Clash of the Titans

Disclaimer: This message was not meant offend or condemn anyone or their beliefs.

     Ex·trem·ist  n. One who advocates or resorts to measures beyond the norm, especially in politics and religion. The Puritans of early America, while commended for their ethics and values, were intolerant towards almost all other people. Native Americans, unconverted men, and slaves were all unworthy to the Puritans. In fact, they moved to foreign, uncharted land just to get away from the members of the English Church. The Puritans were, in many senses of the word, extremists.
      Today, there are many more extremist groups. Groups like the Al Qaeda and West Borough Church go to extreme tactics to get their message across. Some are even willing to kill for their cause. And we can wonder, how does it get so far? Just imagine being so involved in a movement that you're willing to die for it, because you believe in it that much. You hear about it on the news: the tragic events, the plans for preventative action, the failures, the deaths. But it seems, no matter how many  people are caught or how many single events are stopped, too many people are still found dead. For every man that is stopped, there is a new man who joins the cause. So maybe instead of trimming the leaves we should uproot the whole tree. Its not the people, its the idea. And the one thing all of these groups have in common: religion.
     Don't get me wrong, religion can be a good thing. God gives people hope. Everyone needs something to fear, to believe, to love, and to respect. Sometimes religion is the only source of hope, faith, and sustenance in a world that has a habit of beating people down. Without structured religion, our world would not have evolved into the thriving, global society we have today.
     But religion is extreme. It's an ancient theory in a modern world. It's asking you to believe whole heartedly in a concept that has absolutely no proof or conclusive evidence. And somewhere along the line, somebody figured out that this abstract concept could be twisted to fit the mold of any new deranged idea. Maybe some do believe that their god wanted them to kill other human beings. Maybe they do feel justified in hating others on the sole basis of who those people are. Or maybe not. Maybe they were driven to it by conditions like poverty, starvation, and oppression. Maybe they do know what they're doing is wrong and they knowingly use religion as a cover for their actions.
     The real problem isn't religion, it's that we aren't allowed to question it. Our global society has made religion untouchable. No one can draw attention to the problem without being heavily criticized and inviting conflict upon themselves. Religion has become a war. One nation cannot question an aspect of a religion without it being considered an attack on the whole faith. It's a fight where questioning a viewpoint becomes an attack on all of its people. It's a battle between right and wrong, but no one seems to understand that there are no winners. There is no right and wrong.
 

I Am My Mother's Daughter

     Our history is a part of who we are. Our customs shape our beliefs, our beliefs shape our choices, and our choices ultimately define us. We use our roots to grow into who we become. But when the roots are ripped out, the tree falls over. The Native Americans in the United States have been battered, bruised, and removed, but they ultimately lost when they were stripped of their culture. What is left is a shell of the proud and remarkable people they once were.
     There is a Kikongo (African tribe) proverb saying, "One can only steal a sleeping baby: once awake, she will look for her parents." This depicts the instinctive pull of heritage. We have an inborn curiosity in our origins, the quest we share for self identification and self knowledge. This proverb was acknowledging the African American slaves in the United States. Another people uprooted from their culture and left to find their own path, the difference is that African Americans were given a new beginning and a new environment to adapt to. They weren't shipped back to Africa and left to survive with a fragmented culture. Africans had a choice, they could go back to Africa and find their culture or they could move forward in America and create their culture.

     Native Americans were not so lucky. The reservations are a constant reminder of their failure as a proud, warring people. While they have their Indian community, they have little else. The land they own is not their ancestral land and the stories they tell aren't believed the same way. The US cavalry may have taken their land but the missionaries did the real damage by taking away their culture. They have no where to move back to and cannot move forward in the society the government has created for them. Alexie, a Native American author notes this as he talks about his classmates, "The bright students are frightened...they don't know what comes next...[so] they look back toward tradition," (Alexie 180). The reservations, seen as a way to compensate the Native American population, leaves them trapped in the same depressing cycle. One Indian blogger notes,"Our reservation environment includes many self-destructing and alcohol abuse promoting forces such as a high unemployment rate (poverty), depression, hopelessness, lack of motivation, anger, a survival mentality, entitlement, low self-esteem, jealousy and negativity," (Red Hawk).

     The Native American population is absolutely and irrevocably stuck. The real problems in their society are not addressed. The Native Americans are still being subjugated by the American government in a way that most people don't even consider. The Native American people are lost they have been left to piece together their lives in a place that drains the hope out of them. They cannot find themselves because their way of life was destroyed. And the saddest part is that people think that giving Native Americans an easier way to get in to college and other miniscule benefits will make for it.

Bad to the Bone

The Evil Nature of the Human Race

In 1972, Flight 571  crashed in the middle of the Andes Mountains leaving its survivors in a desolate and harsh wasteland with little food and a chance to survive. In a miracle chance, some survivors were found two months later, broken and half alive. Their means of survival? Cannibalism or the consummation of the deceased passengers. When it came down to it, the rules and pressures of modern society didn't matter. The only thing that thrived was human nature to survive.

 

As humans we like to believe that we are innately good. But the fact is that we are taught most of our values and we follow them to conform to society. Sharing, caring, and being polite are all mannerisms we follow so that society doesn't erupt into chaos. We follow rules to construct this idea of a perfect society where everyone can get along and there is peace. But there will always be conflict because its a part of human nature. War, for example, strips humans down to their primal instincts. As shown in The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, war reveals man's tendency to destroy and his truly selfish nature.

 

In the war, men fight for themselves. While men may have different intentions coming in, the war itself  draws out the instincts that allowed cavemen to survive millions of years ago. They fight, claw, kill, and protect. There are no decencies. There are no formalities. And there is no mercy. When O'Brien kills the Viet-Cong soldier, another soldier consoles him, saying that he carried a gun and he had to die. But when is killing another human being ever all right? In the war they desensitize themselves to killing, causing pain, and taking revenge. In war there are no rules it is kill or be killed and these men face death on a daily basis. Society and its rules become arbitrary as they take their own justice. O'Brien shows this raw feeling when he plays his "prank" on Bobby Jorgenson. Fear causes irrational actions and thoughts but the instinct to survive is what leads us to kill.

 

How can men that are so good do such terrible things? And these aren't murderers and criminals, these are our American troops. Time and time again history has shown us that we cannot trust in the innate goodness of man. Even our founding fathers found this to be true. Alexander Hamilton, who experienced the American revolution first hand, saw the cruelty and culmination of man's poor choices. He advocated for an American monarchy where the people have no say in the government because he didn't believe the common people could be trusted with the rules. The United States today is a democracy not a republic. The people have a say in their government but it is limited by boundaries, laws, rules, and even other people, all to protect the fragile society we have crafted.  This façade that we can all live in peace. But after all, what is peace without war? Can there be good without the bad?