For some reason, while most American students seem to have been taught LotF at some point in their academic career, some of them evidently think it’s a case study… or something. LotF no more shows us anything about the nature of children, violence, society, etc, than Lord of the Rings demonstrates how useful ancient crazed midgets can be in curing addiction.
If LotF demonstrates how “violence begets violence” then Atlas Shrugged proves the lethal perils of not embracing Objectivism. Fair’s fair, after all.
And some of us who read depressing shit for fun use it half-jokingly to illustrate a point about our personal ideology. And then provide a citation to one of the most well-respected academic works in the field of psychology, regarding the nature of human aggressive behavior. YMMV.
Violence begets violence is a matter of fact. It’s a sad, viscous cycle.
Lord of the Flies is an incredible work of fiction, despite the unlikely circumstances, I find it a solid introspection on primal, underdeveloped human behavior if it goes unchecked. To take away no moral or allegory whatsoever from this tale is to be either impossibly cynical or empty inside. It may not be an actual documented case-study, but who can argue the character’s actions weren’t at least believable for the most part, considering their context?
It’s funny, because I didn’t see Bin Laden’s execution as an act of violence per say, but rather a necessary action of justice and eradication to a promoter of violence and a prolific, successful leader of terrorism.
No one can tell if this will save more lives, or spawn more deaths in the long-run, but it was the only call to make, in the hopes that terrorism will fade over time.
That’s the pragmatic view. Emotionally, I’m not sad to see him get his just desserts. There are people who are a direct threat as well as a display of tyranny to humanity at large. Not only to those they unjustly murdered, but to those they indoctrinate. These people need to be stopped. Period. And if they won’t relent, they must be executed. Osama was one of them, in a long line that stretches back into world history, and will continue into the foreseeable future. It may be unpalatable to some, even despised, but what’s the alternative?
The only realistic expectation IMHO, is to mitigate unwarranted violence, since it’s a trait that tends to be hardwired in a sufficient amount of people on a fundamental level. Combine that with bigoted religious extremism, and you have a monster that simply cannot be reasoned with.
Any sane person would want the killing to stop (of course!) and live in eternal peace and coexistence… yet, slaughtering, murder and violence are only symptoms. For it to truly ever stop, you need a cure for the emotion of hate and a perfect method to apply it to the entire population, and their progeny. I can’t see that happening in a very long time, if ever.
Again, for sure violence begets violence… and eventually someone will take the higher ground, cut their losses and call a truce… But then, someone, somewhere will start it all over again.
No, it’s not. It’s a drastically overly simplified at best and fictional nonsense at worst. Just how much violence did we cause, exactly, by ending WW II? We seen lots of Japanese or German suicide bombers, recently? And what would have been the cost of not getting involved and simply letting Hitler dominate Europe and Japan dominate Asia? Would the legions of Comfort Women be happy with you that your pat “violence begets violence” mantra was not put into effect?
No, it’s not an incredible work of fiction. And if you really think that a fictional world where the author controls the thoughts, actions, and words of his characters, the physical reality they find themselves in and the law of physics and anatomy themselves to boot… tells us anything other than what the author’s views are, you’re sadly deluded. There’s a reason that it’s a work of fiction. Most adults understand that about Star Wars but their brains go a bit stupid when Lord of the Flies is at issue.
Or, ya know, someone who can’t tell fiction from reality and doesn’t grok what “fiction” means and how it differs from a valid scientific study. Unless of course you’re prepared to join John Galt in going on strike, yes?
Well hell, then we’re through the looking glass (great factual work by the way on the dangers of jabberwockies), when you’re not only championing fiction and an untrue ‘truism’, but also claiming that sending a SEAL team into a building and engaging in a gunfight for 40 minutes which leaves several people dead… is not violence.
At which point if the person who’s killing them doesn’t feel like stopping, they just get wiped out. Remind me, if you will, how well did the Jewish truce with Hitler work during WWII? We should’ve all avoided that nasty “violence begets violence” cycle, right?
I’m not sure that is helpful. If anything, our perspective on Nazi Germany should warn us against any move towards a de-humanising and objectification of people generally or “a people” specifically.
And no, before anyone thinks otherwise, I am not suggesting an equivalence or a slippery slope here.
What it really shows is that sometimes you need to fight like hell in order to achieve peace, and pablum about how “violence begets violence” works fine in works of fiction but can hobble our actual actions in real life. Germany is now a civilized nation and Japan has a national aversion to warfare. Had we not acted, pacifism would have begot violence and Europe would still be controlled by the thousand year Reich and the people of Asia would still be brutalized by the Japanese.
Nobody, well, nobody except you, has suggested that we shouldn’t have fought WW2. In fact, I think the only points made about Bin Laden’s death are that it was a) necessary, and b) unfortunate that it was necessary, and c) not going to fix anything that’s already happened, and d) making a big deal about it doesn’t serve our long term interests.
