Violence is a means to an end. Violence is not something most humans resort to for enjoyment. Violence is, however, the right thing to be done in certain situations. With violence, comes great power. Power and violence walk together, hand in hand. When violence is exhibited, the power of the individual is shown to those around him. In both the Hebrew Bible and The Iliad, violence is depicted as a mode to reach goals. The reason for this is that violence allows an individual or a deity to flaunt their powers, while they simultaneously achieve their personal and communal ambitions. Just like how mortals have their own goals, deities also have an agenda. God, in the Hebrew Bible, has only two goals: to have humans obey Him blindly and to punish them if they disobey Him. In order to execute both of His plans, God uses violence. In Exodus 32, the Israelites who escaped Egypt insulted God by "making themselves a molten calf and bowing low to it and sacrificing to it" (Exodus 32:8), as well as claiming the calf to be the one who brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 32:4). By worshipping the idol of the calf, the Israelites had turned away from God. Because the Israelites disobeyed God, He ended up pursuing his other goal, to punish the people who disobeyed Him. Because of the Israelites' foolish act, God chose to inflict pain on them: "then the Lord sent a plague upon the people, for what they did with the calf that Aaron made" (Exodus 32:35). Since God never once appeared in front of humans as a man, the only way for the Israelites to experience God's anger and disappointment, and ultimately the power he yields, is through His physical punishment: the plague. Also, vice versa, the plague was the physical representation God needed in orde... ... middle of paper ... ...t all the Trojan men will be fighting for their beloved Troy, too keep her from tumbling. The Trojans had no choice except to fight. They had to use violence to achieve the goal of the people. They must use all the power in their mights to defend their only home. If they don't they will exhibit a weakness, in which the Greeks will then take for granted. Violence, once again, is a necessity in reaching a common goal of a city that is under attack. Violence, although at times is morally wrong, is sometimes the best way to solve a problem, to reach a goal. Because violence is an exhibition of a man's powers, violence allow an individual to show his might and his prowess. Therefore, both violence and power are attributed to an individual's or society's ability to achieve what they yearn to accomplish. Works Cited Homer's Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles The Tanakh
Believers of the Old and New Testaments claim that violence is a sin and can only lead to more brutality and death; poet Tony Barnstone firmly agrees. In his poem “Parable in Praise of Violence” Barnstone lambastes the American obsession with violence-- that it is often triggered by inevitable events which could be handled in different manners. The speaker in “Parable in Praise of Violence” reflects on all parts of his “sinful” culture and comes to the realization that people often use violence as a way to deal with emotions of grief and anger caused by events and concepts they cannot explain.
Conflict is constant. It is everywhere. It exists within one’s own mind, different desires fighting for dominance. It exists outside in nature, different animals fighting for the limited resources available, and it exists in human society, in the courts. It can occur subtly, making small changes that do not register consciously, and it can occur directly and violently, the use of pure strength, whether physical, social, economic, or academic, to assert dominance and achieve one’s goals; this is the use of force. Yet, with the use of force, the user of force is destined to be one day felled by it. “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton proves the point that violence can be justified if necessary. To inflict change in their lives people often fight with violence instead of peace to evoke change. The world strives for change everyday whether or not you like it. How the people create a change in society whether they use peace or war, it is up to them to decide how to modify our ever changing world. Violence and fight between the Socs and Greasers tells us that both can be justified if it inflicts positive change in society. ‘
The Iliad, being the first great book, is described in many ways from a summarizing standpoint. The first word of the Iliad is rage. Rage is a feeling of anger that originates from true feelings of regret, loss, and love, and fury in one which then is put forth through a response to that stimuli. This stimuli is the result of what Homer loves to portray in the Iliad to us; death. The bloody and gruesome descriptions of the many battle scenes are what turn the reader into an intrigued yet somewhat horrified of these sights and results. The sad thing about those results is that it’s an actual person lying there; a father, son, brother, grandfather, or even a husband, who “But on the ground lay, dearer to the vultures than to their wives.” This connection proves that once that line is crossed, the dead become nothing and the killer will either continue on in fight and survival or
...come of everything. They determine which warriors will succeed, and which will die and the fate of every single person. It is hugely important to praise and glorify the Gods, and if one does not do this or if one gives himself too much credit and glory, disaster will surely strike him. Achilles feels like his honor has been taken away from him, and wants the Greeks to learn their lesson and respect him. This war between the Trojans and the Greeks is not fought just over Paris taking Helen from her home but, the fact that the pride and honor that Menelaus feels has been taken away from him.
Throughout history, people evaluated themselves and others based on moral judgements. The basis of those evaluations changed over time. In the Homeric period, from approximately 1200-800 BCE, people practiced “warrior ethics.” Warrior ethics were based on teleology, meaning all things had a purpose/function in society. The concept of good/bad was directly related to how well the function was performed. For example, a warrior was considered good when he was an excellent warrior and bad if he performed poorly. In Homeric times, excellence was considered god-like.
