the U.S. and China—not because China has done anything against the U.S.; on the contrary, it has greatly served the U.S. in recent decades, bringing it immense benefit and, more importantly, playing a key role in the defeat of the Soviet Union. Moreover, China gladly acknowledges and offers the U.S. the role of global arbiter and enforcer of globalization. But China’s economic growth, which inevitably entails its rearmament, is the reason for U.S. concern—just as Athens’ rise worried Sparta. And in the same way, we can also understand the ongoing war in Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia do not have a specific grievance but rather the inherent tension of two weapons: Ukraine, located to the south and nearly embedded within Russia, with deep historical ties to it, aims to join NATO, the U.S. military organization. Indeed, that was Russia’s public protest during its diplomatic attempts before the war. When its security concerns were not addressed, it acted preventively before its strategic situation could drastically worsen.
Unfortunately, the U.S. faces the same dilemma with China day by day, although the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have slowed that process. But objectively, the situation is alarming and well known to those who understand how the weapon operates on itself, though it is hard for us to grasp from a human and ideological point of view.
Because of this specific nature of the weapon—which, unlike other things, is designed to harm and therefore remains secret—we must think and investigate further, brushing off and putting our intelligence to use, since it is not knowledge transmitted by the media. Just as today it seems that weapons were just “there” when wars start, we now know that in the past, vehicles, ships, airplanes, the telephone, nuclear fission, the internet, and every invention we can think of have always had a first and foremost military purpose: to inflict the greatest possible damage on the other. Over time, these technologies pass into civilian use.
We also see the layout of cities—with the castle on top and the huts below—or the strategic logic behind routes and locations, though we may not perceive it superficially. Finally, what is visible to our eyes is that the weapon is the greatest and most permanent concentration of human and material resources, constantly on alert and in training, even without any evident or likely prospect of confrontation on the horizon.
And it must be held in even higher esteem the more dangers it is subject to, because the purpose of weapons or war—to kill, which “is the same thing”—results in the near inevitability of also being harmed by the one you intend to kill. Thus, it is the most dangerous action that exists, the one that entails the greatest risk, which also tells us that if, despite this, it is practiced—and with such fervor—it is only because it is of the greatest importance.
“Away with those who claim that letters have the advantage over arms, for I will tell them—whoever they may be—that they know not what they say. For the reason they usually give, and which they most rely on, is that the labors of the mind exceed those of the body, and that arms are exercised only with the body, as if their practice were a porter’s trade, needing nothing more than brute strength. Or as if, in what we call arms, those of us who practice them were not engaged in acts of fortitude, which demand great understanding to be carried out. Or as if the spirit of the warrior responsible for an army or the defense of a besieged city did not toil as much in mind as in body. Otherwise, let it be asked whether one can, with bodily strength alone, perceive and infer the enemy’s intent, designs, stratagems, difficulties, and how to prevent feared harms; all these are acts of intellect, in which the body plays no part.”
What comes to mind first is that those who believe letters have the advantage over arms are idealists—those who think that ideas determine reality or matter. But Cervantes already tells us, repeatedly, that “Heaven”—that is, the world of ideas—suffers force. Still, this is not Don Quixote’s focus here: weapons are not just objects, contraptions, or tools for killing—like a sword, a spear, a bomb—or for preventing the other from doing so—like a shield, missile defense systems, fortifications, etc. The purpose of harm and defense is the highest speculative operation of human intelligence. And that’s why it requires study, calculation, comparison, hypothesis—not only because this is the principal use and effort of science, but because science aims to achieve the greatest possible capacity for destruction, upon which domination or subjugation—or falling at the mercy of another—depends.
Thus, the weapon, beyond being an accumulation of destructive resources, is the skill to apply them. And this means that the key to victory or defeat is the knowledge and understanding of both our capabilities and those of the enemy, as described in The Art of War by Sunzi (5). From this follows—not that we will always win—but that such knowledge tells us what must be done: to enter combat only when we are sure to win, and to avoid it when the opponent has the advantage. From this also follows that we must remain in motion, in calculation, and in constant search for alternatives until the opportunity arises, ensuring victory each time.
“Since, therefore, arms require intellect just as letters do, let us now consider which of the two minds—that of the scholar or the warrior—works harder. This will be known by the end and aim to which each one strives, because that intent is to be held in higher esteem which aims at a nobler goal. The end and aim of letters (and I speak not now of divine letters, whose goal is to guide souls to heaven, which is such an infinite goal that no other can compare—I speak of human letters) is to uphold distributive justice and to give each his due. A noble and lofty end indeed, worthy of high praise, but not as much as that which arms pursue, whose ultimate goal is peace—the greatest good that men can desire in this life.”