WW2 is an interesting example, since we didn’t want to do it, until we saw it was necessary- then we did it as quickly as we could, didn’t make a big deal about it, but rather shut the fuck up and helped the former Axis rebuild their countries as our democratic allies.
“Violence begets violence” is a simplified generalization, but can certainly true. Look at gang members for an example. If you would stop cherry-picking my post**, you’d be able to tell I’m critical of the VbV concept as well. It’s a viscous cycle, which if stopped, can result in many outcomes. Sometimes positive, sometime catastrophic. My main point, since you completely missed it, is that unwarranted violence is a symptom of hate itself. Hate isn’t going anywhere for a long, long time. So, sit the fuck down, keep your hands and legs in the vehicle at all times, and buckle up. This world is one fucked up ride.
And sure, on the face of it, the execution of Osama (et al), was an incredibly violent event. Big fucking surprise if I were to snipe 100 people from a clock tower, resist arrest, then get shot in the head for shooting at the police… Everyone would be relieved. Yet, if I still killed the 100 people + cops, yet made it out alive, then went into hiding for 10 years… until authorities finally found me, I resisted arrest, then started taking shots at the police, all the sudden is it a circumstance of “violence and when will the killing stop?”. No. Justice, prudence and protocol takes precedent, taking the form of violence by force of hand. I fail to see a fundamental difference here.
NOW…
As for LotF, you’re an idiot. I already admitted it’s a work of fiction, and your cynicism and arrogance is getting in the way of conceding that well constructed allegories have the power to enlighten and even sway ignorant opinions and viewpoints, and even change the course of society/humanity on the whole. It affected myself and many, many others because it’s a work of fiction; I’m listening to what the author is trying to say; learning from its lessons. You’re so fascinatingly dense on this matter I can’t believe myself and others have to actually lay this out for you. Bringing up Star Wars or Transformers 2 is just intensifying your already blindingly obtuse argument here. How about these works of fiction: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Oliver Twist, Ulysses, The Republic, Nineteen-Eighty-Four, The Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse-Five… just to name a few.
If you can explain to me how books such as these had absolutely zero effect in inspiring ideals on humanity at large, influencing the ideals of leaders across the globe, and in some cases even inspiring a historically monumental movement against injustice and furthering humanitarianism, then I will concede that Lord of the Flies is a trivial book of only novel value, no more interesting than watching an episode of Family Matters. Or maybe we can just burn it.
Fiction can be wielded with profound power, sometimes far more effective than an M-16. Shame on you for overlooking that.
To end, I thoroughly understand the difference between fiction and scientific study – to my benefit – clearly you do not.
In fact, I directly responded to the claim that “Again, for sure violence begets violence… and eventually someone will take the higher ground, cut their losses and call a truce”, among other similar bits of pablum.
Besides the (rather obvious) logical flaw in the whole “violence begets violence” nonsense whereby if some uses of violence are both justified and necessary, then we’re no longer left with a guiding principle, flawed as it is. Instead we’re left with a serving suggestion.
I’m glad that the arguments keep getting more and more absurd. Now we’ve actually got the claim that once we won WWII, we “didn’t make a big deal about it.”
If you’d just put oil in the crankcase instead of letting it drip all over, the cycle wouldn’t get so viscous and you’d be able to keep on riding longer.
No, it’s not. And it’s not exactly for the reasons I demonstrated. Pretending that a refutation of your claims was “cherry picking” doesn’t change the fact that your claim isn’t just a simplified generalization, but is often simply factually wrong. *Sometimes violence begets peace. *
Little hole in your theory.
Refuting your point is not ignoring it. I know you’d prefer I acted as if you’d made a cogent, coherent argument. But you didn’t, so I didn’t.* If violence can sometimes have beneficial consequences, and sometimes bad ones, and pacifism can sometimes have beneficial consequences, and sometimes bad ones, then you don’t have a principle. You have pablum. *
This is because you’re advancing a principle that’s shit. Not only is it pablum, but you’re also including caveats big enough to drive a truck through. So the argument is that violence is wrong and leads to bad things, except when it leads to good things. And pacifism is good and leads to good things, except when it leads to bad things. And violence is sometimes violence, except when prudence and protocol are in effect, then it’s not violence.
Ramping up your stupidity does not solve your core problem, I’m afraid. Nor is crying about how showing your stupidity is really 'arrogance" or “cynicism” an effective logical rebuttal. You are evidently too dense to understand what it means when something is a work of fiction. This is something we expect children to have mastered long before they reach your age. The ignorant opinion and viewpoint, as demonstrated, is yours. And you are using a work of fiction to buttress it.
There’s nothing for me to “concede”. You’re stupid, and also wrong. Calling fiction “allegory” doesn’t suddenly make its claims true, logical, or compelling. Or are you joining John Galt after all? You’re not, are you?
