“Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has
methods more subtle than death” Andre Gide. “What does this quote mean?” you
may ask. I believe that this means that we a s people of American and other
societies, know how easy it is to kill a certain person. All it takes is either
one pull of a trigger, or one swing of a knife or sword, the list just goes on
and on. But I feel that most people know that murdering another human being is
just about the most cruel and unforgiveable thing you could ever do. Just the
way some people are, they think that it is ok to kill people for their own
gain, or sometimes in a more cruel and disgusting way like for their own
personal pleasure. And because of these people, there are more and more ways
being thought of and tried out on innocent people on how they can die due to
certain physical, or even something as specific as like torturing someone by
pulling their hair out and having them die due to the pain.
“If we can’t separate our civilized self from our savage
self, which will take over and why” I believe that it would vary from person to
person. Some people are actually quite smarter than others, and I feel that the
smarter you are, the more likely you will be able to survive in a more
civilized manner. People who might not be as mentally equipped as others, might
tend to become more barbaric, ways such as war paints, rituals, ritualistic
dancing, or other things of that manner to survive. Like in the book, the boys
who were smarter and more “grown up”, tended to be the ones who acted more
civilized, the younger boys and the ones that may not have been so smart,
drifted towards more of a savage type of lifestyle.
So do you think that society can "kill a man by holding them down as humans?" Can a society kill a person's spirit to the point they give up?
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that intellectual ability dictates civilizations. An interesting concept would be to study young people and their intellectual capabilities and see how the lack of civilization would lead to a person's lifestyle. Would they tend to become savages with no model to follow or would they organize and become civilized to survive. I think the intellectuals would organize and the others would become savages. I think the side young people would choose would maybe be because of biological and physical differences also. The more dominant personalities and physically gifted kids would tend to be more savage than the inferior and submissive kids (less dominant personality) may become more civilized. Interesting concept if you ask me.