Violence is something that seems to be simple. It is the process of hurting someone else, but how? Of course you see violence when people become physical, but in reality there are so many ways to look at the word violence. The way people speak to each other or treat the people around them is a form of violence. Every day teenage children go to a place, called high school. They enter an area meant to be used for learning, but instead find an environment filled with cruelty. Girls make fun of other people because of how they look, talk or because they are just different. The boys walk around with an attitude of ownership because they feel they are
As humans we strive to live in a utopian environment, free of elements of aggression, greed, and violence. Most of us try to live a healthy and satisfying life, gaining from opportunities that we have sought and worked hard for. We take life as it comes, and we accept the challenges and difficulties that life puts out as we continue on no matter how hard it gets. However, there are a multitude of people who tend to think that life is just too hard and that they should be handed everything on a silver platter. Greed and violence begin to factor into their life as they continue in their set ways. They think that the world should revolve around their every need and that life is unbearably hard and unjustly unfair. These are the people who think that rules are meant to be broken and cannot grasp the genuine idea of equal opportunity. Some feel jipped and decide that they will steal other people's gains to get through their miserable lives. Others take a much more drastic approach by turning to violence. They think that violence is the answer so that they may distribute fear throughout their neighborhood in order to gain the respect that they very much deserve. They think that negotiating by means of a weapon is a much more effective way of getting what they want they think that a gun will make them that much tougher than the next guy. These people are the convicts who plague our societies and make life that much harder for the rest of us. The idea of peace has never come across their minds; the only peace that they want is a piece of our pie that is in fact our slice that we have labored for throughout the years. What I want to know is what has violence done to contribute to the good of mankind? If destruction and ...
There are many factors that lead people to use violence. They use violence when they are stressed, angry, feeling hatred, drink too much alcohol, use drug. Children are more likely to grow up as violent men if they are influenced by their parents, brothers, sisters and friends, all of whom use violence.
Some people believe that the use of violence is the best way of achieving substantial change. I argue that non-violence is the key to achieve lasting change, because some of the greatest acts of non-violence have led to changes which have not changed and have transformed the lives of many people. However, I understand that violence may have to be used in certain circumstances.
Human conflict is among the most complex topics in the world. It has always occurred alongside the existence of humanity, and often it escalates to violence and warfare. This has been a cycle throughout history, and there has not been much evidence pointing to the end of it. With no foreseen end to this cycle combined with a population that has an ever expanding curiosity, humans have had to justify going to war. Individuals tend to be very passionate and emotionally connected to their beliefs and thus they enjoy being right. They have justified violence and war with this innate desire to be right, and for this reason they have become the most common method for resolving human conflict; but at what cost? Life. Unity. Respect. These are concepts
War is a lot like love: it costs a lot of money, time, and energy; it distracts you from other areas of life; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but most importantly, in the end, it’s still worth fighting for. But unlike love, war cannot and should not be justified and disregarded, by gods or men. No matter what people try to do to resolve their disputes, sometimes they get so aggravated that they resort to killing each other, and the taking of a life is no light matter. It’s no coincidence that most people have post-traumatic stress coming back from the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. It’s because sinners live on the same planet, sinning and accusing the other of sinning while covering their own sin. So wars come and wars go, exchanging the powers between the nations who attack each other. The Trojan War, partially exemplified in the Iliad by Homer, follows this natural pattern of human nature. The Iliad does not go anywhere near the fact that the war is unjustifiable and absurd. In fact, the poem makes it clear that in the minds of both Greeks (also Achaeans) and Trojans that the war was justified and that each faction thought that they were entitled to some sort of resolution in their favor. Therefore, one should examine the Iliad from the viewpoint of the characters and the poet’s beliefs, from a fixed fictional standpoint instead of the real world’s standpoint. Both the Greek and Trojans had both rational and somewhat realistic reasons behind their logic, summed up in three observations: The competition of the main characters to elevate their own self-importance, their manly struggle over the hot Greek chick, and finally the vengeance that must be wrought for their fallen brothers-in-arms. But even though both sides...
...as used to get the Trojans to open the gates and that the Greek sailing back at night was a highly likely tactic. It was not uncommon for commandos to sneak into a city and kill the gate guards, opening it to an invading force. It was also common for turncoats to be bribed in the cities to open the gates for armies as well. The very choice of the Trojan War as one of the subjects is a statement of ambiguous meaning. On the one hand, it may amount to envisaging the Trojan War as a full-scale historic event on a par with the Peloponnesian War. On the other hand, it may be based on the assumption that, whether or not the Trojan War actually took place, the historic impact of the myth of the Trojan War is so great that it merits serious consideration in its own right. Greed, not jealousy was the cause of the war. ("Troy VII and the Historicity of the Trojan War", 2007)
When one hears the word violence one typically thinks of sordid images. This is because violence has developed a negative connotation. When one thinks of violent acts or cruel methods like coercion it is frequently correlated with evil. But there are instances in which there is a need to commit brutalities in order to put an end to catastrophes and help the good prevail. Many posit the notion that nothing good will ever come from violence while neglecting the positive things that have emerged from it. It may seem illogical but since kindness is often abused one needs to resort to violent means to demand justice and peace. Violence is gradually converting into a virtue as it becomes an imperative component in making progressive reforms. In order for one to triumph one must be dauntingly assertive even if it means turning to violence. Using forceful tactics should not necessarily make one malicious if the reasons behind them are benevolent. Violent acts are justified as long as they’re done for the greater good, solve disputes, and serve justice. And what better way to prove this than with legit historical facts.
...s of humans were a game to the gods, and they often felt the need to destroy or end a life just to get back at another god (5. 476-479). This type of game displays the carelessness of the gods and speaks to the fact that without adversity of any kind, it is impossible to appreciate what one has and realize that it may never come again.