We all hear the word peace, but how can we define it? It may sound easy but, it is far more complicated than one may think; we cannot just have a blunt answer. My view of peace, different from another person’s, would be a Marxist and Realism view. Marxism is the view that control should be given to us and not the government, while realism is the view to see the actual truth. I believe peace in our society should be as negative peace with no violence, basically a pacifist type, which would be no war against all means of violence. This is hard to see in our age of society, perhaps not even possible, but I think it should be like this. I chose this definition because it best describes to me how the society I live in will best function without …show more content…
I see peace as something different from what you see peace as, so everyone has their own interpretation and in a sense, Galtung can be saying that even different countries have different means of peace and religions/cultures, like the Latin Americans and Africans have different definitions and showings of peace. So to start off Galtung’s views, peace is positive and negative. With this he sees four options with conflict which are, 1) A wins and B loses, 2) A loses and B wins, 3) solution is postponed because neither side feels ready to end the conflict, and 4) a confused comprise is developed with neither side being happy. I believe Galtung has the right idea of peace but I don’t think that we can achieve his idea due to the reason that we all have different understandings and interpretations of peace. Some people might think war is needed for peace while others might believe the contrary; war is never needed for peace. Cultures have different meanings of peace which is another reason we can never just have an understanding of total …show more content…
We will always have conflict, and people like the United States might just start a war and get different countries involved. I do think we can get a good understanding of it with social movements and large groups focused on a specific issue, just like Galtung would say. I also believe that Kant had the right idea of saying “War is something made by humans.” Kant’s perspective is totally right because with conflict, comes war. Webel talks about war bringing peace after all is done, but I don’t tend to believe this because when someone let’s say loses at something, they want to go at it again to win and they will try to win with any possible mean. This can be very violent and suggests the opposite of peace. I do agree that peace can’t be perfect because even if I believe we should have the control and government shouldn’t, we are humans and we make mistakes sometimes or let our emotions get the best of us. I feel that if we as a whole actually try to become pacifist’s, peace can start. I’m not saying that we will have 100% peace, I’m just saying it’s a really good start. Gandhi promotes nonviolence and by this, peace can start to form, which is the way we should be
Construction of The Peace Bridge in Buffalo New York What can construction do for an area? The construction of an office building may bring in a firm, corporation, or company. The construction of a sporting arena may keep a team where it currently is, or bring a new team to that area. For example, the construction of the HSBC Arena kept the Sabres in Buffalo. The construction of a casino may bring in tourists, or people who live in the outlying suburbs.
A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles is a flashback of the main character, Gene Forrester’s schooling at the Devon School in New England. During this flashback Gene remembers his best friend Finny, who was really athletic and outgoing. Gene and Finny’s friendship was a relationship of jealousy. Gene was jealous of Finny’s talent in athletics, and Finny was envious of Gene’s talent in school. In the end, Gene’s jealousy of Finny takes over and causes him to shake the tree branch that makes Finny fall and break his leg. The break was bad, but it was not until Finny fell down the stairs and broke his leg again, that he had to have surgery. The surgery that Finny would undergo would cause more complications and heartbreaking news for Gene. During the surgery Finny would lose his life due to some bone marrow that escaped into his blood stream and stopped his heart from beating. “As I was moving the bone some of the marrow must have escaped into his blood stream and gone directly to his heart and stopped it” (Knowles 193). Although people do not normally think about bone marrow as being a huge part of the human body, it can cause some major issues if it has to be replaced or escapes into the blood stream.
I identified the first major player in the novel as Phineas. The quote I feel began his role reads: “No one but Phineas could think up such a crazy idea. He of course saw nothing the slightest bit intimidating about it. He wouldn’t, or wouldn’t admit it if he did. Not Phineas.” (14) This quote sets the reader up by describing the sort of person Finny : a daredevil with wild ideas and an air of fearlessness about him.
The literary analysis essay for A Separate Peace entitled Chapter 7: After the Fall notes that Gene’s brawl with Cliff Quackenbush occurs for two reasons: the first reason being that Gene was fighting to defend Finny, and the second reason being that Quackenbush is the antithesis of Finny. Cliff Quackenbush calls Gene a “maimed son-of-a-bitch”, since Gene holds a position on the team that is usually reserved for physically disabled students, and Gene reacts by hitting him in the face (Knowles, 79). At first, Gene remarks that he didn’t know why he reacted this way, then he says, “it was almost as though I were maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me”, referring to Finny (Knowles, 79). Quackenbush is “the adult world of punitive authority personified”, his voice mature, his convictions militaristic (Chapter, 76). Quackenbush reminds Gene of the adult world and all of the things that Finny and Devon protected him from, such as war.
