Minds Wounded Without Morals
“For science, the end of the evolution struggle is simply represented by 'survival.' As for the means to that end, apparently anything goes. Darwinism leaves humanity without a moral compass” (Bruce Lipton). Lipton is saying how the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin (which states that over time, through natural selection, the organisms to survive will be those best suited to the environment) essentially has as a final step, humans doing whatever to survive, even break their own morals. Humans, usually are a species that are able to make rational decisions, even when under tense situations. However, should these situations begin to escalate to the point where one fears their life may be in danger, it causes them
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to make instinctive choices which they usually would not, a recurring theme that plays a major role in Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road.
It is a defense mechanism in place for all humans, which when triggered, can cause them to commit many acts that, they themselves would see as despicable. This can be seen in times of desperation and where breaking morals is the only way to survive. Furthermore, at times of war, one may be driven to do things that their former self would not agree with. This is due to the exposure to violent or disturbing experiences that result from war. Another time where a person can go against their moral compass is when they are in a high risk situation, where harsh punishments are about to be placed, such as imprisonment. In Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden creates conflicts and uses how characters handle these conflicts to portray that it is human nature to go beyond the morals one stands for and do anything in order to survive. However, even though these flexibility of morals allow one to make it through survival situations, they leave one scarred with horrible memories or leave them in a state where one is unable to think rationally and is better off having accepted the repercussions of keeping with …show more content…
their morals in the situation. In times of desperation to survive but all the odds being against a person, they may go to extreme measures and commit acts that they usually would not, pushing past their morals.
However, this may cause them to be turned into a monster, incapable of regaining moral sense or leave them traumatized and distressed. Therefore, breaking morals in extreme cases is a flaw in humans, and should they survive the situation, leaves them in a place worse than death. One of the most important aspects of human survival is being able to eat food, so that one has energy to perform life functions as well as, in cold weather, be able to stay warm. When deprived of this necessity, one may commit despicable acts for the purpose of survival. Micah’s wife, in Three Day Road shows how lack of food can lead one to do immoral things, like when she “[draws] her knife from her shawl and [leans] towards her husband” (Boyden 42), carving him up for food. Although he is already dead, it is forbidden for the Cree to eat another human, as it turns one into a monster that is always hungry for human flesh. By eating Micah and feeding her child its own father, it is clear that she is no longer able to discern right from wrong, having resorted to cannibalism. She even goes on to justify to herself that by killing him she was helping him “[keep] his promise to feed her and the child” (42). Ultimately, she becomes considered a “Windigo”, a person that has become a monster through the consumption of human
flesh. Therefore, for the safety of the tribe, Micah’s wife and child both have to be killed. A similar scenario occurred in 1972, where a chartered flight, carrying a rugby union team, flying with friends and family crashed in the Andes. There were 45 people on board but only 16 managed to survive. Alive:The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Read depicts the extreme measures taken by the survivors. Roberto Canessa, one of the most religious people on the plane raised the idea of having an obligation to stay alive and that the souls of their friends who were dead “left their bodies and are in heaven with God” (Read 78). This meant that they were simply “carcasses, which [were] no more human beings than the dead flesh of cattle [they ate] at home”(78). After making up his mind Canessa found the buttocks of a carcass, protruding from the snow and “knelt, bared the skin and cut into the flesh with a piece of broken glass…[and] cut away twenty slivers the size of matchsticks”(79). Later, with much contemplation, he “pushed the meat into his mouth. He swallowed it...Later that evening, small group of boys came out of the plane to follow his example. Zerbino took a strip and swallowed it as Canessa had done”(79). This was a real life example of humans letting their inner id take over in order to survive, and it resulted in the survivors becoming more hungry for flesh, eating everything from bone marrow to brains like barbarians. They too, had become monsters. It is clear that by compromising one’s morals it is easy to spiral out of control into a dark place, that ultimately leads to the demise of a person. Although death is the only other option, it is better than living in this dark place. Another instance where one may lose moral sense is in times of war, particularly due to the killing that occurs all around. Situations can arise where a soldier must choose whether or not to uphold their morals and get hurt, possibly killed, or to let go of them in order to