Words: 1941
Introduction: The plasticity of human is endlessly tremendous as a mystery. General speaking that human beings are filled with compassion but sometimes regard things with hatred; some people fire to each other whereas they declare that they are loyal believers for peace; and possibly humans are more capable for conflict than harmony. This essay is going to interpret that the human conflict, intervention and the issue about identifying good and evil, in order to unfold the statement that humans have a tremendous capacity for harmony and conflict, peace and war, compassion and hatred.
And it will be concerned with the conflict of Arabs and Israeli, the teaching of Christian and Buddhism, the case study of 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Stanford Prison Experiment and the abuse in Abu Ghraib, the biological viewpoint as evidence to demonstrate the statement. Human Conflict: Simon Laurence suggests that ‘conflict is inevitable’ while human beings get together in groups in a social way by any forms. And conflict engendered by obtaining necessary resources for ‘maintenance and reproduction of life’ from competition. Laurence R. Simon, pp136, 1998) It is omnipresent that a variety of conflict exists among humans. For example, in modern society, a teenager might be rejected to purchase a skateboard by his parents considering of that it would cause harm to him; a couple are arguing on the place they would like to travel for their 10th anniversary; group mates attempt to persuade each others to follow their individually different opinions… Obviously that conflict is unavoidable whenever and wherever humans exist on this planet.
Further more, according to Peter Koslowski’s argument, that human conflict are sometimes motivated by contrary or distinctive faith and declarations of various religions. In other words, appearing of conflict possibly symbolizes the “clash of religions”. (Koslowski P, pp1, 2001) Religion is the certain production with the development of human civilizations and it not only comforts its believers but also brings out of social ethics and morality. In practice, religions normally play a role in dominating humans’ thinking and even spirit.
Therefore it is acceptable to say that conflict is able to be caused by different religions of humans. For instance, most of Americans regard abortion as an illegal and inhumane action based on their Christian religion—life given by God, no one has right to take it over. However, for the Buddhists such as many Chinese, they believe in that humans would go through metempsychosis followed by death and even death can be as a kind of redemption. That probably for them, means abortion can be explained as a pathway for being reborn in the next coming new life.
Throughout of these, human conflict also can be relative to the different beliefs of religions. Indeed, with respect to the international conflicts over time, especially between Arabs and Israeli, it is going to point out that “prejudice” has been a causation of human conflict for long. Daniel Bar-Tal and Yona Teichman argue that acquisition and development of “prejudice” socially concerned within the “intractable conflict”. (Daniel Bar-Tal & Yona Teichman, pp2, 2005) The origin of conflict between Arabs and Israeli has been identified from the ‘Zionsism’ movement which organized by Jews to revive their nation and civilizations.
And the “prejudice” appeared on Jews back from the beginning of middle ages—over one thousand years, Jewish rebellion against Romans had been seen as heathenry and Christian-killers. After the large-scale anti-Jews waves and genocide, Jews were forced to be discriminated and isolated in the gutter called “Ghetto”. And with the declaration of independence of the Jewish state approved under the support of the United States, the state of Israel was established on May 14, 1948.
However, the partition of Arab homeland for Jewish became a factor of leading on the conflict has become more and more intractable among Arab, Israel and the United States. (Daniel Bar-Tal & Yona Teichman, pp101-106, 2005) Thus, throughout the effects of “prejudice” such as violence and genocide, it is acceptable to interpret that human conflict is capable to be formed by “prejudice”. Intervention: Human beings all live in this planet, every single one can be seen as separate individuals but also close linked.
Intervention might be voluntarily or involuntarily executed on people for any purposes by many sorts of forms such as wars. On 11th of September, 2001, the four commercial planes were hijacked and impinged against the World Trade Center in New York City, the United States. (Haulley F, pp4) And this terrorist attacks caused a disastrous tragedy which significantly frightens people all over the world. To analyze the causes of the terrorist attacks, it probably involves with the intervention of the United States on the political situations in Middle East.
As the conflicts between Arabs and Israeli mentioned above, the U. S. has been supporting Israel “diplomatically”, “economically” and “militarily” against Arabs for more than three decades since the 1967 Six Day War. More specifically, America continues to underwrite Israel the expense at a higher average rate than any other countries in the world, aiding in total over $100 billion in today’s American dollars over years. (Betts K. R & Caraley D, pp37, 2002) However, it is possible to say that without doubt the U. S. onstantly assists Israel based on its own attempt in depth. It seems that Israel has been a “chessman” controlled and a part of scheme for intervening Middle East by the U. S. since the day Israel established. As Demotrios Caraley points out, Arabs own the largest amount like the third of the world’s remained oil resource, the dominance of Israel on conflict with Arabs means the controlling of the oil resource by U. S. (Betts K. R & Caraley D, pp36-44, 2002) For the U. S. primacy, it seems to be necessary to intervene other countries such as Iraq for its demand.