Here, Cervantes follows Aristotle in evaluating the hierarchy of things according to their end. He assigns to Letters the role of distributive justice within the state—the (unequal) distribution of goods. But these goods are first held under the unequivocal and exclusive control of a weapon, an armed unit, or a state—that is, under conditions of subjugation, in which there is no war or conflict, because it is the weapon that subdues, deters, or provides security sufficient for such goods to even exist (albeit privately).
“And so, the first good news ever received by the world and by mankind was brought by the angels on the night that became our day, when they sang in the skies: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will.’ And the greeting that the greatest master of heaven and earth taught his followers was to say, upon entering any house: ‘Peace be to this house.’ And many other times he said: ‘My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you; peace be with you’—as a jewel and gift given and left by such a hand, a jewel without which there can be no good in heaven or on earth. This peace is the true end of war, for to say war is to say arms.”
Here, Cervantes makes reference to the Christian religion, to which he must undoubtedly confess and submit. That’s why Amado Alonso warned, “do not confuse what is necessary with what is essential.” However, Cervantes does not require this assistance—his tone is ironic. It is quite striking and curious that someone should bring peace to another’s house, which alludes to its imperial and expansionist nature. Even more so when we find the expression “peace on earth and in heaven,” without which there can be no good at all. For in Cervantes’s view, “heaven” (the world of ideas or ideals) suffers force.
Regarding the counter-Reformation reading of Don Quixote—popular during the Franco regime—and, in general, interpretations of the novel, I strongly recommend to the kind reader my work El realismo ejemplar del Quijote, which is also available on Academia.edu. (7)
Why is there war?
How can it be explained that humans resort to mutual destruction to resolve their disagreements, instead of adhering to something less harmful to both sides and to all? Is the cause of war human evil, as is commonly claimed, apart from its inevitable irrationality? No. War is perfectly rational and understandable. Cervantes tells us this in a way never heard before, and masterfully: “To say arms is to say war,” because the meaning of the weapon is submission—the loss of autonomy, of freedom—or death. Something so extreme it is hard to even think about, for that submission cannot even be a choice.
Thus, it becomes clear that the form of the weapon among humans constitutes the basic or generic form of human organization: the armed unit or state. And the aim of human labor—
That the end of war is peace is also a borrowed concept; it is the way empire justifies itself—empire being the foundation of peace and the source of justice. It wages war to restore the order that has been violated by the very victim of its attack, whose principal crime is to endanger imperial supremacy by arming itself or defending itself too much. This, in effect, constitutes a breach of international order—regardless of whether that order is expressed in terms chosen by Letters (learning), whether in the name of Christian charity, democracy, human rights, or otherwise.
This imperial logic aligns with the Aristotelian concept of justice (6) as outlined in his Nicomachean Ethics: the goal of justice is to restore a previously existing order that someone has damaged.
Assuming then, as true, that the purpose of war is peace—and in this, it has an advantage over the purpose of Letters—let us now examine the hardships borne by the man of letters and those endured by the man of arms, and see which are greater.
—If we begin with the student, let’s consider his poverty and its various forms… but if we compare his hardships to those of the soldier, the student clearly comes out better off, as I will now explain…
—If we start with the student’s poverty, let us see whether the soldier is richer. And we will find there is no one poorer than the soldier, poor even in poverty itself… Yet to this it may be answered that it is easier to reward two thousand men of letters than thirty thousand soldiers, because the former may be rewarded with posts that must be given to people of their profession, while the latter can only be rewarded with the very wealth of the lord they serve—and that impossibility only reinforces my argument.<<
Let the reader take note—there is little to add. This is a particularly valuable discourse on Arms because of how rare it is: the depiction of war is generally full of glamour, fantasy, and allure. At last, someone commits to paper a realistic account of the hardship of war—one that certainly does not serve to encourage enlistment.
In Don Quixote, there are two Discourses on Arms and Letters: this one, and another in the Second Part, where our heroes encounter a young man on his way to war. Don Quixote tells him that soldiers are left to fend for themselves, just like slaves who are set free only when they’re too old to be used anymore, so they end up dying on their own. Both speeches could well be included in the broader critique of Idealism that runs through Cervantes’ work.
It is no wonder Cervantes made many enemies—especially among Spaniards—for he insists, in great detail, that while madness drives Don Quixote to the military vocation, in real life it is necessity that drives men to enlist. This is stated quite literally in the story of the young man in the Second Part, who sings his account. And the same applies to the student—the representative of Letters—who is also forced to defend the interests of others, interests likely opposed to his own. Both professions are compelled into service by necessity, born of deprivation—deprivation orchestrated by so-called “distributive justice,” which is itself the consequence of the existence of the weapon.
Weapons are not only the necessary cause of private property—providing the violence that allows it to be maintained—but also the sufficient cause for why nothing can be held in common. Weapons themselves cannot be shared, and everything else must serve one weapon or another. This is the true basis of privacy—not some human longing, tendency, or desire, as is often naively assumed.
