People go to war because there is something to protect or defend--ideas, people, their own lives--but what really is war? It has no limitations despite efforts to create them. It is a conflict humans engage in against one another, however not by nature but rather by choice. Those who fight in it carry deep emotional and physical scars from fighting for the rest of their lives. Ultimately, war is all-powerful. In all its existence, war has affected the entirety of nations that are involved in it. In Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech “A Just and Lasting Peace,” he discussed the various aspects of war and the consequences of it on the nation as a whole. He acknowledged the concept of “just war” where war is justified “if it is waged
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This is how it began--as a conscious human decision--and how it continues to occur. Margaret Mead is best known for her studies of primitive peoples and complex contemporary cultures. In her essay “Warfare Is Only An Invention--Not a Biological Necessity,” she discusses the debate of whether war is a biological necessity, sociological inevitability, or just a bad human invention. In her argument she explains how the Eskimos “are men faced with hunger, men faced with loss of their wives, men faced with the threat of extermination by other men” and “orphan children, growing up miserably with no one to care for them, mocked and neglected by those about them” where “The personality necessary for war, the circumstances necessary to goad men to desperation are present, but there is no war,” (2). Mead builds up to this last statement by listing the brutal challenges the Eskimos face, yet concluding that they still do not result to war. They live as proof that a society can survive without war because the Eskimos continue to live in an environment where the idea of warfare is not even comprehended. Others may argue that the Eskimos do not grasp the concept of war because their society is so underdeveloped and they do not need war in their nomadic-like lifestyle. However, underdeveloped societies such as the pygmy peoples of the Andaman Islands and the Australian aborigines do go to war (Mead 2). The Eskimos could invent their own style of war if they …show more content…
By being out in the battles soldiers are both physically and mentally affected in traumatizing ways. Rick Loomis is a Times staff photojournalist who went into various battles to show what it is like to be in those situations through his photography. In his piece “Imagine Dying,” he explains his experience at war through the words that his photographs could not capture. Detailing his thoughts throughout the experience, Loomis clearly remembered the feeling where “It was just that moment--when [he] felt most secure--that all hell broke loose,” (2). War can create an illusion where even when you feel safe in it, you are not. Everything is always worse than it seems. Later he recalls his first time being shot while he was in Afghanistan, and how “[he] took it personally that someone would shoot at [him] without even getting to know [him],” (5). Loomis makes it evident that he has experienced many battles and shootings since this first shot, but he mentions this initial innocence in war to show how it changed him. When he was first hit he felt the emotional affects of being shot, wondering how someone could do that to a person they do not even know, but eventually the brutality of war stripped that innocent thought away from him. In The Thing They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Tim tells many stories that encompass the change he witnessed in himself and fellow soldiers at war. One of his friends, Norman Bowker, had killed himself
This is how it began--as a conscious human decision--and how it continues to occur. Margaret Mead is best known for her studies of primitive peoples and complex contemporary cultures. In her essay “Warfare Is Only An Invention--Not a Biological Necessity,” she discusses the debate of whether war is a biological necessity, sociological inevitability, or just a bad human invention. In her argument she explains how the Eskimos “are men faced with hunger, men faced with loss of their wives, men faced with the threat of extermination by other men” and “orphan children, growing up miserably with no one to care for them, mocked and neglected by those about them” where “The personality necessary for war, the circumstances necessary to goad men to desperation are present, but there is no war,” (2). Mead builds up to this last statement by listing the brutal challenges the Eskimos face, yet concluding that they still do not result to war. They live as proof that a society can survive without war because the Eskimos continue to live in an environment where the idea of warfare is not even comprehended. Others may argue that the Eskimos do not grasp the concept of war because their society is so underdeveloped and they do not need war in their nomadic-like lifestyle. However, underdeveloped societies such as the pygmy peoples of the Andaman Islands and the Australian aborigines do go to war (Mead 2). The Eskimos could invent their own style of war if they …show more content…
By being out in the battles soldiers are both physically and mentally affected in traumatizing ways. Rick Loomis is a Times staff photojournalist who went into various battles to show what it is like to be in those situations through his photography. In his piece “Imagine Dying,” he explains his experience at war through the words that his photographs could not capture. Detailing his thoughts throughout the experience, Loomis clearly remembered the feeling where “It was just that moment--when [he] felt most secure--that all hell broke loose,” (2). War can create an illusion where even when you feel safe in it, you are not. Everything is always worse than it seems. Later he recalls his first time being shot while he was in Afghanistan, and how “[he] took it personally that someone would shoot at [him] without even getting to know [him],” (5). Loomis makes it evident that he has experienced many battles and shootings since this first shot, but he mentions this initial innocence in war to show how it changed him. When he was first hit he felt the emotional affects of being shot, wondering how someone could do that to a person they do not even know, but eventually the brutality of war stripped that innocent thought away from him. In The Thing They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Tim tells many stories that encompass the change he witnessed in himself and fellow soldiers at war. One of his friends, Norman Bowker, had killed himself