"Peace is the absence of war"? Pedagogical considerations on the paradigm of an implicitly heroic war

Abstract

«Si vis pacem para bellum» is one of the most abused maxims of classical culture in which war and peace are placed in close union, but with the first always subordinate to the second. History and literature present a world in which war is a tragic custom that allows, however, to become heroes. In such a world, no one can oppose war, not even mothers. One of the greatest classic texts is the Iliad, a poem about war in which a mother, Achilles’ one, could not save her son. This contribution, placed at the intersection between literature and pedagogical reflection, will try to follow the traces left by a karst and constant indoctrination to the bellum iustum that, since school texts, presents heroism and war as a perfect combination. In this perspective, conflict is a real mean of action, while peace is part of utopia. From these premises we will try to argue how a pedagogical reflection should help to reveal the impudence of a rhetoric which presents, very often implicitly, the war as fair; proposing to refocus those texts, as Mutter courage und ihre kinder o Conversazione in Sicilia, to mention but two examples, that reveal all the prosaic shadow of war.