Ever since the beginning of the United States, the people there have always fought for their beliefs. They believed in their freedom to religion, politics, second chances, etc., and they have always believed in fighting for them. These faiths kept the foundation of the country strong throughout its existence. It has inspired many noble causes with just as many noble heroes. Unfortunately, life is never so cut and clear. In reality, there are no sides of black nor white. The truth is that their righteous conviction is just another shade of gray. In “Friends and Enemies” by Louann Gaeddert, United States’ entry into WWII caused animosity between those who believe in fighting for their beliefs and those whose beliefs state no fighting. These two sides are mainly defined by two of the main characters, Jim Reimer and Clive Van Dyne. Jim is a Mennonite; his belief strictly demands no fighting of any kind even if it’s just. Clive is more of the typical American patriot; he is narrow-minded but is more than willing to help his country when needed. From the beginning to the end, both sides explains their reasoning, but I believed Jim’s side to be correct.
At first glance, Clive’s side is the reasonable reaction when one’s country is attacked. The U.S. citizens felt the need to stand up and defend themselves against Japan’s unprovoked attack. The U.S. decided to join in the name of self-defense. It sounds fair because it is. If citizens weren’t able to volunteer into military service, they would work in factories devoted to the war. They could also buy war bonds/stamps. This determination of putting all resources to the war is called total war. However, this is a shade of gray. An example of this is when racial prejudice occurred to t...
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...ne is wrong; therefore, everyone is technically right.
With all being said and done, I do believe Jim’s side to be correct, but I do not believe Clive’s side is wrong. The whole topic is a matter of opinion. There is one thing that is fact in the whole discussion. The fact is that hating others because of their beliefs is wrong. Many great deeds have been accomplished with much violence; however, let’s not forget the deeds done by pacifism. A prime exemplar of this was when Martin Luther King Jr. was able to lead the American civil rights movement that changed the way races interacted with each other. The United States has achieved many feats with or without the belief of violence. The beliefs, these shades of gray, have been tested through its existence, but it is safe to conclude that no matter how dire the situation may be, their hearts are in the right place.
...attacks, and burning from flame throwers. The Germans are relentlessly hostile toward the British and Canadian soldiers, saving no lives but disposing of many. The Germans are truly enemies of these soldiers; however, in this case they definitely do not act as friends, which ultimately disagrees with Timothy Findley’s assumption that one’s enemy is their closest friends. The saying, “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”, is truly substantiated within the text The Wars. For one’s “enemy” will not hurt them, as no trust is deposited into an enemy, however one’s friend will, since as a friend, one invests plenty of trust into another and by having this trust broken one is hurt more than anything. Timothy Findley deconstructs the concept of friend and enemy within his novel The Wars, by illustrating that one’s enemy will turn out to be their closest friend.
The book ‘For Cause and Comrades’ is a journey to comprehend why the soldiers in the Civil War fought, why they fought so passionately, and why they fought for the long period of time. Men were pulling guns against other men who they had known their whole lives. McPherson’s main source of evidence was the many letters from the soldiers writing to home. One of the many significant influences was how the men fought to prove their masculinity and courage. To fight would prove they were a man to their community and country. Fighting also had to do with a duty to their family. Ideology was also a major motivating factor; each side thought they were fighting for their liberty. The soldier’s reputations were created and demolished on the battlefield, where men who showed the most courage were the most honored. Religion also played an important role because the second Great Awakening had just occurred. Their religion caused the men who thought of themselves as saved to be fearless of death, “Religion was the only thing that kept this soldier going; even in the trenches…” (McPherson, p. 76) R...
During the time period of the Revolutionary War, over 4,000 people had lost their lives during the frenzy of the war. The authors of the book, My Brother Sam is Dead, states that the death of so many people could have been avoided. Along with their statement, they also hint at the opposition to war through multiple events in the book. They show how the people of Redding were affected throughout the course of the book, in both positive and negative outputs. The authors of the book present both opposing sides of the Revolutionary War, the Loyalists and the Patriots. What the authors don’t do is support one side, but rather support the dissent towards war itself.
In James McPherson’s novel, What They Fought For, a variety of Civil War soldier documents are examined to show the diverse personal beliefs and motives for being involved in the war. McPherson’s sample, “is biased toward genuine fighting soldiers” (McPherson, 17) meaning he discusses what the ordinary soldier fought for. The Confederacy was often viewed as the favorable side because their life style relied on the war; Confederates surrounded their lives with practices like slavery and agriculture, and these practices were at stake during the war. On the other hand, Northerners fought to keep the country together. Although the Civil War was brutal, McPherson presents his research to show the dedication and patriotism of the soldiers that fought and died for a cause.
One of the important subjects during the civil war was Religion even though it received minor attention until recent years. Historians have considered civil war an important story of war; however, religion rose as an important factor with many publications. For example “Religion and the American Civil War” is a collection of essays and poems by various writers (Harry S. Stout, George Reagan Wilson, etc.1)
This book is written from a perspective foreign to most Americans. Historically, American students are taught from a single perspective, that being the American perspective. This approach to history (the single perspective) dehumanizes the enemy and glorifies the Americans. We tend to forget that those on the opposing side are also human.
“Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. (Directly quoted from page 2 of “Quotes About Civil Rights Movement”.) Fourteen year old Emmett Louis Till, was murdered while visiting with relatives in Money, Mississippi. The young boy allegedly flirted with a white sales clerk. Not only was the nation’s reaction, and the bias of the courtroom turbulent factors in the civil rights movement, but the brutality of his murder played a major role as well.
While thousands of American men fought in the war, not all American’s believed that the war was justified. In his address to the nation, President James Polk stated that the United States would fulfill it’s destiny by bringing peace to the less fortunate. In contrast to this, many in America felt that the war was unjust, realizing that the disputed territory never belonged to the United States. Among those opposing President Polk’s declaration of war was Congressman Abraham Lincoln, who refuted the President’s claims by analyzing his speech. Thomas Parker delivered a speech entitled “Sermon on War” in which he criticized the war for the same reasons as Abraham...
One of the strongest basic values that Lincoln expressed was that the civil war as a devastating situation for most people. He expressed this by saying, “Both parties deprecated war.” Meanwhile, a more fragile basic value of his speech is the classification of the South as the destructive force and the North as the protective one. He said, “But one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive. And the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” This value splits the public into two factions (Hansen 244) that was defined by Lincoln as “good” and “bad”.
Argument: The main focus of this book is to bring religion back into politics. For various reasons, the religion factor has been removed from policy making around the world, to the detriment of international relations. Johnston conveys the importance of religion when dealing with international policy, especially when one of the parties has a worldview that is deeply rooted in religion. Seven examples of how religious involvement positively affected international relations and eventually brought about reconciliation are used: the role of the Moral Re-Armament Movement in Franco-German Reconciliation, the role of religious groups, especially the Quakers, in restoring peace between the Sandinistas and the East Coast Indians, the role of the Quakers in the Nigerian civil war, the role of the churches in East Germany during the break down of the Berlin wall and the events leading up to that even, the role of the Catholic Church and the 1968 revolution in the Philippines, the role of the church during apartheid in South Africa, and the role of religious actors in the transformation of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe.
Hudson, D. W. (2008). Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Pauline E. Hopkins’s novel Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South is considered to be one of the most prominent works of African American literature. Throughout her life, Hopkins created literary works that captured the pain, frustration, and hopelessness African Americans felt at that time.
Abortion, school prayer, gay rights, gun politics and many more are all a part of the list of controversies that divide our country. A culture war is a conflict between groups with different ideals, beliefs, and issues. James Davison Hunter’s book, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, shows that these issues “are not isolated from one another but are part of a fabric of conflict which constitutes nothing short of a struggle over the meaning of America. Unlike the religious and cultural conflict that historically divided the nation, the contemporary culture war is fought along new and, in many ways, unfamiliar lines” (Hunter). Hunter argued that two definable polarities existed in the major issues of the war. The new shift in cultural acceptance of the times has changed the culture war. Many Americans argue that “there is a religious war going on in this country, a cultural war as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America” (Fiorina). However, some argue that the culture war is only based on small differences between the Democrats and Republicans. The issue at hand is how divided the American public is today and how much time is focused on this polarization. This division is not just a small difference in parties, but more a difference in moral and religious issues.
QUESTION ONE: Hannah Arendt argues for a crucial distinction between politics, which she takes to be the realm of speech, conversation and debate, and violence, which she suggests is ‘speechless’. Others we have studied this term propose something different – that politics and violence are inseparable, and that one invariably entails the other. With direct reference to at least one of that authors considered in Theories of Conflict and Violence, consider the relationship between politics and violence.
In her book, Terror in the Name of God, Jessica Stern writes about religious terrorism, how terrorist organizations form by using charismatic leaders, opportunistic and ambitious people who recruit the oppressed by using religion as justification and motivation for their acts. In March of 1998, Stern met with religious terrorist Kenny Noble, an American who belonged to a cult in the 80s, and had her first extended conversation with a religious terrorist, “Although I had been studying and working on terrorism for many years by that time, none of what I had read or heard prepared me for that conversation, which was about faith at least as much as it was about violence.” (Stern XIV). Stern pointed out that there was small difference between what Nobel’s cult wanted and what big name terrorist groups like Al Qaeda wanted; they targeted the same institutions, had the same enemy, the only difference was religion. Noble explained how all who refused the word of the lord (liberals, jews, etc.) were enemies and they they would have to be taken care of, “‘They were the enemy. And so they would have to die. . . . We wanted peace, but if purging had to precede peace, then let the purge begin.’” (Stern XV) Terrorist groups believe that their killings are moral because it is to protect the greater good of the world when it comes to their beliefs. Of course where Nobel thought he was in the moral lane to commit such heinous acts, people who didn’t follow his beliefs and his faith saw him as a terrorist with no morals, everything that has to do with morality is relative depending on the individual. Stern talked about how Lesbians in South African faced abuse and violence just because they didn’t fit social expectations of how woman should act and look. Where as in certain counties