Therefore, it is clear that intervention sometimes comes with the benefit attempt towards the 9/11 case. On the other hand, simply to observe the intervention to the U. S. from terrorists concerned with “aggression”. Aggression has been defined as any physical, mental or verbal behaviour intended to cause harm according to Campbell’s argument. And it is utilized as same as an extreme attack against particular objects in behavioral studies area and characterized by violence in social area. (Campbell A, pp2 & 3, 1998) Consequently, it is easier to analyse the 9/11terrorist attacks to the U.
S. across the concept of aggression. According to the two basis models of behaviour—“the drive discharge model” and “the culture pattern model”, aggression has been respectively viewed as innate tendency and surrounding culture -based production. (Grazia D. A. , pp761, 1976) With respect to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the violent intervention acted on the U. S. by Arabs terrorists more concerned in their social backgrounds as aggression behaviour acquired. The hatred of Arabs especially the extreme terrorists to the U. S. has been rooted since the U.
S. intervened the conflict of Israeli and them. And the 9/11 terrorists attacks to the U. S. apparently was in order to warn the U. S. from its intervention to Arabs and Israeli as purpose of achieving benefits of aggression. Thus, obviously that intervention sometimes is inevitable according to the aggression behaviour. Good vs. Evil: Normally, human beings have not only compassion on objects which is in pain and suffering but also hatred of enemies, evildoer or criminals. Yet it is definitely complex and difficult to classify good and evil.
The knowledge of good inseparably comes with the knowledge of evil in so many subtle resemblances. For Zimbardo, there is no unambiguous circumscription between good and evil which means that any good people might turn evil with unspeakable behaviour. And he defines it the “Lucifer Effect” towards his Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. During the experiment, he randomly chose college students to separately play the role of guards and prisoners in a simulative prison. And quickly the guards became extreme cruel leading on the experiment had to be stopped earlier than it expected. Zimbardo P, 2006) It seems that evil should be created and identified in any specific “systems” which is enabled by the “extraordinary and unique plasticity of human brain”. (The Sunday Times, 2007) That is, any kinds of good have capacity for consciously and unconsciously turning into evil possibly in the case of being influenced and reconstructed in the system. Moreover, it is also complex to identify the good and evil with regard to the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq toward the experiment above. General speaking that someone behaves extremely brutally on others can be described as evil.
In the case of the abuse to Iraqi by American and British troops in Abu Ghraib during Iraq War, a large numbers of people shocked on it and blamed the troops as evil. And Joseph Darby, the “extravagantly ordinary” man who sent the pictures of abuse to higher authorities was seen as hero. (The Sunday Times, 2007) Apparently, the classifying of good and evil sometimes just only based on its particularly situational background. And besides, from the biological point of view, is not that hard to realize the bad behaviour of human.
According to Darwin’s evolution, all humans take the winning genes based on natural selection. Richard Dawkins suggests that “the selfish gene” which are good survivors, even though that implies sometimes human might behave cruelly and brutally to make sure the successful reproduction of next generation. However, he also says that “genes don’t care about suffering, because they don’t care about anything”, that is, gene itself is not selfish or evil entities. (Davies P, 2000) Thus, acceptably it is hard to identify the good and evil across the viewpoint of biology.
Conclusion: In conclusion, with respect to conflict of Arabs and Israeli and the factor involved with religions, it is possible to say that human conflict is inevitable; and toward the case study of 9/11 terrorist attack, the intervention to others’ lives is sometimes really necessary for particular purposes; and finally, the example of the abuse in Abu Ghraib across the Stanford Prison Experiment and the biological point of view have clearly proof that it is complex and ambiguous to identify the good and evil.
Consequently, it is possible to identify that human have more capacity for conflict than harmony, war than peace, hatred than compassion. References: Laurence R. Simon, 1998: “The Politics of Experience and the Social Construction of Selves” in Psychology, Education, Gods, and Humanity. Greenwood Publishing Group. Pp136. Koslowski P, 2001: “Introduction” in the Concept of God, the Origin of the World, and the Image of the Human in the World Religions. Springer Published. Pp1. Daniel Bar-Tal & Yona Teichman, 2005: “General Overview” in Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: Representations of Arabs in Israeli Jewish Society.
Cambridge University Press, Pp 2 & 101-106. Haulley F, 2005: “Introduction” in Critical Perspectives on 9/11. The Rosen Publishing Group. Pp4. Betts K. R & Caraley D, 2002: “the Soft Underbelly of American Primacy: Tactical Advantages of Terror” in September 11, Terrorist Attacks, and U. S. Foreign Policy. Academy of Political Science published. Pp 36-44. Campbell A, 1998: “Altruism and Aggression-What Are They? ” in Altruism and Aggression. Blackwell Publishing. Pp 2 & 3. Grazia D. A. , 1976, the American Behavioral Scientist.
Beverly Hills, Calif. : Sage Publications published. Pp761. Zimbardo,P. (2007),The Lucifer Effect,Available from: http://www. lucifereffect. org/ “Don’t kid yourself, we can all be evil” The Sunday Times, published on April 8, 2007, Available from: http://www. timesonline. co. uk/tol/news/uk/article1625713. ece Davies P, 2000. “Good and Evil: Reshaping our Moral Universe”, Published in the Times Higher Education Supplement, UK, in February 2000 Available from: http://www. metanexus. net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/2587/Default. asp