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This paper will discuss the American society’s views on the ethics of violence from the eyes of a group of young black men and women whose observation of American ethics was questioned based on the interpretation of the people who are processing the violence. In the article Ethical Violence written by Dale Campbell, he questions Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian who was murdered during WWII, and his theory about flexibility in moral law: “We feel the tension between being thankful on one hand for the courage of Bonhoeffer and those like him, and being fearful and paralyzed on the other by our familiarity with what can and often does happen when the violent path is chosen. We want to applaud the heroism of freedom-fighters and peace-keepers,
¬¬¬Though most American people claim to seek peace, the United States remains entwined with both love and hate for violence. Regardless of background or personal beliefs, the vast majority of Americans enjoy at least one activity that promotes violence whether it be professional fighting or simply playing gory video games. Everything is all well and good until this obsession with violence causes increased frequency of real world crimes. In the article, “Is American Nonviolence Possible” Todd May proposes a less standard, more ethical, fix to the problem at hand. The majority of the arguments brought up make an appeal to the pathos of the reader with a very philosophical overall tone.
In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.
Throughout history there has been considerable tension between race and crimes committed. The court trial of Bernhard Goetz initiated debate on race and crime in the major cities, and the limitations of self-defense. Bernhard Goetz in 1984 shot five bullets in a New York City subway, seriously wounding four young black men. After turning himself into the police nine days later, the public now knew who was the shooter. Bernhard Goetz was entitled the “Subway Vigilante”. The subway shooting incident ideally exemplified the exasperation with the high crime rates of the 1980s. Due to the time period that this incident occurred, Bernhard Goetz was commended and reviled in the media surrounding the case, and the public’s standpoint. The subway shooting, and the court trial following the shooting, lead to the uprise of the fight against crime in major cities. Justice is difficult to define, and in controversial acquittal of Bernhard Goetz, justice in this sense, was not served.
The three powerful stories including Saki’s “The Interlopers”, Erich Maria Remarque’s, All Quiet on the Western Front, and John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, portray the impact that friendship and companionship, or the absence of it, can have. Hector Hugh Munro, better known as Saki, was born in Burma while it was under the control of the British Empire. Near the beginning of World War I, Munro was enlisted into the 2nd King Edward’s Horse as a trooper at the age of 43. He soon rose to higher ranks and fought for many years. Unfortunately on November 1916, Munro was shot by a German sniper and died near France. His struggle has not only been through the physical tribulations of war, but also through the social stigma of being a homosexual during the times of World War I. Tragically, at this time, it was an unacceptable way of life and was looked down upon by society. Similarly to the adversity of war, Remarque also fought in World War I, but on the German side. He enlisted at the age of 18 and later was injured by a shrapnel wound to the leg, arm and neck. His struggles did not stop there as he was faced the immense heartbreak of losing his sister. Her death was a punishment to Remarque because of the portrayal of the Germans in his literature. Though Steinbeck did not go through the same experiences of war and loss as the other two authors have, he has experienced a fair share of struggle. Steinbeck won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 but was highly criticized as many people believed that he did not deserve the award, regardless of his many accomplishments such as “The Grapes of Wrath”. All of revered and respected men have shared a common theme throughout their lives, one being the impact of the ...
The assumption that black people have lesser moral values and have a greater inclination towards violence is not new. According to Herman Gray, “Blackness was constructed along a continuum ranging from menace on one end to immortality on the other, with irresponsibility located somewhere in the middle.” (Gray) T...
Have you ever thought about what it was like to live during World War 1, or what it was like to fight at war? At first glance of any war piece, you might think the author would try to portray the soldiers as mentally tough and have a smashing conscience. Many would think that fighting in a war shows how devoted you are to your country, however, that is not true. According to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the reality of a soldier's life is despondency, carnage and eradication at every bombardment. Living every day is not knowing if they will eat, see their families, or even if they will awaken the next day. Demeaning themselves from heroes to barely men without their military garment or identity. Remarque conveyed how
...tant to recognize this book is not “pro”- war for violence or killing, only “pro”-war in that this Great War had to be rationalized so that Jünger could survive. Jünger took pride in things that were appropriate for his time – the death of an enemy meant the potential survival of his Company and fighting alongside his brothers gave him a sense of fearlessness and purpose toward death. Jünger’s message seems to relate that it is sometimes necessary to fight in the name of family and to protect one’s nation. Jünger witnessed the brutality of the war and it shook him to a point of devastation (particularly after the Battle of Somme and toward the end), but he refused to allow it to overcome him and rejoiced in the short and simple moments of beauty in life.
