The Iliad or the Poem of Force - Essay Example

The Iliad or the Poem of Force ID Number: of School Word count = 395 Not a few people are of the mistaken belief that the Iliad is primarily a story about a group of glorious people in the pantheons of Greek mythology. In this story, we hear of the more famous characters of Achilles, Agamemnon, Hector, etc. and so the general impression is the Iliad is a story about people. However, the epiphany of Weil was that Iliad is actually a story of force (both physical and psychological force) as used in conflicts between people.

It is not a story of people but how force is being used to subjugate other people and cow them. Many people were mistaken on this aspect of the story and therefore failed to focus on a real moral lesson which is how force is the big determinant among people's relationships. It has a power to influence people and shape the course of events in history as well. Her insights into Iliad had forced people to think again of the real story in terms of a force that de-humanizes people, both of the protagonists in any conflict.

The psychological and the emotional effects of the use of force scars the people who use force to intimidate the other people as well as the recipients or victims of the force being applied. It can intoxicate or numb the people who have the power to use force because it blinds them to its ill effects. War can never be justified, even those so-called pre-emptive wars designed to prevent further wars by striking at the enemy first and therefore spare the populace of a wider conflagration. It can be seen in the after-effects of so many wars in which soldiers return home like zombies.

They stop caring and thinking; soon, they engage in self-hatred (Bell, 1998, p. 186). From her point of view, there are no winners in a war no matter how this is justified. She had expressed this perspective in her numerous writings stating the futility and brutality of wars (Bell, 1993, p. 149). Leaders who prosecute war in turn become numb with their exercise of force to achieve their aims and they become unreasonable and refused to listen to pleas and entreaties for pity and kindness; leaders who do not exercise restraint become monsters.

Both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had deadened the soldiers fighting those enemies out there. References Bell, R. H. (1993). Simone Weil's philosophy of culture: readings toward a divine humanity. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. Bell, R. H. (1998). Simone Weil: the way of justice as compassion. Lanhan, MD, USA: Rowman and Littefield Publishers, Inc.