Deadly Myths of Aggression

Posted: December 2nd, 2013

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Deadly Myths of Aggression

            Carolyn Nordstrom in “Deadly Myths of Aggression” posits that aggression in war has been misinterpreted by media reports thus giving the world different perception of war instead of giving the true picture of war. Media portrays war as a situation where people are intent on killing each other and forget that people have the capacity for maintaining peace. The issue brought forward by Carolyn Nordstrom is the fact that despite war, people are drawn to maintaining peace. This is something that has been ignored my media outlets. The concept of war is always accompanied by images of armed individuals ready to purge and destroy. However, the media forget the people who suffer in the war. It is true that more women and children die in war than soldiers do. Carolyn Nordstrom justifies the aggression seen in political uprisings. The people have been pushed to live like animals, it is only expected that they will show their aggression by protesting and making known what war has made them lose.

One important thing that has been brought out in the article is the fact that humans have a biological inhibition toward harming another individual. However, this factor has been ignored and claims of war and aggression being human nature have bee put forth instead. The problem is that people do not recognize their ability to be compassionate and recognize that sanctity of human life. This has been brought about by what is being presented on the media. It is also necessary to point out that war is neither exciting nor pleasant. The horrors of war are more than one person should ever bear to witness. The death of a family by the hands of a military soldier is not satisfying and goes again human nature. Carolyn Nordstrom’s essay is aimed at ensuring that people change their perception of war and instead understand the cruelty of war. It is important that before the option of war has been explored, peace should be negotiated.

The Difficulty of Imagining Other Persons

Elaine Scarry in “The Difficulty of Imagining Other People” present important insights with regard to violence especially toward strangers or foreigners. She argues that people’s attitudes toward other people are dependent on how they view others. Scarry especially argues that the possibility of injuring someone will depend on the extent to which we recognize the person. Therefore, the key to avoiding violence on foreigners is pegged on a person’s ability to view people more instinctively, completely and generously. The other is by ensuring that constitutional and legal modifications are designed to eradicate the “foreign” status o individuals by offering citizenship to aliens.

People have always believed that human imagination as a powerful ability. Elaine Scarry disagrees and claims that it is actually very weak. It is difficult to maintain the memory of a friend unless they are there. If human imagination is that weak with regard to someone they know, it is right to conclude that imagining a stranger will be very difficult especially if these strangers are many. In this sense, human capacity to injure another person is more than he capacity to imagine a stranger as worthy of compassion remorse.

It may be difficult to improve people perception toward strangers in an effort to reduce violence toward them. However, there is another option that could be explored to ensure that this is possible. Instead of viewing other people as being unreal or, it is important that people try to view themselves in an abstract sense so that this abstraction is aligned to how they view strangers. The point of this is that, if violence is because of viewing people as being less real, then the answer is to ensure that people view themselves as being equally unreal. In short, people should view others as they view themselves.