survive. The most prominent of these being, when a soldier first faces an enemy and has to kill them to save themselves. Humans are brought up, told that harming another, let alone killing, is a wrongful act. From childhood to and through adulthood, rules and laws in societies prevent people from harming one another. However, war changes people’s outlook on the same matter. Niska in Three Day Road allows Xavier “in war [to] do what [is] necessary to survive, and that in this circumstance Gitchi Manitou [would understand] if [he has] to kill” (Boyden 340). These are the words that go through Xavier’s mind just before he kills Elijah, because he thinks that the morphine has taken him away. Xavier is essentially given permission to break his morals and kill Elijah because he feels it is “necessary”. This has major repercussions afterwards, when Xavier is returning home. On the ship to Canada, at night he feels “the rain [pound]...and the waves rock and beat the ship like Elijah coming to haunt [him]” (377). This sense of haunting continues when Niska tries “to dream what he dreams” (363), seeing “[Xavier] running from something...Great fear. Turning to look. It is Elijah” (363).After murdering him, Xavier feels Elijah haunting him, making Xavier feel guilty and distressed. By breaking his morals and taking another person’s life, particularly that of his friend, Xavier is suffering from PTSD. He is therefore left mentally and emotionally scarred. He recognizes this when he says, “We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy” (326). He is saying how one has to fight the guilt of killing the enemy in addition to the physical fight they partake in. Such a traumatic life for somebody to live is no life at all and to be in such a state should be avoided. According to RAND’s study on PTSD, Invisible Wounds of War, 20% of veterans that served in Iraq and Afghanistan experience PTSD/depression. Furthermore, half of those affected seek treatment, of which only half are able to receive “minimally adequate” treatment. It is clear that killing has a severe effect on a human. They either suffer from PTSD, depression or they become something rather than someone, indiscernible from the person they used to be (Tanielian). Elijah and Xavier both have to kill during the war. However, Xavier handles his kills differently. He makes a conscious effort not to let it get out of hand. The night of the day [he kills his] first human...[Xavier prays] to Gitchi Manitou for many hours...thanking him that it was [him] who still breathed and not [the] enemy. Since that time [he is] able to shoot at other men and understand that what [he does] is for survival” (Boyden 224). However, Elijah begins to spiral out of control with his kills. He scalps his victims and keeps them with him as “trophies”. He gets to the point of having no remorse or emotional response to killing. He proudly recounts his experiences such as when he finds a group of Germans, “Three of them….[he] slit the throats of them so quickly that [he] surprised even [himself]” (230). Killing has become second nature to Elijah and more instinct than something he is forced to do. As a result, he has been overcome by the Windigo spirit, which is the main cause for Xavier killing him towards the end through strangulation, the way a Windigo is supposed to be killed. By allowing his morals and ethical beliefs to be lost through the war and violence, Elijah ultimately is no worse than a bloodthirsty cannibal, which is why he dies. Fear of losing one’s life is not the only time where irrational actions are made in order to survive. They can also be made to avoid harsh punishments such as impeachment, imprisonment, or court-martial. Often when steps are taken to avoid such punishments, the person already has broken their morals, and is therefore more likely to do so again. Elijah, in Three Day Road when under the threat of court martial, in the presence of Grey Eyes and Commander Breech, “reaches for his revolver and snaps open the holster [saying,] ‘jealousy is what prompts you to threaten to court-martial me for doing my job too well’” (340). Elijah has lost all moral sense and has therefore become more likely to continue down the path of acting irrationally for survival. Not only has he pulled a gun on Grey Eyes but he believes that he is in the right and that Grey Eyes is simply jealous. In reality, Elijah has become addicted to morphine and is killing the enemy in brutal ways, alone at night, both things which could get him court martialled. He later beats Grey Eyes to death with a club, then goes over to Breech and “swings the wood again and again, battering the little man’s head until the life has left him” (340), stating that “We have no other choice...I do not want to spend the rest of my life in one of their prisons” (340). Elijah has allowed himself to lose moral sense and is therefore acting out in ways that he previously would not have.This experience plays a major role in Xavier’s perception of Elijah, and therefore is one of the factors that leads Xavier to kill Elijah. Elijah’s death is a result of him becoming a monster that would kill just to stay out of trouble. Breaking of morals can also be on a much larger scale than simply killing 2 people in order to survive a situation. The infamous Watergate scandal under the Nixon administration exemplifies this perfectly. During Nixon’s reelection campaign, several burglars broke into the DNC office to plant bugs and steal documents in May 1972. However, when the bugs did not work properly, they returned on June 17, 1972 to fix them. They were caught and arrested during their