In fact, according to Weber, the very origin of what we now see as modern discipline may be found in the ancient Greek phalanx. He argues that the nascent military discipline of the phalanx and the Roman legion gave them the transformative advantage over more “heroic” rivals.
The phalanx was a reflection and a creation of the geopolitics of the ancient Greek polis,
In the words of an eighteenth-century French aristocrat: “bravery is in the blood, but courage is in the soul.
This dual face of war is often portrayed as a contrast between the ideas of seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and eighteenth-century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For the former, war is inevitable in that the natural state of humans is aggression and this is only controlled through the development of hierarchical and authoritative institutions. In this way “society” – and in particular the social and political institution of the state (“Leviathan”) – is what makes us behave less like the beasts we might be and more like the civilized humans we can become. For Rousseau, however, our natural state is a peaceful one and it is the development of these very same institutions, such as private property, that produces aggression.