Origins of the Problem of Trust: Propaganda during the First World War

Abstract

War is famously the pretext for encroachment by the lawless state upon civil society. The right superseding law to resort to arms in self-defence — Cicero’s ‘Silent enim leges inter arma’ (‘Laws are put aside when arms are raised’) (Cicero, Pro Milone, IV. 11, cited in Clarke, 1895, p. 10) — set out in the first century BC the basic justification that applies to this day. The state may formally withdraw when peace returns. However, appropriation of civil institutions outside the framework of law may well have changed irrevocably the way they are regarded.