second break in. Investigations, later showed that Nixon was behind the break ins and later took steps to cover up the failed attempt by raising money for burglars to keep quiet, stopping FBI from investigating, obstructing justice, destroying evidence and firing staff members who did not agree with him. As a result Nixon was about to be impeached, when he resigned from office, being to date the only president to do so (History.com). He went from being president to a common man. This loss of status as well as being regarded as a criminal by the public shows how Nixon, having lost his morals made him continue down that path in order to avoid being caught, which ultimately still led to him losing his place as president. In Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden creates conflicts and uses how characters handle these conflicts to portray that it is human nature to go beyond the morals one stands for and do anything in order to survive. However, even though these flexibility of morals allow one to make it through survival situations, they leave one scarred with horrible memories or leave them in a state where one is unable to think rationally and is better off having kept their morals. Flexibility of morals may be required when in a time of desperation for survival such as extreme hunger. War also can cause one to be affected severely, forcing soldiers into situations where they must choose whether to live and break morals or die keeping them. However, the possibility of death is not the only time where one could go against their ethical values for survival; they may also do so to avoid harsh repercussions such as imprisonment or impeachment. Therefore going back to the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin, it is clear that the last resort and therefore final evolution step for humans is going against what they themselves believe in to be able to survive. However, as stated by Bruce Lipton, this leaves humanity “without a moral compass”. The lack of this moral compass combined with the great extents to which one may go to survive, may leave them scarred, or even lead to their death or downfall. Therefore, before breaking the morals that a person holds so important above all, one should consider whether their life is worth the repercussions of no longer having morals.
... from previous experiences and bases future decisions on what they have experienced. When a person makes a decision that isn’t justified, they unknowingly change how they view future problems. If the decision has not been based in truth, it allows them a certain amount of unearned freedom to make wrong decisions, as opposed to when one make a proper decisions. It is crucial that every decision made is justified in order to keep their moral compass steady and to make the proper decisions when the choice is hard.
The morality is like a map to go through this world full of temptations. Moral choices are choices between what is really, objectively right and wha...
Morality is a culturally based idea of right and wrong. In The Road, due to the aftermath of the unspecified cataclysm, the land was left desolate and the survivors are desperate. The world no longer has any remnants of the past thus culture and ethics do not exist. As a result, the remaining majority trivializes the use of morals due to desperation and in an attempt to survive. However, the protagonists are able to find solace in the goodness of each other. They
...en when tough situations are presented to a person. Motivation from peers, educational leaders, or other members of society may help those that should learn to behave ethically, but the bottom line is following one’s inner code of ethics, which constitutes character.
"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," usually shortened to "the Origin of Species," is the full title of Charles Darwin's book, first published in 1859, in which Darwin formalized what we know today as the Theory of Evolution. Although Darwin is the most famous exponent of this theory, he was by no means the first person to suspect the workings of evolution. In fact, Charles owed a considerable debt to his grandfather Erasmus, a leading scientist and intellectual, who published a paper in 1794, calledZoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life. This set down many of the ideas that his grandson elaborated on 70 years later.
The main morals that separated the “good guys” from the “bad guys” was no eating other people, no stealing, no lying, always keep your promise, always help others, and never give up, always keep fighting. Throughout the novel these morals were tested or even broken in order to survive. The first instance of this was at the beginning of the novel when the man and his son encounter a man who has been struck by lightning on the edge of the road. Instead of doing the morally right thing and helping the lightning victim, the man and his son keep walking as if he wasn’t there. To the son this seemed cruel and unjust, but the father had different thoughts. He believed it to be a waste of time and supplies to aid a man in such a critical condition. In many other situations the man struggles to help others as well. This is primarily...
Different theories have been developed which relate to this theme of moral decay throughout history, even several centuries after Hesiod's life. This idea of evolutionary decay seems to corroborate with the widely received, contemporary theory of evolution, or Darwinism, brought forth through the designs and beliefs of Charles Darwin in which he states that, in nature, only the fittest creatures will survive ...
