Kennan on the Tragedy of War

In the emotional world of an aroused democracy evil had always to be singular, never plural. To admit the complex and contradictory nature of error would be to admit the complex and contradictory nature of truth, as error's complement; and this was intolerable, for if there were two ways of looking at a thing, then the whole structure of war spirit fell to the ground, then the struggle had to be regarded as a tragedy, with muddled beginnings and probably a muddled end, rather than as a simple heroic encounter between good and evil; and it had to be fought, then, not in blind, righteous anger but rather in a spirit of sadness and humility at the fact that western man could involve himself in a predicament so unhappy, so tragic, so infinitely self-destructive.
-- George Frost Kennan, The Decision to Intervene, p.9.