Violence, Surveillance & Power - Assignment Example

Government train its men to kill, albeit emotionally. This ment can be said to be true in relation to the events that occur in the film “Full Metal Jacket”. In the film, we are taken through a series of preparations that soldiers go through before they go for Vietnam War. The Marine Corps are driven in a series of tough training regime, which is brutal and sometimes may be referred to as inhuman. Logically, this kind of training is meant to ensure the soldiers feel the sense and urge to emotionally revenge against anyone who wrongs them.

This kind of training installs soldier with the capacity or ability to effectively do something in a particular way or influence the behavior of others. The training gives the soldiers the mentality to control, conduct surveillance, and cause crisis which leads to violence. The society is framed in such a way that male species are considered dominant over their female counterparts, possessing the ability to kill, albeit emotionally. Even with revolutions caused by modernity and feminist unions, the aspect of male dominance still exists today.

Men are trained to kill psychologically, by exerting emotional intimidation to their subject. Violence is a form of expressing dominance over weaker subjects, which may cut across the gender line. This is why government focuses on putting soldiers in extremely difficult situation to revenge, by exerting his presence just by just the way they conduct their business. The society is always watching out, and this controls behavior. As O’Brien observes in “Speaking of Courage”, men can use intimidation; either through imposing silence on what he feels is not pleasing him or threatening the speaker.

Although killing physically is what is considered real killing, the emotional killing men have been trained to adopt has become their trademark. However, it is not always the best solution to exert power because it is only temporary. Examples of those exercising violence are dictators who feel they must force subjects to comply with their decisions. Violence is exercised and not possessed. Most men have abused their superiority over women and violated women’s rights. Females, on the other hand exercise emotional and mental violence to assert their prowess over men.

However, this is not as devastating as emotional violence is to men.When the government trains its soldiers to go to the battlefield, images of combat gears is enough to kill the fearful individuals. In the film Full Metal Jacket, a soldier is wearing “Born to Kill” helmet, which does not necessarily mean the actual killing but emotional killing. In this film, there are also inexperienced soldiers too. However, their inexperience does not count as long as the opponents have believed that they are stronger.

This kind of psychological game is what keeps the soldiers, experienced and inexperienced in the battle field despite the inherent adversities. On the other hand, women are known to be nurturing, thus are expected to neutralize men’s naturalized mentality of violence, as presented by O’Brien. They do not have the metallic heart that men possess, for that would mean no existence as far as bringing up another generation of people is concerned. In a nutshell, this explains why men are trained to kill emotionally, while women protect and nurture.

Nurturing is emotional too, thus the two aspects of training can go hand in hand.