This is because you are stupid.* The only “lesson” contained is “This is what William Golding thought about human nature”. It only tells us about William Golding, and of course those people who think that William Golding’s opinions show us something about external reality. You seem totally unaware of the distinction between scientific studies that aim at getting at human nature,* and a work of fiction*. That you may’ve had your life changed by it is a comment on you, not the veracity of the novel’s thematic elements, just like Randroids don’t prove that Objectivism is gospel. That you think that Lord of the Flies is any different from Star Wars simply shows you’ve fetishized a novel you like and you’re handwaving away other ones. Atlas Shrugged is fiction, it doesn’t actually prove what the ideal society is like. Star War is fiction, it doesn’t actually prove that there is a unified force that binds us all together and anger, fear, etc… are always bad. Lord of the flies is fiction, it doesn’t actually prove what human nature is or what the quintessence of violence is in the myriad of potential combinations of interpersonal and global conflict. Naming a bunch of other novels that express the author’s views but do not prove anything beyond that just shows you’re evidently stuck in some sort of arrested development where you can’t tell the difference between made up stories, and reality.
Your reliance on the bandwagon fallacy and babble about how a book has influenced people is a tacit admission that you have got nothing. The Turner Diaries is also an allegory that’s influenced a bunch of folks. That doesn’t mean anything about the truth value of its themes, either. Of course, folks will realize you trying to shift the goalposts from “the claims LotF makes about human nature and violence have some sort of utility when analyzing events” to “Well… a lot of people like LotF and have been influenced by it!”
Like I said, you are evidently both stupid and strident, which is always a shitty combination. Few things are quite as aggravating as an idiot who’s just* sure* that he’s right.
I don’t think that particular operation was one of Israel’s shining moments. I would call it badass if it were a videogame, but running around assassinating people all over the world is a bit extreme…especially when you are assassinating the wrong people.
Yeah, I don’t feel much anymore either. I think the patriotic displays and the “expressions of bloodlust” would have been quite a bit more prevalent had there not been 10 years elapsed between 9/11 and Osama’s killing.
In fact, I have to say: I think this thread is bullshit. Most Americans I know and that I have seen and/or spoken to about this are more low key about this whole affair. Its more of a “We got him! Good.” type of attitude rather than the “Amuricuh, fuck yeah!” one.
I don’t think you’ll see wanton bloodlust at ground zero when Obama visits, either. I think most Americans are reflecting on this as a more somber occasion because the death of the 9/11 mastermind, while good and all that, is reminding people of the events of 9/11, re-opening old wounds for lost loved ones and presenting a form of closure.
I just am not seeing this dancing on graves the OP is going on about. Sure, there was a little of that right after the operation’s success was announced, but what of it? There’s well over 300,000,000 million people that live in this country…who can account for all their actions or feelings? Let them eat their cake, the relative few that expressed themselves that way. All that celebratory shit is already over now anyway.
I got shit to do, so I’ll make this fast and plain:
Violence is a “tool.” Warranted or unwarranted. Like a hammer, it can be used to build a house, or bash someone’s brains in; as in the fictional movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the hominid uses a bone to kill his prey feeding himself and his family, or bash the living fuck out of the other warring tribe members.
Oh, I’m so sorry to have alluded to a piece of fiction, clearly there’s no value in that, as it’s merely only Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark’s opinion. So, I submit to your superior intellect by offering scientific metaphors based in reality: Nuclear fission, use it to power a city or construct a weapon; Cyanide, use it to aid in mining of gold or to poison people; Your hands, use it to do constructive things such as tying your shoe laces, wiping your ass, and helping others – or use them to strangle the fuck out of someone you hate.
Note that the Russians collected Hitler’s cremains and also managed to avoid putting them in Red Square for gawking. Class act, them Russkies, especially considering the 23 million deaths Hitler had caused.
On a serious note, I was interested to read that Andropov had the remains reburned and the ashes scattered in the river. Apparently this is now SOP.
Yep. I couldn’t agree more. If you’re getting your impression of the “american public” from news sources, well, you’re only going to see the obnoxious, zealous uncouth… Not much news in the other 99% of Americans who merely expressed their surprise at first, discussed it with friends and family for a bit that night/the following day, and then moved on with a sense of closure on this issue. When 9/11 occurred, I was rapt with horror and awe for weeks. It set a very somber mood on me and almost everyone I know unlike anything I’d ever experienced at the time (and since… I was 28 then), which made usual everyday things seem trivial, and even joking about anything felt inappropriate. Indeed, it took months for things to neutralize as the nation was recovering from an incredible blow. I still find it difficult to watch footage of the towers falling… and avoid most tributes, memorials or any topic on the matter. Still too depressing, and I remember it all so vividly still.
This, however, was a very fleeting thing. I don’t feel any real satisfaction in his death, but do feel like a gaping, open loose end has finally been closed on the entire ordeal.
That’s the point. Pablum about how “violence begets violence” does us no good in analyzing reality, especially in circumstances where violence is an appropriate response.