In the novel, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the protagonist, Gene Forrester “battled” within himself to find “a separate peace” and in this process directed his emotions at Phineas, his roommate. Forrester and Phineas formed the illusion of a great companionship, but there was a “silent rivalry” between them in Forrester’s mind. Self deceptions in Forrester led him to believe that Phineas was “out to get him” (Forrester). Subconsciously Forrester jounced the limb of the tree and forced Phineas to fall and break his leg. Phineas found out the truth of his “accident” with the help of Leper Lepellier and Brinker Hadley, who were friends that attended Devon High School. Gene Forrester’s conflict between his resentment of and loyalty toward Phineas’ personality and athletic abilities was resolved by the death of Phineas.
Michael Morpurgo once said “Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart.” In A Separate Peace by John Knowles; there are a wide variety of themes such as: coming of age, jealousy and identity. This novel is about two main characters one being Gene who is still living and another being Finny who passed away in his earlier years of life. Gene returns to his old prep school Devon where both he and Finny once attended. A Separate Peace brings back old memories from the summer of 1942 to the summer of 1943. During this duration of time World War II is taking place. Gene goes back in his adult years for two reasons; to visit the “fearful sights,” the marble staircase and the tree by the river. The three major symbols throughout this novel are coming of age, jealousy and identity.
...e was a strange beggar. After man has broken so many laws given by the gods, is there any possible chance that peace can ever be an option, or is peace just another figment of man’s imagination?
"The historian Will Durant calculated that there have been twenty nine years in all of human history during which a war was not underway somewhere." (Hedges, 2003). In fact more than half of my lifetime has consisted of the United States, my country, being at war. It is sad to know that I have no experienced peace. It is also alarming because I, like my peers, have become somewhat immune and numb to war. We have come to think of it as just another issue going on, and do not really see it as the drastic event that it really is. It is something that is just there; just in the background.
...s toward peace”. Proving that being pacifist does not necessarily mean that war is unacceptable, it can also stand for bringing peace by a different point of view.
Brenda Shoshanna once stated, “All conflict we experience in the world, is a conflict within our own selves.” This quote recognizes how much conflict influences our everyday lives and personality. The wise words were especially true for Gene, the main character in A separate peace, who let his battles with other characters and the society of his time become his own internal battles. In John Knowles’s novel, A separate peace, all the types of conflict are shown through the main character Gene.
On this planet there is only the one sure way to ensure peace, government. Luckily throughout history there have been big societies that helped countries establish governments of their own. One of the biggest and well shaped government is the democracy of the United States of America. The U.S. had two societies in particular to look to for guidance, and those two were ancient Greece and ancient Rome.
There is a predominate theory in International Relations called the Democratic Peace theory. It states that democratic states rarely, if ever, engage in conflict with one another. In a 1988 study by Jake Levy, a political science professor at Rutgers University, entitled “The Democratic Peace Hypothesis: From Description to Explanation” he states that, “this absence of war between democracies comes as close to anything we have to an empirical law in international relations” (Levy, 1988).
On the one hand, war is a terrible thing that can happen in this nation, but pacifists will tell you that it isn’t worth the death of innocent lives. “Pacifists hold that war is wrong because killing is wrong.” This is understandable. War and violence should not be an excuse for conflicts. Negotiating problems could be more helpful than violence and war. Negotiating would be more effective than war because it will help prevent the situation from getting worse and will help find a solution to the problem or issue. Talking to the enemy would shock them, since they would be expecting for us to fight back. Instead of returning with ruthless violence they have towards us, this nation should maintain its superior position and meet them with acts of kindness and gentle words “Negotiation, mediation, diplomacy—these would be the means of settling international disputes, not the sacrifice of human lives."
Aylmer Maude, a friend of Tolstoy's and translator of his work, had this to say about War and Peace. War and Peace presents us with a complete picture of human life; a complete picture of the Russia of those days; a complete picture of the struggle of nations; and a complete picture of the things in which men set their happiness and greatness, their sorrow and their shame.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In a world that is being changed every minute by technology, the view of who and what people are, is changing just as quickly. In all of this change where is world peace? The world is a place of constant change and a large part of this change comes from the machine of war and the advance of technology. Some of humankind’s greatest innovations have come from the need to defend the rights and freedom of different people. Armed forces are not only used in the protection of others, but are also applied in an effort to rule over or eliminate what is perceived as weaker or inferior races. For centuries there has been conflict between tribes, countries and nations. If humankind continues to travel this path he/she will no longer be the controlling entity on this planet. In a famous quote Benjamin Franklin said “Even peace may be purchased at too high a price”. What this says is that any life lost in war is a price too high to pay. Over the time that mankind has been on this planet this price been paid time and time again to no avail? Wars are still being fought in many countries all over the world today. When will it end, when will there finally be World peace? Many things will need to change in order to achieve this noble goal. The goal of world peace is a possibility and may even happen in the near future, as more countries find freedom, self-government and become part of the global community. A global community that not only serves itself but also aids in stabilizing the world community. All these things are only part of what it takes to secure global peace. What will it take to achieve a true, lasting, stable peace?