A modern reader might be surprised to find that travel writings of the 18th century, books intended for the general public, featured specific scientific terms and precise descriptions of landmarks, species and resources. But how did it happen that “sentiment, imagination, and the graces have been banished” (Voltaire, Letter to Cideville) from 18th century literature? In her article “Science, planetary consciousness, interiors” author Mary Louise Pratt argues that the change in travel writing in the 18th century promoted a new type of planetary consciousness, thus triggering a shift in European colonial policies. In her subsequent article “Narrating the anti-conquest”, she argues that as travel writing evolved, so did colonial policies and she exemplifies the process by an examination of four travel writers of the era to show how travel writing changed. Pratt suggests that writing shifted from survival literature, focusing on coastal regions (an observing eye), through strictly descriptive accounts of interiors (a scrutinizing eye), to writing about the ways in which things could be improved (an improving eye). Forty years after Pratt’s last example of 18th century anti-conquest writing was published, Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle came out of press. The ethos displayed by Darwinian his journal, however, diverged from the anti-conquest ethos as modified by Pratt. Therefore, a close reading of Darwin, one of the most prominent 19th century authors of travel writing, could be used to suggest in what direction 18th century travel writing evolved.
The moral standing of humanity differ with situation (Slim, Hugo 1997). Though they are very vital of humanity, they are prone to be broken any time. This makes human moral values weak and bond to be twisted by certain situations. This bring backs to the connection of The Road and how it presents the nature of the moral systems by the things that occur in the novel. It
Charles Darwin began his scientific breakthroughs and upcoming theories when he began an expedition trip to the Galapagos Islands of South America. While studying there, he discovered that each island had its own type of plant and animal species. Although these plants and animals were similar in appearance, they had other characteristics that made them differ from one another and seem to not appear as similar. Darwin questioned why these plants and animals were on these islands and why they are different in ways.
...in morality requires that your actions benefit others almost as much as yourself. Human nature makes this hard because an extension in morality generally requires a restriction of freedom. Society’s wide spread use of technology in our agricultural system exemplifies of how our culture disregards morality. The evolution of resistance to pesticides is also a concern because these pesticides negatively affect our bodies. Nevertheless, human progress is related to the needs of society, the implications of society’s wide use of technology, and the role of morality. However, there is evidence to suggest that the interplay between the three does not necessarily equate to human progress. Progress and a sustainable future are related when considering moral progress. Morality plays a key role in a sustainable future and yet is succumb to our culture’s wide use of technology.
Humans go to great lengths in order to survive. Mankind can be selfish, vicious, and even animalistic just to stay alive. All of these traits, unwanted in normal civilized life, become necessary when trying to endure certain conditions. When the human psyche is put into a survival situation, it represses human morality, and goes into an instinctual immoral and violent state necessary for survival.
Darwinism is the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. It is also called Darwinian Theory. In this theory he stated, all species of organisms arise and develop through natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
Only the fittest can survive in this world, Charles Darwin has discovered this fact in this earth. If someone can’t fit, its existence disappears by itself. It is the truth of living being and have been applied since they appeared. Today while I was out for lunch found one old woman, who seemed physically disable because her limbs were not moving properly, but she was pushing a heavy load in a trolley. I felt so sorry for finding on my way, but she is not only the one in this world whom I have met. Various elderly people are deprived for food and shelter but still working hard by themselves to survive. I encounter many bigger begging on the train or in the street having their proper limbs and with strong english speaking skills. But why those who have suffered a lot have been working hard just for survival? Many questions raised in my mind.
In Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, the author tries to convey to the audience that everybody is naturally dishonest and morally deceitful. Morals are defined by one's religion, the laws of the country, or some combination of the two. One's identity captures and plays out that individuals moral. My morals follow the Christian beliefs, Texas state laws, and the laws of the United States. Although one's own morals can change, basic things such as stealing and murder are wrong and illegal by federal law. Numerous characters performed many acts proving this point such as Montana Slim, who says in order to get money, follow a man down an alley and rob him, or Dean, who never feels remorse for beating Marylou after a fight. These along with other characters display such actions, which show that everyone is morally deceitful.