But let us leave this aside, which is a labyrinth difficult to escape, and return to the debate over the preeminence of arms versus letters, a matter still unresolved, judging by the arguments each side presents. Among those I’ve mentioned, Letters claim that without them Arms could not be sustained, for war has its laws and must abide by them—and laws fall within the domain of Letters and scholars. To this, Arms respond that laws cannot be upheld without them, for with arms republics are defended, kingdoms are preserved, cities are protected, roads are made safe, the seas are cleared of pirates—and, finally, without arms, republics, kingdoms, monarchies, cities, roads by land or sea would fall into the chaos and brutality that war brings while it is allowed to operate by its own privileges and forces.<<
The identification of arms with war becomes more acute when we realize that the doctrine Cervantes presents in the continuation of this Discourse is essentially si vis pacem, para bellum—if you want peace, prepare for war. In other words: arm yourself. And if you want war? Arm yourself even more. In both cases, plan, conspire, calculate, research—figure out how to inflict the greatest possible harm—for that is the purpose of weapons, and their continuous “improvement.”
Cervantes now explains that, in this way, “legitimate violence” (ours, of course) can defend itself against “illegitimate violence”—bandits, pirates, etc. But by the same logic, if the pirates are backed by the Grand Turk and seize cities in North Africa on his behalf, or if English corsairs are backed by the English crown, or if today’s “terrorists” from ISIS or Al Qaeda are backed by some state—they too possess a form of “legitimate violence” in their own view.
In the end, we are all armed organizations—ours being labeled “legitimate” or at least “good,” and the others “bad.”
It is no surprise, then, that wars are so cruel and generate such brutal hatred—as we witness daily—for it is only in war that both sides are free. Peace, as both sides know and foresee, is merely the new and necessary oppression of one over the other. And the side that loses will become “illegitimate” and be disarmed, even though weapons will continue to act when the war ends—just now in the hands of only one side, which imposes deprivation through what Cervantes calls “distributive justice.” The order of peace, or distributive justice, as well as that of ideology and the interpretation of history, is the result of the last war, in which one side was ultimately disarmed.
Thus, the end of war is peace, yes—but it is a peace understood as submission. As Clausewitz says, war—regardless of the specific political or material dispute—is always aimed at one goal: disarming the enemy. Because once disarmed, the enemy is at your mercy and will submit to your demands on any matter—or better yet, fulfill your wishes entirely: retreat, pay reparations, grant compensation, etc.
Even the dispute over territorial control is unnecessary, for the very existence of weapons is always a source of contradiction—both externally, as it forces others to arm themselves, and internally—since our necessary association as an organized armed force implies inequality, specifically hierarchy, distributive justice, deprivation of freedom, subjugation, and oppression or violence. At this point, I recall Cervantes’ repeated comparison between grievance and affront—where only someone who is armed can cause an affront, making the offense lead to (eternal) war (and thus describing the human condition), whereas that consequence does not follow from a grievance—since the one who likewise offends is not armed, and therefore the grievance can be resolved through compensation, consensus, arbitration, etc., and thus it dissolves.
The point here is that the enemy behaves in exactly the same way—and not for better reasons. This is a principal resource of the Discourse; by presenting itself as a dispute between Arms and Letters, something common to all states, it allows for realism and, rather than speaking of weapons in praise of our heroes or vindicating our armed achievements and demands, it generalizes the effect of weaponry on the human condition, so that this understanding or exposition is as valid for a Spaniard or Christian as for a Turk, Protestant, or Chinese. Any of them, regardless of their creed, finds themselves in this condition in which:
Hardly has one fallen where he will never rise again until the end of the world, when another takes his very place; and if he too falls into the sea, which awaits him like an enemy, yet another and another follows, without giving time even for the time of their deaths.
Finally:
Blessed be those golden ages that were spared the dreadful fury of those devilish instruments of artillery… of the centuries past.
Only a realistic thought, one not deceived by fabrications and which deploys its full critical potential, makes us see that one weapon is all weapons—and those who speak only of eliminating nuclear ones are fools who don’t really understand what they’re talking about. But likewise, we can understand that to declare all violence illegitimate—and therefore to halt the endeavor of harm, research, and weapon development at that very point—is essentially to eliminate the Weapon itself, because that would mean we have already designed a definitive alternative.
Cervantes concludes the Discourse by pertinently placing before our eyes the image of the maximum and inexorable development of the Weapon, reminding us that weapons have always been humanity’s greatest production in all times and places, while stripping them of the idealization with which they are practiced through recourse to heroism. For artillery—like bombings, perhaps nuclear ones—eliminates that possibility by employing increasingly sophisticated weapons that kill from afar. Cervantes has described a reality that is neither changing nor dialectical, but a madness in which humankind is immersed—a madness that makes Don Quixote’s childishness seem trivial.