Norman Schwarzkof once said, “It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of the men to go into battle”. As young adults, many of us have a preconceived notion that being a hero is in some way the same as being a leader. In times of war, being a leader defines ones as a superior that others look to for guidance and direction in predicaments; not necessarily a hero. The true heroes are not always the ones calling the shots, but the soldiers who courageously leave their comforts behind to fight on the fronts for their country, even if it results in their death. In All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, describes the journey of a young man named Paul and the struggles he endures as an effect of the declaration of World War One by his elders. Remarque develops the theme of how older men’s decisions of declaring war effects the younger generation by elaborating on how this declaration effects the younger soldiers’ physical physique and their mental wellbeing.
The documentary Tough Guise reveals that the cause of violence traces back to cultural codes on masculinity and societal expectations rooted from such codes. Prior to watching the documentary, it was difficult to understand how culture played a part in men’s violence—it was thought to be more of a natural phenomenon linked to men’s biological traits. The documentary, however, disproves this: men’s violence in America is “made” by the society, not “given”, and thus cultural implications should be explored to understand where the violence really comes from.
The documentary Tough Guise reveals that the cause of violence traces back to cultural codes on masculinity and societal expectations rooted from such codes. Prior to watching the documentary, it was difficult to understand how culture played a part in men’s violence—it was thought to be more of a natural phenomenon linked to men’s biological traits. The documentary, however, disproves this: men’s violence in America is “made” by the society, not naturally “given”, and thus cultural implications should be explored to understand where the violence really comes from.
“I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”
The way Staples structures this essay emphasizes his awareness of the problem he faces. The essay’s framework consists mostly of Staples informing the reader of a scenario in which he was discriminated against and then following it with a discussion or elaboration on the situation. This follow-up information is often an expression stating comprehension of his problem and than subtitle, logical criticisms toward it. For example, Staples describes women “fearing the worst of him” on the streets of Brooklyn. He then proceeds to declare that he understands that “women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence.” Staples supports this statement with information about how he had witnessed gang violence in Chester, Pennsylvania and saw countless black youths locked away, however, Staples pronounces that this is no excuse for holding every young black man accountable, because he was an example of a black man who “grew up one of the good boys” coming “to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on.” This narrative structure highlights that Staples is not a hypocrite because he is not show ignorance toward the problem he is addressing unlik...
According to Ian Almond in the article "Mullahs, Mystics, Moderates and Moghuls: The Many Islams of Salman Rushdie", Rushdie wrote this piece from a medieval religiousness perspective, most pointedly making use of symbols such as the "ancient holy relic whose disappearance inspires countless deaths" (Almond 3). These violent deaths mark something more in the theme of the book; presumptuously, Rushdie is attempting to enlighten his readers with the many faces of Islam, this particular story showing the face of Islam who's "built-
During a freedom march on May 29, 1964 in Canton, Mississippi a boy by the name of McKinley Hamilton was brutally beaten by police to the point of unconsciousness. One of the witnesses of this event, and the author of the autobiography which this paper is written in response to, was Anne (Essie Mae) Moody. This event was just one of a long line of violent experiences of Moody’s life; experiences that ranged from her own physical domestic abuse to emotional and psychological damage encountered daily in a racist, divided South. In her autobiography Moody not only discusses in detail the abuses in her life, but also her responses and actions to resist them. The reader can track her progression in these strategies throughout the various stages of her life; from innocent childhood, to adolescence at which time her views from a sheltered childhood began to unravel and finally in adulthood when she took it upon herself to fight back against racial prejudice.
If King defines violence as “immoral and destructive means” (King, 400), and Mitchell claims that violence can be used to bring about peace and equality. And King further states that “immoral and destructive means” (King, 400), can only bring about immoral and destructive ends. Then it is possible to infer that peace and equality are immoral and destructive. This is an error brought about through a lack of a definition to the terms violence and non-violence. As with the time King found new terms to differentiate between the types of love, he must find a number of new terms with which we may differentiate between the types of violence. The lack of variety has led to confusion that can possibly be eased through an ability to discriminate meanings. A possible distinction King could make between his violence and Mitchell’s violence is by using the terms brutality and brouhaha. A brouhaha could be what King calls non-violence, and brutality being what King calls violence. Brutality being a physical, forceful and damaging act of cruelty. A brouhaha is an enthusiastic act of abnormal behavior for the purpose of causing discomfort in others. An example of a brouhaha would be what King would call a non-violent protest. An example of brutality would be smashing in the windows of a store that refused to serve someone. To fix the claim “the type of peace King predicts from non-violence is better than one from violence,” Dr. King need only add a disclaimer stating the fact that such a claim is purely conjecture and wrought with bias. These changes could cause the essay to lose some of its power over the public, a group that has to think very little about the information that moves them, but it is personally believed that the changes would make the document more accurate for the people who