Violence as retribution is always immoral. Immorality means to violate moral principles or to go against what is right. Violence does not hold any morality; there is no justification for violence. However, society often views violence as tolerable when used in war. Violence in war is often looked at as more of a duty. The whole premise surrounding the concept of war is that men must fight one another to the death. Violence is an order. This can often lead to amorality. Soldiers subjected to constant and unceasing violence can lose their sense of right and wrong. Soldiers become accustomed to violence and therefore lose touch with their morals. If a soldier loses sense of morality due to a constant inundation of war and violence, it is possible that the soldier is acting amoral. The solider is simply complying with the violence that he is now living with. However, this does not make the violence acceptable in the grand scheme of things. Though the soldier may view the violence as something that is now commonplace in life, a general view would perceive violence as immoral.
William Orpen, a well known artist of the Edwardian period, depicted society’s justification for violence as retribution in his painting The Thinker. The painting depicts a young soldier alone sitting on a rock. The soldier represents the duty of men in war to kill their opponents. Soldiers seek retribution on behalf of their country by killing other men. Society holds this retribution as righteous; warfare has been an accepted form of settling arguments between foreign nations. A soldier can become so accustomed to violence, such as the soldier depicted, that he becomes almost immune to it and acts out of amorality. Society should see war as something that is immoral; it goes against basic human principles of life and humanity. However, the accepted violence and hostility allows for many to view war with amorality.
Asher
Period 1
Team 3
Your argument is well presented on many fronts with the unwavering stance against violence making a clear, passionate appeal. It's hard to find fault with this highest moral conviction practiced by Martin Luther King and Ghandi, and Jesus and Buddha.Your research may have traced a root for Edwardian acceptance of war to the popular explanation of Social Darwinism, which justified violence as a primal need: "survival of the fittest." You may have seen that Darwin was inspired by the misanthropic sociologist, Malthus, who argued earlier that the beings in the poor countries should not be assisted but allowed to extinguish themselves in the natural forces of famines and wars, which he presented as acts of righteous termination of inferiors. It gave rise to Eugenics- ideas for breeding a better of mankind as practiced by Hitler, but in the 1900's elements were arising in the U.S. The point being that almost any idea can be justified by a society for a time, especially as a society finds the premise to be expedient to its own survival.
ReplyDeleteYour point about the corruption of a person's moral fiber in acts of justified war (and their sanity) ia well taken. Coppola's later version of Heart Of Darkness, Apocalypse Now depicts this vividly. Your synthesis was very thought provoking.
Wyl.p1.t4 E Tyler, D Shapiro, C West, I Arbolado
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