Those who still today portray Don Quixote as a hero should be asked to update him to our own time so that we may recover his true form and perceive him as Cervantes intended—and that would mean seeing him in the street armed with a machine gun, a string of grenades across his chest, and other offensive and defensive gear, enough to make people cross the street to avoid him.
Once we understand that all people—regardless of which weapon they are subjected to—suffer the same punishment of war and service to arms, militating in the domain of Letters and Arms, the only way to eliminate the Weapon, abolish distributive justice, and allow natural justice is through human unity. For inclusive decision-making prevents and deters the intention of harm. That is why we call for human unity—but not through Letters, rather by raising the white flag.
Epilogue
To deny the Letters and offer only the white flag as a means of peace against arms does not mean exactly silence; therefore, I want to add here a recently composed text that does not appear in the article published in the collective book, but that explains and illustrates it:
(The existence of) the weapon admits only hierarchy, and peace is submission; it denies humanity and freedom, not only in the state but in the world system. For this reason, Spain, like almost all countries, lacks sovereignty, is at the service of its hierarchical superiors, the more heavily armed states, and acts at their service, sometimes against its own interests, manipulated through various mechanisms (economic, military, information dissemination, etc.).
But above all, because of the weapon, we are headed for a terrible, terminal war between NATO, serving the USA at the pinnacle of the hierarchy, and Russia and China, who contest it.
What do we humans have with each other, us with the Russians or the Chinese? That is where the weapon leads us — “that which is for harming,” as Mòzǐ says, for it operates by its own logic and subjects us to it. But our salvation is human unity, inclusive decision-making.
However, when alongside human unity or inclusive decision-making the Letters are added, or a characteristic such as a world parliamentary system, a democratic system, a confederation, a religion, it becomes clear that those people do not understand the weapon, and their goal of unity is not its elimination. With their ideology, they uphold the incorporated weapon, hierarchy, and do not understand humanity or the dynamics or dialectics of “that which is for harming” among humans, which cannot go unnoticed (for those who suffer its threat and affront), and that is the cause of our division and conflict. They impose a condition on the others with whom they seek to unite. Why, for peace, cooperation for the common good, and renunciation of harm, should the Chinese accept democracy, or Muslims Christianity?
That is why when organic scholars—all those who serve the state, who are almost 100%—hide ancient cosmopolitanism so as not to contradict the state, they usually call cosmopolitan sages “utilitarians” or “consequentialists” (cases like Mozi, Cicero, Panetius, etc.), since these are interested in the common good and the goals for it, not in ideologies, rights, or power systems that are the expression/concealment of the weapon. Those scholars do not even understand that this “utilitarianism” is a consequence of their cosmopolitanism which repudiates Letters in the sense of Don Quixote speech.
Just as Mozi says that partiality is the cause of evil and universality is the source of good, it was the cosmopolitans who developed the concept of human dignity, equality among human beings without discrimination, since we are all the house of the logos, their rejection of slavery, gender equality… Yet no one knows this, and the vast majority attribute it to Christianity, to religion, but religion only ‘represents’ it; its origin is cosmopolitanism, and, on the contrary, religion, thus revealed and not natural like the logos, makes the people dependent on the church, which operates alongside the state.
Indeed, seeking unity, living together without conditions, is the source of love, universal love that makes us realize that we must care for one another, for we all need each other (for disarmament). That is why for Mòzǐ love is a consequence of (that disposition to) universality—and not of the will, which can do nothing against a partial world, where we are forced to harm each other. And today that universality is not an illusion; it is a reality and a guide to encounter, a true force, a higher knowledge that is shared, that gives joy, spreads love, and is the glory of the Earth.
[1] Cervantes’ third work in a Muslim country is The Great Sultana, the story of Doña Catalina de Oviedo, who unlike Zoraida remains Christian in Constantinople.
[2] CERVANTES, MIGUEL DE. El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, Madrid, 1604
[3] In the conversation following the episode of the lions with that of the Green Coat, Don Quixote unexpectedly attributes as usual in acts of bravery his character as flattery to the powerful. Bravery yes, he concludes, but for the human cause.
[4] This is the key to a possible real meaning of Kant’s Perpetual Peace
[5] SUNZI, The Art of War, Madrid, Pliegos de Oriente (Trotta), 2017
[6] Aristotle, like Confucius, distinguishes two types of justice: justice generated by the state or unequal distribution of rights and property, and natural justice or equity, which therefore does not require Letters as the state’s justice does; it is based on our capacity to put ourselves in the other’s place and treat them as we wish to be treated.
[7] HERRANZ MARTIN, MANUEL, El realismo ejemplar del Quijote, EAE, 2019