The Nature of Humans to Wage Wars - Assignment Example

Talking about two different texts on war. One should be a movie, another be a short story. The 1st paragraph should either your thesis or main idea or hypothesis or give a clear sign of what you are going to elaborate on argue about. Use the critical form of tsauma/ trauma theory or the theories of mourning and melancholia or any other critical framework. War is inevitable. The human being is probably the cruelest creature on this planet. He is the only one that gouges out its enemy’s eye to teach him a lesson. The so-called lower animals are better than humans because they kill only to feed their starvation not to get sadistic pleasure from torturing their prey. Cruelty and barbarism has nothing to do with education or modern civilization it is inherent in the nature of humans to wage wars. Regardless of how far back one goes into the pages of history, or analyzes the most recent wars, the similarities in human behavior are shocking. War stories of torture and bloodshed are as prevalent today as they were centuries ago. Education, civilization, technology hasn’t changed the human nature. Apparently the world hasn’t been educated enough to bring peace and harmony in over 20,000 years. It is as if wars are unavoidable and people can only prepare for them. Either be prepared to defend or wage war and be the oppressors. Any scholar, book on warfare, weaponry project wars in future. Humans fought over women, territory, natural resources, in future probably wars will be fought while stealing or defending water resources. There is already enough ammunition on Earth to kill its whole population over and over. Humans are apparently determined to destroy planet earth. The only known place in the cosmos that supports life. Human race is yet to develop technology for establishing colonies on the moon and Mars. The human population cannot afford a Third World War when countries are sitting on nuke missiles. Tremendous amount of literature and cinematic artwork represent wars in its true form. Brutality, barbarism, torture, revenge and punishment are all the same throughout the globe. Barbarism is specific to no country or nation. From Alexander the Great to the recent skirmishes in the Middle East, bloodshed and torture is the currency. War movie 300 (2007) directed by Zack Snyder is a fantastical exaggeration of battle at Sparta. Sparta was a suburb of Greece. Its soldiers defended their homeland against the massive army of the Persian Empire. Although the movie indulges audiences in fantastic details of warfare tactics, weaponry and heroism. But for this paper it is better to stick with the reasons behind this war. It is intrinsic nature of humans to dominate the world. Man starts his reign from his house, dominating his peers, friends, neighbors, life partners, then to work, business, religion and eventually to territory that expands to suburbs to cities to counties and finally to countries, governments and empires . The fear of the unknown pushes humans to safeguard themselves. Hence the ominous clouds of wars always surround human heads. On inevitability of war Herman Melville writes in his poem The Monitor’s Flight; “War shall yet be, and to the end; But war-paint shows streaks of weather” (Melville 70) In the name of defense humans commit oppression. Almost every time an oppression is cloaked in self-righteousness. After all it is much safer to kill the enemy than to wait for its attack. The best defense is the offense. The Godlike King of Persia, Xerxes had the burning desire to dominate the whole world. Probably he waged war in oppressive-defense against Greeks. The irony of human nature regarding war is that war is expected but durable peace is not. In writing about Greek history, Tim Cornell writes in his book War and Games (2002) that the Greeks remember the tenure of peace more than the war because peace was unusual (Cornell & Allen 32). Xerxes was under the impression that he was a god. His huge empire and his massive army were enough to compel him to take over the whole world. With his weapons and technology he thought that he was indestructible. His actions were also driven by self-righteousness, he wanted the whole world to bow down before him. According to him that would have brought peace and harmony to the world. This desire for world domination pushed Xerxes to bulldoze colonies. He killed people in streets, burnt crops, whatever came in his path he seized it. One imitates the thing that he fears most. Magicians imitate nature because they fear it. It is similar to telling someone ‘don’t kill me I’m like you’. The concept of god gives them a sense of superiority. It is out of pure fear to tell the source that they are a part of it. Probably for this reason the man has a desire to dominate and to be Godlike, to become part of nature. Xerxes waged his armies towards Sparta, a small suburb of ferocious warriors. The epic battle became a fantasy. It is a highly talked about battle in history which has gone to phenomenal success because of his fantastical nature. A small army of 300 men defended their homeland. Even though there is exaggeration in the number of people defending the territory but their heroism and their warfare skills are undoubtedly one of the best the Greeks had ever seen. King Leonidas was the one leading men ready sacrifice their lives for their homeland. The movie ignores a lot of factual aspects of the war. King Leonidas and his army were barbaric themselves. War was their only profession. They raised the best soldiers. They would marry to produce best soldiers. It shows the true nature of the humans. It is one thing to consider the Persian king as the bad guy and the Greeks the good guys but human nature is same on both sides. Wars and battles turn into heroic poems and stories when there is a good side and a bad one; good vs. evil setup never fails to inspire. There is an oppressor and there is the oppressed. The oppressed is fights back, representative the native mindset where a smaller force clashes with the bigger force in the hopes of defending its precious homeland. Mourning and melancholia are primary human emotions. Humans have the capacity of multiplying their grief. Grief is contagious, the more one ponders upon it, the more it expands and infects the environment. Nature shaped the human mind this way. The need to tell heroic epics and stories and make movies is not because they simply happened, it is because of the desire to be heroic. The adrenaline that flushes rationality and pushes people to wage wars. A battle is glorified more than anything in the world. The greatest amount of any national budget goes to its military forces in order to make their defense stronger, so they can make more weapons. Armies are bred also to avail any opportunity. This might be in the shape of weak enemy. This aspect of breeding armies is not advertised as it clashes with moral ethics. After all it sounds bad that a country needs to invade another for the natural resources than to sugarcoat it with plausible words like ‘saving democracy’ and ‘liberating people from oppression’. Wars attract not only soldiers or weapon sellers. Poets and romantics adore war and consider it divine. As mentioned earlier, wars are wages in the name of self-righteousness. The poem In Turret (1862) Herman Melville uplifts the soldier’s spirits right before going to battle; “Your honest heart of duty, Worden, So helped you that in fame you dwell; You bore the first iron battle’s burden Sealed as in a diving bell.” (Melville 55) War and melancholy (or grief) are integral parts of each other. One is not complete without the other. After WW I millions of Europeans communicated their shared grief and found their collective relief, this also included memorializing the deceased of war through cultural and religious rituals (Clewell 57). This form of melancholy is essential as it gives the victims of the deceased the courage to leave the dead bodies behind and move on. It is apparently evident that man has the defense mechanism in his body to deal with war trauma and grief. It is a part of his nature. Reference 300. Dir. Zack Snyder. By Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, and Michael B. Gordon. Prod. Gianni Nunnari, Mark Canton, Bernie Goldmann, and Jeffrey Silver. Perf. Gerard Butler and Lena Headey. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007. DVD. Cornell, Tim, and Thomas B. Allen. War and Games. San Marino, R.S.M.: Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress, 2002. Print. Clewell, Tammy. "Mourning beyond melancholia: Freud’s psychoanalysis of loss." Japa (2002): 43-67. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. . Melville, Herman, and Helen Vendler. Battle-pieces and Aspects of the War: Civil War Poems. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2001. Print. Read More